Anti-Fanfic Bingo, Round 2, part 1

[elfwreck]

These don't easily cohese in my mind the way the first set did. I think I'm going to take them on in reverse order.

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Comments

[elfwreck]

I am more in favor of fanfic than I probably sound. I would be thrilled if people made fanworks based on my writings (or filksongs, or whatver), even if what they made was atrocious or tacky or, very likely, if it were hateful.

I am pro-fic all the way; pro-slash, pro-crackfic, pro-tacky sporkable emo teen Mary Sue fic. I'm also aware that, being someone who slashes normally inanimate objects, I'm weird, and my reasons aren't going to be the ones fandom can present to mainstream questioners.

I have different thoughts on slash--part being that mainstream media often refuses to touch the idea of physical same-sex relationships, even when the social elements of those relationships are present (e.g. House & Wilson, Kirk & Spock), part is that often, slash has little direct connection with orientation (some slash is not romance, but power-plays, or forced from some weird outside situation: e.g. Harry Drinks A Lust Potion And Looks At Ron). And some is just pure fantasy, but I don't think "What If Buffy Did Some Soul-Searching And Decided She's Gay" as any less likely than "What If The Doctor Decided to Live Out Eighty Years As A Human?"

There are fic elements I hate, though. Don't like most original characters; I rarely see them done well, and I generally hate them as main characters in stories. Don't like most fairy-tale retelling fanfics. Don't like pagan religious elements dragged into most fanfic. (All my dislikes have to be predicated with "most;" the perfect story can override all my unpreferences.)

But I'm with Voltaire on these: "I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." And it seems... odd, to quote a philosopher in discussing what's often teenage girls' fantasies. Odd, but appropriate.

Because fanfic isn't about the right to create great literature; it's about the right of self-expression... and that has to include self-expressions that annoy me, that squick me, that bore me.

[elaere]

You got your pro-fanficness across to me pretty well; don't worry about that. That quote from Voltaire sums my thoughts, too, perfectly. I might disagree with something a person says, I might even fight over it, but I wouldn't make it my right to tell the person what to say and what not. Of course I might also disagree with the usage of language or any other semiotic system the person is using. But, at the ground level, I support the right to make messages.

There's one thing about fannish works that disturbs me quite a deal: that very often it's taken as bad manners to tell to an author who has published his/her work that I don't like it (The Internett, after all, is a channel for publishing works. I'm not referring to semi-public works like those on friend-locked LJs.). Whatever the form of the message, by many authors, it's not tolerated. We are keen on debating on the rights of the author, but what about the rights of the reader? Are the rights to comment on and to disagree with only for us, authors of fannish works, and not for our readers? I find the fandom in which I have been writing so far having a fair share of such people. It makes me rather unconfortable with that fandom. I'm wondering if that is a far reaching phenomenon.

I think that I need to explain further why I find slash a risk that can lead an author to write OOC. In my opinion, in order to slash a character that in the original isn't gay, an author has to make much more extensive changes to the slashed character than just to change his sexual orientation, and that's the area in which the risk can come true. As I said, I think that sexual orientation is a fundamental part of a person's core personality. That's what in particular gay men are telling me. Their message about that is very strong. In discussion with them, I've also found out that a significant number of them find slash quite insulting. For those men, their sexual orientation is too often a source of anxiety and danger. It's not in their interests to trivialize their culture and situation in society by making slash stories that are nothing but light romances spiced up by man on man action. In particular, these men criticize slash that actually describes straight relationship but names the woman in the relationship as a man. (I don't mean to say that there aren't slash stories that are more than that, but, in my experience, a great number of slash fanfiction can be put in those two categories.) Anyway, those discussions have given me my--maybe too tight--criteria that I want a male character to meet in order to write or to read him in a gay relationship. That's it: it's my personal criteria, I'm not trying to tell others what their criteria should be. So, I think that slashed characters often turn out to be OOCs because there isn't enough of true gayness in them: too many authors of slash haven't got enough understanding about the real life of gays.

You wrote: "All my dislikes have to be predicated with 'most;' the perfect story can override all my unpreferences." That's my sentiment, too. I don't think that there are so lousy ideas that a great writer couldn't make a good story out of them, but, unfortunately, there are lousy writers that can ruin the most interesting story idea.

Ela