[ SECRET POST #6130 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #6130 ⌋

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


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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 13 secrets from Secret Submission Post #876.
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.

Comments

[fscom]

05. https://i.imgur.com/TT9V6ni.png

[(Anonymous)]

That fandom certainly goes way back and there were fics on mailing lists and really old websites that are now defunct. But the heyday was probably the early to mid 2000s on FFnet, and I believe the most well known writer in that fandom has deleted her fics off of that site and AO3, though.

[(Anonymous)]

I read some fics for Labyrinth when I was a teenager. And I really afraid to search for fics now. Even my memories aren't that good

[kaijinscendre]

This is me with Dragonball Z. Lol.

[(Anonymous)]

Is a fic with babies misogynistic?

[(Anonymous)]

It doesn't say "a fic with babies" it says "babies ever after" which is a specific trope.

[(Anonymous)]

But why is it misogynistic if it's at the end of the fic but not if it happens sooner?

[(Anonymous)]

DA

You have to look at it with the context of most of western storytelling - a woman's story ends with marriage/babies because after that she shouldn't HAVE a story to tell. She should be at home, taking care of the kids, making her family her top priority. She shouldn't have a life outside the home; no adventures; no career; nothing noteworthy to speak of. That's the context. It's misogynistic because "babies ever after" stories add to a long list of works with the implicit (and sometimes explicit) message that a woman can't be happy without marriage and babies.

The same is not true for men. There isn't a history of culture and literature assuming that men must have babies to be happy and must stay home with the babies and put his homemaking first.

[(Anonymous)]

AYRT

But in "Babies Ever After," the stories of the woman and the man end at the addition of the baby. The happy ending for them both is presented as being found in the formation of a family.

[(Anonymous)]

oh shut up

[(Anonymous)]

Obligatory rec for A Forfeit of Dreams by KL_Morgan. It’s on AO3 if you’re signed in. I also remember liking Scattered Logic’s stuff on FFN.

[(Anonymous)]

sa
No idea how Scattered Logic holds up but I read the other fic a few years ago and don’t remember anything terrible.

[(Anonymous)]

Definitely an unpopular opinion in this fandom, but IMO? Highly overrated fic.

LOL, maybe I should make that a secret.

[(Anonymous)]

I should go check how the Girls Next Door comic is doing...

[(Anonymous)]

If a woman wants a baby, that's misogynistic. And if a man doesn't want a baby, that's misogynistic.

In the future, with artificial wombs, will all the babies be had and raised by good, non-misogynistic men, while women don't have babies at all?

[(Anonymous)]

Who says men not wanting babies is misogynistic? I've never heard that.

[(Anonymous)]

I always hear this argument 'if a woman wants a baby that's misogynistic!!' in response to people complaining that it's misogynistic if that is her ONLY OPTION. That her happy ever after only occurs when she realises what she was ~missing~ in her life by not being a mom...

[(Anonymous)]

Can an author write an indulgent wish fulfillment fic involving babies for her own enjoyment without being accused of pushing misogynistic ideology onto others? I struggle to see the issue.

[ariakas]

Man you sure triggered some weirdos with this one.

[(Anonymous)]

Huh?

[(Anonymous)]

I'm thinking this is about the babies/misogyny comment above.

[(Anonymous)]

Comment OP here and idk I assume "why are babies misogynistic" anon was looking for wank. I'm kind of glad I just saw the secret was posted now, and missed all that.

I agree with the anon(s) explaining why the trope is misogynistic, though, so I don't really have anything else to add.

[ariakas]

Yeah it's pretty obvious what you meant if you aren't intentionally reading it in bad faith for the purposes shit-stirring (or are just profoundly dim, I guess).

For my part I'm one of the few people I know who sometimes writes het pairings for my fandom, and as a result I'll sometimes get bizarre comments my friends who only write slash never get by people who are offended that LGBT people have the audacity to exist and that this being a het fic makes it a safe space for them to say so. Or who lose their minds that some of the background characters are in gay relationships, especially popular slash pairings (I won't tag a ship unless it gets a lot of airtime, so to speak, because I'm so tired of being catfished by fics that tag themselves as "A/B, C/D" where C/D gets one throwaway sentence in 50k words).

It's very regressive, yeah. My theory is that at the end of the day it's just shipwank, but because these people are largely conservative, they don't dress up their shipwank in social justice terms like the (largely liberal) broader fandom does, but instead using moral terms to explain why ships that aren't their OTP are wrongthink.

[(Anonymous)]

Thanks for turning my comment into a secret, OP!

Also I thought a bit more since my original comment, and I think maybe some of the differences between the fanfic for the other old fandom I mentioned (Phantom of the Opera) and Labyrinth is Labyrinth was its own thing, with only a manga sequel I haven't read but have heard wasn't great. So the fandom is limited to mostly people who saw the movie as kids and teens, and probably some David Bowie fans.

Phantom of the Opera isn't, say, Dracula, but there are a ton of different adaptations and the ALW stage show is still running.

So even though I think of both as '80s fandoms, Phantom has accumulated more new and younger fans over the years who enjoy different kinds of fic that reflects modern social mores.

Which tracks, because I remember some Phantom fanfic that was originally published in zines in the '80s and early '90s, and even the technically well written stuff had lots of shoehorned Christianity, babies ever after, and homophobia. It's just there's been more and newer Phantom fic that is less regressive.

[(Anonymous)]

Oh that's a bit disappointing. I know Labyrinth is kind of a fandom nostalgia fave and I see a lot of love for it on Tumblr (and also David Bowie in this movie and just generally is such a campy bisexual). I just assumed from that that the fic would be pretty queer and in line with that aesthetic even though it's a het ship.

I don't know if it's the same ratio, but occasionally I'll come across a Reylo fic in the wild with a plot/setup taken straight out of an 80s/90s romance novel (often in a modern AU, once even with Christianity as a background theme) and was a bit shocked. I mean, of course conservative Christian women exist in fandom and of course modern fandom romance plots/tropes have a very tight overlap with traditional romance novel publishing and of course pairings like Reylo would definitely attract a conservative Christian segment of fandom. But it's just that the places I hang around are so queer, non-religious, child-free, etc. that it's easy for me to completely forget that part of fandom exists -- even when I'm out here writing EXTREMELY by-the-numbers romance novel plot fanfiction myself -- just because I have no social circle overlap. It's kind of interesting!