Does slash imply smut? Or can there be a Dumbledore/Grindewald attraction without dicks entering mouths/anuses?

I've never read any fiction with a gay protagonist that didn't end with buttfucking or cocksucking. If there are any stories like that, I for one would not discount it from good fiction without at least reading it.

Just in general though, homosexuals define themselves through their sexuality more than heterosexuals because of the stigma involved. I feel like most homosexual fiction would end up losing any elements of a story besides the importance of attracting a mate and end up being a gay version of Twilight.

Um...Gayer?

 

There actually has been an instance of a well written soul bond fic. I believe it was called A Mother In Law's Love.

 

I still can't get past the first scene of Pers' fic. Can't make sense of it. :/

 

Soul Bonds of any stripe...

The fact is, some people find them romantic and enjoy reading about them.

Other people, perhaps less able to suspend logic as well as disbelief, see them as the opposite of romance, for the reasons which Andromalius so ably pointed out, above.

By that same token, some people enjoy harem stories, finding them romantic, while others see them as the anti-romance. The idea there probably being that if you don't love one person enough to commit to them, alone, then you couldn't love them all that much.

These two (very generalized) types of people simply have different make-ups. At the risk of unintentionally implying that ludicrous shit like "Snarry" is acceptable as long as you can shut your brain off long enough to enjoy it, I will say that if people can enjoy soul bond stories despite the logical paradox that a thing which even approaches auto-magically guaranteeing a perfect romance kills the very concept of romance, then more power to them.

I would venture to say those people fall under the stereotypical "hopeless romantic" category. And, I say that entirely without derision because, as a person who never went through a 'girls are icky' phase, and pined away for a girlfriend in early elementary school, I fall squarely into that sappy, sappy category. :facepalm

Logical arguments against them and their status as poor literary elements aside, I can enjoy a story with a harem and/or soul bond employed as a plot device... but a story that is, otherwise, crap will always be a crap story, and that I cannot abide.

 

@Churchey: Read The Steel Remains, by Richard K. Morgan. It's not for everyone, but he's a magnificent author.

 

Actually I surprisingly thought about Morgan when I read your first comment at the top of the page. Let's say I am/was a diehard Morgan fan since Altered Carbon, bought all his books with preorder until I got The Steel Remains.

Fortunately before reading I checked in the amazon reviews that its protagonist is gay and shags around I decided to *never* *ever* read it and thought about joining in some book burning activities myself.

If you know Morgan's extreme hardcore style to portrait violence and sex it would have scarred me for life. I'm not really sure what has driven him to do that. If it was some misguided way to jump on some "support the poor suppressed gay movement" train, try to "prove" that dislike for slash is some form of bigotism by pure shock value or anti cliche trolling.

It really pissed me off that he has taken away the pleasure of being able to read another book of his without forewarning.

P.S. I don't care if anybody is in a gay relationship in their personal life. That's up to them. I just don't wanna experience it myself in film or book form.

 

It started off pretty strong, but it really did start to flag and I stopped following it a while back. I can't really put my finger on it, but it just didn't seem very compelling anymore.

The one thing that stands out in my memory as being annoying about the fic was the portrait plot device. Seriously, why even bother killing characters off if it just means you can stick their heads in a bag and pull them out when the plot demands?

 

I've tried to read HP & Summer of Change over a dozen times, and I've never gotten past the first chapter. People constantly say it was one of the best stories of the time, and that it just hasn't aged well. To me, the writing just seems very childish the whole time, and there's nothing really in it to draw you in. So it's not the overabundance of cliches that you'd expect from a seven year old story to turn me off, it's the writing itself.

As for my story, well, there's not much to say. I'd hope the new version would land somewhere other than this thread once a few more chapters are posted. The old version got dumped here just after the first four short chapters. The story was one of the first stories I wrote, and it shows. I

'm rewriting it because the idea had some potential, and I want to get it to the point where I can read my own story without cringing. I'm aware a lot of my stories are not the greatest, especially my early HP/DG one, but I keep them up as a reminder of my own failures. The new version of the story will remove all the idiotic crossover references, dumb cliches (although there aren't that many aside from Merlinvander), awkward romances (I completely removed that stupid date from the story, finally, after 4 rewrites), and that stupid name I gave Harry. The story is not supposed to focus on the Founder's as a target, but is more to explore the whole magical world at the time with them. I think some of the old chapters are brilliant, but are contrasted by some truly awful ones. My intent is just to make the whole thing readable. Whether or not I appease DLPers with it is secondary, because if I can't satisfy myself with the story, then it's pointless. I would list all the stuff I want to do with this story, but I'd rather not clog up this thread with thousands of words of inane information.

 

This.

The writing is just flat. It's mechanical in a way that reminds me of old-crow.

Also, I'll take contractions for 400, Alex. The way Harry speaks in this fic is just jarring.

 

My biggest problem with it by far. I agree that the writing really just isn't inspiring. That being said, I still really like the story. After a few chapters I was able to ignore the lack of contractions for the most part and just join them in my head. The ideas were completely new at the time, and I still think it has some of the best action scenes in the fandom.

 

I'll admit, it did have some great action scenes.

It was the contraction thing that bugged me the most. He's not fucking Dumbledore. I just found it to be really jarring. This is one of those fics that would be awesome if it was rewritten by a good DLP author.

 

Ya know that everytime I read Summer of Change, I think "this could be expanded on a bit more; this could be a good sub-plot; this was sort of flat; this would be impossible due to this, this, or this; this character's reactions were poorly done", etc.

But I still like to read it.

 

Tried to read it recently and I couldn't stomach it. It'll always hold a special place in my heart because it broke me away from H/G which led to me joining DLP but it does not age well. :/

 

Agreed

...the story sucks, mostly because of the 'Designated Love Interest,' but it’s still one you'll probably re-read!

 

You do realize you could pick any story, fanfiction or otherwise, and pick out people who match tropes right? because there's so fucking many tropes. Look, you're here now and that's great but the standard is a lot higher now. Back in the day, Summer of change was the shit because well, it was the best of a bad lot. If i started reading fanfiction with the type of fics that are considered decent these days then Summer of change wouldn't even register as interesting.

It's a classic because at the time, it was great. Hell, loads of people used to love Dakaath. Try reading it now.

 

Yeah, so many of the 'old classics' like Summer of Change have become historical artifacts. So few of them have aged even remotely well. Such stories are notable, but are they classics if they're barely readable. By definition, don't we call the Lord of the Rings trilogy a classic because people can read it over and over again in their lifetimes? That's certainly not true of tons of these old stories, like Summer of Change.

I was hardcore pro-Shadow Play by Thor Nairda till as recently as late last year, but now I've let it go and find it nigh unreadable. There are still brilliant pieces of writing like the Imbellis chapter, but it's so far into the story I can't reach them anymore.

Another one was Mrriddler's Secret of the Male Veela. Maybe as recently as 2010 I still thought it was good and sent him a review beginning him to continue it, but now I don't care.

Even, unbelievably, Thalarian's Queen of Darkness. Open up the first chapter, and you start to see the writing in the opening is kind of ordinary. Maybe regular posters on the forum who don't post their stories in the WBA might be able to write the first several paragraphs and scenes. Again, there are still plenty of powerful scenes and examples of great writing, but these are highlights. Reading the bread and butter of of the story feels like wading, to me.

I have to say The Phoenix and the Serpent is one of the few true classics. It's the shining beacon from the origins of Harry Potter fanfiction. Unbelievable, a decade-old work so far ahead of its time that it's eminently readable today.

 

Lemme go ahead and say that anyone but Warlocke posting TVTropes links is nothing but a worthless shitbag of a cuntrag. When it's Warlocke, it's only infuriating and rage-inducing, see?


So stop it.

 

TL;DR-Someone people like soul bonds, because they just do. It's like people who like anchovies. There is no reason, except that is just how they feel.

Fact is, a bad story is just a bad story.

 

Broken analogy.

 

They're a bad plot device when used to replace character interaction and thus development of relationships. That's it.

Which is why I tried to avoid that as much as possible in my story. Still, I don't think I'll ever be writing one again... it doesn't sit right with me.