and then they lived sadly ever after

[lobelia321]

I've just finished reading a swoonsome story but I can't rec it just now because it has a sad ending, and having told you that I would have SPOILERED. But I really do want to talk about sad endings, so I can't rec.

Sad or happy?
I love angst. I love humiliation, tribulation and thwartedness. I love doses and doses of gritty reality to spice up my swoonsome totally la-la-fantasyland sex. But I confess, that ultimately, the fics that I will keep reading and re-reading, will have to have a happy ending. Happy, in my slashy little brain means: the pair get together and declare their love, somehow.

Sad endings can be enormously satisfying. As can inconclusive endings. They satisfy an aesthetic sense in me because sometimes they ae the only thing that makes sense. They also leave me, the reader, with a bittersweet or terribly longing aftertaste that resonates long beyond the story or the novel. But, it is a strange thing, much as I love them, the sad endings (sad as in 'Man doesn't get his man' or 'Man loses his man') in slashy fanfic do not give me that same aesthetic satisfaction. I can appreciate them for being well done but deep down I long for the happy ending. It can be a bittersweet happy ending but I so desperately want it.

My fanfic slash tastes are evidently slightly different from my published novel origfic genfic tastes. My slashy reader-self wants

a) copious amounts of swoonsome sex
b) copious amounts of unspoken and resisted love
c) an ending wherein the love does finally get fulfilled in whatever how

I can't give examples for any fics here, alas, because it would be so obviously spoilering to reveal the ending to those who haven't read those particular fics. So please supply your own examples in your head.

Now when it comes to writing, at the risk of spoiling everyone's attentive anticipation, I am also hopelessly in thrall to the happy ending. I contemplate terrible endings, and sometimes they seem the logical ones to a particular story, but I can think of only one story where I follow through. Always, I succumb and supply happiness for the main couple. Sometimes this does involve tragedy for a third party (ah, triangle stories!) but (and perhaps this is at the heart of the matter?) my Sue gets his boy.

When I read a slashy fic, I am still often overwhelmed by the sexiness of it and how lavishly and generously slash authors supply what I desire. And I read the unresolved tension in the knowledge that yes, sex will soon ensue, and I read the sex in the knowledge that yes, they will love one another, and then, when they don't, I feel bonked on the head and dropped down a well and let down.

Comments

[childeproof.livejournal.com]

Sue must get his boy!!! Yes, I fear this is also my Unwritten Rule of Slash Writing, which is shriekingly obvious to anyone who ever reads my stuff. What starts off as a one-night stand can't be left at that. Terrible endings suggest themselves to me, but I never have the heart to actually carry them out. God knows why this is so different to my much more eclectic tastes as a novel reader - I quiver at the utter, utter rightness of the end of Villette every time, but remain entirely incapable of possibly drowning Viggo in a mid-Atlantic storm, leaving a bitter, secretive Sean to refuse to tell all.

I suppose, pragmatically, death and/or tragedy and/or break-ups mean less (or should that be no?) swoonsome sex and resisting love and all the other delights on which you are rightly eloquent. Although a certain HP writer who wrote a very long fic you rec'd some time back - and who must clearly remain nameless for the purposes of non-spoilerdom - impressed me hugely with her ability to write a saddish ambiguous ending.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Villette's ending near about killed and shocked me! Oh, you remind me of my het OTP! *swoons* But I am the eternal optimist and as the ending is ambiguous, I prefer to think of him holed up on some desert island somewhere, awaiting rescue and reunion! You never actually see his body, do you? DO YOU?

Now, I am very intrigued as to the 'certain HP writer' because the HP writer I adore and re-read is very, very beautifully happy ending. I have recced, now I remember, some very dark HP stuff but, heh, significantly I have not re-read it. Oh, and suddenly I remember a very swoonsome and unusually paired HP fic, gorgeous beyond belief, but again the ending. This also has doomed that fic, brilliant as it is, to the shelf of not-being-re-reads. I just can't cope.

[sheldrake.livejournal.com]

Ooh, interesting! You've made me realise that I feel the same way, but only when reading fic. When writing it, I seem to do happy, sad or inconclusive, as the mood takes me. Weird.

Argh, but I must get offline and go to bed!

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

I don't remember any sad-ending fic you've written. Can you name one?

[sheldrake.livejournal.com]

Boys Don't is pretty maudlin.

Dispersion is all about Breaking Up and Being Sad, but has nice getting together bits in the middle.

Thinking About It appears to be a fic in which nobody does anything and nothing happens, but it's nice and short, so it probably doesn't matter.

And Compilation ends on a somewhat melancholy note.

[cathexys.livejournal.com]

eh...i'm metafandoming and never actually got to answer that but...yes!!! i think that my entire reading process is different in fanfic. in fact, there is fanfic that i appreciate intellectually but with which i'd never curl up...it doesn't fulfill that fanfic need :-)

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

I'm still puzzling away at the exact whys and wherefores but two days ago I was just really struck by gloom when a yummy slashy fic suddenly and, for me, unexpectedly ended in the guys not getting together and not confessing their love although they quite clearly felt it. I felt thunderstruck! I felt left dangling on a cliff! I felt clit-teased and dumped into a bucket of icy water on the brink of orgasm!

How could slash do this to me??!

There are variations on the tale. There is the 'they overcome their resistance, they confess their love and then, waah, one of them dies' fic (this is quite popular in HP which always teeters on the edge of sudden deaths). I don't really like those, either, although I can see the aesthetic point. But it is also a different kind of plot because the doom comes from outside (death) while in the former kind of story the doom comes from inside: psychological stubbornness and impossibleness of the guys to overcome their fucked-upness. But I want them to overcome it! That is the delicious slashiness of it all!!!

[cathexys.livejournal.com]

there is this really excellent famous fic in DS, kat allison's the end of the road, which is kind of infamous, b/c it's anamazing story, quite long and ends with them realizing that they cannot make it work...it's heart breaking, and i think i may not be the only ione who might never want to pick it up again for that reason only...

death is not as bad as love gone bad...while in the real world, i'd rather loser love than die, in the fictional world the latter retains the emotions, esp. when the lovers knew that they were loved (the one where *we* know but the character dies thinking their love is not reciprocated is entirely different issue...)

[randomblade.livejournal.com]

I agree totally. I love delayed fulfilment. But it HAS to be there in the end. I can't hack it if it's delayed right out of possibility.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Oh, absolutely, you put that so well! I realise that the one reason I adore slash and am willing, nay e'en keen, to submerge myself in pages and pages of delayedness is the sure knowledge that sooner or later I will get my pay-off! And in slash, I have realised, the pay-off is only partially about the sex: having the sex is lovely but it's the declaration of love that really sends those final shivers up my spine.

[randomblade.livejournal.com]

Man! Did you steal my brain when i was asleep? And the harder they're pushed, the more it is wrenched out of them, or beyond their control the better. I really don't tend to go for the smug certain declarations.

[lesstraveled.livejournal.com]

(here via metafandom, hope that's okay)

I confess, that ultimately, the fics that I will keep reading and re-reading, will have to have a happy ending. Happy, in my slashy little brain means: the pair get together and declare their love, somehow.

Oh, yes, that's how my brain works too, and I think that explains why I have so many fics stored on my hard drive that I (re)read even when they don't match my personal view on the characters -- my favorite pairings are of the doomed/unhappy sort, but at the end of the day I need my fix of happy!endings ... so there's a 'what I need' vs. 'what would plausibly happen in my head' thing going on. Which is why I don't rec my most-reads on strength of characterization. :|

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Um, what is metafandom? Not one of Cathexys' amazing networks...!

And yes, I am sort of resistant to the realisation that I don't judge every fic purely on aesthetic or writerly merit but no, I don't! You are totally right: it's absolutely the 'what I need' fix. And I am willing to sacrifice quite a bit of plot-plausibility in order to get what I need. After all, isn't the plot plausibility already stretched simply by making the guys have sex in the first place? So hit me with the rest of the implausible deliciousness!

[lesstraveled.livejournal.com]

It's a sort of ... newsletter? collection of links? to a bunch of cross-fandom LJ entries that talk about interesting fannish things. Like this entry. :) I'm not actually sure of its origins but cathexys is a maintainer, so...

There is that little pang of 'uh-oh' when I realize I'm rereading X fic over a more cleverly-constructed one just because the former contains my 'comfort food' (the happy ending payoff), but in the end fandom's where I go to relax, so to hell with the guilt! Of course it's different when I'm the writer and not the reader, because I'd like to believe that I'm writing something vaguely plausible and true to the characterizations I have in my head ... very complicated. ;)

[melannen.livejournal.com]

Huh. I think I am partly in agreement with you here. Although not entirely. Happy ever after, yes. Tragic death, I am perfectly willing to re-read. And a Buffy-esque "the cookie dough still needs baking" ending, or a bittersweet one where they both decide to sublimate and go back to the other people who love them, can be the best thing ever, if only because they're so rarely done (at all) well in fanfic.

But if I am reading a good long slashy (or het 'shippy story) with plenty of your a,b,a,b,a,b, it needs to end on c) or I feel, yes, let down. I tried to figure out why while I was reading the rest of today's metafandom, since for me it's not about the happy or the OTP. I think maybe it's because, just by the fact that said non-canon couple *got* to a) in the first place, the story is now set in that fanfic universe where Hot Monkey Lust Conquers All, and therefore any setback will be followed by an epiphany and Hot Make-Up Porn. So when an author leaves them at a bad point in their relationship, my reaction is not "How sad, waah" it's "How could she end the story before she gets to the make-up sex?" Because there's no good excuse for there not to be make-up sex eventually, because Lust Conquers All, so clearly she only ended the story there because she wants to be gratuitously depressing. Bah.

Hmm. Or not. I will be thinking about this more. Thanks.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

I must visit this mysterious metafandom. Are they discussing the sad and happy endings over there?

Because there's no good excuse for there not to be make-up sex eventually, because Lust Conquers All, so clearly she only ended the story there because she wants to be gratuitously depressing.
This is interesting. The angst can almost be an easy way out. A way to spice up a fic and make it 'serious'. The fic I read was actually very plausible that way; the doomed ending wasn't grafted on but made sense and yet, and still, I craved the slashy turnaround! As someone said further up the page: it's the delayed fulfillment: it can be delayed for pages and pages, but it must come eventually, or waah, it's not slashy wonderfulness! And it's not even so much the sex that fulfills, it's the declaration of love. Because there is the wonderful yummy plot of 'they're having sex and not admitting that it's more than sex'. Except before the word 'The End' I want them to have admitted it, dammit all.

[melannen.livejournal.com]

metafandom is the fandom newsletter for fans who are fans of fandom itself. It is pure distilled awesomeness; cathexys linked this post from it.

Mm, yes. Yes, I can see that. But it doesn't even have to be a pasted-on sad ending to do that to me; it can be a horrible tragic misunderstanding or personality clash or just whimper that has been perfectly forshadowed for the whole darn fic, and I die a little inside with the perfectness of reading it, and yet ... I still firmly believe that if she'd written just a *few* more pages, they'd have realized how stupid they were being and declared they couldn't live without each other. Because, yes, it's *slash*! There's nothing so unforgiveable it can be allowed to keep them apart forever! Slash is all *about* getting people together who in real life (er, canon-- same difference *g*) have unsurmountable obstacles keeping them apart.

Although your very evocative description of your frustration reminds me of the traditional Japanese backronym for Yaoi: yama nashi, ochi nashi, imi nashi: No climax, no point, no meaning. 'Cause for us the climax is not the sex but the declaration of love, and without that .... what?

[brightest-blue.livejournal.com]

Uh-oh. How would you feel about an improbable but cautiously optimistic ending? *angsts*

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

*screams*

ARE YOU SPOILERING ME???

Aaaaaccckkkk!!!!!

*hides under shrapnel*

[ghostinthemist.livejournal.com]

I need the happy ending, too. Otherwise I'd read stuff that's more like RL. There's enough sadness in RL, I read slash to get away from that. So yeah, I want hot monkey love, and I really love the wildly romantic. The more romantic the better. BTW has anyone here been following Mistress of Happy Ending's "Wins the Race" series? I am so very hooked on that one!

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

But it's a very particular kind of sad ending I'm trying to avoid, too: that the guys do not declare their love for each other. This is possibly miles away from rl, and if so: the further away, the better! I don't know the story whereof you speak, though.

[carodee.livejournal.com]

Here via metafandom.

I'm in The Sentinel fandom and we have a category called Partner Betrayal, which I relentlessly consume. It's horrible, awful, makes me weep and angst for hours afterward. But you know what? It makes the good endings even better because I can see how fragile they are, how easily things could have gone wrong, how there are things in the guys' natures that could end up tearing them apart and, over and over, they still manage to choke out their feelings and fumble through to a happy ending! *bliss!* When I only read happy endings (which I much prefer, OMGOTP!), they become inevitable and boring. The sad/dark fics make it all new and fresh again, even after reading three thousand stories.

Can't beat that with a stick. *g*

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

This is very interesting, and I think you've touched on something here. The fic that made me gloomy and prompted this post was, in fact, written in a fandom I had never read anything in and have no clue about. I had to look up the characters on imagegoogle to get a minimal idea of the visuals involved. So I read it as origfic, I guess, and savoured the delicious writing and sex and slashiness of it all -- only to come down with a bump at the sad ending!

I can see how it is different in one's 'home' fandom, say. In lotrips, where I consumed everything that passed me by for a while back there, it is true: the sad endings were more of a spice, and I could appreciate how they veered from fanon expectation or played around with canon or whatever.

[profshallowness.livejournal.com]

Here too from metafandom - belatedly. Really cool discussion and ideas.

I've been thinking about fanfic endings recently - and I loved how you inverted comma'd
someone dies = a 'serious' ending
in the comments. I agree with you in wanting the happy ending in fic, because it is comfort, particularly for the not quite OTPs. Although I'm coming from a different direction, I read het and quite like gen too. Having said that, I've both avoided angsty fics with no declaration, or more likely a death, for more poorly written fluff.

I don't think that it's about aesthetic pleasure though, that's somehow a separate thing. Emotionally I prefer the happy ending, but not always. I have and will reread certain fics with really sad endings, because they're excellent and the writing is spectacular and gives me the vivid moments of happiness and the ending feels inevitable. There's an aesthetic pleasure, but a sort of emotional pleasure to the ending, because it had to be like that in those circumstances. Plus I know that there are other circumstances where I get the happy ending too. Which can also bring an aesthetic pleasure.

What I really don't like is the grafted on ending that wasn't foreshadowed, wasn't developed.

Having said THAT, the ending in 'Villette' works for me in all it frustratingness, aesthetically and emotionally.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Oooh, how exciting, a really late reply. *tries to remember what that post was about, heh* I can't even remember the inverted commas thing and was pondering why I did it (without actually re-reading my post because that would mean clicking my way through to it from my 'recent comments' page and my server is too sloooow for that) but I must have meant that dying is pretend-serious. Some writers drop in a death for a 'seriousness' effect and I hate that! Gratuitous death just to give the fic some drama! Well, the most breathtaking dramas come from tiny little things. Jane Austen not James Cameron!