Rantish & musing about Gen

[salinea]

Sometimes the difference between gen and non-gen can be a very thin one indeed.

One of the thing that annoys me is clicking onto a a fic marked as Gen and finding slash (or het for that matter). Well, not slash as in depicting the relationship, but slash as in the relationship being part of the context of the fic, being a fact in that fic. Even if the focus isn't on romance (or sex), I wouldn't consider it as Gen.

They are some conditions when this slides more easily; when that relationship implied by the fic is canon, for exemple, people often don't think of it as a being non-Gen. I'm sure there's plenty of gen fics out there that mentions James' interest in Lily without tagging it as James/Lily. Or fics about the Weasleys that feature Molly and Arthur's relationship without calling it Arthur/Molly. Just yesterday I was reading a Vorkosigan fic tagged "Gen" where Cordelia was kissing Aral and thinking fondly about her relationship with him. Those things most often happen if the couple featured is a married one in canon. (Mariage as the death of romance, heh.)

But sometimes it also happens with ships that, without being canon, are popular enough that people like to consider them canon anyway (*cough*SiriusxRemus*cough*)
I'd read a "Gen" Sirius fic before, where in the middle of Sirius was starting talking about his boyfriend Remus and blahablahblah *facepalms* Not that it was a bad fic, far from it, just that it felt like biting onto something sour when you were expecting something sweet.

But today I saw a much subtle case of that. I was reading another fic about Sirius tagged as Gen linked from sirius_news : The window by moondagny
It's just a double-drabble and it doesn't tell us that Sirius and Remus are together, it only implies it in a very suble manner, with the line :

"He only knows that Remus is out there somewhere, on the other side of the window, and James, and Peter"

Since we know from canon the pair of friend that was the core of the Maraudeurs was James and Sirius, there's no explanation for putting Remus in exergue here unless Sirius has a romantic and/or sexual interest in Remus (at least the context of the fic doesn't provide any other reason).

That makes me laugh because it's both enough to trigger my teeth-gritting reflex and much too vague for me to complain about it XD.

Of course that's something that works in reverse too. There's a lot of fics out there tagged "Pre-Slash" which can perfectly be read as Gen.

Sometimes the borderline is so thin you could see it either way.

Any thoughts on the subject ? What would you call the limit between Gen and Slash/Het/Femslash ?

Comments

[laurus-nobilis.livejournal.com]

The definition of gen is very, very blurry. The best definitions that I've seen are the ones used for the femgenficathon: pure gen, mostly gen and borderline gen (you have to scroll down a little). Not that everyone agrees on that.

I'm the kind of writer/reader that doesn't mind finding couples in a fic labelled "gen" as long as the romance isn't the focus there. I consider most of my Clow-and-Yuuko fics gen, actually, because even if I have the pairing in the back of my mind the stories aren't about romance.

I think it all comes down, in the end, to the definition one is used to. The problem is that sometimes those definitions clash.

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

ah, yes cool defs (but I'm feeling very weirded out by the one with which they ban trans people from their fics O_o) though even them think that mariage is the death of romance ^^

Honnestly ? I don't mind either - if the pairing doesn't make me reel. I especially don't mind when I percieve the pairing as canon (which I do with Clow/Yuuko, and which, I admit, is an assumption even if we're working on intended subtext). I most cases it's a non issue, then you all down on the one case that makes you go UUURRRGGGH.

Lot's of ambiguous stuff, I really don't know.

[laurus-nobilis.livejournal.com]

Their definition of "what is female" is... weird. I can tell that it's meant to simplify things, for archiving purposes and the like, but it still doesn't sound right. :/ I like the ideas on 100_women better. (And now I'm off-topic. :P )

I most cases it's a non issue, then you all down on the one case that makes you go UUURRRGGGH.
Ha, yes. My problem is that I just can't define which are the cases that will throw me out of a fic, until I go and find them...