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

[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.