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So, I'm sitting here, all ready to draw up a header for the fic I've just finished, and I've got a problem. My header for fic in my journal includes, amongst other things, the pairing, or the main character(s) in a gen piece, because I personally like to know who I'm going to be reading about in a story and so assume other people like to as well.
This is the problem, however: there's a very brief, non-explicit sex scene in this story. It's maybe a couple of hundred words out of a fic that's over 5 1/2 thousand, and while it's an important part of the story, the story isn't about the pairing, the relationship, or sex/romance in any way. Even the sex isn't about those things, it's about comfort between two friends. The story is about John's relationship with his father who's just died.
So, the answer is probably It's your journal, it's your story, label it however you damn well please (or a more polite version thereof) but I'm curious to know how you'd label this in terms of pairings. I want to label it John-centric gen, which it is, but I think if I saw that, I'd be kind of surprised to see a sex scene later on. That said, if I saw a story labelled with a pairing, I'd expect the other half of the pairing to be around more.
Help me - my brain is no longer up to these kinds of complex and vital decisions!
This is the problem, however: there's a very brief, non-explicit sex scene in this story. It's maybe a couple of hundred words out of a fic that's over 5 1/2 thousand, and while it's an important part of the story, the story isn't about the pairing, the relationship, or sex/romance in any way. Even the sex isn't about those things, it's about comfort between two friends. The story is about John's relationship with his father who's just died.
So, the answer is probably It's your journal, it's your story, label it however you damn well please (or a more polite version thereof) but I'm curious to know how you'd label this in terms of pairings. I want to label it John-centric gen, which it is, but I think if I saw that, I'd be kind of surprised to see a sex scene later on. That said, if I saw a story labelled with a pairing, I'd expect the other half of the pairing to be around more.
Help me - my brain is no longer up to these kinds of complex and vital decisions!
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Re: here via metafandom
I don't think we have a clear policy for that (yet, at least). We've been going on a case-by-case basis, really, because people have been nice enough to email us before posting anything that's not strictly gen.
Mostly we've gone by the shippiness-vs-wordcount ratio, meaning the longer the story, the more we've let pass. There have been few stories at least that we've allowed even with off-screen non-canon pairings because they are very long and set after official canon (meaning the pairings are not so explicitly against canon).
Re: here via metafandom
Thanks for replying - what you say makes a lot of sense, particularly the shippiness v word count ratio.