Anyone else read this as "closet friends" at first?

 

Maybe it's your subconscious trying to tell you something :awesome

 

Nah. I would say I'm pretty well aware of and acquainted with my own proclivities and preferences. Anything my subconscious has to say on the matter would only amount to 'preaching to the choir'.

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I dislike slash for the same reason I dislike a lot of other fanfiction.

Yes, fanfic is there so that you can make your own changes to canon, whether those changes take the form of simple addition or continuation... or, actual alterations of the universe.

If you make a significant change to a character's background or behavior, or likewise alter the workings of the established universe, you must give convincing, satisfying reasons for doing so. You have to take the time, in story, to explain these changes.

If you fail to do this, the only readers that won't complain are those too lazy to write a review, and the ones that are too vapid to notice, too apathetic/complacent to be bothered by it, or so eager for the intellectual equivalent of reheated fast food you're serving up to ever dream of being offended at the notion of being fed blatant garbage and empty calories.

Harry is straight in canon. I don't care what kind of a numbnuts conspiracy monkey you are, you cannot argue that. JKR would have been more than happy to out him in an interview, were he actually a gay man resigned to marrying a woman just for the acceptance of his ersatz family.

Bearing this in mind, any imagined subtext of Harry's supposed homosexual leanings are just that, imagined. However, yes, you could try to stretch any would-be sub-textual clues into actual facts in fanfiction.

The problems flood in when you see that the vast and overwhelming majority of slash writers don't want to do the legwork necessary to realistically turn straight, canon Harry into gay Harry. They want instant satisfaction of their masturbatory and/or wish-fulfillment fantasies, not a hard slog through the landscape of writing a realistic story about an abused and neglected boy, who has the weight of the world on his shoulders and the eyes of a fickle populace scrutinizing his every move, discovering his own sexuality and his struggle to reconcile that with his loveless upbringing and the possibility that his homosexuality could make him even more hated than he already is -to say nothing of what his homosexuality could mean for the future of his family name, as the last Potter in a society that often values blood and tradition above all else.

This lack of effort to make the story BELIEVABLE is compounded by their incessant need to pair Harry with either scumbags whom he wouldn't touch with a ten-foot pole, or with old men he has even less acquaintance with than interest. Seriously, Draco? Lucius, Snape, Remus, Sirius.... VOLDEMORT!!!

What the abstract fuck?

This drooling, panting need to put leather pants on the villains is often the first and biggest rotting brick in the shoddy so-called foundation of nearly every slash fic ever.

And what attempt is made at explaining Harry's sudden and complete 180 in sexual preference AND his sudden attraction to people he wishes didn't exist and/or said people's miraculous transformation into good guys who no longer look like pale, scrawny rats; albino snake men, or greasy, hook-nosed troglodytes, with filthy oral hygiene?

None. The majority of the time, there is no explanation, justification, or even a "Tell, Don't Show" heads-up to let you know this is a complete AU where the villains are all bishonen, gay hobos frolic on Big Rock Candy Mountain, and -oh, by the way- Harry is a shirt-lifter who loves to bottom for the people who have collectively been ninety-seven percent responsible for making his entire existence a living hell.

And, yeah, why is Harry nearly always the bottom? Not just 'on the bottom' but an actual, 24/7 submissive. It can't be because he's "so pretty", since that's supposedly Draco's stock in (the rough) trade as well, yet he's still the one usually bending Harry over.

Although, considering the dubious efforts made at pairing him with a 'good guy' usually lead to him bottoming for Cedric Diggory during Harry's fifth year... Yes, Cedric, whose death is completely ignored, rather than the author even making the negligible effort to retcon it in an author's note. He's alive; don't question it. These people can't think the hard thoughts, because it would require them to remove at least one of their hands from their privates, or their page down key, and they can only do so much at once.

Of course, some pair Harry with Cedric during the Tournament... so you have the squick of socially-isolated, young, inexperienced, Harry being 'groomed' by a prefect, legal adult, and competitor in a potentially fatal contest.

No conflicts there.

Of course, I think Harry/Cedric is mainly just a way for the Twilight 'schlick-girls' to pair Harry and Edward Cullen without having to bother writing an actual crossover.

And the reasons for Harry/Cedric are every bit as valid as those for Bella/Edward.

Which is to say that, at best, there are no reasons and, at worst, it's equal parts lame and fucking creepy on every goddamned level.

So, yeah, Harry/good-guy isn't so great, either.

Most slash is just as fail-tastic as the fics that start out with Harry discovering his parents left behind a hidden bachelor pad with a widescreen plasma TV, Blu-Ray player, and a full complement of modern game consoles... even though they died decades before those things existed, just because the writer really wishes they had a mountain of free, hi-tech swag suddenly dropped on their doorstep.

Except that the slash is worse, for all the reasons listed above.






*Yes, I just coined the term 'schlick-girls'; remember, you saw it here first.

 

I fully agree with Warlocke here but would like to add a few things.

If you follow a lot reviews in really crappy but well reviewed stories I don't think it's just "intellectual equivalent of reheated fast food" that they consume such crap.

I think they read and process stories differently. Either they are drawn in by certain signals and plot patterns that attract them for some weird reasons. Might they be Harmony, Harry/Draco..Slash, Bashing, Harem and so on. Elements which might cause sub conscious satisfaction so that they are even consuming objective crap only because they are conditioned by these triggers. I would even compare it with how porn works. I mean, we don't watch porn because of any kind of plot or fascinating characters. Do we? Just broaden this concept beyond the trigger for sexual stimulants. Bashing for example could be a trigger for people who enjoy seeing people they "dislike" getting humiliated while being empowered by it.

Then there seem to be readers who don't think about the logical aspects of what they read but perceive it as the dominating reality. So they argue in their reviews not why the writer let's X behave so illogical but why is X such a bitch or doing this and that when it's so obviously a writer's flaw. It's as if they can't separate between what's written and the writer's inadequacy. Hermione's fandom condition

What I personally think is so incomprehensible about slash is not the gay aspect but why fangirls would write it. I get that one of the motivation is living out some "sexual" phantasy with the actor from the movie version for instance. But why would these girls self insert themselves as a boy in such relationship. I really don't understand why they don't just write obvious girl!X shags Draco, Snape, Lucius or Hagrid. If they can't identify themselves with Hermione, Ginny or Luna there should be enough other female blank characters like Daphne they can fill with their dreamed personality attributes.
It's as if they have some serious personality problems.

If I would be bothered writing some smut as a male I would never even consider writing lesbian smut for self insertion purposes. Neither would I consider writing about goat sex just for kicks. That leads to the core issue. I just can't understand the motivation behind it. Is this some living proof for Freud's Penis Envy theories or do these fangirls don't see their self insert character insert as male. Males writing crap is far easier to figure out than girls writing slash.

There must be some girls here reading this mental thread who can enlighten my poor soul's vexation.

 

tl/dr

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...Ah, the unrivaled hypocrisy. I do hope someone saw that and got a laugh.

You basically took the only sentence in my post that I didn't explain to death, and then explained it to death.

Not that I'm knocking that, because that really would make me a hypocrite. In short, though: People tend to overlook flaws and shortcomings in things that they believe will provide a fast track to satisfying their wants and desires.

Some people reserve this lack of selectivity only for things which cater to their hardest to satisfy desires. Others grow out of this behavior entirely, choosing not to forgo quality in exchange for availability.

Others just get a divorce. :facepalm

You're assuming they are inserting themselves as one of the involved males, rather than simply watching them from afar.

To tweak an example: If a guy watches lesbian porn, is it more likely that he's picturing himself as one of those women, or is he simply watching from afar (perhaps, wishing he were watching in person and that, if he were, his presence would be welcomed)?

 

But watching something is still a passive action while writing something is an active part. Writing something to watch it from a 3rd party perspective for some distant voyeuristic pleasure feels so pointless to me that I didn't consider this.

 

This pretty much sums up my feelings on the topic.

Did you just compare Slash fiction to Porn?! Don't you dare put Porn in the same category as Slash!

I think is actually another case of Author laziness as Warlocke mentioned. I mean with our villain characters listed above, the writers feel the need to 'redeem' them. I think Harry in most cases is used instead of a Mary Sue because he is inherently so easily turned into a weak wounded puppy character abused by his evil relatives, insert character healing and nursing back to health and voilà! Instant redemption for their favourite character. Which allows them to get onto their main reason for writing, Smut.

Which leads me to this:

I reckon it's because the fangirl writer with her low self-esteem is imagining them self in the situation, either that or they have little to no idea how a sexual relationship is supposed to work. To them giving themselves to another, body and soul (and arsehole) is the ultimate form of love...

 

That's a fucked up way of seeing love; It's submissive, never reciprocated and rather abusive.

It surprises me that a woman would want that in a relationship, but then again, the whole twilight series is about that, and look at its success...

 

Possible, but the more obvious answer has been stated as a reason why we don't read it:

They can't identify with any of the female characters. And with the massive "Are you retarded?!" opinion of writing anything that can be considered a self-insert, you've got very little option. Of course, it still turns out that way, just both of them have an "cable" to go with. >_>

 

Agreed with this.

The taboo against Mary-Sues is probably the strongest in fanfiction - even idiots know about it (though that doesn't stop idiots from writing them). I think that there's quite a number of mildly talented authors who want to avoid writing Mary-Sues, yet still want to write about romance and smut without having to go through the filter of established canon female characters.

 

Because when I watch lesbain porn, I'm not self-inserting into any of those two girls. I'm just watching something that I find sexually appealing. Same with if I fantasize, say Olivia Wilde with Megan Fox. I'm not thinking about being one of them, but I could be aroused by its prospect.

Maybe smut for you is about self insertion, but it doesn't need to be for everyone.

Edit: Fuck, just realized that Warlocke already made this point. (Sorry, your posts are so damn long that I didn't read most of it) D:

---------- Post automerged at 11:25 AM ---------- Previous post was at 11:20 AM ----------

Then Harry Potter must be pretty damn 'pointless' seeing as it was written by a woman.

I don't see why you are stuck on Mary Sue-ism being a necessity.

 

I just googled that word, and very much wish that I had not.

 

Warlocke...tl/dr.

In all seriousness, that pretty much sums it up for me too, actually.

 

Although I don't agree without reservation to everything Warlocke said, I agree enough to think that it was awesome.

I'd just add that it wasn't really a critique of slash as a genre so much as it was a critique of 99% of the garbage that is slash.

 

So much this. Its like reading Hermione paired with Draco, Snape, Lucius or Voldebabe/mort. Just no.

 

Pretty sure I've never read Hermione/Voldebabe.

 

I would be very interested in reading that

 

I think this thread pointed out that not all of DLP hates slash just in principle. That said, given that there maybe two or three good slash stories in the entire fandom, the difference is mostly academic.