Hee, I really think you're about the closest to me in general fanning mindset of nearly anyone I've met online - it's the smarm thing! It can be so hard explaining to fellow fangirls that yes, I love me a good bit of romance, and slash is wonderful fun, but there's nothing quite like a good friendship story to set my heart aflutter...
And this probably does contribute to our tastes for one another's fic, though it helps that you can write. Did I mention a couple months ago I experienced a resurgence in my DBZ affections, went and reread all the manga and then went and reread all your fic? mm, good stuff ^_^
I often enjoy the bickering couple 'Romancing the Stone'/Han & Leia style 'ship myself, but it comes from a fundamentally different place than most rivals - all those relationships are intended from the start to become romantic (as almost all close male-female relationships are traditionally 'supposed' to do, grrrr. Except in a lot of kids' shounen, which tend to sidestep the majority of romantic possibilities altogether in favor of friendship. Much love for shounen.)
So I don't mind it in canon, but turning a relationship that isn't going that way to that direction can irk. Because, as you said, it's such a drastic change - the tenderness aspect, yes. I was discussing in some the comments about how there's a certain level of, hmm, submission needed to make a relationship work (though which direction it goes can be questioned; who's weaker, when the strong guy can be whipped by a single word?) and that submission creates a power imbalance that upsets the equality of a rivalry. (As a side note - Shido/Madoka and Kuwabara/Yukino, awww. Love both pairs. I'm not that interested in reading or writing fic about such sugar-sweet romance, but I eat it up like candy in the canon itself. If that makes sense.) Eroica falls somewhere in the middle, I suppose, because it's so permanently UST - I'm not sure how an actual relationship would work between them, it's not like either the Major or the Earl would ever give an inch (without taking it somewhere else, at least) --then again, I'm reading Eroica less for the slash and more because it's one of the funniest things I have ever read. The outrageous gay-ity is just a bonus!
Friend-slash for me is very much on a case-by-case basis; sometimes I can't see it any other way (Gojyo is in love with Hakkai, that's canon! Um, nearly! Dammit!), sometimes it depends on how it's done (I don't think Daniel and Jack would ever actually get together, but they can be awful cute), and sometimes I'd just as soon keep them "only" friends (I haven't found enough of any Yugi-Jou relationship stories to truly test my tastes, but for whatever reasons Jounouchi comes across as really straight to me. --so stop pairing him with Kaiba! Who he hates! And who is asexual anyway! Kaiba doesn't like boys or girls! Kaiba doesn't like people! Damn fangirls... >_>) And I admit that due to the bias towards pairings in all fic, some friendship pairings I read less because I want to see them shacking up with each other, and more because I don't want to read about them shacking up with anyone else...
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winterfish
no subject
Date: 2005-08-22 12:55 am (UTC)And this probably does contribute to our tastes for one another's fic, though it helps that you can write. Did I mention a couple months ago I experienced a resurgence in my DBZ affections, went and reread all the manga and then went and reread all your fic? mm, good stuff ^_^
I often enjoy the bickering couple 'Romancing the Stone'/Han & Leia style 'ship myself, but it comes from a fundamentally different place than most rivals - all those relationships are intended from the start to become romantic (as almost all close male-female relationships are traditionally 'supposed' to do, grrrr. Except in a lot of kids' shounen, which tend to sidestep the majority of romantic possibilities altogether in favor of friendship. Much love for shounen.)
So I don't mind it in canon, but turning a relationship that isn't going that way to that direction can irk. Because, as you said, it's such a drastic change - the tenderness aspect, yes. I was discussing in some the comments about how there's a certain level of, hmm, submission needed to make a relationship work (though which direction it goes can be questioned; who's weaker, when the strong guy can be whipped by a single word?) and that submission creates a power imbalance that upsets the equality of a rivalry. (As a side note - Shido/Madoka and Kuwabara/Yukino, awww. Love both pairs. I'm not that interested in reading or writing fic about such sugar-sweet romance, but I eat it up like candy in the canon itself. If that makes sense.) Eroica falls somewhere in the middle, I suppose, because it's so permanently UST - I'm not sure how an actual relationship would work between them, it's not like either the Major or the Earl would ever give an inch (without taking it somewhere else, at least) --then again, I'm reading Eroica less for the slash and more because it's one of the funniest things I have ever read. The outrageous gay-ity is just a bonus!
Friend-slash for me is very much on a case-by-case basis; sometimes I can't see it any other way (Gojyo is in love with Hakkai, that's canon! Um, nearly! Dammit!), sometimes it depends on how it's done (I don't think Daniel and Jack would ever actually get together, but they can be awful cute), and sometimes I'd just as soon keep them "only" friends (I haven't found enough of any Yugi-Jou relationship stories to truly test my tastes, but for whatever reasons Jounouchi comes across as really straight to me. --so stop pairing him with Kaiba! Who he hates! And who is asexual anyway! Kaiba doesn't like boys or girls! Kaiba doesn't like people! Damn fangirls... >_>) And I admit that due to the bias towards pairings in all fic, some friendship pairings I read less because I want to see them shacking up with each other, and more because I don't want to read about them shacking up with anyone else...