[HPforGrownups] Re: SHIP/FF: This Ship stuff sounds like shojo/admin hint on prefixes/comment on slash discussions

[Alexandra Y. Kwan]

No: HPFGUIDX 11719

Hello,

From: "Neil Ward" <neilward at dircon.co.uk>
> Something related more toward the predominance of women among HP slash
> writers could be explored here.  It has been touched on before.  Is it
just
> that women in general are more inclined to write HP fanfic or fanfic in
> general, or is there some other reason for the bias?  How many of these
> writers are straight women and what *is* the fascination?  Are there many
> f/f HP slash fanfics out there?

I don't think it's just HP slash that has its majority of its writers being
female <g>.  It's slash in general, or at least that's what I've seen.  I've
been told that fanfiction (in all fandoms) writers in genreal are mostly
female.  HP is one that has many more bisexual/lesbian girls (most are too
young to be women, imho) than the more 'traditional' fandoms, i.e., X-Files,
Highlander, Sentinel, Star Trek.  Of who knows how many HP slash fics in
there, I think the number of f/f slash stories is well less than...five
percent(?) of the whole slash genre, though the number of lesbian/bisexual
identified slash writers are inproportionately higher.  Even the writers who
professed to having girlfriends are writing m/m slash, but that seems a
phenomenon quite common in many other fandoms as well.  Perhaps it has
something to do with the old view that while women don't mind
watching/reading TV shows/movies/books targeted at a male audience, most men
would run away screaming if asked to watch a 'chick flick.'

> I've read some HP fanfic, and like or dislike it according how good it is,
> rather than what the subject is.  I've never felt a burning desire to seek
> out m/m fanfic stories just because I'm gay; I'm primarily interested in
the
> work of JK Rowling and I admire writers who can extrapolate from her work
in
> interesting ways.

I don't know if this sort of comments would get me flamed, but of the many
fandoms I'm in, I find the percentage of well-written stories in the slash
genre is higher than that in gen.  Also, I'm awfully tired of reading the
(stereo)typical romance story, where the boy hero always gets the damsel in
distress, even if it stays in the background.  Which is why I usually prefer
slash over gen.  That isn't to say that JKR herself would ever write such
clichd plots or the majority of the gen writers deal only with clichs.
What I think I'm trying to say is that I'm more tolerant of the less than
technically perfect slash story than I would a gen story of the same writing
skill level.  And I don't know where I'm rambling off to.

little Alex