Underneath the Underneath: Slash Fic

[bonomanic]

I've wanted to do any kind of meta post about either writing or fandom for a while now but what made sit down and try were quite a few metas I read recently (kudos especially to meiface and canttakeabreath ). We'll see how this turns out.

Most of the K-pop fic out there is undeniably slash and why not? Fanservice and boy band craziness and the tight friendships make

Comments

[canttakeabreath]

I'm really glad i was pinged on this, because it was an interesting read! Now for my discussion points--i have a few, but i wanted to focus mainly on my issue with this whole "fiction as social responsibility"

Writing and posting are two very different activities: an exploration of empowerment will never successfully explore all aspects of privilege.

I think I'm having a hard time, particularly, with digesting the material you quoted from meiface if only because I think it's a huge oversimplification of what we do with media. Fanfiction is absolutely not the same as creation. We revisit material. I don't care if it's an AU or you've introduced OCs--as soon as you admit that you're playing in a pretty little fake world, you've lost control. There are some things you will just have to take for granted. Do you need to lampshade every single instance of possible misogyny in fic? Oh Heechul was an ass to Shindong in this line--it's fatwank! Must footnote it! Make sure everyone knows that I don't agree with this comment

[bonomanic]

Okay, now I'm glad that you wrote this comment because it made me go back and reread (for about the millionth time) what I wrote and you are so right in reading this out of it and I'm so disappointed at myself that I rewrote this whole thing for hours and hours and still managed to get this message across that I tried to write out of it. Even if it is not visible. And this should teach me to let things rest for a bit and then go back to go over them instead of doing it after hours of editing them. >.Anyways. First of all - thanks for calling me out. Then, I think that writing fanfiction works more as a scale, from more revisiting to more creation because theoretically there are no bounds to what I do with characters who coincidentally have the same names as these singers if I can give a halfway plausible explanation of why they're entirely different from what people expect, and that would be creation, right? But I do agree it's often mostly revisiting but that doesn't mean people can't be aware about the fact that they take things for

this is so long it needed two comments, pt 1

[canttakeabreath]

I absolutely didn't mean to say you were implying XYZ by the way! Just that I inferred XYZ from your statement, which, imo, is different--it has to do with the way i think and nothing at all about the way you write so I really don't necessarily know if everyone would read what I read into that, or whether it was just me. Regardless, it's a great starting place, and I'm glad you wrote this.

I think I want to focus on a point I really liked about your reply? I mean I also want to talk about that "sliding board of creativity" (but even if it's totally OOC and Heechul is actually a 50 year old woman living in Siberia...there's a reason it's "Kim Heechul" and not "Randomly Named Lady"--you're not totally creating something, and the point of the fandom connection is the connection I make between the characters you reference and my understandings of them. You do not start from scratch, basically. Ever) but I really, really want to get to a few lines so, bullet points:

1. Even if you're trolling in a form of writing that is more borrowed

don't worry, i do that all the time ;~;

[bonomanic]

I guess it's a give and take in these instances. :) If I had managed to be clearer in my formulation, what you got out of it would've been different. (And this is the point where you remember how you learned about communication in college and realize that everything is true, lol

pt 2

[canttakeabreath]

3. I was also reading further into some of those links just now, and what really frustrated me was the commentary on women excluding women. As a cis-gender, straight female, I realize I have a knapsack of privilege. But you know what gets me off? Gay men. Particularly gay men having sex. There's a ton of literature about why this might be, but that's just it for me. What's even better is that when I explore the voices of gay men, I am allowed to explore my own sexuality from a vantage point that is not my own. I don't have to hide behind qualifiers and try to divorce myself from the action. I am never there. And maybe I do hate myself in a way and want my "womanhood" to disappear on the internet, or maybe I don't understand gay men and my gay men are merely liberated women. Am I playing into stereotype? Am I taking that step backwards

Re: pt 2

[bonomanic]

3. I know exactly what you mean and I'm kind of troubled by that. I get that I will never be able to understand what people without the cis-gender, straight privilege have to go through and that many without that privilege would welcome more questions and less assumptions. And then I feel that frustration you were talking about. And I hate that there never seems to be a neutral ground in this world where everyone can just meet as individuals without having a whole slew of labels attached. That's probably where the anonymity in internet fandoms comes in very handy but then you just seem to slide into the next set of issues

Re: pt 2

[canttakeabreath]

And I hate that there never seems to be a neutral ground in this world where everyone can just meet as individuals without having a whole slew of labels attached.

I mean, this is a just a no-win situation, because if you say this as (in my case) a cis-gendered, white, straight, physically sound, economically stable, college-educated, etc etc female, I am always potentially ignoring some of these qualifications and making someone else feel unsafe. Or overlooking their perspective. Which is a problem. Hence, the qualifications. But then again, I don't appreciate the position wherein I must disclaim my privilege before talking about anything. I am me. Yes, that me happens to have had certain advantages in life, but I have also, similarly, been faced with disadvantages. These "qualifications" overlook and oversimplify that. Perhaps my brother is transgendered? Would that be something I could disclaim which would ~disturb~ my arena of privilege? Again, it's all about drawing lines in the sand, imo, and I really do not like lines.