Thorns

Yes, really.

Because while I may not be into m/m much most of the time, and have my own Issues With Slash Fandom, I've seen a few posts pop up on tumblr recently (here's the most recent) which have been taking the very simplistic line that slash's popularity is purely a result of misogyny, and that writing m/m is equivalent to only writing about white people. These posts also act like het is this POOR OPPRESSED MINORITY which, no.

It's nearly 2013, fandom, have we still not moved beyond this? Can't we argue about something else now?
( Cut for those as sick of it as me )

Normally I'd be loathe to be all "LOOK AT MY AWESOMENESS" but it is SO HARD to find not-totally-creepy fanworks about disabled characters that I decided this would be worth doing. Here's some recs to other people's fanworks.

All art has a description, and all comics have transcripts (if I've missed any let me know), and all art is safe for work (not all the fic is, but it's labelled). All characters mentioned are canonically disabled, and I've only included works where the disability feels at least vaguely relevant.

( Pride and Prejudice, Avatar: the Last Airbender, Mass Effect, Homestuck, Misc )

EDIT: I have realised that this post, while it may have some merit, is mostly wrongheaded. I'm going to edit it to try and knock it into some sort of sense but keep in mind it used to be different. (Yes this erases my mistake, but it also means it's readable as a coherent argument)

I'm taking a break from responding to comments or editing the post etc while I think about the points people are making but I am increasingly uncomfortable with what I was saying. Ack.

( Proof I shouldn't post when I have a cold )

My last post and related discussions have got me thinking about the ways in which fic in general, and my fic in particular, pokes at social justice issues, as well as what it is about f/f romance that pings for me in a particular way other types of stories don't.

And I've realised that what I really like reading is stories that not only highlight the inequalities in society, and show people from marginalised groups being awesome, but show them working together to overcome those inequalities.

Note: the rest of this post is self indulgent introspection. But I am curious to know if anyone else seeks out stories like this. I know people see it as a trope that SHOULD be written for sensible socially conscious reasons, but for me it's also a very strong entirely selfish personal preference, akin to my love of schmoopy m/f romance.
( Read more... )

Reading this misogynist slash fangirl bingo card I started thinking about how much more effective it would be if you put the contradictory squares next to each other. It's rather like solving a jigsaw puzzle making them all be contradictory, including the "Sod it, this doesn't quite fit but I'll put it there anyway" stage :D (And yes, no "Free Space", it mucked up the order)
Slash Mysogny bingo card

Note: Not all slashers/yaoi fans are misogynist, not even (necessarily) when they use these arguments. But if you manage to fill an entire row all at once then you probably are.

I had some gaps, then came across this post about Uhura bashing in the Star Trek kink meme via friendsfriends. The "GLBT activists" pushing for Kirk/Spock is a good example too. Thanks for the inspiration, Star Trek fandom!

Right, and now some thoughts on the actual content of Admitting Impediments: Post-WisCon Posts, Part I, or, That Post I Never Made About RaceFail '09 and other related conversations, based largely on comments I left there and on my post Two Fandoms both alike in dignity... Since her terminology means something different in the context of local fandom I'm going to use "fanfic" and "old school" instead of her "media" and "book". They're still wrong, of course, but in a different way :)

Paradoxically, I think the fact that she has a point and tries to express it in an inclusive way has helped crystalise for me some of the ways fanfic meta tends to be seriously flawed and uninclusive. Normally I just roll my eyes and go "Yeah, yeah, more smug fanfic meta" and scroll by, but I don't let myself scroll by racism meta that makes me uncomfortable, so I really poked at my reactions (I REALLY hope I haven't ended up being all white person defensive about race in this post, but am open to the possibility that I may be). This post is more about the general arguments I have seen than any one post.

I'm not going to argue that fanfic fandom doesn't deal better with race, because afaict FOC (non-white fans) think it does and their opinion is the only one that counts. And given that this is the case, I think old school fandom should try and learn from fanfic fandom's example (see bottom of post).

But I'm sick of so many conversations being framed as "Why my form of fandom is Better and the True Form Of Fandom", so that even when it's true (in at least one respect) it's hard to engage with an open mind. I wrote up my general annoyance in What annoys me about fanfic meta.
( Read more... )

And some ways similar ideas will benefit those outside old school fandom (separated out because this is not the same as fighting racism):

• Be more open in general and acknowledge that not only has fandom changed, but that parts of fandom have been excluded for years. There needs to be a multiplicity of voices in fandom: fans of anime, fanfic, roleplaying, comics and webcomics, as well as people who interact online or in other places beyond Proper Cons. See these people as Real Fans, and take their opinions on fandom as seriously as anyone else's.
  
• Accept change. You personally do not have to start liking fanfic etc, but accept that other people have other tastes, and if the overall taste of fandom changes (which it has before, is now, and will again) then fandom and conventions (especially "comprehensive" ones like Wiscon or Worldcon or Natcon) need to change to respect that (luckily, by my first point, it should still make space for your tastes too, even if they end up being a minority)
  

What we should NOT do is dismiss this all as "Some bunch of (American) fanfic writers complaining about nothing". Because fanfic writers are fans too, and because regardless of what social group they're in, when POC complain about racism and the only people who think it's not a big deal are white people, it's time to take a good hard look at yourself. And because there are FOC in "old school" fandom (including in Australia) and always have been, and because we are human beings in an unjust world and it's the right thing to do.

(nb comments screened since I used all the spoons I might use to answer comments to this post writing it! Will get to comments eventually. I will NOT leave anything which follows my commenting rules screened, even if it says I'm an idiot or whatever, I just want to make sure I'm in a state to deal with anything problematic before other people have to)

Via hl: Here, let me mansplain slash to you..

Wow. And thus I have some vague understanding of how "exotic" peoples feel when anthropologists write books about them.

Brief description: A male evolutionary psychologist "explains" slash as this weird anthropological oddity, making it sound like he stumbled on it and figured out it's significance all by himself. Said significance being: it's a way for straight women to fantasize about heterosexual sex but as an equal. Also the fact it's monogamous is NOTHING like "real gay sex".

Mafdet, Slayer of serpents, a silly little Stargate comic I made. Whether it's movie canon or SG1 canon depends on how you squint, both are somewhat contradicted by the vague attempt at historical accuracy so it's all a bit of a mish-mash :)

Somewhat inspired by velithya's story Momentary Paws about Tony Stark turning into a kitten :D

It really does feel like my likelyhood of being inspired to write about something is inversely proportional to how much I know about it. On the plus side, I'm pretty sure that after a afternoon or so of googling I know more about ancient and modern Egypt than your average Stargate writer...

I may get it beta-ed at some point (I certainly intend on waiting a bit then going back and fixing the dialogue and spelling etc), but right now I can't be bothered. I've decided I just need to write more rather than worrying too much about making everything perfect, if nothing else it's very cathartic getting down my personal canon/things I feel canon lacked (like giving the ancient Egyptians any agency..)

First off, the title is deliberately misleading, this is definitely about why I like femslash. But hey, I think that's a problem with most of these sorts of essays :)

Every time I've seen femslash and yuri brought up in discussions/meta, it's generally quite quickly dismissed as not that interesting (or is theoretically interesting but the author knows nothing about it and isn't going to research), and the assumption is that the only people who read it are (a)Lesbian or bisexual women or (b) Straight men. (I've never heard anyone bring up bisexual male femslashers but they would presumably be explained the same way)

Since I am neither of those things (which is to say, I'm a straight woman, not a gay man. The thoughts of a gay male femslasher would be interesting too :)) and there has recently been angst over the lack of femslash meta I thought I'd think about why I like it, and what being a straight-girl girlslasher means. VERY much about my personal experiences since I don't know enough to generalise!

I should say first: I am VERY new to femslash fandom, so this may all be bunk. I've liked the idea since I first encountered the idea of fanfic but had real trouble finding any I liked. Some time last year I was pushed in the direction of comms like ffslashrecs and got more into it, and late last year started writing my first fanfic, which turned out to be femslash (still working on it, 9th chapter is on it's way :)) Also I do read slash, gen, and het as well, but have a special soft spot for femslash.

And of course not all people fit into any of the gay/straight/lesbian/bi boxes, and I haven't seen any related femslash meta on that score beyond questions about genderswap fic.
( Why I like femslash )
( Issues around being a straight-girl girlslasher )

This is rather a trite observation, but: in any sort of fandom (including scifi, fanfic, etc) you have lots of conflicts, and people often cast it in terms of "We are just expressing our love for X, while these haters putting us down are motivated by elitism/anti-intellectualism/peversion/narrow-mindedness etc" But most of the time, while those things may be in play, a lot of it is just that people are expressing their love in different ways.

I think one of the main ones which comes up in many different guises is "I love canon as is" versus "I express my love for canon by looking at it from different angeles/picking it apart/recreating it etc".
( meandering thoughts )