I'm also a romantic at heart- I believe, however strangely or crazily, in 'true love'. I want a fanfic writer to sell me that for whatever pairing.

So Spike/Angel, not Spike/Angelus, for example.

I'm with Am-Chau. Odd couples finding each other and making it work after trials and tribulations. "Making it Work", however, almost never includes white picket fences or adoring children. My idea of "Making it Work" more than likely includes the ability to snuggle up together in some hiding place for a little bit of quiet time in the lull of hte firefight.

ita, could you fix the open t font tag a few posts back? Everything's itty-bitty.

Edit: Whoops, never mind.

in the lull of hte firefight.

So many intresting things replacing l with f does.

"Making it Work", however, almost never includes white picket fences or adoring children.

Very true. I like a bit of angst, and then some mush, and not going too far beyond the probable.

Everything I've read so far reads like some slumber party gone bad

Predictable self-pimpage But, that said, on the whole I agree. Which is perhaps because I've not read the right f/f stuff. Hmm. I was sold on Buffy/Faith by a couple of writers - now that's a pairing with gallons of interesting dimensions to it. Very Lindsey/Angel. But on the whole the girly slumber party vibe does put me off.

How did I fall into slash? I think it was via Buffistas.org - but I've been seeing the big gay subtext in various things for years, and various mates have come out to me at various points, so the whole Escher-like shift in viewpoint seems fair enough and normal enough. So reading a dynamic between character X and character Y in terms of unresolved sexual tension didn't seem remarkable.

eta: I'm SO not going to read that bloke's article. It wouldn't be good for my bloodpressure - and besides, I'm not really here. No siree. I'm working. Yes I am. Still -

Who's to say they are any lesser, as storytellers, than this year's Booker Prize nominees?

Man, I can't speak for this year's Booker Prize nominees, but I've read Booker Prize nominees' fiction in the past, and it isn't always all that and the proverbial bag of potato chips. I'd cheerfully put fanfic by Herself or AJ Hall up against The Restraint of Beasts, for example. Because it may have been 'literary fiction', but that isn't actually a synonym for 'good'.

YMMV.

I tend to like the painful kind of slash more than the warm/mushy slash

This reminds me of one of my slash-related peeves. I've read a fair number of stories in which the characters out themselves or are outed by others. The other characters in the story either a) reveal themselves as irrational, raging homophobes, or b) are so accepting that one suspects that they do fund-raising work for PFLAG.

One of the things I appreciated in the episode in which Willow told Buffy about Tara was that although Buffy was accepting, there was still that initial wigged-out, not-sure-what-to-say, bending-head-around-changed-perceptions awkwardness. There are also many people out there who while not exactly homophobic, would still be confused and shaken by the revelation that a friend or relative was gay. Their reactions wouldn't necessarily be negative, but neither would they be hugging the new SO and saying "call me Mom."

Is it the same sort of mushy a het guy/girl would display towards each other? Do you mind that, PMM?

It's an all-inclusive anti-mush bone. Girls, boys, puppies.

I suspect it's all those years of lumpy oatmeal.

I'm not all about the pain, either. Just more about the whole reality-of-life thing. Mushy moments are more the exception than the rule.

Hey, Am, we started fic the same way. Spike is a great entrance to it all.

Just more about the whole reality-of-life thing. Mushy moments are more the exception than the rule.

Well, yeah, but so are the interesting moments.

SA, ita, absolutely.