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

[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 granted - I don't expect them to turn around the way their story works.

I'm glad to have you here to point out the positive aspects of fanfic again, that it can generate positive mindsets instead of going around perpetuating stereotypes or whatnot. However, just because we pick issues that are relevant to us and express our opinions in certain ways, that does not allow us to disrespect others' dignity. And damn if I didn't try to put it in a more eloquent way just now but English is failing me. Even if you're trolling in a form of writing that is more borrowed than original, it still makes it trolling, right?

I want fic to stay an exploration and I can't even say how much I don't want it to turn into my fiction must perfectly emulate and explore problematic issues or else it does not contribute to fandom because that's not what we're here for. What I'd like, on the other hand, would be more dialogue on problematic issues because no matter how fantastic it is, if fanfic can empower you in real life, it can also have negative echoes there. If I find a voice for gay acceptance, couldn't a lot of the bad kind of fic also cause me to romanticize rape? The point being that even though we slash, it's not only gay acceptance but potentially a lot of negative things like stereotypes. You can't get rid of them but deciding to not address them because of that is also not the way to go. You can only work against them when you're conscious of them.

Rereading your comment again, I'm starting to realize I was really hoping my post would be a lot more obvious in the awareness point than in the responsibility aspect. Responsibility does have the ring of throw away any fun you have to please be addressing issues now. That's not it. It's more about... knowing what you don't know, kind of like you said at the end of your comment in your meta post: At the end of the you should walk away saying I can talk and write about sex, thus I am empowered instead of thinking I now know about sex, and thus I am empowered.

I swear, one day I will start being able to make sense when I'm trying to discuss things.

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 than original, it still makes it trolling, right?

Well, does it? Because if you're trolling but everyone sees that you're trolling and how obscenely horrific your stated racism is, for example, isn't that metacommentary on the nature of material you might not have originally catagorized as potentially racist? Where do we draw the line between trolling and satire?

2. If I find a voice for gay acceptance, couldn't a lot of the bad kind of fic also cause me to romanticize rape? The point being that even though we slash, it's not only gay acceptance but potentially a lot of negative things like stereotypes.

You're right, of course. And I still think it's important to play in a playground knowing that you are playing because you might learn some great things out in that sandbox or on those swings, but those life lessons do not necessarily translate into real life. The experiences and feelings might, but not the facts. So maybe we should write more emotionally empelling stories instead of more factually correct ones. So maybe Heechul doesn't grab a condom that one time. Maybe Geng should feel a wince of disgust/upset at Heechul lack of regard for personal safety. Maybe lampshading the problem within the story is a way to lampshade the entire playground. Or maybe we need to go further. These boys share the names and some physical characteristics with a bunch of guys in a band called Super Junior in Korea. These boys are obviously not those boys.

Stereotypes are a real problem. I have absolutely nothing to say about that. Again, I find it deeply troubling that I cannot decide if writing homosexuality into k-pop is a step forward or back. That really is troubling.

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.)

True that. :) I concede my point.

I see your point and while I think that metacommentary on trolling is good because it points out that hello, this IS trolling, idiot, I don't think that makes the trolling itself any better. I know that it is a learning process and you need to give people some leeway and hey, I probably said enough stupid things to last me a lifetime, but I'd just like people to at some point realize that it indeed was stupid and then try to stay away from it. :) And the thing about trolling and satire - that's a hard question and I love that you put it out there. (I'm assuming it was rhetorical in this context? ^^) With things like that there never is a definite answer because it has too many nuances, but it doesn't mean that you can't try to go for clarification with individual cases.

I really like your points here. :) And I think that's really the problem with a lot of the meta - we can't help but generalize even though we try not to. But if you don't, then how can you write meta on something as big and diverse as fandom and fanfic? That's where the problem comes in that fanfic can be both a step forward or a step backward, or possibly both at the same time and then you need to think in a million directions at once. Not working, sadly. The good thing about the diversity is, though, that you can always find amazing things to praise even if there is enough bad stuff you get annoyed about. So I guess in the end we can generalize all we want and never get anywhere because it doesn't reflect the way things are at all. But I love it that people go meta about fanfic and fandom because that shows that despite some people's idea that fanfic is worthless trash, it shows that no, there are deeper concerns here, no matter if good or bad, and hey, let's point them out for you. :)

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?

4. And maybe this gets to my final problem with all of this meta: it's all personal. We all come from very different worlds. I interpret materially very differently, and so do you. Cultural relativism is the key, here, and i mean that totally in the "legitimate academic sense" not the handwaving sense at all. So at the end of the day maybe all of our meta should start with another disclaimer: I am not you. This is true only for me. This is how I see things. Because frankly, after an hour of lurking around these womanpower!posts, I'm a bit sick of seeing myself being categorized as a misogynist simply because i do not do what some other girl in some other western country thinks I should be doing.

5. You certainly mentioned awareness--I just took the responsibility point and ran with it because that is what worries me. But you're right--influential fic, imo, will ask questions, raise issues, and make you think about who you are and what you stand for. But you can never forget that the internet and fandom is not the real world, just like the playground is not a mimicry of RL. That's exactly what I meant when I said At the end of the you should walk away saying I can talk and write about sex, thus I am empowered instead of thinking I now know about sex, and thus I am empowered.

You made plenty of sense! I just ran with a few of your points for discussion purposes, that's all. and clearly to make a mess of your journal with html fail, sobs

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.

4. I second this, completely and entirely. I'm glad that it makes possible to talk to people with different experiences and viewpoints about this, but then there is the moment where it leads to hurt and attacks and that's disappointing and frustrating. I'm just glad that this discussion we had here so far was free from that because it's so easy to feel attacked personally when someone says "I disagree."

5. I second this also. :) And you know what? When we get sick of discussing these things, how about having a fangirl moment together because I think that after being able to talk about !!serious!! stuff like this, we might just get along fabulously as fangirls? :D? Cause that's what we're here for after all. ^^ And you sound like an amazing person.

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. Sometimes I really read some of these posts, scale back, and go you know what, we should all just be happy. do good unto others and all of that crap. Everything else will work itself out because fandom should be fun.

And thank you! I do love fangirling.