fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #2893 ]

[ SECRET POST #2893 ]

⌈ Secret Post #2893 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 012 secrets from Secret Submission Post #413.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Slashfic doesn't make characters actually gay"

And yet people complain, often and loudly, often in this very comm, about that very thing. That slash shippers are trying to "turn characters gay."

Why the surprise that people would get upset when it goes the other way?

Yes, and those people are idiots.

I may expect people to be idiots about everything on the Internet but that doesn't make them right. Like, it's true that you could expect people to get pissed about this but how does that in any way male it a reasonable or correct argument

Unless you agree with that critique of slash in which case idk man

Because there's a wider issue involved in converting the gay character than there are involved with slashing.

A lot of people slash for the simple reason that they don't have representation of anyone like themselves in the media they consume. They don't get to see people like them being happy/having a successful relationship/achieveing things/saving the world, whatever. So they wish-fulfilment that via fanwork.

Then by some miracle TPTB decide that yes, actually they CAN get to see that in their media, only for fans with 99% of the cast to choose from to say "Nope, you can't have that represenation of you, we're going to make them straight too!"

The argument just doesn't work in reverse. A slash fan turning two characters out of a cast of 10, 20+ gay doesn't impact the overall heteronormativity. A fan turning the very few gay characters we're given in the first place straight makes an impact on the fans and on fandom, whether or not it changes canon.

HOW? How does it affect the fans and fandom? Does someone hold you donw and make you read it?

Or, do you just ignore it like you IGNORE EVERY OTHER PAIRING YOU DON'T CARE ABOUT.

Why would you want fandom to perpetuate something a harmful to a lot of people in fandom as the concept of gay conversion?

Because straight conversion? Not a thing. Gay conversion? Curing gays of that nasty homosexuality deviancy thing they've chosen so they can go on to be nice normal straights? A whole fucking industry, and if people don't enjoy seeing it in their fanworks then it's a whole lot more fucking justified than the reasons boo-hoo poor hets don't like slashers playing with their toys.

nayrt

1. If I had a nickel for every RL harmful idea and stereotype perpetuated in fanfic, I'd be ridiculously rich.

2. This has nothing to do with het shippers or slash shippers. WTF. Also, het shippers are not diametrically opposed to slash shippers.

3. I doubt anyone "wants fandom to perpetuate a harmful sterotype." Some people get off on fic that sexily portrays rape, or Stockholm Syndrome, or abusive relationships. Those are all bad things too, and those who write it normally don't believe it is a good thing if they're over 14 years old.

4. The trope of turning gay characters straight is REALLY REALLY RARE. I have never seen it once - the closest was a How I Met Your Mother RPF where Neil Patrick Harris got a crush on Cobie Smulders and was going "but, what, how can this be, I'm gay! I'm having character bleed!" It is so rare you really do not have to worry about "perpetuation of stereotypes." Because it is not a trope that really happens much. Anywhere. Ever.

From what I've seen, the vast majority of fanfic with slashing is not about finding representation. The average slash fan, while not opposed to representaiton, cares about 99% more about getting off to their slash fantasty then they do about getting representation.

So yeah, I don't really care if somebody's wank fuel goes the one way or the other on sexuality. I expect them to care about mine with similar apathy.

Do you really think 16 year old girls who want Sam and Dean to kiss in their wincest fanfic are really doing it for gay representation?

When I'm into a slash pairing, I'm 100% into it for the character dynamic but I also happen to look for greater LGBT representation in fiction. Not because gay = inherently interesting but because it's cool when stuff has different types of characters.

All the same, i wouldn't go through the endless frustration of holding others to that standard. Because your going to find it a lot less often. There's a lot of unapologetic PWP out there in the slash world as much if not more then the het.

Sure, but those are different things, aren't they?

I mean, at least for me, what I ship and what I take as representation are pretty much totally orthogonal.

This has been my experience, too, that the majority of slash shippers write the pairings they do primarily because they think it's hot. I don't doubt that appreciating character dynamics factors into it, too, since good chemistry (even if it's canonically platonic) makes for a compelling pairing. But I find it hard to believe that most slash shippers are motivated by the idea of "representation," (if you can even call incestuous Sam/Dean fic representational of healthy, normal homosexual relationships - personally, I wouldn't, and would find it insulting if the author claimed to be representing the LGBT community through that work.)

Plus, a lot of slash fics are explicitly sexual, and there's a whole category of PWP so you can read about (usually) two guys getting it on with no real context. I would argue that hypersexualizing gay relationships for the pleasure of readers just caters to the common, prejudiced perception of homosexuality being all about sex and sexual deviancy, and isn't helpful in terms of serious representation. Naturally there are mild, non-sexual slash stories, but they typically aren't as popular or widely read as the porn.

I think it's great when fans express their desire to see LGBT characters represented on their favorite shows - with so many creators and actors on Twitter, it's easier than ever to get the message out there. I just find it irritating when people try to claim their slash fanfiction functions as some kind of activism.

Nice stereotyping, there!

One of the reasons I hang around both slash and femslash spaces is that they give me a break from the relentless heteronormativity I have to deal with every day. No, they're not always realistic stories, sometimes they're downright wrong, but at least it's a change from seeing myself represented virtually nowhere in the mainstream media.

But no, you'd rather reduce us all to sixteen-year-old girls (which itself somewhat of an icky trope, that anything liked by teenage girls can just be written off as irrelevant, because teenage girls) who like an incest pairing.

IA that I don't like the idea of writing a fic that turns a gay character straight. I probably wouldn't be in a hurry to make friends with or read the fic of a person who wrote a fic like that.

BUT HOW DOES IT AFFECT YOU? It's not that difficult to just ignore the fic, just like people ignore fics that bash a character we like, or fics that ship a pairing we dislike, or write characters OOC. No one's making you read the fic, it's not going to affect canon, and it sure as hell is not about to become a common fandom trend.

The very fact that is exists at all when it's such a harmful and gross issue in reality, and IN REALITY affects a lot of people, is how it affects me.

Why the fuck would I want to go into a fandom where there was ANY trend towards the shit I get IRL about how gay is a choice, how I could be straight if I just tried, if I just met the right person? Why the fuck would I want to deal with people in fandom who either don't care or are ignorant of the issues they're fucking around with?

"If you don't like, don't read" is the shittiest straw man argument in the fucking world. I don't like opression in North Korea either, but I guess since I don't live there and it doesn't affect my daily life I can just turn a blind eye, right?

Things that affect real life people: Anything happening to real people in north korea.

Things that don't affect a single goddamn person except oversensitive twits like you: Somebody's Dumbledore/Hermonie fic

please tell me you aren't comparing the horrific events occurring in North Korea to feeling oppressed by people who write Dumbledore banging McGonagall or what the hell ever. please tell me that no one is that daft.

I don't like opression in North Korea either, but I guess since I don't live there and it doesn't affect my daily life I can just turn a blind eye, right?

Wow, seriously? You're seriously bringing up a ruthless dictatorship that has destroyed thousands of lives and things you don't like in fandom in the same thought? It's time to turn off the internet

Why the fuck would I want to go into a fandom where there was ANY trend towards the shit I get IRL about how gay is a choice, how I could be straight if I just tried, if I just met the right person? Why the fuck would I want to deal with people in fandom who either don't care or are ignorant of the issues they're fucking around with?

Then don't.

So okay I'm not even going to touch the NK thing but even I ship gay characters in straight pairings and I'm hella gay myself. It's this little thing called separating fiction from reality. And acting like pairing preferences have anything to do with conversion therapy is both weird and offensive as all hell.

Oh, waahmbulance time.

"People mustn't write about the non-PC stuff because if all that fic were true in real life, ppl would be wangsting and suffering and assorted feeeeels..."

Why not whine about how Darth Vader blows up planets and strangles folks using the Force? I mean, all events in fiction should be held to the EXACT SAME MORAL standards that real life events are, according to you.

no it doesn't

it doesn't do that at all

the total quantity of representation is unchanged in each case. i mean it's not like they would be making a ton of fan works where the character would be gay otherwise, they probably wouldn't be making anything. there's just no way I can figure that fans writing a character straight makes them straight

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ SECRET POST #2893 ]

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