I don't have a preference for any fan creations; whether they be drabbles, WIPs, icons, vids, banners, meta, Tweak says--each individual genre of expression can in itself, but good or bad. My judgments are based on technical and artistic merit, but it's all subjective to me and what I am seeking.

I think in the non-fandom world, a drabble would purely a story best expressed in 100 words. This is called flash fiction. A genre that's gaining more attention and popularity recently. In the greater world the formula would be to set the reader up for the "punch". This could be a punchline or a twist or a reveal.

But it would be a story where all you really want to express to the reader is what happens during the "punch".

For example: A husband wants to hire a hitman. The person who he finds is female. The flash fiction begins when he's talking to the hitwoman and givening her the gun to use. He says, "Who would have thought of hiring a female hitman?"

The female hit"man" takes the gun, cocks it and points it at him and say, "Your wife."

In fandom, we share so much backstory that the set up is not as important in oder to make a good "punch" at the end, but it's necessary.

But this isn't the only purpose in writing and reading a drabble. In fandom we're here because we want MORE of Queer as Folk. So a good drabble, as well as a good full-lenght or chaptered story is gong to give us that. The criteria we use to judge is going to be based on whether we fill like we got more of QAF. We won't like it if we think it's OOC. We won't like it if we don't get the inside references, etc. And we won't be satisfied if there wasn't a good full circle of meaning. So we may like the writing but we'll be left wanting more.

This is were it gets confusing. We might want more because WE ALWLAYS WANT MORE. That's why we're here in the first place: we can't get enough of this show and it's characters.

We also have created our own QAF fan-culture. So we not only need to agree upon canon, but fanon. Something's will resinate, sparking biases. For example: I love Michael, but he's someone I might want to make the butt of a joke, because he's an easy target and that's part of his charm (his flaws and stuff), but I won't do that, because I know that there's Mhchael haters out there and DO NOT want to be mistook for one, or even satisfy they're hatred, I LOVE MIKEY.

So, it's just more complicated, because what we want is QAF more than even a good story or good drabble. That's the bottom line.