fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #2692 ]

[ SECRET POST #2692 ]

⌈ Secret Post #2692 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 03 pages, 070 secrets from Secret Submission Post #385.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

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Somewhat related to the secret about a book on Ancient Greece yesterday. I love slash, personally. I love writing it, I love reading it, etc., but when it comes to original fiction with gay relationships I find myself thinking "meh" most of the time. It's either too melodramatic or cliche or focuses too much on the relationship and not enough on the plot/action. It falls into dumb seme/uke tropes even worse than most slash out there, like Starfighter, or it's just goddawful, like the Nightrunner series.

Anyone else find this? Is there decent original fiction out there staring gay characters that's action/plot-heavy, focuses very little on the romance/sex, and doesn't read like bad slash fanfiction where bedroom roles define each character's entire personality?

I find all these things true in het fiction too, though. The roles are the same, its just that they are gendered rather than men filling both roles.

When it comes to profic, what I really want is scifi or fantasy where there is lots of action and there is a gay relationship but its just the backdrop. I haven't found any yet.

I've read some decent gay erotica, but the stuff I like is the stuff that's mostly porn.

Actually, my profic tastes are pretty much the same as my fanfic tastes. Give me action or porn. Forget the fluffy, sappy stuff.

"When it comes to profic, what I really want is scifi or fantasy where there is lots of action and there is a gay relationship but its just the backdrop. I haven't found any yet."

I would love to see that in fanfic, too. A long, plotty adventure-story where my OTP are together but that's not the main point of the story. I would LOVE that.

published gay and lesbian fiction is sooooooooo shitty, most of the time

Yes, definitely. But I feel that way about 90% of "mainstream" or published original romances. There's just something about fanfiction that cuts through all the romance bullshit and makes me love it, and that something is missing from almost all other forms of romance and/or erotica.

tbh, I think it's because you're already invested in the characters. Original romance has to make you actually care about these characters which are thrown into a (probably cliche) romantic scenario. In fanfic, you already care about them and are invested in their love-life, so you are less picky about the scenarios they find themselves in and less quick to get frustrated by them.

Hmm, interesting. Perhaps you're right: fanfic doesn't have to spend time introducing us to the characters, so there's less filler/exposition/BS and it can just dive right into the story...

I haven't read a whole lot of original m/m slash fic, but I agree that it's hard to find stuff that doesn't seem cliche and cheesy. But these are two series I've enjoyed and thought were pretty good.
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2112823.Mind_Fuck
Pretty sure you can still read this series online for free. I especially liked the first two books. (Even though I felt that the author glamourized torture a bit much)
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9305362-captive-prince
There's also been quite a few good original slash fics (both m/m and f/f) that have been published here http://www.shousetsubangbang.com/

Thanks for the recs! I find ssbb stories are a bit too romance-heavy for my tastes and the synopsis of Captive Prince is more than a little off-putting (unless the titular character ends up on top, then I might bother) but the first one sounds really good! I'll give it a shot.

Try giving Captive Prince a chance! I can't remember if the titular character tops (I think he does?), but the series really doesn't play into very many slash tropes. And for being original slash, it's still a decent piece of historical/military fantasy fic.
Yeah, I do agree with you about ssbb. There are good stories on there, but they can be hard to find.

The synopsis is so off-putting, I was pretty much set on not reading it, ever. Took a review of someone whose taste I trusted to make me give it a try. Good thing I did - it's really awesome.

I still think the Administrative series are among the best books I've ever read. I love Manna Francis' worldbuilding.

Yeah, I'd put it up there with some of the most enjoyable series I've read

Just came to say this. I LOVE that thing, have since I started reading it in high school. :D

I quite liked Shadow of the Templar ( http://mooncalf.org/sott/ ), which is essentially White Collar except with canon gay. The plot does focus heavily on the relationship, which is more than a little dysfunctional in places, but there's also great heist/spy/crime plots in each novel, and the team dynamics are hilarious.

I've read a few good fantasy novels that featured gay relationships. I did have to wade through a whole lot of crap (Last Herald-Mage, Nightrunner, Havemercy, Melusine) before I found them, though.

So you thought you'd just share the "crap" you had to wade through but keep the good stuff a secret? That's not nice, anon!

To be fair, there have been many 'rec me some good LGBT-ish novels' threads in F!S before, so I have shared my list of good stuff on several occasions already! But if you're curious, then I'd recommend the Outremer series by Chaz Brenchley, Rain Wilds series by Robin Hobb, and Stone Dance of the Chameleon trilogy by Ricardo Pinto. I thought all of those had well-written m/m romance, which complemented the overall plot rather than becoming the sole focus.

Re: Slash Fan Woes

(Anonymous) - 2014-05-17 22:53 (UTC) - Expand

Ooh, thanks for the warning on Havemercy. The back-of-the-book summary sounded enticing enough that I was going to try and find it used somewhere, but that make me poke at some other reviews and...yeah, no.

Yeah, I had high hopes for Havemercy, but it was one of the most painfully unoriginal romances I've ever read. Troubled older guy and innocent younger guy who's blushing all the time, scene where they get caught in the rain and have to change out of their wet clothes, scene where they have to hide in an unexpectedly cramped cupboard...

Re: Slash Fan Woes

(Anonymous) - 2014-05-18 07:28 (UTC) - Expand

I've read some decent gay works from Dreamspinner Press that aren't all about sexual roles, and have some action, mystery, and SF plots.

Are you participating in the FS book club? If you're not already reading it you might want to give Fingersmith a try.

Manifold Press http://www.manifoldpress.co.uk/ is a British-based publisher that specialises in plot-heavy gay romance. "Make Do and Mend" by Adam Fitzroy won the Rainbow Award for the Best Gay Novel of 2013. I've read quite a few of their list and they've not disappointed me yet.

I don't think Hero by Perry Moore is anything to write home about, but it has the elements you're looking for. From Amazon:

The last thing in the world Thom Creed wants is to add to his father's pain, so he keeps secrets. Like that he has special powers. And that he's been asked to join the League the very organization of superheroes that spurned his dad. But the most painful secret of all is one Thom can barely face himself: he's gay.

I don't remember Thom's gayness being quite as overwrought as that summary implies. The story is mostly about super-hero stuff and Thom's relationship to his dad from that perspective. But it's not at all subtle in the characters it rips off, and to me read like it followed a checklist of disadvantaged characters turned heroes to include.

I agree. It's one of the reasons i don't much read profic at all anymore - most of it is just too boring, focusing all on the 'love interest' and not nearly enough on the actual plot.

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