"DVD Commentary" on #209: Fear
sonofgranite asked about this doozy of a prompt. Here goes.
So, AIDS. I mentioned in the last commentary that I was dealing with some sensitive topics in that prompt; unsurprisingly the same applies here, and how.
Smecker constantly pushes me as a writer, more so than any of my muses to date. A lot of the areas he does push me in pertain to his orientation and his experiences as a result of that. I don't know whether this has to do with his being a canonically queer character rather than just a happily-slashed one, or just his personality, or what, but nevertheless whenever I'm writing about Paul's experiences as a gay man I feel the urge to make them as realistic as I can when writing from my perspective (i.e., not a gay man.)
I've been more or less on the slash side of fanfic for the last six or seven years, in various fandoms (most noticeably, and longest, Harry Potter, though there have been others), and so I feel semi-qualified to say that as queer-friendly as space as we are, we are generally dealing with a... how shall I put this? a romanticized? Idealized? Sanitized? queer perspective.
(Let me preface this right here with knowing that I am making generalizations here, and there are exceptions to everything I'm going to say. I'm merely speaking on general terms for what I've encountered in most fanfic I've read.)
What we're writing when we write slash fic is, you know, porn. It's fantasy, it's erotica, it's damn fun and I enjoy it and I've certainly written my share of straight-up porn for Paul, usually in an RP setting rather in prompts, and often it's also a very good character study of whoever we're writing about.... but that is usually where it stops. We tend to focus on Teh Gay as it impacts Teh Porn, and, hey, there's nothing wrong with that by and large since, well, we're writing porn. (I don't expect nor want an analysis of traditional gender roles in my het porn, usually...)
But there's a whole lot more to being gay than just who you happen to sleep with, just as there is a whole lot more to being straight than who you sleep with.
Specifically, if you're talking about someone who's in a modern-day setting and who doesn't have magical or alien or mutant powers of some sort that would shield them and their loved ones from all of this fall-out, you have all this other stuff that's formed them and informed them: the AIDS epidemic being one of the biggest.
Paul's also older than the average (again, I'm generalizing) 18-30 year old bracket of really popular characters to write and slash. He did grow up in a time when being an out homosexual meant you could be arrested. Not just beaten up by bigots, not just sent by your parents to a "gay camp", but actually criminally prosecuted because you had sex with another man.
This and a lot of other stuff all informs my writing of Paul as a gay man, as a character whose sexuality informs who he is in more ways than just He Has Sex With Men and, oh yes, He Dresses Well Too.
Dealing with stuff like this isn't, well, fun in any particular sense of the word (especially when it gets in the way of my porn!!!), but Paul as a muse... demands it of me, I suppose. He demands that I think about what I'm writing, that I do my best to portray him as a human being rather than a fantasy object, including all his flaws and bitterness and social history and everything else.
So: AIDS. I don't get to ignore something like this, something that would have had a huge impact on his life when it hit. And, being too young myself to actually remember the time period in question, I had to do a lot of research for this prompt to try and capture the feeling, the helplessness, the fear Paul talks about here. It was heart-breaking research for the most part; reading memoirs of people whose worlds were turned upside down by this, who lost maybe half their circle of friends to a terrible disease, and who were often told this was only what they deserved. This informs the prompt and also informs my understanding of Paul as a character-- just another glimpse of where some of his massive anger at the world comes from, and also a glimpse of his humanity, his (if I can say it without him shooting me for it) occasional nobility. Paul's anger comes, yes, from the injustices he personally has lived through, but also from the injustices he's seen happen to his friends, his lovers. He cares about people in a way that all his anger can't quite hide, and it comes out occasionally in prompts like this.
This wasn't an easy prompt to write, especially as I was dealing with 'outsider guilt' and doing my best to not fuck it up, for the sake of people who did have to live through this period. I tried very hard to write about the issue respectfully and compassionately, with the added knot of doing so from the POV of a character who far prefers to come off bitchy and cynical. The comments I received on this prompt, especially from john_h_holliday's mun and kaycee_jazz, really made me feel I had hit my mark, which was gratifying.
Let's see, what else... Mmm, this prompt is also somewhat unusual in that it shows Paul as a part of the queer community, when often he's something of an outsider there as well, just by his general standoffishness and brattiness. He tends to-- I'm not sure if distance himself is the right word, but he certainly tends to draw a mental distinction between himself and other, more, ah, PC queers... ("Just pour the drink, you fairy fuck" for instance...)
[I actually got into an argument a little while ago with a queer friend of mine regarding Paul's character. He felt that Smecker-as-presented-in-the-movie was a negative stereotype, a self-loathing gay man with issues about his own sexuality. I don't feel this is accurate, obviously; in my opinion it's everyone else's sexuality Paul has problems with, hahaha. He certainly does have some self-loathing issues, but they don't stem from his sexuality in the slightest.]
...anyway, in this prompt moreso than any others I can recall, Paul is very much in with the others, so to speak, in a way he usually doesn't reference or discuss. There's a common enemy that's bigger than his snark and his issues with other gay men, whatever those issues may be. There's something more important for him than his usual drawing-of-distinctions and finding-flaws, so for once he puts the bullshit aside and says, between the lines, yes, I am one of this group, I am one of these people, these are my tribe/family/what have you. It's very rare for Paul to feel that at all, so I suppose the prompt is interesting from that angle as well. Paul doesn't say "we" often, but he does here, a lot.
I'm not sure what else I can add about this prompt. One thing I still ponder about having included was the "Who Killed Cock Robin" nursery rhyme. I think it certainly fits the subject matter and that I used it effectively, but it is not perhaps in Paul's character voice to have quoted. Ah well. Artistic license, nyet?
So, AIDS. I mentioned in the last commentary that I was dealing with some sensitive topics in that prompt; unsurprisingly the same applies here, and how.
Smecker constantly pushes me as a writer, more so than any of my muses to date. A lot of the areas he does push me in pertain to his orientation and his experiences as a result of that. I don't know whether this has to do with his being a canonically queer character rather than just a happily-slashed one, or just his personality, or what, but nevertheless whenever I'm writing about Paul's experiences as a gay man I feel the urge to make them as realistic as I can when writing from my perspective (i.e., not a gay man.)
I've been more or less on the slash side of fanfic for the last six or seven years, in various fandoms (most noticeably, and longest, Harry Potter, though there have been others), and so I feel semi-qualified to say that as queer-friendly as space as we are, we are generally dealing with a... how shall I put this? a romanticized? Idealized? Sanitized? queer perspective.
(Let me preface this right here with knowing that I am making generalizations here, and there are exceptions to everything I'm going to say. I'm merely speaking on general terms for what I've encountered in most fanfic I've read.)
What we're writing when we write slash fic is, you know, porn. It's fantasy, it's erotica, it's damn fun and I enjoy it and I've certainly written my share of straight-up porn for Paul, usually in an RP setting rather in prompts, and often it's also a very good character study of whoever we're writing about.... but that is usually where it stops. We tend to focus on Teh Gay as it impacts Teh Porn, and, hey, there's nothing wrong with that by and large since, well, we're writing porn. (I don't expect nor want an analysis of traditional gender roles in my het porn, usually...)
But there's a whole lot more to being gay than just who you happen to sleep with, just as there is a whole lot more to being straight than who you sleep with.
Specifically, if you're talking about someone who's in a modern-day setting and who doesn't have magical or alien or mutant powers of some sort that would shield them and their loved ones from all of this fall-out, you have all this other stuff that's formed them and informed them: the AIDS epidemic being one of the biggest.
Paul's also older than the average (again, I'm generalizing) 18-30 year old bracket of really popular characters to write and slash. He did grow up in a time when being an out homosexual meant you could be arrested. Not just beaten up by bigots, not just sent by your parents to a "gay camp", but actually criminally prosecuted because you had sex with another man.
This and a lot of other stuff all informs my writing of Paul as a gay man, as a character whose sexuality informs who he is in more ways than just He Has Sex With Men and, oh yes, He Dresses Well Too.
Dealing with stuff like this isn't, well, fun in any particular sense of the word (especially when it gets in the way of my porn!!!), but Paul as a muse... demands it of me, I suppose. He demands that I think about what I'm writing, that I do my best to portray him as a human being rather than a fantasy object, including all his flaws and bitterness and social history and everything else.
So: AIDS. I don't get to ignore something like this, something that would have had a huge impact on his life when it hit. And, being too young myself to actually remember the time period in question, I had to do a lot of research for this prompt to try and capture the feeling, the helplessness, the fear Paul talks about here. It was heart-breaking research for the most part; reading memoirs of people whose worlds were turned upside down by this, who lost maybe half their circle of friends to a terrible disease, and who were often told this was only what they deserved. This informs the prompt and also informs my understanding of Paul as a character-- just another glimpse of where some of his massive anger at the world comes from, and also a glimpse of his humanity, his (if I can say it without him shooting me for it) occasional nobility. Paul's anger comes, yes, from the injustices he personally has lived through, but also from the injustices he's seen happen to his friends, his lovers. He cares about people in a way that all his anger can't quite hide, and it comes out occasionally in prompts like this.
This wasn't an easy prompt to write, especially as I was dealing with 'outsider guilt' and doing my best to not fuck it up, for the sake of people who did have to live through this period. I tried very hard to write about the issue respectfully and compassionately, with the added knot of doing so from the POV of a character who far prefers to come off bitchy and cynical. The comments I received on this prompt, especially from john_h_holliday's mun and kaycee_jazz, really made me feel I had hit my mark, which was gratifying.
Let's see, what else... Mmm, this prompt is also somewhat unusual in that it shows Paul as a part of the queer community, when often he's something of an outsider there as well, just by his general standoffishness and brattiness. He tends to-- I'm not sure if distance himself is the right word, but he certainly tends to draw a mental distinction between himself and other, more, ah, PC queers... ("Just pour the drink, you fairy fuck" for instance...)
[I actually got into an argument a little while ago with a queer friend of mine regarding Paul's character. He felt that Smecker-as-presented-in-the-movie was a negative stereotype, a self-loathing gay man with issues about his own sexuality. I don't feel this is accurate, obviously; in my opinion it's everyone else's sexuality Paul has problems with, hahaha. He certainly does have some self-loathing issues, but they don't stem from his sexuality in the slightest.]
...anyway, in this prompt moreso than any others I can recall, Paul is very much in with the others, so to speak, in a way he usually doesn't reference or discuss. There's a common enemy that's bigger than his snark and his issues with other gay men, whatever those issues may be. There's something more important for him than his usual drawing-of-distinctions and finding-flaws, so for once he puts the bullshit aside and says, between the lines, yes, I am one of this group, I am one of these people, these are my tribe/family/what have you. It's very rare for Paul to feel that at all, so I suppose the prompt is interesting from that angle as well. Paul doesn't say "we" often, but he does here, a lot.
I'm not sure what else I can add about this prompt. One thing I still ponder about having included was the "Who Killed Cock Robin" nursery rhyme. I think it certainly fits the subject matter and that I used it effectively, but it is not perhaps in Paul's character voice to have quoted. Ah well. Artistic license, nyet?