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A space to chat fandom! Anon!

Got a WIP you're excited about? Want to rave about your fave? Or is your fandom absolutely in love with a character who detracts from every scene they bumble into, and you need somewhere to vent? You're in the right place!

(start a comment thread by replying to this post)

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From: (Anonymous)

I'm sorry, my favorite "yaoi" is when they've headcannoned a male character to be trans so that ACTUAL HET SEX IS DESCRIBED. Why is that the only way to get actually hot het sex in fanfic???!??

From: (Anonymous)

:D I haven't actually seen that but I think it's because I normally avoid slash and especially yaoi. I do feel the dearth of good het, tho. Tbh idk if I could find ftm/m hot, my brain is like "too much short hair, no thanks". I'm trying to picture the dynamic now and I'm just imagining someone going "SURPRISE VAGINA!!!1" I could get behind "woman disguised as man, man finds out it's a disguise, blackmails her to keep her secret" but why do I get the feeling ftm/m would involve a lot of pronoun discussions and earnest monologues about caring for 'him' no matter what...

From: (Anonymous)

Nah, you gotta find the ones using a magical realism approach. No discussion, no explanation. No or very little expressed surprise. Just banging. Single chapter filter is way to go. I have enough fandoms where all of the most interesting characters are male, but I still want some hot het sex, this approach is way less annoying than gender bending and the fic author trying to ~say something meaningful~ about gender roles.

If you try using the "Vaginal Sex" tag on ao3, the majority of the results are m/m pairings... most of them are trash, of course, but that goes for anything.

From: (Anonymous)

Ah, unfortunately I seem to be so incredibly turned off by m/m that I think even someone having once been a man kinda kills it for me. I really need a character I can think of as a woman in the scene. When I enjoy m/m it tends to be because it's written as part of some kind of power struggle thing and the sex is part of some kind of psychological warfare between the characters, or something like that; you could probably replace it with a boxing match to the same effect. xD I'm someone who likes the buildup and tends to find actual banging really boring (to say Ao3 doesn't cater to that is the understatement of the century :P). Sounds corny but I like vicariously feeling everyone's emotions! So I like that stereotypical Nora Roberts-style romance novel format that NOBODY WRITES. ;_; And ideally darker. So I hadn't searched that tag, but that's hilarious! I tend to only read shorter fanfic anyway (2000ish word filter for me) because I'm so finicky about it, and that does seem to avoid the worst stuff, even if there's not much of it. Though the more I think about it, the more I just love the idea of someone sitting down for some erotica and getting a lecture on all the flags in the genderwiki. I'm tempted to write one just to troll. Start off with some kinda godforsaken omegaverse setting and then right when they're about to fuck, cut to 'hang on, can I just check your pronouns?' and go from there. A metaphor for the GC internet experience.

From: (Anonymous)

Yeah, to be clear, when I read these fics, I don't think of the characters as "having once been a man" or anything. The canon version is a man, this is noncanonical and the character's a woman (however confused), let's get down into it. Hmm... let me rustle up an example.

Okay, here we go. It's probably too horny (and not dark enough) for your tastes, so click at your own discretion, but I find this example especially hilarious because the female character is a babysitter... can you name a gendered-as-a-woman role? But no discussion of trans identification, nothing. We've taken the canon and tossed it out the window, just to get an abrasive, demanding female character starring in a sex fantasy.
https://archiveofourown.org/works/13803120

But, yeah, no surprise that I have mostly stopped reading fic and started reading more and more romance novels.

From: (Anonymous)

Yeah, I feel like my brain can't do it for fandoms I'm familiar with? It's just like 'he's a man tho' or would remind me every time I saw the name. xD Maybe would work for fandoms where I wasn't already familiar with the characters. I just read the fic you linked (I don't know the canon for that at all) but yeah I just read them as men (thanks pronouns)! So I had the SURPRISE VAGINA experience lol. Also just like all those mentions of the other guy's abs and adam's apple and things; the whole thing I don't like about slash is that I don't like men's bodies and slash is like EXTRA MAN... (Which I think is the same reason loads of women DO like it ;)) So for me it just feels like they're spoiling a good het by putting more man in it when I'm there to see the woman, like why obscure her? But I can see why someone would like that style if they found male features sexy since yeah, it gets to the point! And I have the same issue with my pool of fandom characters being mostly male... but I find their very male-ness offputting. It's tragic. :P

From: (Anonymous)

Haha, yeah, I like the focus on male bodies but find anal GROSS GROSS GROSS in general so this works as a nice compromise for me. I can ignore the wrong pronouns pretty easily.

Oh, the search for major female-centric fandoms which aren't ruined by being designed for the male gaze ... honestly the closest I've found is Heyer or DWJ. They're not major but you can still find good fics.

From: (Anonymous)

Yeahhh, that's the thing, I want my *fic* to have something similar to the male gaze (ie: I want to perv on the women), but I don't want the canon to be designed around that because it just ends up goofy and sexist; it's just got this whole stupid-at-best-exploitative-at-worst vibe when it's for men. So I suppose I want stuff with a cute nearly-all-female cast with the odd token man or male villain, made by women. And it feels like there aren't a lot of people making that kind of thing. I suspect it's a reason I was drawn to anime years back.

From: (Anonymous)

NA
>cute nearly-all-female cast with the odd token man or male villain
I was gonna say Precure, but then you mentioned the anime thing. xD

From: (Anonymous)

Hah, hadn't seen that actually but just image searched and WOW that is PINK. xD Is it good? But yeah I think a draw of anime for me was that there were a lot where everyone looked feminine, the art was *pretty*, the stories were often really dark and it feels like there were wayyy more female creators around than with western comics. I was into CLAMP and stuff. (well, as much as I could be, given I couldn't find it ANYWHERE growing up :P But I like that combo of beautiful art and fabulous costumes; I'm a sucker for stuff where the characters get a new costume every episode! And I also like dark storylines... I feel quite alienated in radfem spaces over this because they seem to really like family-friendly stuff and generally it's not my thing. suppose I should make an anime thread...)

From: (Anonymous)

AYRT

Precure is kinda confusing to get into, since it's a bunch of different magical girl shows all under the Pretty Cure name. But it's aimed at kids, girls especially, and so you don't get all the creepy fanservice. I've only seen a few seasons (it's loooong) but they're sweet and cheerful (until everybody almost dies at the end of the world, LOL) and very femslash friendly. Maho Girls Precure is my favorite season - the main two girls are THIS CLOSE to canon, and it's got kind of a Harry Potter vibe.

Yeah, I love radfem spaces but I don't really feel comfortable talking about, say...Hannigram there, LOL.

From: (Anonymous)

ayrt

Cool, may check it out! :)

Yeahhhh, I get on well with the women who *create* the spaces, and I like a lot of the women who are very visible in the movement, but it seems like the people who post the most on radfem online boards are... not people I'd hang out with. :P So I'm currently using those spaces for keeping tabs on political stuff, but I miss having spaces where I can just hang out and chat about stuff I like (or mock stuff I dislike without feeling like it's going to encourage a pile-on), and joke, etc. I always felt very at home in geek spaces and it's just a different crowd that I click better with. BUT geekdom's on the hate-JKR train at the moment so I've lost those spaces. Sucks, man.

From: (Anonymous)

DA

I feel this. Fandom people were always the people I clicked with. There are people in the radfem world I really like, but very few that I have clicked with like that (the one I like most is someone I have known for decades outside of media fandom, but we met at a con in the first place, long before either of us had the beliefs we have now) or would like to hang out with. I have missed just talking casually about fandom.

I mean, as someone who's a big fan of many things that get tagged with dead dove do not eat, there is no way in hell I would talk about my fannish interests in radfem spaces. I bite my tongue about enough stuff in them as it is.

From: (Anonymous)

ayrt

Yes. Same. I like my fic dark, and it especially pisses me off when I'm getting lectured by some kid who's learned radfem theory from a book. Fuck off, I've lived it, I got away, I have lovely supportive personal relationships as it happens, you are a child.

My people are fans, hackers, women who write; the subcultures that are getting fucking RAVAGED by gender bullshit (*because* we don't conform to those norms! *because* we were always out of place, and were more likely to find people we clicked with online!) because it took advantage of the same qualities that make those communities so much fun, and now I feel like I'm waiting out a virus.

From: (Anonymous)

AYRT

::high fives::

I keep HTP fic and Dworkin side-by-side on my Kindle. I feel no shame in that. Even with the madness going on right now, I am always going to feel protective of fandom, and I am always going to be frustrated by the simplistic outsider POV of what’s going on right now. (No, slash didn’t cause this, FFS. No, it’s not just straight girls fetishizing m/m. Half my friends are old enough to have been from the ‘zine days. Many of them are lesbians or have been in serious same-sex relationships. Most of them strongly prefer m/m. Curiously, none of them have been hit with a case of the genders, even though they’re pretty much all down with the BS.)

From: (Anonymous)

ayrt

Yeah, also something I found lurking on ffa was that... most of the people there are still pretty sane, they just have no idea what's going on and are trying to be nice. Of those identifying as nb, many are in the 'don't realise that nonbinary isn't going to work politically and don't realise that all their media is lying to them' camp. Fairly recently there was a thread where some tra mentioned they hated keira bell and everyone else was like 'who is keira bell?'; the tra tried to bullshit but didn't really get the response they wanted. I actually think the pro-TRA stuff on there is mostly a couple of loud anons who spam... but people are still trying to be nice and haven't twigged that it's not a legit civil rights movement yet. And I completely understand fandom women feeling ill-at-ease in what tend to get marketed as women-only spaces, when they tend to have a culture that is totally alien to those of us with geeky interests... and I totally get thinking 'there is a difference between those women and me'. There being a difference doesn't mean you're a man. But they're not imagining that they do not click with these women.

And yeah, anyone who uses the term 'fetishising gay relationships' goes on my red flag list, lol. It's a completely different dynamic to men fetishising lesbians to the point where r/lesbians is a porn sub for men and lesbians can't get a space without it being banned by men who want to be them. I think slash is going to contribute inasmuch as it's encouraging girls to imagine themselves as men (IN A CULTURE WHERE THEY ARE BEING TOLD THEY CAN BE MEN THAT IS THE IMPORTANT BIT) but it's like, 'have you thought about where this line of thought leads? you want to ban people from imagining being someone else? do you want to ban fiction?' -- And that's exactly the same attitude as the extreme socjus stuff that's like 'you may not write this unless you have lived it, and then it must be ~responsible~. Just, fuck off, all'o'ya. It's not feminism, it is the very same bullshit mindset that's causing these problems in the first place. And plus we all know it's because they, personally, do not like slash, and they can't handle the idea that morality doesn't have to map 1:1 with whatever they personally like and dislike. They'd have all been homophobes a few years back because they think their kneejerk reactions are a god-given guide to what's right.

Well, that's my rant.

From: (Anonymous)

DA

Counterpoint: I like some slash, I like some yaoi, I have geeky interests, but I am absolutely turned off by the extreme focus on m/m in fandom. I don't understand why there isn't more decent m/f, and I think the focus on m/m relationships is less healthy and interesting than writing good, dynamic m/f relationships. I'm not out to ban anything, people can like what they like, but the focus on m/m has made me shy away from fandoms where I like the source material. I'm not going to stand out there and preach to anyone about their personal fandoms or fic, but if we're having meta discussions about fandom, overfocus on m/m IS a huge red flag to me.

From: (Anonymous)

ayrt

I find it a bit funny that I end up arguing for slash and yaoi so much because I personally cannot stand yaoi, I think it is based on a lot of sexist tropes, and slash generally bores me. I don't like men's bodies and don't much want to picture them. I mostly write gen. So I suspect I recognise the feelings that are motivating those who are stridently against it, but to me the issues with yaoi are a symptom of deeper cultural issues, and those who treat it as the *cause* are just displacing anger they should be directing at men onto other women. And I'm very very glad I didn't fall into that trap because I could see past-teen-me going along with it because it matched up with my personal tastes. And I'm glad I met women who liked it so I got to find out that some people just like it, instead of wasting time psychoanalysing how they had acquired their preferences or assuming they couldn't think critically. :P

From: (Anonymous)

AYRT

I don't think should slash be blamed for transing people without looking at the general culture, and liking dark fic doesn't make you degenerate, but... man, I've seen fic writers go down a path: start out writing slash that's only remarkable because it's higher quality than usual, start including more non-con, then some incest, fast forward and everything is bdsm or piss fetishes or similar. I don't know, maybe you can keep a Chinese wall between that and the rest of your life, I don't know these writers offline, but that's a progression that does make me worried/concerned, and I've never seen it go the OTHER direction.

From: (Anonymous)

Huh, I've not seen that yet (I've seen people write more extreme stuff over time, but not to the exclusion of other work). There's a big difference between what I like in fantasy and what I do irl, so I'd assume they're just desensitised to fictional stuff by default, or expressing things they were thinking about but scared to share earlier. I'm more concerned about people assuming that what they read'll be fun to try out, and I think that's where people really suffer atm because those conversations can't happen when people are so polarised. You can't say 'be careful; irl bdsm scene does not match up with what you're reading' when the camps are 'liking bdsm in fiction means you need therapy' and 'IT'S ALL GOOD NOTHING TO SEE HERE'. So then you get dodgy men false-teaming with women who enjoy fucked up fantasy, and I don't think that leads anywhere good.

Depth: 21

Re: Every time someone bashes yaoi...

From: (Anonymous) - Date: 2021-04-10 08:04 pm (UTC) - Expand

Depth: 20

Re: Every time someone bashes yaoi...

From: (Anonymous) - Date: 2021-04-10 09:51 pm (UTC) - Expand

From: (Anonymous)

DA I find it funny that I defend it as much as I do, too. I haven’t been interested in writing it for years, mostly write het, femslash, and gen, but like you, I see the issues as reflecting deeper cultural issues. Yaoi feels like it is a coping mechanism, not a cause.

Depth: 20

Re: Every time someone bashes yaoi...

From: (Anonymous) - Date: 2021-04-11 02:17 am (UTC) - Expand

From: (Anonymous)

NA

Have any of you guys read the manga My Lesbian Experience With Loneliness? There's this part where she's trying to figure out sex with a woman, but suddenly realizes that all of the porn she's read has been about the "yaoi hole" - that she kind of hid her fear about sex by reading m/m that had no relation to the real world or real bodies at all. It freaked me out when I read it, because that's pretty much exactly how I got into m/m - when I first read m/m, it grossed me out! I hate penises! But I got into it, and eventually found it hot. Only I realized that it was hot to me as men-who-were-basically-women, written by women. Slash ended up basically being a coping mechanism for me so I didn't have to think about RL sexuality, in a way. I mostly ship f/f now and it feels more natural to me (just wish there was all the fic and porn that m/m got, LOL).

From: (Anonymous)

Interesting! I haven't read it.

I tend to fantasise about het but I can't tell if that's cultural conditioning or not, since I find men's bodies kind of repulsive visually and prefer to look at women, and I don't feel attracted to anyone. I don't read much f/f but again idk how much of that is conditioning. When I fantasise, I've noticed I put myself in the shoes of one of the women in f/f scenarios whereas I watch f/m scenarios from the outside. I can occasionally make myself fantasise about m/m but it's a struggle. Like, two men, why would I wanna look at that? There's nothing to look at! Whereas I absolutely *know* what kind of dynamics I like, scenario-wise, emotion-wise. So I wonder if I just put men in them because those are the characters who are depicted as having certain emotions and it's hard to imagine a female version that isn't a dorky created-by-a-man implausible kind of thing. And then it's not like fandom is rushing to supply good f/f/. It's interesting seeing how different different people's experiences are.

Depth: 20

Re: Every time someone bashes yaoi...

From: (Anonymous) - Date: 2021-04-10 11:08 pm (UTC) - Expand

From: (Anonymous)

NA

OMGGG on the pronouns thing. Like, I've seen that NB romance novels have started being a thing and...I don't get it?? How do you write the sex scenes without describing the genitals?? It's all so fucking coy. There was this one f/f book of short stories I read and SURPRISE! One of the stories was actually TIM/f. But while the other stories had porn, this one was entirely fade to black and had such stuff as "she touched her down there" LMAOOO. It was so unclear you couldn't tell what was happening.