DavidFalkayn said:
For me, if the pairing is one that is developed well in the story and, if it involves canon characters, remains true to the essence of those characters, then I generally don't have a problem.
Fanfic is at its core very personal and individual. Authors always have their own voice, which will attract some people and push others away. That's part of the fun of fanfic for me. At the same time it can be frustrating because different people see different characters differently. There are plenty of stories which premises I really like, but in the end I trip over the way a certain character is portrayed.
I'm sure people don't read my stories because they don't agree with the way I interpret the characters sometimes. At least when you create your own, no one can say your misinterpreting them
The thing is, just like in any other fan fiction, you've got a few very very good writers and more very, very bad writers with the majority of us falling somewhere in the middle of that continuum.
Very true and the very nature of fanfic, after all, most of us fall somewhere in the middle with everything we do. I'm always happy to see new archives go up since it might make it a little easier to wade through all the
bad stuff.
Personally I qualify stories as bad or good depending on plot, dept, grammar and spelling. Pairings or featured characters can pull me in or push me away, but I would not qualify those as bad or good, simply as interesting or not
The problem with slash and non-canon pairings is that the very very bad slash is very, very bad, so that when you read the bad stuff--and sooner or later, you will read some bad stuff--the average reader is so turned off by the genre that the moment they see the word slash, they run as fast as they can in the other direction.
I know from experience that slash is a highly devided subcategory. There are people who write slash for the sake of getting hot sex between A and B and they seem to be in the majority. Some writers will make the effort to write a plausible romance story, or simply feature a same-sex pairing in a story that has very little to do with romance at all.
Readers can be devided in roughly the same groups. I can't tell you how many reviews I've gotten on my slash story that demand more sex, while I rarely get such reviews on the regular "het" stories.
There are other reasons why people avoid slash of course, but that's opening up a whole other can o' worms that we might not want to go into.
Hehe, probably not
But, as with every story people are free to ignore it.
Kegek said:
Of course it's real fanfic. In fact it's a historically very productive field of fanfic. It may not be within Captain X's guidelines for his website, but I don't think people would deny its status as fanfic.
I think it is even commonly accepted that Kirk/Spock slash fanfictions are one of the foundations of fanfic in general :thumbsup:
Mistral said:
CX, who's site it is, said T'pol/Archer would be an unrealistic pairing and therefore rejectable. His site so ok, but he said it didn't lay "within canon". I am reminded of the final interaction between those 2 characters on the final episode. I thought T'pol was going to plant one on him!
This is more a question of what is considered canon and personal interpretation. You might take that situation as an example that they would never, under any possible circumstance, be together (short- or longterm). Someone else might take it as proof that they care enough about each other to get angry and therefore have enough of an emotional connection that if the circumstances were slightly different, they might fall for each other.
So where is the line-when does "slash" writing cross the line and no longer, as David F referred to it, "feel like I'm watching a real episode" ?
Ah, but even something that doesn't feel like 'a real episode' is fanfic. Just think of all the fluffy romance stories out there. Star Trek episodes are never purely centered around romance. You'll never see an episode that is nothing more than two characters celebrating valentines. Such stories are still fanfic though. That has very little to do with which pairing is featured, but more with the skill of the writer and complexity of the story.
What are the guidlines, if any? Is it real ST-or is it some writer's erotic personal fantasy plugged into some familiar names and faces?
What is real Star Trek? Any Star Trek that's ever been on tv? Star Trek in which Gene Roddenberry had a hand? Only TOS? And if we go this way, why is any fanfic "real" Star Trek?
As for whether or not a pairing is canon or not, that's a personal interpretation again. Almost any two characters who appear in a scene together can be made into a conceivable pairing with some skill. There are tons of Picard/Q fanfics out there and while I personally don't see it, I can see why some people would think there's a basis on screen for that pairing.
Even if your a canon junkie, you can't say "oh well, x and y
never got together, because we never saw that onscreen", since the majority isn't shown on screen.
In the end, TNG (since that's the only Trek I've really watched), has had three major pairings among the main characters: Picard/Crusher, Worf/Troi, Riker/Troi. Of those three, two only showed us a kiss onscreen and one showed us three kisses and a marriage. None portrayed an actual relationship.
From a slash-angle it's even more fun. When Beverly rejected the Odan in his female host, she didn't say "I'm not attracted to women", if she had there might be a basis for saying Beverly would never be attracted to another woman. As it is, all we know is that she's never been interested in another woman
onscreen.
Riker, in the first few seasons, was a ladies man who typically went after the ones with the big boobs, small waste and fair skin. Going from this, you might draw the conclusion that Riker is only attracted to feminine women. Yet along came Soren, a gender neutral being who neither had big boobs or a small waist. This leads some credence to the ideas of some fans that Riker oould, in some cases, be attracted to males.
Those are just examples on how people could justify slash pairings.
Personally speaking I've gone through great lengths to develop a relationship between Crusher and Troi in my fanfic. Not because of the shock factor, or the personal fantasy, but because it is an unusual pairing and I wanted to see if I could make it plausible. It is fanfic in essence; a story that you'd never see on the show, written by a fan. And I've had quite a lot of responses from people who said they never thought the pairing could be made believable, but who keep reading it because somehow I've managed to create a relationship that's not explicitly canon, but also doesn't clash with it.
To take a hetero example, there are no signs during TNG's 7 seasons that Riker and Troi are a couple. They have a history. There's a kiss in Menage á Troi and another one (with Riker's double) in Second Chances, but that's it. Yet no one will argue that fanfics set during that time in which they are a couple, are not 'real' fanfics. Same thing goes for Picard/Crusher and there's even less to support a relationship there.
With some patience and plenty of words, almost any relationship can be justified in canon at some point. From Q daunting Picard, to Troi kissing Picard goodbye in "Family", to Data protecting Deanna in "Generations" and LaForge helping Data deal with his emotoins in "Descent". It all depends on the writer and the reader.
In the end it's all in your head
Wow, I had no idea this was still an issue. I wrote my first fanfic at the age of 13 and had no idea there was such a thing as "canon." Being a Nimoy Fangirl, of course, I was trying to "win" him in the story.
