Question upon question ...

[scottishlass]

Coming from a fandom that only had the occasional slasher but lots and lots of het fic, I sometimes wonder about this whole boyband/Johnny boys fandom.
Sure, an all male members band will probably accumulate a lot of slash, esp. when you see bands like KAT-TUN and their fanservice or Kinki Kids (WOAH MOMMA!!).
What I can't understand though is that het fic is shunned so badly in the fandom. Can't we non-slasher fans have literary fantasies as well? While non-slash fans like me love to read the occasional slash fic, esp. when the characterization and overall plot is written very well, I have noticed that almost all slashers ignore or even make fun of non-slash fan fiction. Why is that so?

Take the SMAP fan fic fandom ... okay, so not many sempai writing authors around, but from the SMAP stories I have read so far that are publicly posted in official JE fan fic boards/communities, I can only name two authors whose fic I really like because they are exceptionally good writers. Their stories show that they give a lot of thought to plot and characterization and go for quality not notoriety. The rest? Badly spelled, badly characterized and soooo Mary Sueish in a slasher way, that I feel dirty after reading them.

And then of course there is het fic ... or is there? So far I know of only two writers who write SMAP het fic. And one of them is me though I haven't published anything yet. But a good friend of mine ... oh woah!! She has written the most amazing Shingo/het fics so far but did she get a lot of reviews/praises/critiques? None, Nada, Zip. It went as far as she deleted her stories again from the biggest JE fanfic community because even the lousiest written (slash) fic got more praise than her het fics.
Something isn't right ... or perhaps my friend and I are just old dinosaurs in a fandom where teenies write. I don't know ... but I find it sad.



This said, here are my favourite SMAP writers ... in no particular order
slash - honeyswallow, goblinbrodie both are strong writers with very good characterizations and funny/bittersweet plots.

het - little_witch27 posting as novelcuisine, her stories SHOYA and SAYONARA are the most beautiful pieces written I have read in a long time in a purely fannish AND professional way.

Comments

[rika-66.livejournal.com]

Honestly I highly dislike and can't accept ANY kind of fanfics about _real_ people. I feel them like disrespect to those people. OK, if someone want to have fantasies about her idol, let her keep this stuff _inside_ her head.

As so those girls who write _slash_ fics about their idols... honestly I every time feel an urge to simply slap them on their faces. For me this is dishonorable thing to write (and publish!) such dirty things about real ppl.

[honeyswallow.livejournal.com]

Well, I can only speak for myself, but if I wanted to write a het fic, I would have a chracterisation problem.
This of course says nothing about why acceptance is so low within the entire fandom (I actually think that is because people can get a little obssessive about slash in general and can't have it co-exist with het very well),
but if I were to write... Goro/Miho for example, I would have no idea what she would be like.
Whixch is not to mean I write slash out of convenience, but unless I can make the het just as good I won't write it.
It#s not strictly about what I can imagine to be a good pairing, because most slash pairings are stupid anyway (meaning that it's easier if a band encourages slash through fanservice, but some bands, especially senpai ones, just don't), but I wouldn't pair a Johnny just with a random actress he's been on screen with.

Whoah, sorry for the mega comment.

[scottishlass.livejournal.com]

No this is okay :) It is interesting to see the whole thing from a slash writer's kind of view.
I guess I have a very naive POV regarding RPS fiction. I come from fandoms where RPS were very much a no-no which I can understand. On the other hand, sometimes real life ppl are so interesting charcter-wise or what we perceive as their characters that I cannot help but write about them. If RPS is then very well written where you could change the name of the RPS and the story still works and doesn't loose any interesting feature, then I'm all for RPS.

Same with slash ... if it is well-written and/or you could easily exchange the names of the protagonists and the story still works, then yes please, write more. A feeling that I have with your stuff as well as goblinbrodie's.

But I can understand a bit the non-acceptance of het in a maily slash orientated fandom, esp. as slashers were the least accepted writers for a long time in any fandom.

[back2real.livejournal.com]

can you explain the difference b/t het and slash fic to me? honestly, I'm not at all into fan fic, so I'm not familiar with all the terms. part of the reason I haven't gotten into it is that most of it is just SOOO bad! is there any way to link directly to the stories you think are well-written?

I'm afraid that considering the popularity of crap books like "Twilight", these days the younger readers are not very discerning.

[scottishlass.livejournal.com]

- slash means an erotic story or ficlet (very short story) with two main characters (or more) of the same sex. Mostly sex between two (or more) band members.

- het is short for hetero meaning a story/novel/ficlet that tells a love story between a man and a woman.

- gen means general or PG, no sex, just a funny or cute story.

- RPS means Real Person Story ... a story about a celebrity/band etc. these have become the bigger part of fan fiction.

- Mary Sue, a story where the writer obviously has inserted her/himself as a main non-canon character. Most famous Mary Sue in any fandom (written or canon) is Wesley Crusher who was the alter ego of Roddenberry in Star Trek: The New Generation. Mary Sues generally are cute, smart, know everything, are beautiful/handsome, and the hero fall instantly in love with them, oh and half the crew/supporting charcters want to be best friends with them.

-canon vs. non-canon. Canon is short for canonical, meaning everything that was established by the original author/script writer in the books/series/movie. Non-canon is anything that a fan fic writer adds to the universe, either in characterization and/or crew/plot.


Fan fiction in general up to a few years ago was mainly about a universe from books, movies or television series. E.G. the whole Star Wars universe from the movies and the additional Expanded Universe of the books. Farscape, Star Trek, that kind of thing. Then individual actors and actresses also had a huge following and real life ppl appeared in fan fiction.

And yes, there is a lot of badly written fan fiction about - in all fandoms. There is only one fandom where there was more well written than badly written stories so far and that was Space: Above & Beyond. But that was a very small and quite adult (meaning mature) fandom where quality was everything as the episodes of the series were written so very well.

[back2real.livejournal.com]

wow...so...complicated! thanks! that's the best explanation of a Mary Sue I've ever read.

[scottishlass.livejournal.com]

Glad I made it understandable :)

[shenai.livejournal.com]

Well, me not a fan of RPS or RP fic in general, but to adress your question.

I think for one there is the problem of not enough or no female idols to pair them up with. Maybe not so much in case of SMAP but in JE in general. And even if there are acknowlegded partners or rumored ones there comes the next problem that the potential writers will not know them well enough to find a characterization. (and then there will always be fans who dislike those particular female idols, the fandom itself just doesn't have any females, let's not talk about Mary and Julie *shudders*)
That would apply if the writing standard in JE fandom wasn't so absolutely abysmal.
So if there are no such females then the only alternative would be OCs and I can already see the Mary Sues coming.
Then there is all the fanservice that inspires the slash. It also means a lot of JE fangirls are or become slash fans. Not all obviously.
And the fanbrats just abhor the thought of any girl with "their" idols, omgnoes.

For me, I like both, but I like no part of JE fandom fic. So I stay away as far as possible.

[scottishlass.livejournal.com]

the fanbrats just abhor the thought of any girl with "their" idols, omgnoes.
Oh yesh, I guess that could be it :)

As for OC characters. The chance of writing a Mary Sue is, of course, very high. I know I have written a Mary Sue or two as well in my life but I have always tried not to make them obvious ones. They have flaws and not so good and shiny sides but yes, you can really say that almost every OC you write into the story is more or less the alter ego of the author fulfilling some yearning to be near that character or person the story is about.

[shenai.livejournal.com]

In JE fandom maturity is mostly a far away concept that people may have heard of at some time.

I'm not generally against OCs, and even outright Mary Sues can be readable, but this fandom's writing standard doesn't produce readable material with or without them. (the few exceptions ignored)

I don't actually read much het fic I have to admit. I find my het in canon. But these days I do not read much anyway, books or fanfiction. I just don't have the time. The only books I ever see anymore are for uni.
From past experience all Japan related fandoms have pretty bad fic when compared to Western ones. That's sad. The problem lies with the averagely much younger audience I think.

[scottishlass.livejournal.com]

I have given up on fan fiction as well, I have been suffering too many of the proverbial brain haemorrhages while being a web miss for fan fiction and I only read stuff that has been recced to me. But if I find it unreadable, I stop reading :s

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

I have long since accepted that in almost every fandom, the slash contingent will not only present itself as the most oppressed, but also be the vocally dominant contingent. There are a few exceptions, but...

[scottishlass.livejournal.com]

True .. what I find funny though is that with Space: Above And Beyond fandom 8back in 1996 and beyond) there were quite a few slash pieces and they were highly accepted. One of the main reasons though could be that they were very well written. One of my favourite stories fromt his fandom are two slash pieces.

Oh well, the way I see it or notice it is that as long as their is WPW stories, whether they are well or badly written get more exposure, esp. if they are slash.

[little-witch27.livejournal.com]

Fuck, I think you're trying to give me a heart attack with your new layout!

Thank you, as always, for your praise. I feel embarrassed now.

[scottishlass.livejournal.com]

Awwww ... don't be embarrassed. I just wanted to praise you as you are my favourite writer.

[sadaoru.livejournal.com]

Hi there,

::creeps in::

Sorry to intrude onto your own persoanl journal...actually, when I saw your layout I screamed....sadly they are my favourite pairing within SMAP.

I don't have much to say on this topic about fanfiction but I would love to become a friend of yours and talk SMAP...most of the comms/boards are dead now since they are considered "OLD".

So, I would love to have a Smap friend...^_^

~*~sada~*~

[scottishlass.livejournal.com]

Konnichiwa, Sada-san.
Oh I love SMAPpies on my flist, so I will friend you, too :)

I haven't talked much about SMAP this week because of christmas and all but if you want to read about me bitching about subbing various SMAP related things, please be my guest :)

[sadaoru.livejournal.com]

::gasps::

This is wonderful!!!!

I'm also trying to write my first fanfiction so maybe talking about SMAP might help a bit too....

I'm also loving your friends fics...she is a grat writing!
Thanks for reccommending her!!!

And I dont mind reading anyones bitching...i will just remind you that Kimura is greatful for your subbing?
::head desk:: I tried...lol

~*~sada~*~

I need a SMAP icon lol

[scottishlass.livejournal.com]

Hi there :)

So you want to write fan fic as well? Good, I'm always in search of a good tale to enjoy :)

I hope Kimura would be greatful if he knew I sub SmaSma :) Gosh he is the reason why I started to learn Japanese in the first place.

And it is good to meet a SMAP fan from Japan. All of my SMAP friends on my flist are either from Indonesia or from Europe like myself. Even my Japanese tandem partner here thinks they are too *old* but then Yuriko likes totally different music anyway.