I agree, for the most part. Much better to be specific and precise than to just throw about terms that mean different things to different people.

I could be called a gen writer. There are people in my stories who get married or have babies or whatever…but usually my main characters are single. But I just call myself a fanfic writer. I have also written about a woman on her wedding day, reflecting back over her growing relationship with her husband. It’s rated G, but I mean, the whole point is the romance, so….

I have written scenes that could be interpretted in a slashy way. I wanted to convey a close (and passionate) relationship between two guys. But I leave that open to interpretation, and usually don’t answer definitively which way I viewed the relationship myself – friendship or something else would be in the mind of the reader.

If someone were to tell me I should label such stories as ’slash’ (or ‘non-slash’), I might be a bit annoyed. The whole point is for the reader to figure out how to view the relationship – and if it’s that ambiguous, certainly the story contains nothing I should be ‘warning’ readers of…..

My best example is from an anime:
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4520711/1/Never_Trust_the_Quiet_Ones
(Warning! Contains sex scene!!!!! [not explicit]) So I’m sure no one here wants to read it, but let’s just say it is more about battle lust than anything else. Here’s a clip from the original anime; do they have to warn about innuendo in this scene? I mean, that would be silly! It’s a fight; if fans take something different from it, that is understandable, but…you might as well warn that the girl’s bellybutton is visible in her priestess outfit. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5z7hpKh5is It’s rated PG; if you prefer dubbing to subtitles, click the first one on youtube.

To be fair, Tolkien’s writing is not like that. He doesn’t usually use sexual tension to advance the story. (*cough* Luthien *cough*) So, I can see people seeing certain fanfics as being out of place in the world Tolkien created. But then just say that – tell the author her voice is unique and that her story doesn’t sound like it was written by Tolkien. That’s more precise than slapping labels like AU or slash or Mary Sue or whatever on it anyway.

Tolkien has his male characters walking around declaring love for one another all the time, so in the absence of kisses (or sex scenes), I’m not really sure how someone could tell if a friendship fic were about 2 straight guys or 2 gay guys. I mean, come on, Eomer tells Aragorn (in canon): ‘Since the day when you rose before me out of the green grass of the downs I have loved you, and that love shall not fail’ – sure, sure, they both have wives, and it’s talking about the friendship of kings and loyalty and all of that. I’m just saying that if it’s not written as a romance, then it’s probably not slash. I had Maedhros call Fingon ‘dearer than brother’ once, but I never did have either of them specify what he meant by that. Since they were both dead at the time and without bodies…it really is up to the reader.

Yes, if you think warning for slash means trying to steer the homophobic people away. But I’ve seen authors warn for het content (with an imagined *ihhhhhh*). And given the fact that a large percentage of authors are female and heterosexual I’ve always wondered why they needed a warning for het. Can you be heterophob?

Personally I consider slash and het to be labels like hurt/comfort, drama, character death. I choose fics by looking at those labels… I read het, but I’d rather read slash. I read crack, but I’d rather read drama. I know Dawn has complained about the compulsive labeling and warning, but I *do* like to have an idea about what to expect of a fic.

AU – never really thought about it in that light, but I think you’re right. The term’s been so watered down as to become meaningless, and people do seem to use it as an excuse for not doing their homework. Ditto for OOC – given extraordinary circumstances, it’s possible for almost anyone to react in a way they normally wouldn’t, and as you said, in Silm fic, the term’s almost meaningless.

Mary Sue… Hee. I’ve been accused of writing a Mary Sue simply because I write an original female character who happens to share my profession. Never mind that (IMO, anyway) she’s got plenty of flaws and has been known to stick both feet in her mouth down to the hips, etc. She’s an OFC and hence must be a Sue. I remember where the term actually came from – there was a parody Star Trek fic written in the late 70s, I think, which featured this impossibly perfect ‘Lieutenant Mary Sue.’ Applied in that way, it’s not the term I mind so much as the pejorative connotations it’s taken on. If a 16 year old girl wants to write herself into whatever fandom has captured her fancy? Let her. It’s hardly the worst thing she could do – and she may actually turn out to be a decent writer someday.

Or some other productive member of society, like a surgeon.

But bashing that 16 year old girl because ZOMG MARY SUE! That’s sort of like kicking a puppy. I’d rather see people point out the strong points in those stories when there are some and encouraging the young writer to keep imagining and keep writing.

Slash – hee, I’m a slash reader from the days when slash equalled Kirk/Spock, and ooooo, if my parents had known what was in those ‘zines! I don’t think it’s the gayness so much as the sex that would’ve bothered them though. But it’s another term that’s sort of been twisted into something ugly and pejorative by a certain subset of readers. I’ll agree that ‘explicitly adult material’ or ‘explicit sex’ should be the only warning needed. It truly shouldn’t matter what gender the individuals are. If I were writing original fic, I wouldn’t think to warn people about an interracial couple – and I think the same *should* apply to the genders of the couple.

Canon. Hee. I just posted something that’ll be considered rather heretical by some, when it comes to Tolkien canon. No fallout yet, but I’ll keep you posted.

I was raised Roman Catholic and studied theology and scripture – and my officemate/partner in practice is a part-time divinity student. I told her that I objected to the term ‘canon’ as applied to the Bible because it was silly to decide which books were kept in or left out because of what language they were written in or whether they had ideas in them that might undermine Rome’s authority. She sort of blinked and called me a heretic in admiring tones – she’s really quite OK with people going back and looking at the ‘extracanonical’ books of the Bible and making up their own minds.

The same applies to anything published after JRRT’s death – the same people who insist that LACE is biological fact (which is ludicrous, IMO) also insist that the world was flat prior to the fall of Numenor – and you can’t have it both ways. If LACE *must* be fact, then so must ‘Myths Transformed,’ which is in the same volume of HoME.

I’ll slink back into lurkdom now…

Thanks so much for the compliments, too, on my version of the Dark Lord. Tolkien introduced ambiguity into the moral nature of this character (more in his other writings than Lord of the Rings) , e.g., “not wholly evil” and a “greater fall” because Sauron turned away from a “good” path. So a Sauron with a conscience (and other “good” characteristics) is not OOC if one studies JRRT’s writings and their implications, some of which are rather uncomfortable to contemplate, e.g. those who we label as “villains” in our primary world may still retain relics of the humane.

However, being in this fandom for a while, the fanatism of slash writers/lovers have more than once make me decide to keep my mouth shut about what like like to read/beta/write. I mean, only late last year you found out that I wasn’t that adverse towards slash than you thought and we know each other longer than that. I just never felt the need to explain myself about what I like or not. What I write, review or beta shows that.

What I am mostly tired off is that for some reason if you don’t express a clear opinion or sometimes when people insist on knowing why you don’t read something like slash, you can never ever give a satisfying answer. Or that there must be something between the lines of your answer. Stop digging people, please. I can understand as Michelle commented, that people are tip-toeing around this issue simply because it might cost them a friendship or that they end up being put outside the group of which they want to belong to. I am quite certain that based on a simple and quick assumption, I have been placed in camps while I thought that my betaing would speak for itself in a way. Too bad that I don’t care that much about social pressure or camps It does surprise me though.

I have observed that a huge group of the Tolkien fandom hails from the US, a nation that suffers from a polarisation that gives me the shivers. Combine this with political correctness and it just feels like a minefield to me. Whatever answer you give or opinion that you express, it just never seems good enough.

There is also a thing with warnings, I never will get why people put up a warning like: non-slash. It feels pretty redundant to me in a way. If there are warnings needed, they should be added thoughtfully, especially when you also have a G-nc-17 rating system or the one we have at the SWG. When you see a rating like adult and you see character names, that should give you a good idea what the story is about. In a way it feels that the reader expects the writer to take full responsibility of what they post. Including warnings to whatever the reader might expect. But then again, even if you put up a story with all the flags, whistles, screaming labels, it is still the reader’s responsibilty that they click on that link/button to get access to it (I do think the more warnings a story has, the harder it becomes to ignore it, it just makes people so curious). And of course, to some readers, it is never good enough, so where does that end? I am all for that the responsibility that has been placed on the shoulder of the fannish writer should be partly be given back to the reader. This also include warnings regarding AU, Mary Sue (or Gary Stu) and slash/het/sex and so on.

Pandemonium and Indepence: I always use the expression elves and edain. It just reads beautifully to me.

I’m going to write the novel, period. It won’t leave me alone. As for attracting readers… I’m hopeful, but also know the subject matter (Noldorin thralls in Angband) won’t be pleasant and may drive some readers away.

Elves and humans: Your complaints about that have stopped me from using it, even though I’ve known for years that Elves and Men are the same species! It’s just a bad habit from all the fanfics that use it. I think part of why people use the phrase is to avoid the misogynistic implications of the term Men, which is why I’m trying to use mortal or Secondborn now.

And I love imaginatively drawn canon characters– we know so little about them (this relates back to the OOC argument above) that we have to make things up. Which is part of the reason I love your Sauron– he makes *sense.*

I know I shouldn’t feel bad about it (and I don’t), but I feel like I have to justify myself because, for many people, I think they think I mean I don’t like slash, and I’m just trying to hide it by saying I don’t like graphic sex across the board. And I hate having to justify my tastes– it shouldn’t bother people if I don’t want to read something, yet it does.

Yup– my OC-centric novel is Silmfic, but it’s not written yet. (And it won’t be until I finish the second draft of my Maglor-centric novel.)

I ended up telling the person that there was nothing wrong with relying solely on the Silm, that there are many definitions of Tolkien canon even though some people don’t like it, and that those people have no right to tell someone else what to write or think. Hopefully, she’ll listen.

Meme. It’s a totally irrational dislike on my part, but if one isn’t using it like Dick to the Dawk(ins) uses it, then I will shudder.

Specific to Tolkienian fandom:

Elves and humans. That makes me want to stick a sharpened No. 2 pencil in my ear because that would be more pleasant than that phrase.

Warnings such as “adult content” or “graphic sex” should be enough. I mean, does the movie industry get so granular in their ratings that we know there might be same sex romantic/sexual relationships in the film. We might know from a synposis or review of the film, but a rating does not convey that nor should it.

I agree with Oshun that Mary Sue as “misogynistic” (literally woman-hating) is a stretch, but from my observations, it cannot be dismissed as merely a catch-all for bad characterizations. There is a vitriol there which, if not misogynistic, then certainly is sexist.

I’m tempted to make some wild-ass extrapolations concerning intrasex competition among women and how that plays out in the fandom world, i.e., an OFC paired with a male character is seen as a threat somehow, a phantom competitor among other women in a fantasy world. But that would be a stretch! Nonetheless, I wonder if this fear of Mary Sue-ism leads to some very inauthentic male-male couples. Then there’s the paucity of female-female pairings. That says something I think, but I am not sure what. What’s the deal there? Why do writers who focus on male-male relationships often (but not always) ignore female-female pairings? Ah, well, that’s another topic entirely.

Independence1776, I”ll encourage you to forge ahead with your OCs, and damn the torpedoes. As a reader, some of my favorite characters in Tolkienian fan fic (in addition to imaginatively drawn canon characters) have been (and are) OCs. Will these garner a gazillion readers? Probably not. But you may very well attract readers with — how shall we say — more expansive views and that counts for something.