[ SECRET POST #1572 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #1572 ⌋


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


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Notes:

I've heard people say that they're not getting LJ notifications for new posts - there's an RSS feed right over here that you can use! Just a heads up for those unaware.

Secrets Left to Post: 12 pages, 276 secrets from Secret Submission Post #225.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 1 - not!secrets ], [ 1 2 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeats ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments and concerns should go here.

Comments

[veronica-rich.livejournal.com]

Don't you know? Authors can't just write entertainment anymore. It all has to do something for us in the real world. (Neither can fanfic writers, BTW.)

[(Anonymous)]

I'm just in it for the dragons and the decent writing, personally. It's hard to find good writing in the fantasy genre nowadays anyways, so I was ecstatic when I discovered her series and found out her writing style is actually pretty crisp.

So honestly, social justice can fuck off if it interferes with the story. The only good "message fantasy" I've ever read is His Dark Materials, and even in that series, I liked it in spite of, not because, of the preaching. So I'm pretty happy with the way Novik's been handling her series thus far. SJ doesn't take the center stage, and that's the way it should be. If she shunted in a queer character just to make the quota, ughhhhh. DNW.

Organic incorporation into the story is what's needed, not just a token queer character.

[(Anonymous)]

And how can you be so sure she couldn't have organically incorporated a queer character or two? I'd like to hear an argument why this couldn't have been possible in the to all appearances more laissez faire atmosphere of the Aerial Corps that shocks Laurence in all kinds of other ways already. And she wrote a whole volume set in China where there was a strong tradition of homosexuality; that, at least, would have been the perfect opportunity to bring up the issue.

I'd maybe buy this argument if she wrote historical fiction, or if she wasn't concerned with social justice at all, but not when an author changes her universe to give women a more active role than they would have had otherwise at that time, when she has this whole debate about dragons' rights going on, and when she at least makes a visible (although maybe not always successful) effort to include racial minorities. So social justice is fine when it comes to women, other races and cultures, and dragons, but interferes with the story when it means including a gay character, which, again could have easily been done organically? Is that what you're saying?

[(Anonymous)]

Why does the fact that she's included *some* social justice mean she has to include *all* social justice causes?

I've only read the first book so I can't really speak to the specifics but I would imagine since she's already worked on including some SJ groups visible she's probably walking the fine line of not coming off as too preachy. If you start throwing in all the social justice groups the story can lose its sense of realism or whatever.

And the fact that she's a slash writer in fandom might be why she's held off on putting a gay character in her stories. I can think of a couple reasons why someone might do this.

Like maybe she wanted her books to stand on their own, for people to read them because they like the story, not because they're caught up in the slash (even if it's a side pairing, or a one off mention, I've definitely see fans run off with those kinds of characters and ignore the main characters). Or, maybe, because she's a slasher, she prefers her relationships to be subtextual over textual (I know I'm that way) - throughout the comments I've seen people discuss the relationship between Lawrence and Temeraire as subtextually romantic.