The Erotics of Slash
This is a classic "thoughts on yaoi" post, but I don't feel like doing laundry and dishes, so here's your reward for logging in.

The piece I often enjoy most in a slash story, especially in my favorite pairings, is the moment when one of (or preferably both of) the main characters misunderstands the other and thinks he is being rejected. This is a feature in nearly every Yaoi comic that I have read on yaoi_daily, of course, but it's also part of many, many slash plots. It's what makes buddy-slash stories bearable to me, because it creates tension where there might not be any, and it loads more adversarial slash pairings with delicious angst. It's also a trope that works insanely well in the HP universe, where nearly every character has a reason to feel insecure.

Yes, you know what I'm talking about, you typical female reader. You love the moment when people raised male can't communicate and nearly, nearly miss that their love is mutual. When you read this in a well-written story, tears stand in your eyes. They are lonely! They wish to be together, and yet they can't communicate! Then, at the last minute, they understand that their lust for one another is an indication of a deep, enduring love.

I love this trope in fan fiction with great shame. I know I'm being manipulated. Also, I can't write it to save my life. I just can't believe, when I'm writing, that love works this way. I try and try, but I really can't do it. Yet as a reader it's my favorite part.

Another piece of slash that I do pretty okay with, if I do say so myself, is putting myself in the POV character's head pants. For example, I am not especially sexually excited by freckles, and yet I have written many characters getting turned on by Weasleys. I like to read erotic passages in which we get a strong impression of the character's sexual excitement--and it's okay if the things that excite him or her aren't things that excite me. Sometimes, I can even read squicks of mine and enjoy them if the author puts me right into the character's experience of whatever it is.

Anyway, I've been thinking that these are the features I always like, as I read the 20 zillion tons of fan fic in the many fic exchanges. What have you been thinking?