Have a sample:
The Russian formalist critic Vladimir Propp proposed that folktales are structured using a small number of components in different combinations, e.g. 'return', 'pursuit', and a small number of roles, e.g. 'hero', 'villain'. We can also think about fanfic in terms of a finite number of story structures underlying all individual fics. The most common of these is the boy-meet-boy, boy-wants-to-have-sex-with-boy model. (By 'boy', I also mean 'man'; and by 'sex', I mean anything from kissing to buggery.) This plays out in a number of ways:
(A) boy meets boy, boy wants to have sex with boy
(1) boy has sex with boy
(2) boy is shy / reluctant; obstacles and embarrassing situations intervene; a final revelation of mutual desire ends in boy having sex with boy
(3) boy angsts about his sexual proclivities
(3a) after obstacles and embarrassments, boy has sex with boy
(3b) boy does not have sex with boy
(4) boy wants to have sex with boy but other boy has sex with someone else; boy angsts
(I have probably missed out some scenarios but these are the main ones that come to mind.)
What is, of course, crucial to all slash is (A): there is a predetermined expectation that boy will meet boy, and that this meeting will result in the desire to have sex. No origfic, with the exception perhaps of gay porn, has this plot expectation built into it as such an absolutely integral component. If a slashfic features a number of boys, it usually becomes apparent at some point which particular boy will want to have sex with which other particular boy -- this is also where the 'pairings' rubric in the Header plays its part.
(Extract from my
narratological analysis of fanfic).
So, people, what do you think? What do you think???
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