(no subject)

[olivermoss]

* I wrote a short bit of Steddie fluff (1794 words, fluff)

* I still to this day trip over whether to call stuff that isn't even spicy enough to be rated 'teen' by the term 'gen'. To me 'gen' still means 'no gay stuff'.

* Looks like The CW is getting even more gutted. From this article "Under Nexstar, Schwartz is tasked with making The CW profitable by 2025. Schwartz is expected to keep what sources say could be as many as only three U.S. scripted originals on The CW."

* So, books, this is part of why I am trying to get settled in with authors I like. The publishing world might suck but TV is a hot mess and... I feel like I've said this all before and pretty much failed to find authors I like? Hopefully, this stab at it will go better.

* Now back to my WIP, for Ushobwri's February 'WIPed into shape' thing. This above short is basically an idea I wanted to put in 6+1, but isn't working so I just rolled it out a but and made it it's own thing. Maybe I should have left it as drawer fic but eh, it's out.

Comments

[mistressofmuses]

To me, gen means no romantic relationship at all, but *definitely* no gay stuff. I've mostly gotten over the "no gay stuff" kneejerk, but I do think gen tends to mean no romantic pairing of any kind.

Oh jeez. I hadn't heard that CW news.

Ugh, why is the whole media landscape so rough? I hope you do find some authors you can enjoy sticking with.

[olivermoss]

Yeah, how to refer to some stuff and the lack of a pre-slash tag trip me up a lot. If I don't use a relationship tag, no one reads, even the intended audience. If I do tag, is it misleading? Some of my Leverage fluff suffers from falling in that crack.

My last fic is rated 'g' but my brain goes to 'gen' which is short for 'general audiences' but in ye olde days 'gen' meant 'no gay' in fic comms.

[mistressofmuses]

Yeah. I've definitely tagged some things with the "/" relationship vs. the "&" relationship, but added something in the additional tags along the lines of "pre-ship" or the like to hopefully make it clear that there's not a lot of overtly shippy content. Usually when people are wavering between whether to tag a fic with a platonic vs. a romantic relationship, the consensus (such as it is) seems to be "go with what you as the author intend."
Buuuut I know just what you mean. It feels like there's a very strong categorization divide between "shippy" and "not even a hint of shippy"... when there's actually a LOT of fic that doesn't fall neatly to one side or the other. :/

And yeah, having come into fandom in the era of "hint of gay = up the rating by one, maybe two levels" it's hard to get over that instinctive feel. I KNOW that AO3 was very strongly intended to NOT be that sort of space... but I still remember that being the standard.

[olivermoss]

Back in Sentinel Fandom, 18+ Gen was a thing. Gen literally meant 'no gay', and could be friendship or even het. That's why I was tripping over referring to my story as having a 'gen' rating. '18+ horror gen' was a phrase that made sense.

Basically, the big fandom divide, in the places I hung out, was between the Slash comms and the Gen comms and it was not okay to be in both. Each side felt 'pressed by the other.

What do about fic that is shippy but doesn't really get into establishing the relationship will always be a problem for me. I probably err on the wrong side of things.

[mistressofmuses]

I find it weird that Gen has had such a shift in meaning, because almost NONE of the meanings through the years have made sense to me! Like I know what the meanings *are*, but I don't know why *gen* is the term that was picked. I understand how it's short for "general" audience, but I don't understand why it now seems to mainly mean "free of romantic or sexual relationships." Because you can have G or PG rated romance! A chaste happy-ever-after kiss is quintessential fairy tale romance. Just like I don't understand how back in the day, it just meant "no gay cooties".

I mostly grew up on FFdotnet and a few geocities webrings, and that was largely my experience as well. (Though I started in anime fandoms predominantly, which were a bit different than western slash, as I understand it.) But there was a lot of that same feeling - you couldn't like m/m ships AND m/f ships! Including one in the background of the other was enough to have people refuse to read a fic. Writing both in *different* fics was enough to get you ignored. Individual sites basically *never* included both, and god help you if you liked a mixed-gender poly ship!

But yeah... now there seems to be a pretty strong divide between "is shippy" and "is not shippy", almost to the degree of "het" vs. "gay" used to be divided, and it's hard to know how best to convey things that fall in-between. I think the "pre-ship" tag is probably a helpful one for those cases, but it is hard to know how to reach the right people while not alienating others.

[olivermoss]

Gen coming to mean 'not gay' and the weird slash/gen divide is very confusing... and there probably is a bunch of outdated stuff in my head that could really use cleaning out. I'd probably tag better and do other things better but I still have weird baggage from ancient LJ days.

I totally get wanting to just have a space away from het because it's so dominant, but yeah it played out in nutty ways at times. Getting away from het and baggage around different-gendered couples is a big part of the appeal of slash for some people, it's romance without having to even think about a lot of stuff about gender equality.

A lot of my fic is meant to be shippy, but it's just not going to explicitly go there. It's just there to make some gaming jokes. And yeah, I guess some of it is just going to fall through cracks. That's hardly the worst thing that's happened to my fic tho

[mistressofmuses]

It's hard to discard years and years of baggage, especially when it was such a STRONG dividing line at a formative time in fandom experience!

And same - AO3 is really the only big archive that's had a higher proportion of slash. Basically every other site has always been, and still remains, much more dominated by het. I completely get wanting to be able to avoid the things that it felt like you couldn't avoid tripping over.
And that's always a good point about writing same-sex couples (whether that's m/m or f/f). It IS a nice break from thinking about inherent issues with sexism, or how certain gender roles are expected to play out. Not having to take that into account can be a lot more freeing to explore other aspects of a relationship, where at least in terms of gender, the couple is on equal footing.

Yeah. :/ Tagging is always a challenge imo. Hopefully it still finds the people who will be interested in it!

[olivermoss]

It's also hard to discard all that baggage when I asked for help making sure I've got stuff tagged good and people look at me like I'm insane.

Yeah, for some people they like m/m because m is default in our society. It allows for a very specific type of escapism. People read slash for a lot of reasons, but just escaping anything that triggers their gender baggage is definitely one of them.

[mistressofmuses]

Ugh. Definitely can understand that leaving an impression - not a good one.

Yeah. There are a lot of ways in which m/m can be escapism. Whether that's personal gender exploration stuff, or just the freedom to explore fiction *without* having to consider gender in the same way. Not having to worry about the gendered implications of certain interactions, the fantasy of NOT carrying the same kind of omnipresent worry... definitely part of the appeal.