[ SECRET POST #6978 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #6978 ⌋

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


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[WWE Royal Rumble Riyadh]



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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 06 secrets from Secret Submission Post #996.
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

sure if anyone is interested lmao

[(Anonymous)]

additional possibly relevant stats

age: mid 30s
years in fandom: 20ish
orientation: asexual/queer

answers

1. If you read m/m fic, do you prefer it to non-fandom m/m stories?

uhhhh. hard to say/it depends? like I have various m/m published novels I enjoyed as much as m/m fic I liked, but I only know those novels because I liked the authors' fandom works and just kinda followed them over to their real world stuff. and other m/m novels that started life as original fic published like a web serial on LJ... is that non-random? I don't think you can draw a straight line and say that if something got the tradpub treatment it's not 'fandom' linked, but it definitely isn't fanfic.

ALSO like. which fandom what kind of work etc. it gets messy when you consider like webnovels/webseries/webcomics which are all also 'fandom' without being fanfic, and all those fandoms are different and also I have preferences (yaoi fandom and bara fandom and chinese webnovel fandom and korean webcomic/webnovel fandom are all different and that's before we even get into like wattpad overlap...)

TLDR not fic doesn't mean not fandom, and even within fandom there's huge differences and people can like some and really dislike others, this question is bad and hard to answer

2. Do you write m/m fic yourself?

yes

3. What's your experience been in majority-women slash fandoms?

fine? I don't think it really matters, and TBH 'do the people participating identify as women' is also a bit questionable because at least in my teens those were majority-girl/teen spaces and like 'guys' and 'women' (a pretty adult term) would both have been equally rare to find. that said I AM aware slash fandom (as we are using the term) in general is women, and... eh, still fine? to me slash or creative fandom is not a women/female centric space as much as a space that pointedly doesn't really care what bits you have as much as what you do with the bits of the characters in your fic or whatever.

I don't think there ever really was any 'oh no I am AM MAN in AN WOMANS space' moment or anything since I have pretty much always been some kind of queer and also asexual forever, so majority-women slash fandom where people shipped other people but did not personally engage actually felt MORE of a match than like... majority male fandoms for gay stuff (see: bara) where some kind of sexual attraction to the men involved seemed to be assumed.

4. How does m/m fic relate to your sexuality? Pure fantasy, something you read for representation, helped you explore sexuality, etc?

COMPLETELY IRRELEVANT it's great I actually enjoy it specifically because there is zero link to me. I will say I get actively squicked (showing my age here) by Character/Reader fics even if the reader is written as male... actually even MORE if the reader is written as male, it's hugely offputting to me. I also get irritated when I feel like authors are trying too hard to add representation into their fics (ask me about racebending Harry Potter characters... or better yet, don't) and nothing aggravates me as much as like people trying to write m/m but one of the characters is asexual!!! and it ALWAYS has to be made a point of for some stupid reason. the more the m/ms in a fic approach any sort of resemblance to me the further I want to be away from it.

5. Any tropes you'd personally want to see more or less of?

uhhhh... top/bottom stuff where it IS fixed but not with the usual assumptions I guess? I read a story once that was pretty generic otherwise with BigStrong McGuyMan and DarkWaif EvilTwig in a ship, and then when the time came for Sex TM, McGuyMan was like OF COURSE I WILL BOTTOM, I HAVE DONE RESEARCH, YOU ARE FAR TOO WEAK AND SKINNY TO TAKE IT UP THE ASS which was a) funny and b) notably rare, most of the time if the more dom-ly guy is bottoming it's a big huge deal or vulnerability or whatever and that's just so boring and stereotypical.

also ughhh I get so bored with people doing kink by the numbers and like establishing safewords, like it's fanfic!! give me more insane unsafe dubiouslyconsensual shit, if not in fiction then where? I also think it's deeply annoying when characters have weirdly modern sensibilities and conceptions of gender and sexuality in fantasy or period settings because none of that is new or interesting at ALL.

Re: sure if anyone is interested lmao

[(Anonymous)]

DA

I swear I could have written #5 myself. Absolutely agree.

Re: sure if anyone is interested lmao

[(Anonymous)]

AYART

Haha I have like an entire rant locked and loaded (I have many rants locked and loaded, I am a hater at heart) about how a lot of this stems from many fic writers simply not getting or understanding at all how to write from a dominant perspective or wanting to self insert into the subbottom role which is like FINE when it's oneshot smutty ravishment fantasy (the most common) but kind of falls apart the moment you try to extend it beyond that.

Not even an issue in slash fandom alone, I read a fair bit of romance and this also happens, like... if I want to read a sub fantasy it is so so easy, but dom fantasies from dom perspectives are close to nonexistent, EVEN in kinky fic spaces, and even when they do exist it's never like 'very noob confused dom' or 'embarrassed awkward giant sadist'.

Noob/confused *top* is common enough, but... that's just like 'standard femdom dynamic and once again lacking an interesting dom perspective'.

Re: sure if anyone is interested lmao

[(Anonymous)]

OP

Thanks for your thoughtful answers, I was honestly going back and forth over whether to add more detail to the first question because of the issues you mentioned, but ended up leaving it short. I guess when I say I like non fandom m/m stories, I mean I like stuff in men's S&M magazines and short story collections at the leather shop. But yeah the question leaves out a lot of nuance and also leaves out many different kinds of fandom content, I probably would agree that there isn't a strict distinction between fandom and non-fandom writing.

Re: sure if anyone is interested lmao

[(Anonymous)]

yeah it's just weird and also something that changed over the past few decades as well; fandom and fandom writers have gone more mainstream... I still remember the big fuss with Cassandra Claire (who I still refuse to read out of spite), but these days there's like MULTIPLE het romance novels that started life as Dramione fanfics. but it does get messy when you also consider that the average (mode) reader of romance is female, and the vast, vast majority of fanfic is also romance, and you can to some extent also propose that a lot of fanfic is filling in a gap for romance works that could not have been tradpubbed due to... uh, gay. to what extent is fanfic fandom transformative work versus catering to an underserved audience is something much more academic people than I have written on, I'm just a shitposter.

the funny thing is I have honestly taken a good look at, as you put it, 'men's S&M magazines and short story collections at the leather shop' and have also gone into historical stuff (see: Victorian erotica, it's hilarious) and... that is like explicitly and extremely Not My Thing for the most part because I am tremendously asexual. Like I actually read Gengoroh Tagame for the plot/kink and also because I really do think he's a very creative artist, but I avoid 'bara in general' for the same reasons I avoid gay porn in general, lesbian porn in general, het porn in general, and frankly, the majority of porn in general.

pretty often when you have guys who are into guys making sexy stuff for other guys to get off to there IS gonna be that element of... presuming the viewer is into it? or that the viewer is sexually attracted to or desires either to be the person involved or to be DOING stuff to the person involved. any work of porn and/or erotica that tries to involve its viewer or takes that sort of viewpoint is about as offputting to me as, I assume, making a gay guy watch very standard PIV porn would be.

I will say cishet romance generally ALSO has that self insert or 'you should find this sexy man hot' assumption I also don't care for lol. leaving m/m slash fandom where the point is that the guys are into each OTHER and you the author/reader are irrelevant is the best place to avoid all that.

Re: sure if anyone is interested lmao

[(Anonymous)]

ayrt

I think how I relate to my sexuality and m/m is nearly opposite as yours, I totally understand what you're saying about bara but for me that's part of the appeal (Gengoroh Tagame draws SUCH hot bears!), while erotica that is more about another type of interest without that immediate physical lust often leaves me cold and bored, though I can still enjoy the plot or character building and I read all kinds of stuff. I am really attracted to men and masculinity so I best love works that reflect that feeling personally, and reflect my interest in gay S&M. I appreciate you explaining what you enjoy in m/m, it's really interesting.

Re: sure if anyone is interested lmao

[(Anonymous)]

lol yeah like, lots of different types of relationships in fandom and ways to engage with, and that's the fun and appeal of it to me! I basically don't read or enjoy anything that is very... raw or physical or lust...y, but I DO enjoy writing it as a sort of challenge/control thing. can I take characters and settings and dynamics that shouldn't work and that people don't care for, then force people to be affected and frustratedly horny about it (and then curse me out after)? men, women, whatever, I just like puzzles, and these are fun ones. slash readers are usually a bit more open to experimenting or reading stuff outside their usual diet, and when I had more time in the past I used to be pretty active on kink fics and the like.

anyway, fun question, also fun to see other people's answers! I will say the way I interact with fandom stuff is also not likely common, as far as I know, and what you do may be a more typical expression or experience. small sample size though lol