the basics of headers and summaries

[cimorene]

Dear Fandom,

If a story contains mutual orgasms or even mutual kissing, it is neither "preslash" NOR "UST". PRE means BEFORE. "U" stands for UNRESOLVED.

Regards,
Cim

Comments

[bethac.livejournal.com]

Also, why are people putting up a pairing like Ryan/Jon, and then adding gen? If you have a pairing in the summary, I assume they will be involved together. Having a couple and then adding gen (which means NO pairing, or so I've always been told) is confusing! What is going on! But I don't want to read because it seems the author doesn't know either.
Elizabeth

[cimness.livejournal.com]

Heh. I'm pretty sure that those people are confusing "gen" with "rated G" and only mean it to indicate a lack of sexytiemz, bad language, or innuendo inappropriate to show on Sesame Street. (So, gay cohabitation is OK but dirty double entendres are not. At least not OBVIOUS ones.) The debate over whether "gen" means "rated G" or "non-romance-oriented" or "completely romance-free" comes up every now and again on metafandom and I know there's a sizeable minority - albeit a WRONG, WRONG, WRONG one - who use it to mean the second.

[kyuuketsukirui.livejournal.com]

Aside from what Cim said, there are some people who use gen to mean a story that is not romance-focused, even if it still has a non-canon pairing. So something like Ryan and Jon buying a puppy would be gen, even if they were a couple in the story, because the focus is on buying a puppy, not sexytiems. (Or like, in sci-fi fandoms, a long adventure story with a romance subplot is sometimes considered gen.)

[emmuzka.livejournal.com]

People seem to confuse preslash and presex. If there is small-scale kissing, yes, that can be pre-sex, but that's *not* pre-slash.

[cimness.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm sure a lot of people use it to mean pre-sex but once there's orgasms I just have NO idea what universe they're coming from! And I've run across that mislabel twice in the last few days. Both in Merlin fic.

[kyuuketsukirui.livejournal.com]

But was it orgasms from teh buttsex? Because that's the only kind that counts, you know.

[cimness.livejournal.com]

Wait, what? You mean like buttsex is slash, but frottage and oral sex are pre-slash?

LOLLLLLLLLLL.

[kyuuketsukirui.livejournal.com]

Considering the number of stories where they haven't had ~*~real~*~ sex until they've done anal, I wouldn't be surprised if some people actually started calling anything else pre-slash or gen.

[cimness.livejournal.com]

And hold on, does that mean that there's actually no such thing as femslash at all, because lesbians don't have sex? (I'm sure if your mouth doesn't count a strap-on doesn't.)

[kyuuketsukirui.livejournal.com]

No cock = no sex!

[cimness.livejournal.com]

Dammit, I'm a virgin and didn't even know it.

[suaine.livejournal.com]

I get confused sometimes, but not *that* confused. I mean, if one character is thinking about fucking another character, that could reasonably be gen as much as romance. But kissing? Orgasms together? That's pretty obvious.

[cimness.livejournal.com]

"Gen" means without romantic pairings. In my book, an unresolved or unrequited romantic pairing is still a romantic pairing if it has any importance to the text, and that would be preslash at least.

[suaine.livejournal.com]

But say it only takes up a very small portion of the text? I've written this story in which one character thinks about another character's grief and then for a small moment indulges the possibility of a sexual relationship before moving on to other issues. To me, it's a slash story because I know that at some point in the future they will have sex. Maybe. But I think other people label it as gen, and I would agree with that, because it's such a small moment. On the other hand, the whole story does kind of revolve around their relationship as unlikely friends and allies and I would never be sure how to put that into neat little tags.

[cimness.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I mean, that's a borderline case. To me, a story would be preslash even if the sexy thoughts were very brief if and only if the development of the relationship towards slash was still central to the story. I mean, we've all read preslash stories where it's clear to the readers that the author intends the slash, and intends us to get it, even if the characters aren't aware - where the story is moving them towards the slash, either as the main point or as a secondary point intertwined with the main one. But on the other hand, if it's a story about something else entirely, like catching a bad guy or character B's father's funeral or whatever, and a few moments of unrequited slash are there but just in passing... then I'd say it's just up to the author's judgment call, what they want to say about their own intent.

[brownbetty]

LOLWUT

Maybe this is the smarm warm-up, when the orgasms are totally platonic.

[cimness.livejournal.com]

Lol. I should have a tshirt that says "I ♥ SMARM".

[thornsilver]

I think there should be a t-shirt saying "Platonic Orgasms".