a sociological analysis of fandom through the lens of the Loveless fan community
Sadly, this post is not, in fact, that analysis. I don't feel I have the skill to thoroughly deconstruct the subject in a way that would do it justice.
However, I think something very interesting could be made of such an analysis. Particularly because I see two conflicting trends within the fandom at present, both which say, to me, something intriguing about how fandom as a whole tends to treat the transgressive.
The first trend of this fandom - and many other fandoms like it; it's hardly exclusive to Loveless, and can be noted anywhere similar themes arise - is that its population openly embraces some very transgressive things, not just as acceptable but actively desirable. TVTropes would call this Draco In Leather Pants Syndrome, but if you look a little closer, that doesn't really do it justice.
Fandom doesn't downplay the fact that the psychopaths and paedophiles are such, in order to make them into dark, brooding but ultimately harmless objects of desire. In fact, it embraces those characteristics (I've really lost count of the number of times I've heard "Seimei is awesome/hot! Evil. But still awesome/hot.", or even more explicitly "I like them a bit evil"), and in many cases even adopts them itself. In just about any non-deep post on the communities (which is to say, chapter release posts, fanart, and the like; posts that present imagery and don't expect deep discussion but rather a visceral response), you can find multiple people gushing about how pretty Ritsuka is. Or how they'd do Ritsuka. Or how Ritsuka should do [insert character here].
The flippancy of the atmosphere that provokes this is, I think, important. I have no doubt that these visceral reactions are in some way serious; I have no doubt that the vast majority of fans think Ritsuka is very attractive. To put a cynical spin on it, he's designed to be. His budding sexuality is relentlessly played up on the covers, even if within the series he's fairly resistant. But we must still remember that he's still only twelve years old. This leads to a conflict: his attractiveness is a taboo thing to discuss, to a certain extent, yet we are still being made to feel it and we want to discuss it, and surely there must be some safe space to discuss it within the very fandom that thrives on it. It would feel ludicrous to have a BL ("boys' love") fandom where the main character was very clearly being presented for our desires to attach to, yet we were forced by social convention not to talk about that at all. It would be a huge embarrassing elephant in the room.
Thus, fandom talks about it; but only in situations where it can be read as being flippant, playful and non-serious. Allcaps statements and offhand, jokey, one-liner comments come into play; people will rarely talk at length about the appeal of the character, but "I'd tap that" and "Do him, Soubi" get thrown around regularly. Yet it's clear that the fans get a lot of gratification from engaging in these playful discussions, as they happen over and over again. They seem like the perfect way to covertly indulge the fans' love of the character while also not provoking political or ethical questions.
As aforementioned, this sort of thing is true to a certain extent within all fandoms that possess a controversial character, with (in the case of psychopathic/cruel/villainous characters) greater or lesser degrees of Draco In Leather Pants-ness being invoked, depending on the fandom, to obscure the perceived ethical problems with the fandom's lust. It's not unique to Loveless; it's endemic in human nature that, presented with a suitably appealing figure, the majority of people will find themselves compelled by them regardless of their acts, their age, etc., and will have to find some way to justify or handwave the problems, if any, with treating them as a lust object. Shorter version: lust does not obey morality. This is perfectly normal, but because we as a society still don't recognise that truth, we have to find ways to make our attraction look presentable, usually by not analysing it too deeply and restricting our expressions of lust to flippant comments.
(A tangent: the more specifically and pointedly cruel the character's actions, the more likely they seem to be to be embraced wholeheartedly as opposed to being Leather Pantsed. Sephiroth, for example? Fluffbunnied a great deal, since his bad actions are seen as somewhat generic and fail to so strongly impact on the heart and mind of a person used to seeing "destroy the world" plots touted by villains even in sanitised kids' cartoons. The actions of Light from Death Note, by contrast, are more specific and nuanced, and as such we are less inured to them, they scare us more, and we cannot so easily write them off. As such, fandom still embraces Light as a lust object, but must do so without ignoring his flaws, leading to more open declarations of loving his evil. Just a thought.)
The second trend I've noted in Loveless fandom, contrastingly, is a smaller but not insignificant group of people who are either a) not part of the fandom, but part of the larger fandom community, and openly find Loveless a "creepy", "squicky" or "horrible" series, or b) part of the fandom but also feel compelled to point out the flaws in the characters and the questionable nature of some of the relationships quite openly, often taking issue with the author herself (in contrast to the creator-worship of much of fandom) and calling her out on her uncritical attitude to the ethical issues she presents.
In itself this is nothing new: people, even the majority of people, have always found controversial works of art disgusting, horrifying and challenging, and have not generally failed to be vocal about it. However, it's interesting to me because of how it clashes with trend 1.
Fandom has always tended to be a place where the transgressive was, in some way, embraced. The earliest days of what we now know as modern fandom were founded on fanfiction, an inherently transgressive and controversial act on multiple levels: not only dallying with issues of copyright, but doing so in order to portray the characters in often explicit homosexual relationships. (A bolder act then than now: the first Kirk/Spock fanfic was published in 1974.) Fandom today continues to delight in the often dark and twisted nature of modern popular characters and plots, with questions that are too controversial to speak of openly being negotiated in coded language, as discussed above.
The first Kirk/Spock fanfic, incidentally, was also written in coded language of a different kind. Embracing these more controversial aspects of human (and Vulcan?) nature while veiling the ramifications from heavy discussion has also historically been a trait of fandom.
As such, fandom itself would not be the sphere in which we would expect to see such open criticism of Loveless' themes. I'm going to wager that the reason for this trend, which (judging on past experience with fandom) is fairly recent, is that fandom is increasingly beginning to engage with themes of social responsibility and ethics. The community metafandom is now almost exclusively dedicated to posts on how we can tackle racism, ableism, and other issues of prejudice within fandom and within fanfics; how we can accurately and sympathetically write characters suffering from abusive backgrounds, how we can sensitively portray transgendered characters. In fandom's past, these questions weren't raised. People wrote terrible and schmaltzy abuse fics just to see the characters' tears, played fast and loose with the concept of gender in Ranma 1/2, without considering the need for sensitivity; or at least, it wasn't considered as much.
Sensitivity is, undoubtedly, a good thing; particularly in the sphere of fanfiction where people are often endeavouring to improve as writers, not merely playing around, but also on a general ethical level. It's important that fandom asks these questions and turns a more critical eye on previously unexamined cruelties.
However, I also wonder if this sort of criticism will encroach into fannish space to the extent that the playful embrace of transgressive situations will become increasingly exposed and challenged. If the more ethically analytical sector of fandom begins to turn its lens on these coded expressions of lust, begins to dissect them and show them up for what they are, begins to say "I know your game"; and then begins to pass judgment in essay form, makes that judgment widespread as it has the (rightful, to be fair) judgment of sexism and racism and trans-ism in fandom; I wonder if it will drive this transgressiveness underground, to be replaced in the majority by solemn, critical analysis of Loveless' themes in a setting where it makes no more sense to lust after Ritsuka than to lust after Lolita.
It's not necessarily happening - I'm not that paranoid - but it could. And because it could, I think it's worth questioning whether that would be a good thing or not. Is the increasingly self-analytical, self-critical, self-conscious nature of fandom exclusively a good thing? Or are there areas where we might risk, if we push it too far, overriding the fact that human nature will always want to embrace the transgressive; replacing it with high ideals that seek to improve our species but fail to recognise or satisfy a deeper truth, pretending that if we speak out against them enough we'll be numb to the appeal of darker things?
And if so, how do we confront this? Can we, as a species, confront the truth about our lust - that it is in many cases separate from our ethical selves? Can we break it down and analyse it and still come out of it feeling okay? Or, in order to allow it to thrive at all, must we continue to be furtive? And can that furtiveness survive in the wake of critical analysis?
I think this is a question that's important to more than just fandom. But it's more vivid here: fandom, I think, is one of the places in society where raw human nature and the cutting edge of social progress are visibly meeting. It remains to be seen what will happen when they clash. I'm curious to find out.
However, I think something very interesting could be made of such an analysis. Particularly because I see two conflicting trends within the fandom at present, both which say, to me, something intriguing about how fandom as a whole tends to treat the transgressive.
The first trend of this fandom - and many other fandoms like it; it's hardly exclusive to Loveless, and can be noted anywhere similar themes arise - is that its population openly embraces some very transgressive things, not just as acceptable but actively desirable. TVTropes would call this Draco In Leather Pants Syndrome, but if you look a little closer, that doesn't really do it justice.
Fandom doesn't downplay the fact that the psychopaths and paedophiles are such, in order to make them into dark, brooding but ultimately harmless objects of desire. In fact, it embraces those characteristics (I've really lost count of the number of times I've heard "Seimei is awesome/hot! Evil. But still awesome/hot.", or even more explicitly "I like them a bit evil"), and in many cases even adopts them itself. In just about any non-deep post on the communities (which is to say, chapter release posts, fanart, and the like; posts that present imagery and don't expect deep discussion but rather a visceral response), you can find multiple people gushing about how pretty Ritsuka is. Or how they'd do Ritsuka. Or how Ritsuka should do [insert character here].
The flippancy of the atmosphere that provokes this is, I think, important. I have no doubt that these visceral reactions are in some way serious; I have no doubt that the vast majority of fans think Ritsuka is very attractive. To put a cynical spin on it, he's designed to be. His budding sexuality is relentlessly played up on the covers, even if within the series he's fairly resistant. But we must still remember that he's still only twelve years old. This leads to a conflict: his attractiveness is a taboo thing to discuss, to a certain extent, yet we are still being made to feel it and we want to discuss it, and surely there must be some safe space to discuss it within the very fandom that thrives on it. It would feel ludicrous to have a BL ("boys' love") fandom where the main character was very clearly being presented for our desires to attach to, yet we were forced by social convention not to talk about that at all. It would be a huge embarrassing elephant in the room.
Thus, fandom talks about it; but only in situations where it can be read as being flippant, playful and non-serious. Allcaps statements and offhand, jokey, one-liner comments come into play; people will rarely talk at length about the appeal of the character, but "I'd tap that" and "Do him, Soubi" get thrown around regularly. Yet it's clear that the fans get a lot of gratification from engaging in these playful discussions, as they happen over and over again. They seem like the perfect way to covertly indulge the fans' love of the character while also not provoking political or ethical questions.
As aforementioned, this sort of thing is true to a certain extent within all fandoms that possess a controversial character, with (in the case of psychopathic/cruel/villainous characters) greater or lesser degrees of Draco In Leather Pants-ness being invoked, depending on the fandom, to obscure the perceived ethical problems with the fandom's lust. It's not unique to Loveless; it's endemic in human nature that, presented with a suitably appealing figure, the majority of people will find themselves compelled by them regardless of their acts, their age, etc., and will have to find some way to justify or handwave the problems, if any, with treating them as a lust object. Shorter version: lust does not obey morality. This is perfectly normal, but because we as a society still don't recognise that truth, we have to find ways to make our attraction look presentable, usually by not analysing it too deeply and restricting our expressions of lust to flippant comments.
(A tangent: the more specifically and pointedly cruel the character's actions, the more likely they seem to be to be embraced wholeheartedly as opposed to being Leather Pantsed. Sephiroth, for example? Fluffbunnied a great deal, since his bad actions are seen as somewhat generic and fail to so strongly impact on the heart and mind of a person used to seeing "destroy the world" plots touted by villains even in sanitised kids' cartoons. The actions of Light from Death Note, by contrast, are more specific and nuanced, and as such we are less inured to them, they scare us more, and we cannot so easily write them off. As such, fandom still embraces Light as a lust object, but must do so without ignoring his flaws, leading to more open declarations of loving his evil. Just a thought.)
The second trend I've noted in Loveless fandom, contrastingly, is a smaller but not insignificant group of people who are either a) not part of the fandom, but part of the larger fandom community, and openly find Loveless a "creepy", "squicky" or "horrible" series, or b) part of the fandom but also feel compelled to point out the flaws in the characters and the questionable nature of some of the relationships quite openly, often taking issue with the author herself (in contrast to the creator-worship of much of fandom) and calling her out on her uncritical attitude to the ethical issues she presents.
In itself this is nothing new: people, even the majority of people, have always found controversial works of art disgusting, horrifying and challenging, and have not generally failed to be vocal about it. However, it's interesting to me because of how it clashes with trend 1.
Fandom has always tended to be a place where the transgressive was, in some way, embraced. The earliest days of what we now know as modern fandom were founded on fanfiction, an inherently transgressive and controversial act on multiple levels: not only dallying with issues of copyright, but doing so in order to portray the characters in often explicit homosexual relationships. (A bolder act then than now: the first Kirk/Spock fanfic was published in 1974.) Fandom today continues to delight in the often dark and twisted nature of modern popular characters and plots, with questions that are too controversial to speak of openly being negotiated in coded language, as discussed above.
The first Kirk/Spock fanfic, incidentally, was also written in coded language of a different kind. Embracing these more controversial aspects of human (and Vulcan?) nature while veiling the ramifications from heavy discussion has also historically been a trait of fandom.
As such, fandom itself would not be the sphere in which we would expect to see such open criticism of Loveless' themes. I'm going to wager that the reason for this trend, which (judging on past experience with fandom) is fairly recent, is that fandom is increasingly beginning to engage with themes of social responsibility and ethics. The community metafandom is now almost exclusively dedicated to posts on how we can tackle racism, ableism, and other issues of prejudice within fandom and within fanfics; how we can accurately and sympathetically write characters suffering from abusive backgrounds, how we can sensitively portray transgendered characters. In fandom's past, these questions weren't raised. People wrote terrible and schmaltzy abuse fics just to see the characters' tears, played fast and loose with the concept of gender in Ranma 1/2, without considering the need for sensitivity; or at least, it wasn't considered as much.
Sensitivity is, undoubtedly, a good thing; particularly in the sphere of fanfiction where people are often endeavouring to improve as writers, not merely playing around, but also on a general ethical level. It's important that fandom asks these questions and turns a more critical eye on previously unexamined cruelties.
However, I also wonder if this sort of criticism will encroach into fannish space to the extent that the playful embrace of transgressive situations will become increasingly exposed and challenged. If the more ethically analytical sector of fandom begins to turn its lens on these coded expressions of lust, begins to dissect them and show them up for what they are, begins to say "I know your game"; and then begins to pass judgment in essay form, makes that judgment widespread as it has the (rightful, to be fair) judgment of sexism and racism and trans-ism in fandom; I wonder if it will drive this transgressiveness underground, to be replaced in the majority by solemn, critical analysis of Loveless' themes in a setting where it makes no more sense to lust after Ritsuka than to lust after Lolita.
It's not necessarily happening - I'm not that paranoid - but it could. And because it could, I think it's worth questioning whether that would be a good thing or not. Is the increasingly self-analytical, self-critical, self-conscious nature of fandom exclusively a good thing? Or are there areas where we might risk, if we push it too far, overriding the fact that human nature will always want to embrace the transgressive; replacing it with high ideals that seek to improve our species but fail to recognise or satisfy a deeper truth, pretending that if we speak out against them enough we'll be numb to the appeal of darker things?
And if so, how do we confront this? Can we, as a species, confront the truth about our lust - that it is in many cases separate from our ethical selves? Can we break it down and analyse it and still come out of it feeling okay? Or, in order to allow it to thrive at all, must we continue to be furtive? And can that furtiveness survive in the wake of critical analysis?
I think this is a question that's important to more than just fandom. But it's more vivid here: fandom, I think, is one of the places in society where raw human nature and the cutting edge of social progress are visibly meeting. It remains to be seen what will happen when they clash. I'm curious to find out.