partying like it's 2005
So I see that 
rarewomen has become
rarelywritten and has expanded its purview to include all characters who aren't cis males. Well, it's their exchange and they can do what they like with it, and I'm in no position to criticize considering that I've never participated. But this opening statement made me laugh and and roll my eyes, until I started to fume:
Since its inception, rarewomen has been about being a fanfiction exchange that seeks to correct the gender disparity of characters represented in fanworks. We have noticed a gap between number of stories written about cis-men and those written about other genders and sexes.
Really? Because my memory is that in origin
rarewomen was about writing for women who were less frequently written within their fandoms, or from rarely-written fandoms. (It was: I went to check.) And that was because outside of one particular fandom subculture, female characters are written just as frequently as male characters. It's as if the people responsible here have never heard about Harry Potter or X-Files (let alone anime! or the Hunger Games! or whatever the current big fandoms are), but think that fandom somehow went straight from Kirk/Spock and Starsky & Hutch to Sherlock, with maybe a detour via SGA (but nothing with Teyla or Weir or Carter, please) and the Star Wars prequel trilogies. I still remember going to the dealer's room at MediaWest in 1995 or 1996 and asking about X-Files fanfic, and being told that there just wasn't any. And of course, in that particular slash fan subculture, there wasn't much to be found. But my goodness was there actually a lot of XF fanfic in the end, and unsurprisingly most of it had a female character in it. Her name was Scully; you might remember her.
Guys, there is nothing wrong with writing and reading only or predominantly m/m fanfic! Just for the love of god, stop pretending that it's the only version of fandom there is! I understand if you find that you don't go to ff.net much because there isn't much there that you like to read, but stop pretending that AO3 is the largest place -- or even the only place -- on the internet to find fic. It isn't. Your community is not more legitimate than any other fanfic subculture!
I'm pretty sure we had this conversation on Glass Onion, for god's sake, and then every year thereafter somewhere on LJ. Can't we finally stop pretending that m/m slash is the one true way?
(Another way that this is like 2005: I'm posting meta unlocked on DW/LJ)
ETA: OK, so they are keeping the requirement that the character also be infrequently written. But I still boggle at the idea that female characters are less-written as a group, at least outside the circle of people who just prefer to write about male characters.
This entry has also been posted at http://vaznetti.dreamwidth.org/47384.html, where it has
comments. Please comment here or there, as you like.
rarewomen has become
rarelywritten and has expanded its purview to include all characters who aren't cis males. Well, it's their exchange and they can do what they like with it, and I'm in no position to criticize considering that I've never participated. But this opening statement made me laugh and and roll my eyes, until I started to fume:
Since its inception, rarewomen has been about being a fanfiction exchange that seeks to correct the gender disparity of characters represented in fanworks. We have noticed a gap between number of stories written about cis-men and those written about other genders and sexes.
Really? Because my memory is that in origin
rarewomen was about writing for women who were less frequently written within their fandoms, or from rarely-written fandoms. (It was: I went to check.) And that was because outside of one particular fandom subculture, female characters are written just as frequently as male characters. It's as if the people responsible here have never heard about Harry Potter or X-Files (let alone anime! or the Hunger Games! or whatever the current big fandoms are), but think that fandom somehow went straight from Kirk/Spock and Starsky & Hutch to Sherlock, with maybe a detour via SGA (but nothing with Teyla or Weir or Carter, please) and the Star Wars prequel trilogies. I still remember going to the dealer's room at MediaWest in 1995 or 1996 and asking about X-Files fanfic, and being told that there just wasn't any. And of course, in that particular slash fan subculture, there wasn't much to be found. But my goodness was there actually a lot of XF fanfic in the end, and unsurprisingly most of it had a female character in it. Her name was Scully; you might remember her.
Guys, there is nothing wrong with writing and reading only or predominantly m/m fanfic! Just for the love of god, stop pretending that it's the only version of fandom there is! I understand if you find that you don't go to ff.net much because there isn't much there that you like to read, but stop pretending that AO3 is the largest place -- or even the only place -- on the internet to find fic. It isn't. Your community is not more legitimate than any other fanfic subculture!
I'm pretty sure we had this conversation on Glass Onion, for god's sake, and then every year thereafter somewhere on LJ. Can't we finally stop pretending that m/m slash is the one true way?
(Another way that this is like 2005: I'm posting meta unlocked on DW/LJ)
ETA: OK, so they are keeping the requirement that the character also be infrequently written. But I still boggle at the idea that female characters are less-written as a group, at least outside the circle of people who just prefer to write about male characters.
This entry has also been posted at http://vaznetti.dreamwidth.org/47384.html, where it has
comments. Please comment here or there, as you like.