tonight's ramble: most fans are boring, this post will be boring too

[philippos42]

Here, have a nice video. I'm going to say some harsh things about fandom, & thus most likely about you. So I'll start with something positive, and it makes a good soundtrack.
(thanks to Yamino)

Click to view

I long ago got sick of the sort of fan (consistently male) whose fandom conversation substantially exists of proclamations of how badass his particular

Comments

[janegray]

I find it completely understandable if some het person fantasizes about turning Northstar straight. That makes sense to me on some level--the character, just "improved" to be more like a certain ideal. It doesn't even have to be a girl fantasizing that he's her (or her proxy character's) boyfriend. It can just be a matter of trying to tie a character you like to something in your personal identity or ideals. Reimagining Wonder Woman as a Christian? Sure, I can see where that comes from.
So by analogy I understand someone using fic to turn a character gay.

Dude, sorry but I have to be blunt: that's bullshit.

You seriously believe that yaoi fans ship two supposedly-straight (more on this later) guys together because they idealize homosexuality? What the fuck?

No. No, the vast majority of yaoi fans ship two supposedly straight guys together because there are no canon gay couples. So, if you happen to like a little variety, you have no choice but to make it yourself

[philippos42]

You're not wrong.

Of course, I know that Midnighter/Apollo, Mystique/Destiny, Dumbledore, and especially Northstar were always meant to be gay (Northstar was originally written as closeted). Some fans didn't get it, or didn't approve.

I didn't expand on this in my post, I'll let your response do that because I think you cover it better than I could.

What I meant was that fans often impose what they want to see on the text. And that can be trying to norm characters to a moral or normative standard, or trying to force deviation from such a standard. And fanfic by nature is additive/transformative of character where it's not very straight pastiche.

It's usually poorly done, & I find fandom pretty boring for the most part.
And sometimes it's so haphazard that it's comical.

As for insisting that You Gotta Have Gays, I think that's the same kind of silliness as You Gotta Have Jews. Not every team is going to have a queer pairing, & creating new queer ships often leads to conflict with existing straight ships, and what do you get then?

[janegray]

What I meant was that fans often impose what they want to see on the text. And that can be trying to norm characters to a moral or normative standard, or trying to force deviation from such a standard.

But the point is that the motivation is completely different.

If 99,99% is X, and a fan gets tired of that and decides to turn some of that X into Y, the motivation is a simple and harmless desire for variety.

If 99,99% is X, and a fan decides to turn the 0,01% Y into X so that it's 100% X, the motivation is hatred for anything that's different.

This is why your statement that "so by analogy I understand someone using fic to turn a character gay" rubs me off the wrong way. The analogy doesn't work at all. When the VAST majority of characters in fiction are straight, then turning a straight character gay is NOT the same thing as turning a gay character straight. You are comparing an innocent desire for variety with homophobia.

As for insisting that You Gotta Have Gays, I think that's the same kind of silliness as You Gotta Have Jews