Case (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
case) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
fandomsecrets2008-06-27 05:00 pm
case) wrote in fandomsecrets2008-06-27 05:00 pm
[ SECRET POST #539 ]
⌈ Secret Post #539 ⌋
Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.
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Notes:
Secrets Left to Post: 00 pages, 00 secrets from Secret Submission Post #077.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 1 2 - broken links ], [ 1 2 3 4 5 - not!secrets ], [ 1 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 1 2 3 - repeat ], [ 1 - response ], [ 1 2 - personal attack ], [ 1 - troll; yes, I remember it's you ]
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.
no subject
Some of us are simply sick of the stereotypes that go along with set top/bottom relations in fandom - and strive for more realism all around.
See, I totally get this but it's weird to me that the majority of fandom discussion about this revolves around sexual positioning. That people who advocate and choose to fight stereotyping or bad characterisation use of all things, who tops or who bottoms as the basis of their argument. Does having set sexual positions preclude a fic from having good characterisation or something? Conversely, is someone lauded just for being so avant garde as to 'switch up' their characters without having to actually work harder on the human believability of the relationships? If fandom is striving for more realism all round, then why continue pointing out the 'seme/uke' distinction as lazy shorthand for bad writing when it would be clearer to actually get behind the mechanics of the fic and highlight what doesn't work on that level: lack of background/motivation/ stilted/overwrought dialogue/ emotional shallowness etc. Boiling it all down to a disdain for the seme/uke cliché confuses the problem with its manifestation and it makes the supposed solution, "switching roles" become just as susceptible to becoming a fandom stereotype as the predecessor its trying to combat.
no subject
Because the problems with most of the badly characterized yaoi fics really do stem from the whole stupid seme/uke stereotype, from what I've seen. The mischaracterization usually is as follows: the taller/older one is the stoic, manly, slightly manipulative seme, and the younger/shorter/long-haired one is the girly, cutesy, uke who tends to cry at the drop of a hat and get emotional over stupid things (or very uncharacteristic things). These stereotypes stem from - and reach to - their positioning in bed. Whoever is on top is the "man", and whoever's on the bottom is "a really pathetic excuse for a female stereotype". Disdain for the 'seme/uke stereotype' sums up the entirety of the issue quite neatly.
The whole movement for 'switching roles', the way I see it at least, is simply a call for people to recognize that the position in bed =/= the personality of the character. There are plenty of good fics where the characters don't switch roles, and in most cases, they're not accused of having seme/uke stereotypes anyway.
109
(Anonymous) 2008-06-28 06:36 pm (UTC)(link)To be fair, I don't read fanfics. I actually don't read that much BL stuff. When I am reading "random BL manga #1" here, I don't have very high expectations for it as far as breaking the mold. I pretty much expect it to be "random BL manga #1".
A lot of BL stuff seems to revolve almost solely around the characters having to be gay these days. I'm more into the series that have a variety because it isn't entirely about them being gay. Usually these will have women and straight people and maybe lesbians and characters with all sorts of preferences, because it isn't just about fulfilling fantasies.
Basically, if you're reading another cliche BL manga I wouldn't expect it to be more than another cliche BL manga. Just like I wouldn't be shocked by lesbian sex in a hentai manga, or "a boy adventuring around the world to become the BEST at something-or-other" in a shounen manga, or a girl turning out to be a princess in a shoujo manga. Usually the majority of a genre is probably 90% cliche stuff.
Re: 109
However, when you take a character who in canon is shown to be headstrong, stoic, not prone to crying, physically strong, and turn them into a sniveling, simpering idiot for no other reason than they have long hair - therefore they're "uke", and "uke" is first and foremost a personality trait - THAT's what annoys people.
When writing a yaoi fanfiction, one of the first and most important things to try to avoid is, I think, the seme/uke trope, because it's so popular, and it's the most common way of butchering canon characters' canon personalities.