I mostly agree with you (and I think most in this thread do as well). I think what sparked the argument was people saying that they didn't use slash as a short hand search technique, but rather that there could be no slash fics they could ever enjoy.

I actually think your analysis is pretty much correct in terms of there being certain tropes connected to slash that turns folks off. I don't think Taure's list is particularly accurate tbh but meh. Using it as a short hand to weed out fics that have a much lower 'return' rate of stories you will like makes perfect sense to me.

The only thing I might add though, is I don't think this is something *especially* the case for slash. For example, I tend to avoid *romance* fics in general... slash or het... for the same reasons.

Or I could talk about say "Different parents for Harry Genre" and the bazillion horrible tropes that go along with that. Sure it CAN be good and i've seen good ones. But generally I use that as a 'weed out'.

On Royal Road... I normally weed out any story that has "comedy" just because I find the sense of humor of too many of the writers there to be rather juvenile. So those fics TEND to annoy me. So same sort of thing.

So mostly agree with you... the only caveats being I dont think Taure's list of things associated with Slash was that accurate so much as he was labeling unconnected things slash, and I don't think Slash is unique in the phenomena you are discussing.

 

Who said those tropes are uniquely associated with slash? You're trying to nitpick a point nobody made.