Lucy ([info]cereta) wrote in [info]ffsymposium,
@ 2005-04-16 15:39:00
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M.P. discusses The Good, the Bad and the Ugly in (Game) Fanfiction.

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[info]ghostgecko
2005-04-17 01:06 am UTC (link)
*Of course, slash is the fangirl’s answer to the decades-old, socially accepted male lesbian fantasies.*
I have to disagree. Although this may be correct in some cases (just putting two prett guys together because they're pretty) I believe in a lot of cases there is a deeper social and psychological reason for slash pairings. A lot has been written about this: you should read it. Briefly, because female characters are often disempowered in popular culture, female writers (who are, of course, as complex as any other human being) turn to using male characters because they feel the female characters don't give them enough to work with.

*A good reason for slash fanfiction stories (i.e. not completely self-indulgent) is that you are homosexual yourself and want to write a story which validates your sexual tastes. However, even so, I think that it’s more valid to take characters that at least provide some justifiable basis for such theories.*
Sounds like kind of a double standard. Okay, I am a gay male fanfic writer, and I do get angry when essays refer to "fangirls" as if writer like me are mere sideshow abberations. But seriously, as long as one stays in character you shouldn't feel compelled to bring the story to a screeching halt and explain everything (even tho I am a hypocrite - I usually do explain).

*For example, if you like Ashley + Sidney from Vagrant Story, keep in mind that Ashley was married and had a kid, and at least acknowledge this.*
*head/desk* Lots of gay men have families and we even have kids! That's no longer acceptable as a reason for denying a slash pairing.

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[info]fides
2005-04-17 01:03 pm UTC (link)
I must admit that I also found the section on slash a little hard to take. Surely the summed up version "I just don't like/do slash" would have been quicker and less likely to cause "discussion".

Sure there is the 'two guys are hot' element but as has already been said that is only a small part of a complex whole.

Apparently I am totally self-indulgent since I am one of the straight girls writing m/m fan fiction however I am not entirely sure I understand how writing a story to validate your own sexuality (not, I hasten to add, that I think that is why the many wonderful gay and bi writters do it) is any less self-indulgent than writing one because that is how you see the characters or because it is fun. Surely writing for self-validation is about as self-indulgent as you can get. I have known more bi writers than gay ones but from that sample I don't think I have spoken to any who feel the need to validate themselves at all (they know they and their sexual tastes are perfectly valid) let alone do so by projecting themselves into a piece of fan fiction. Explore issues and politics, yes. Add in what gets missed out, yep. Validate, nope. Maybe that is just the group(s) I hang around with. I'm sure there are some people who write fan fiction to validate themselves and their tastes (whether sexual or otherwise) but I don't think that is limited to any genre. It also tends to make for bad stories imho.

Yes, stories are better when the reader and the writer agree on who is attracted to who or the writer can convince the reader of their point of view. That is the same whether the story is slash, het or gen. What say 'oh they are so made for each other' to one person will have another going 'huh?'. What counts as a "justifiable basis" is very different for different people as is the justifiable basis for disallowing a pairing.

And this leads on to whether or not slash writers are trying to convince anyone that all the characters are gay. Ummm... well we aren't all the same people will the same opinions on which characters go together or not. Sure if you take everyone's ideas then you will probably have covered just about every character but not everyone believes all those characters will end up getting squelchy (or just having feelings for) someone of the same gender. Most writers I know will only write for a few relationships in any given canon.

I don't know that much about game based fic but most of the cases I know about with a big slash following are the very anime related games. If you concider anime in general there is a stong tradition of bishonen characters having a slightly ambigious sexuality even when they are straight. It would therefore make sense for people to see the more bishi-esque characters in the same way.

Possibly game-fic has a higher proportion of people matching up the "pretty" characters just for that reason - maybe related to the fact that there is argueable less oppotunity for character and character development in computer games than there is on a TV show thus making it more difficult to match on subtext. However the comments made in the section on slash and yaoi suggested a lack of knowledge and understanding about that genre and the writers in it.

I do however agree with the overall conclusion: "read what you like". I'm just not convinced that someone writing about their personal likes and dislikes should be throwing the word 'self-indulgent' around even though they are also (presumably) applying it to themselves as a reader.

:-)

Fides

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