Thanks for checking those tag totals! That's interesting data.
I think that you have an important insight there, where you speculate that "UST" may be used more often to describe the canon situation, while "pre-whichever" is used to describe the task set for the fanfiction story.
>"...whereas if the pairing is so subtly implied that it can be easily overlooked, then I'd rather not have the author telling me that I'm "supposed" to be reading the story as..."
Yes. I've often felt that if a pairing is implied, and the author instead wishes it to be explicit, then the author should rewrite the story to make the text do what the author wishes it to, and not try to make tags/labels/warnings outside the text force this interpretation for the reader.
But then I remember the widespread prejudice against gen.
It often seemed to me -- at least in years gone by; perhaps it's no longer like this! -- that some people were labeling their gen stories "pre-slash" in order to gain more readers. Gen stories got ignored. "Pre-slash" stories were almost as widely read as slash stories. The vast majority of readers wanted slash; and then the next demographic group down in population was the het readers; in so many fandoms, at least then, it seemed that only a slight minority genuinely desired gen.
>"...I also don't think ["UST"] always applies to stories that are considered pre-slash (etc), since the characters themselves might not realize that UST is happening."
You're absolutely right that "pre-relationship" (of whichever stripe) and "UST" aren't synonymous, although they very often overlap, depending on the fandom and the characters. The point you make here and the point Sharpest_Asp makes about Hero/Villain attraction in DC (above in this thread) both support that amply from completely different angles.
I do think that UST may also happen without the characters' conscious knowledge in some situations, though, equally as much as the characters may be unaware of "pre-relationship" unfolding around them. Especially for romantically inexperienced characters, or distracted or impaired characters, or characters with some obstacle from a belief system (honor, religion, code of conduct, etc.), the effects of UST may significantly affect their behavior before registering on their conscious perceptions.
So I suppose that the question of applicability, as we're defining the terms, comes down to who is supposed to know: the author, the reader, the characters. I think that we can dispense with the characters; they don't need to know what they're living through. ;-) I'd prefer the reader to know from the text, not only the tags. Some authors seem to want the reader to know only from the tags, though, not the text. Hmmmm.
no subject
I think that you have an important insight there, where you speculate that "UST" may be used more often to describe the canon situation, while "pre-whichever" is used to describe the task set for the fanfiction story.
>"...whereas if the pairing is so subtly implied that it can be easily overlooked, then I'd rather not have the author telling me that I'm "supposed" to be reading the story as..."
Yes. I've often felt that if a pairing is implied, and the author instead wishes it to be explicit, then the author should rewrite the story to make the text do what the author wishes it to, and not try to make tags/labels/warnings outside the text force this interpretation for the reader.
But then I remember the widespread prejudice against gen.
It often seemed to me -- at least in years gone by; perhaps it's no longer like this! -- that some people were labeling their gen stories "pre-slash" in order to gain more readers. Gen stories got ignored. "Pre-slash" stories were almost as widely read as slash stories. The vast majority of readers wanted slash; and then the next demographic group down in population was the het readers; in so many fandoms, at least then, it seemed that only a slight minority genuinely desired gen.
>"...I also don't think ["UST"] always applies to stories that are considered pre-slash (etc), since the characters themselves might not realize that UST is happening."
You're absolutely right that "pre-relationship" (of whichever stripe) and "UST" aren't synonymous, although they very often overlap, depending on the fandom and the characters. The point you make here and the point Sharpest_Asp makes about Hero/Villain attraction in DC (above in this thread) both support that amply from completely different angles.
I do think that UST may also happen without the characters' conscious knowledge in some situations, though, equally as much as the characters may be unaware of "pre-relationship" unfolding around them. Especially for romantically inexperienced characters, or distracted or impaired characters, or characters with some obstacle from a belief system (honor, religion, code of conduct, etc.), the effects of UST may significantly affect their behavior before registering on their conscious perceptions.
So I suppose that the question of applicability, as we're defining the terms, comes down to who is supposed to know: the author, the reader, the characters. I think that we can dispense with the characters; they don't need to know what they're living through. ;-) I'd prefer the reader to know from the text, not only the tags. Some authors seem to want the reader to know only from the tags, though, not the text. Hmmmm.