fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #488 ]

⌈ Secret Post #488 ⌋

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

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 06 pages, 150 secrets from Secret Submission Post #070.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 1 - broken links ], [ 1 2 3 - not!secrets ], [ 1 - not!fandom ], [ 1 2 - too big ], [ 1 - posted twice ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

06. I-I think I love you for this secret. ♥

Really, it's kinda funny this should crop up now, since I just wrote a huge paper for my senior seminar on a similar issue -- intimate female relationships in the Victorian era and how loads of scholars absolutely insist that there was no way any of it was sexual at all, EVER. The "no lesbians before 1900" argument, one writer calls it. Just because it wasn't talked about (or was severely repressed) doesn't mean it didn't exist, dammit. (Though on the flip side, I can see why people would be hesitant to make claims about specific people.)

09. ME TOO. Actually, I usually read it more like "Kingdom Hearts Rants," and, well... almost the same thing, really.

12. Is this the "stop making characters who are (perceived by me as) straight gay (because I can't possibly envision them that way)!" thing again? :/ Just because a character only has heterosexual relationships on-screen doesn't mean s/he can't be attracted to people of his/her own sex, y'know.

13. CCS is absolutely adorable, and I'd definitely recommend it if you're into cutesy romantic fluff. As far as TRC, well... the soundtrack's fantastic. Can't really vouch for the rest, though; I haven't been exposed to much CLAMP.

15. I've said it before and I'll say it again: Because canon pairings are boring. Slash, het, femslash, whatever, it holds true. There's less room to work with 'em, and sometimes they're handled absolutely miserably.

Oh, and shounen series are more widely available than yaoi series because they appeal to a wider audience (read: non-slashers). Also, they're about fifteen times as long, which helps.

33. Damn, I can see why. Well done.

45. There are lots of anime with plots that make sense. AC was just gratuitous fanservice ~~meant to hook people into the Compilation cash cow, and holy gods did it ever work~~. It makes no sense without the background of FFVII, and even with that background it... still really doesn't make much sense. And yeah, there are plenty of anime with plots like that, but still.

......also, why the hell is FF8 on there? Definitely not anime.

48. Sounds like you need to take a step back from all your slash-obsessed friends and clear your mind for a week or two. Go on sabbatical. 'Cause it seems like you're taking your resentment towards them out on gay people, and that is just not fucking cool.

...Also, you might want to find better friends. Or at least tell the ones you have that look, YOU DON'T WANT TO TALK ABOUT SLASH.

50. I fucking love that picture, ahahaha.

51. This is why I just say "I don't like mecha anime" and leave it at that. (Well, except Escaflowne. But I dunno, that was still fantasy enough that it didn't bore me like most mecha series do.)

53. HELL YES. Linguistics FTMFW.

56. Ugly? Wha?

58. All I have to say is

icor is my hero for writing the world's first Cissnei/Aeris porn. ♥ GO READ IT (http://community.livejournal.com/skystones/6033.html). YOU KNOW YOU WANT TO.

Not!Secret 1: I know, right? At least find someone whose hair fits the description.

Too Big 2: Seriously? Why? She and Cuddy are two of the least annoying women on there.

Okay, first-off, yes, people who have straight relationships can also have gay ones. But the thing is, with TV shows or books or any sort of creative media, you have characters who have straight relationships because that's how the author/creator is writing them. Unless the purpose of the project is a dissertation on the nature of percieved sexuality, or they start having gay relationships later on, odds are high that the character is actually straight.

Secondly, I don't care if people like yaoi/slash/bi/het/whatever. I really don't, ship what you want, have a blast. I just wish that the yaoi/slash wasn't so prevailent that I could actually find stuff in my fandoms that I wanted to read/look at/what have you without having to spend hours combing through pages of stories/pictures/etc. I'm just venting frustration, never claimed to be a saint.

Honestly, for many characters, it's probably more truthful to say that odds are high the author/creator never even considered the possibility the character could ever be attracted to someone of the same sex. Unless a character outright states his or her preferences (which few ever do), we really can't assume that only the romances that are explicitly stated are wholly indicative of the character's sexuality.

What it really comes down to, I suppose, is the classic argument of authorial intent, and whether or not such is relevant to an analysis of the text. And that's something we could talk circles on forever without getting anywhere.

As for your second point, though? Man, do I ever feel you. My current main fandom has a cast in which the men outnumber the women two to one, easy, and it's impossible to so much as turn your head without seeing slash plastered all over. It doesn't usually bother me, but sometimes it's frustrating as all hell. Thankfully, the het's not too rare (although finding stories I honestly enjoy for pairings I prefer can be... interesting, to say the least), but femslash? Let alone good femslash? All but nonexistent. (Granted, I've gotten more picky as I've gotten older, but still.)

I wholly agree with you on the author intent point. And even if we were able to come to an agreement on that point, intent alone is only a portion of the finished work; so much of a work's quality is determined by how the audience percieves it, which can't be controlled. Someone could write a book with the intention of saying one thing, but the readers could percieve something else entirely and nothing the author could do would change that. Sometimes it works to the benefit of the creators and adds more depth that wasn't intended, and sometimes it's a hinderance if it comes across as contradictory or offensive. So really, there are limitless ways that something could be interpreted. I guess I tend to lean on the side of what I believe the creator's intent was, since that's typically what I tend to see as making the most sense for the story/characters.

And yeah, it's tough being the odd one out in fandom, especially when you're not a very good writer or artist yourself. And yeah, especially when you're picky. ;)

06. There's this hilarious chapter in David Rigg's The World of Christopher Marlowe where he's trying to deal with the argument that Marlowe was gay. It's reasonably interesting from a historical point of view - about homosocial bonding, men sharing beds due to money issues - and then he gets into the whole, "He may have had sex with men. But he wasn't gay or bi. He might have written about it, but that was part of the classical poetic rhetoric he was taught. Look, if he did have sex with men, it was just because there were no prostitutes in Cambridge, all right?"

It's kind of depressing to read all the sidestepping people do on the issue, though. (Though, one documentary on Robert Baden-Powell dealt with his sexuality head on and concluded he was probably asexual, but there was certainly something in the claim he was gay. I mention this because it's tangentially related and the documentary was presented by Ian Hislop, who's one of my heroes.) It's why if I'm going to read gay history, I stick to people like Graham Robb.

[ SECRET POST #488 ]

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