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Gen - ahhhhhhhhh what is it
I just switched the tags for my Avengers fic on Ao3 to the "character&character" format rather than the "character/character" format. No characters have sex, make out, or profess love for any of the other characters in these stories. Characters do feel lust and look at each other with longing.
I admit to some confusion, because people who have read Responsible Science, my Avengers series, have seemed to agree, when they brought it up, that the series is indeed gen. However, the consensus also seemed to be that my fic The Pure and Simple Truth was not gen. In that fic, no characters had sex, made out, or professed love, but Harry felt lust and looking at Draco with longing.
There are plenty of reasons even the same readers (and these aren't the same readers) may feel the one is slash and the other is gen. The Pure and Simple Truth was written for an H/D fest and was a remix of an H/D fic. There was mostly talking not a lot of action. The focus of the fic was Harry's relationship with Draco (well, actually it was supposed to be about forgiveness). The end suggested H/D would get together. Meanwhile there's no context for Responsible Science other than as Avengers fanfiction, and there's more action/plot than Pure and Simple. The focus of the fics is Bruce's relationships with Natasha, Steve, and Tony (well, actually it's supposed to be about ethics); maybe people are less likely to read sex/romance into the equation when you've got one person having rather intimate feelings about three people at once. There's not been a suggestion at the end of any fic in Responsible Science that anyone will end up together (except perhaps Pepper/Tony).
At times I feel rather disingenuous, claiming that Pure and Simple is gen, because I definitely had all the sexy Harry/Draco thoughts writing it. But I'm having just as intense sexy Bruce/Natasha, Bruce/Steve, and Bruce/Tony thoughts while writing Responsible Science. None of the attraction between any of the characters (in either Pure and Simple or Responsible Science) is mentioned explicitly. It's more just Character A noticing that Character B parts his hair to the side, or whatever. And none of the thoughts characters have about each other is explicitly sexual, except for Bruce and Natasha in A Fine Spur. (I wonder if people consider that one less gen than the others?)
Because so much fanfiction is written with the intent of hooking A up with B, I totally understand the necessity of slash/het/gen labels. And yet, as I find myself writing less and less fics with that intention in mind, the rationality of the labels seems to be disappearing. Should my intent in writing the fic play a part in the label? Should what readers could read into a story play a part in the label? A story in which no one could be shipped by the reader is a bad story, imo. In any good book/show/movie/game/whatever you consume, there's usually room for shipping, and thus a large contingent of fandom.
Speaking of which. Poll. Tag Harry Potter, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and the Avengers movie with pairings so you can put them on an archive.
I admit to some confusion, because people who have read Responsible Science, my Avengers series, have seemed to agree, when they brought it up, that the series is indeed gen. However, the consensus also seemed to be that my fic The Pure and Simple Truth was not gen. In that fic, no characters had sex, made out, or professed love, but Harry felt lust and looking at Draco with longing.
At times I feel rather disingenuous, claiming that Pure and Simple is gen, because I definitely had all the sexy Harry/Draco thoughts writing it. But I'm having just as intense sexy Bruce/Natasha, Bruce/Steve, and Bruce/Tony thoughts while writing Responsible Science. None of the attraction between any of the characters (in either Pure and Simple or Responsible Science) is mentioned explicitly. It's more just Character A noticing that Character B parts his hair to the side, or whatever. And none of the thoughts characters have about each other is explicitly sexual, except for Bruce and Natasha in A Fine Spur. (I wonder if people consider that one less gen than the others?)
Because so much fanfiction is written with the intent of hooking A up with B, I totally understand the necessity of slash/het/gen labels. And yet, as I find myself writing less and less fics with that intention in mind, the rationality of the labels seems to be disappearing. Should my intent in writing the fic play a part in the label? Should what readers could read into a story play a part in the label? A story in which no one could be shipped by the reader is a bad story, imo. In any good book/show/movie/game/whatever you consume, there's usually room for shipping, and thus a large contingent of fandom.
Speaking of which. Poll. Tag Harry Potter, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and the Avengers movie with pairings so you can put them on an archive.
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