rather incoherent soapboxing

[frith_in_thorns]

Note: the general 'you' is in use throughout this post.

I want to link to this post by phaetonschariot today.  Go read it now, because the rest of this post is going to assume that you have.  It's meta, although it's headed like a fic, but the header is what's being discussed in the meta.

I lurk around quite a few meta places on LJ, and this topic's been flying

Comments

[x_varda_x]

Oh! You changed your layout! Nice birdie :)

Totally agree with you here. Orientation is not a warning, it's a genre/style as in: something to put in the summary like you would insert 'gen' or 'hurt/comfort'

I gave up on fanfic rants after I found that one about me and then this one. I'm not homophobic in the slightest and if anything I say ever comes across like that, I apologise. It's just I only like canon and only see what canon shows and tells us outright. I can't ever see any hidden subtext in stuff I watch or read. Much in the same way that I don't read uber AU fic.

I hope you don't mind I had to go look up asexual. But then I found this
and it made me cry. They make it sound like an illness! I... I... oh

[frith_in_thorns]

I like this layout :) Nice and simple.

Yeah - warnings for things like that are really annoying. But I confess that I was a little annoyed at your comment on that post, and to people who didn't know you it could easily have sounded like you were deliberately trolling.

Also, I thought you shipped Rodney/Teyla? And Rodney/Cadman? They aren't canon... ;)

And aww... ::hugs::

[x_varda_x]

But I confess that I was a little annoyed at your comment on that post,
Yeah, sorry about that. I backed away from it and stopped replying.

and to people who didn't know you it could easily have sounded like you were deliberately trolling.
You know me and my opinion sharing! I'm trying not to anymore. I don't look at that comm anymore or any of the 'rant' comms because of the temptation.

Also, I thought you shipped Rodney/Teyla? And Rodney/Cadman? They aren't canon... ;)
OMG LOL! I wrote Rodney/Cadman in Rodney's fantasy. But I've only done UST for Rodney/Teyla... so far...

There was that McShep story too, which I'll just skip over here... la la la ;)

[frith_in_thorns]

And there are also the Rodney/Cadman icons, banners, ship thread on GW... ;)

I think that the motto of the internet should be 'think before you post'! I know I'm guilty of this too - everyone is. Illustrated motto: http://xkcd.com/438/

Also, you should read friendshipper's comment below, she's managed to be much more eloquent than I did!

[sholio]

*nods* I hate warnings for slash (and I'm also frustrated by warnings for het, though I realize it's a completely different problem -- in those cases I get an "eww, icky girl bits in my slash!" feeling rather than an "eww, icky gay people!" feeling). It really feels like a holdover from an older time; it's like when you're just going along having a conversation with an older person who's intelligent and well-educated and seemingly open-minded, and then suddenly run smack into some wackadoodle belief they have about gay people or women or minorities that you thought all reasonable people stopped believing decades ago

[frith_in_thorns]

See, it took until I got into LJ fandom to even start noticing these things properly for the first time. (Before that I was on FFN for a while, but as I'm sure you've noticed, that place is... special.) So no, I've not run into any old posts by you from way back when. And if I ever do, I'll bear what you say in mind. I'm trying to remember what sort of opinions 16-year-old me held in 2006... I remember a fascination with WWI poetry and sky pirates, but can't think of anything specific. I don't think I thought about relationships much, being at a girls' boarding school. But I'd never really realised that there was a problem with some peoples' perceptions of gay relationships in such contexts as fandoms until quite recently. I think also, if you'll bear with me generalising based on probably skewed perspectives, I came across far less anti-gay prejudice growing up in the UK than I think I would have in the US, where there also seem to be far more objections with the excuse of religion. The only really religious person I

[sholio]

You were 16 in 2006? Um. *hides walker and cane* *g*

I don't think I really started thinking about this sort of thing -- the fannishly specific situation, I mean, not gay issues in general -- prior to LJ, either. I just didn't really know other fans (fanfic-reading fans, I mean, as opposed to comics/book/SFF fans, which is what most of my fannish friends were). I knew what I liked to read, but I wasn't particularly analytic about it, and most of what I was reading was gen anyway, so shipping didn't enter into it very much

[frith_in_thorns]

Yup, I'm going to finally stop being a teenager this weekend *g* I still feel a bit intimidated in this fandom, with all you gen people being older and much more experienced at writing and life than me...The thing with Ronon/Keller - in that slightly odd scene at the end of 'Tracker', Rodney asks him if he's interested in Keller, and Ronon to me basically says no, and then when Rodney's walking out the door he suddenly says 'What if I am?' and I saw that as him changing his mind on the spot to spite Rodney. But then, I didn't like season 5 Ronon all that much, especially since the writers suddenly seemed to decide to write him as being really thick, which annoyed me no end

[michelel72]

I got into SGA fandom too late for most of the taking of sides, fortunately. Even so, I remember that one of the first stories I read was "Freedom's Just Another Word", and at that time I considered it slash even though the author considered it gen. I've changed my mind on that, quite probably because of the discussion around that classification; that said, if the story is gen but assumes any pairings, I prefer to know what they are. (I've tried to follow that convention in my own writing, though I can't certify I always have or will.)

As for the main post: Yes, so much.

I have a good friend who used to be into fanfiction. I was pretty sure she was a level-headed, open-minded person as well. I shared with her a story I'd quite enjoyed, but she found it weird; a few minutes later, she added that back in her day, preslash stories required warnings.

Warnings. For preslash. One-sided M/M UST, in this particular case

[frith_in_thorns]

I haven't read that story, although I think I've heard it being mentioned before. Until recently I assumed that gen stories never had any pairings in - now I'm not so surprised when I find background pairings in them. And my sky pirate AU how long will it take before people get sick of me talking about sky pirates, I wonder? will have some background pairings in, but I'm intending to keep them low-profile enough for it to be classified as gen.

Warnings for preslash? Ok, I've never come across that viewpoint before. Especially as 'preslash' seems to basically be something that's in the eye of the beholder...

I hate that defence. "This is the way we've always done it, and I don't care if it's wrong and offensive - it's tradition." Because why should anyone take responsibilty themselves to stop discrimination against gays etc? And this is one of my rant buttons, so I'm going to shut up before I start insulting people/society/religion left right and centre :P