Navel-gazing down memory lane
Stayed up too late the other nite rereading what will henceforth be called Frsm Bznss. I think my reaction was similar to Sabina's the other day re: her old Schwarz fic, something along the lines of "Damn, I knew what I was doing back then!" Except I didn't. It was all instinct. Which is sort of deflating to realize. -_-;
There is a weird pleasure, though, in reading one's own fic after so much time has passed that one has completely forgotten both the writing process and the content, and even most of the fanon framework in which it was generated. Not just the pleasant surprise when it turns out to be readable instead of wholly cringeworthy, but a feeling of "Gosh, it's like this story was written just for me! To satisfy my needs exactly!" Because of course it was.
For instance: during the doggie bath chapter I was thinking "Wait, why does Remus conveniently happen to have a doggie-sized bathtub?" and then the fic was all "He transfigured it, duh!" and I was slapping my knee going "LOL clever me, anticipating my own future questions!" Also I'd forgotten how Wrack suddenly shows up on the doorstep, so that moment was very OH SHIT IT'S A KELPIE GET IN THE CAR. And the great wang wand restoration anticlimax ahaha and Ollivander being creepy as fuck and the Hermione cameo and. Remus being amazing and. It's like this story was written just for me! Oh wait.
...This is clear in the story, but I always did think of Remus as psychologically uke (even though I wrote occasional switching), as well as fundamentally aware of where his towel is (even though he also has all sorts of emotional issues). There's the height rule in effect, but mostly I think it's due to basic femininity on Remus' part. See below before you object. And Sirius is hetare seme, as the J-fen are happy to explain.
In the olden days people used to complain about feminized Remus characterizations, and certainly any version of weepy!Remus or wimpy!Remus was all wrong, but he was always very yin to me. In positive ways. I mean, not on the level of Taiki or anything (heavens no), but he had traits I consider positive that have often been culturally constructed as "feminine." Cooperative rather than confrontational, supportive, attuned to others' emotional needs, good with children, bodily influenced by lunar cycles--well, that last one's not so delightful XD; but you know what I mean. And his strength is the strength of enduring hurt over and over again, yet somehow keeping his shit together, which in my head is a female (?) sort of strength, YMMV. The bend-(and bend and bend)-without-breaking kind. And I don't think this is all in my head. If nothing else, J-fandom has him "boku" or "watashi," whereas Sirius is "ore" but of course (in defiance of the actual translation, IIRC, which has Sirius also "watashi." J-fandom is all PFFFT, WHATEVS, DUDE IS CLEARLY AN "ORE" KIND OF DOG).
I'm sympathetic to the "men should be written as men, not as girls with dicks" school of thought in m/m fiction writing circles insofar as it represents a movement toward uhh authenticity, or verisimilitude, but at the same time I'm suspicious when it dovetails with misogyny, or when emasculation is always/automatically construed as a bad thing*, or when people use terms like "feminine" or "girly" in a purely derogatory sense, or when the assumption is made that m/m fantasy by/for women necessarily ought to reflect actual RL m/m sex, or stereotypical psychological "maleness" and/or "male" approaches to relationships, whatever those might be.
I mean, I grok that many readers are interested in pr0ns about manly men having manly sex with manly men, emphasis on the manly, but that's not the only possible or legitimate course. The examples of f/f sexual fantasy for men that I've observed have very little to do with actual RL f/f sex or relationships or psychology, and I don't see that they're obliged to. Obvs I for one am interested in manly and unmanly men also boys, girls, women, werewolves, unicorns, etc. having unmanly sex, whatever that might entail. Lots of feeeeelings, probably.
But I suppose it's nonproductive to divorce all this from a discussion of accurate characterization and portrayals of gender in the source text, if one's dealing with fanfic. If I write Mainichi Seiten! fic and don't make Akinobu girly, something is wrong. Likewise if I write 12K fic and don't make Gyousou manly (albeit manly in that special "fake ancient Chinese seme according to contemporary Japanese fantasy author" way), something is wrong. Those are extreme examples, but.
My Remus characterization was complicated by the fact that I always pegged him as very fellow INFP, so what might look like "feminine" qualities could merely be INFP traits (then again lots of INFP traits are more "feminine" than not, I'd say--uhh, if one were going to spuriously classify temperament traits along stereotypical gendered lines. But poss. this is just my own perspective talking as AM GIRL and can never truly know (in the visceral sense) what it's like to be INFP and a boy. Although I pretend to imagine it.
Maybe some of the bottom-line stability I always saw in Remus--in spite of so much (painful) instability in his life--derives from that INFP ethical sensibility. The moral compass. Because that core is always there. It's so, so solid and I've never really thought about how...comforting?...that solidity is, because it's something I take for granted and I've never known what it's like to exist without it.
Anyway, back to girls with dicks: there's the question of intent to consider, too. And genre. And audience. I mean, writing BL-style porno is different from writing realist fiction, and I still think there's a limit to how much of the latter can/should/needs to be inserted into the former. Inserted, yes, I said insert.
Perhaps what I really mean to say here is COCK IS OVERRATED. SO IS MASCULINITY. Unless you are a career seme w/ sword in which case it is your job to perform masculinity, so please ganbare.
* Emasculation can be the best thing ever!? Either that or I've internalized too much Le Guin.
There is a weird pleasure, though, in reading one's own fic after so much time has passed that one has completely forgotten both the writing process and the content, and even most of the fanon framework in which it was generated. Not just the pleasant surprise when it turns out to be readable instead of wholly cringeworthy, but a feeling of "Gosh, it's like this story was written just for me! To satisfy my needs exactly!" Because of course it was.
For instance: during the doggie bath chapter I was thinking "Wait, why does Remus conveniently happen to have a doggie-sized bathtub?" and then the fic was all "He transfigured it, duh!" and I was slapping my knee going "LOL clever me, anticipating my own future questions!" Also I'd forgotten how Wrack suddenly shows up on the doorstep, so that moment was very OH SHIT IT'S A KELPIE GET IN THE CAR. And the great wang wand restoration anticlimax ahaha and Ollivander being creepy as fuck and the Hermione cameo and. Remus being amazing and. It's like this story was written just for me! Oh wait.
...This is clear in the story, but I always did think of Remus as psychologically uke (even though I wrote occasional switching), as well as fundamentally aware of where his towel is (even though he also has all sorts of emotional issues). There's the height rule in effect, but mostly I think it's due to basic femininity on Remus' part. See below before you object. And Sirius is hetare seme, as the J-fen are happy to explain.
In the olden days people used to complain about feminized Remus characterizations, and certainly any version of weepy!Remus or wimpy!Remus was all wrong, but he was always very yin to me. In positive ways. I mean, not on the level of Taiki or anything (heavens no), but he had traits I consider positive that have often been culturally constructed as "feminine." Cooperative rather than confrontational, supportive, attuned to others' emotional needs, good with children, bodily influenced by lunar cycles--well, that last one's not so delightful XD; but you know what I mean. And his strength is the strength of enduring hurt over and over again, yet somehow keeping his shit together, which in my head is a female (?) sort of strength, YMMV. The bend-(and bend and bend)-without-breaking kind. And I don't think this is all in my head. If nothing else, J-fandom has him "boku" or "watashi," whereas Sirius is "ore" but of course (in defiance of the actual translation, IIRC, which has Sirius also "watashi." J-fandom is all PFFFT, WHATEVS, DUDE IS CLEARLY AN "ORE" KIND OF DOG).
I'm sympathetic to the "men should be written as men, not as girls with dicks" school of thought in m/m fiction writing circles insofar as it represents a movement toward uhh authenticity, or verisimilitude, but at the same time I'm suspicious when it dovetails with misogyny, or when emasculation is always/automatically construed as a bad thing*, or when people use terms like "feminine" or "girly" in a purely derogatory sense, or when the assumption is made that m/m fantasy by/for women necessarily ought to reflect actual RL m/m sex, or stereotypical psychological "maleness" and/or "male" approaches to relationships, whatever those might be.
I mean, I grok that many readers are interested in pr0ns about manly men having manly sex with manly men, emphasis on the manly, but that's not the only possible or legitimate course. The examples of f/f sexual fantasy for men that I've observed have very little to do with actual RL f/f sex or relationships or psychology, and I don't see that they're obliged to. Obvs I for one am interested in manly and unmanly men also boys, girls, women, werewolves, unicorns, etc. having unmanly sex, whatever that might entail. Lots of feeeeelings, probably.
But I suppose it's nonproductive to divorce all this from a discussion of accurate characterization and portrayals of gender in the source text, if one's dealing with fanfic. If I write Mainichi Seiten! fic and don't make Akinobu girly, something is wrong. Likewise if I write 12K fic and don't make Gyousou manly (albeit manly in that special "fake ancient Chinese seme according to contemporary Japanese fantasy author" way), something is wrong. Those are extreme examples, but.
My Remus characterization was complicated by the fact that I always pegged him as very fellow INFP, so what might look like "feminine" qualities could merely be INFP traits (then again lots of INFP traits are more "feminine" than not, I'd say--uhh, if one were going to spuriously classify temperament traits along stereotypical gendered lines. But poss. this is just my own perspective talking as AM GIRL and can never truly know (in the visceral sense) what it's like to be INFP and a boy. Although I pretend to imagine it.
Maybe some of the bottom-line stability I always saw in Remus--in spite of so much (painful) instability in his life--derives from that INFP ethical sensibility. The moral compass. Because that core is always there. It's so, so solid and I've never really thought about how...comforting?...that solidity is, because it's something I take for granted and I've never known what it's like to exist without it.
Anyway, back to girls with dicks: there's the question of intent to consider, too. And genre. And audience. I mean, writing BL-style porno is different from writing realist fiction, and I still think there's a limit to how much of the latter can/should/needs to be inserted into the former. Inserted, yes, I said insert.
Perhaps what I really mean to say here is COCK IS OVERRATED. SO IS MASCULINITY. Unless you are a career seme w/ sword in which case it is your job to perform masculinity, so please ganbare.
* Emasculation can be the best thing ever!? Either that or I've internalized too much Le Guin.