[ SECRET POST #2413 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2413 ⌋

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

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 04 pages, 078 secrets from Secret Submission Post #345.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 1 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[fscom]

12. http://i.imgur.com/a8tvNde.png

[helenadax]

I write HP fiction and my wizarding world is usually okay with homosexuality. It's important to talk about prejudices but I think other kind of stories with gay characters are important too. That's why I love Xena or Torchwood, because their characters are homosexual but these shows aren't about being homosexual.

[(Anonymous)]

*winces* Please, homosexual is not a word used by 98% of queers.

[(Anonymous)]

I... guess to each their own, then?

I actually really like fanfic and other stories that have characters overcoming systemic difficulty; that's including but not limited to racism, sexism, homophobia, and so on. Do I think it should be in every fic, or that it's acceptable in the real world, or that it shouldn't be warned for in the description? Oh hell no.

But I think they're interesting, and sometimes it shows a side to characters you might not see otherwise. And believe it or not it can be really cathartic to read about a character you love overcoming the hate that you deal with every day.

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah, I agree. I mean, I don't include a lot of sexism in my het either, or racism in my interracial pairings. I just don't write in genres where I feel like it would be appropriate, you know? Fluff doesn't need an underlying message of "and people hate you for stupid reasons."

[(Anonymous)]

Fluff doesn't need an underlying message of "and people hate you for stupid reasons."

this is such a wonderful way to sum it up. i love this.

[dazzledfirestar]

Well, don't read those fics then. Some people use fic (and writing in general) to deal with the prejudices they have to face IRL, or to draw attention to the gross shit in the world so things will come to light and change even in a small way. It's okay to want escapist stuff too but not everyone wants that all the time.

Best of luck finding fic that you enjoy though.

[(Anonymous)]

I'm the exact opposite, OP. I get really bummed out by fic where being gay is treated as completely unremarkable and every bit as accepted as heterosexuality. It feels so improbable to me that it kicks me out of the story.

I was actually thinking of starting a discussion about this exact thing in GC the other night, so I'm intrigued to see how others feel on this.

[(Anonymous)]

I feel like you most of the time. It will very often kick me out of the story. But it depends on my mood and the context of the story.

Of course, I'm gay and have experienced this shit, so it's uncanny valley when it's ignored as not an issue, usually by those who haven't experienced it rather than those who actually have something to "escape".

[(Anonymous)]

I agree, although it depends on the setting and how likely homophobia would be in that setting.

I once read a Life on Mars Gene/Sam fic where all the supporting characters were happy that they got together and I'm sitting there thinking, "Wow, that is all kinds of not likely" and it pretty much ruined the fic (although I don't think it was particularly well-written to begin with). In a fandom set in the present, on the other hand, you can assume more acceptance depending on the context, and in a future/fantasy setting, I'm okay with people deciding homophobia flat-out doesn't exist.

Obviously, not every fic needs to deal with prejudice. If it's just porn or a little domestic scene or random drabble or whatever, there doesn't need to be some kind of "Also: Homophobia" line.

[(Anonymous)]

well maybe if it comes out of nowhere with no indication of the problem in the summary or any warning, i get that, but what if fanfic is how other people cope with the bigotry in their lives? escapism works in more than one way

[blueonblue]

They write about it because that's what they're interested in writing about--could be personal therapy, or some educational impulse, who knows? Maybe they're adding bigotry to the plot because there really isn't any reason the characters can't get together.

I don't think I've ever written a slash fic where bigotry was part of the conflict. Maybe the thing I'm working on now has some in the background, unavoidable when characters grew up gay or bi during different times.

[transcriptanon]

[Picture is Spock and James Kirk from the TV show "Star Trek". Spock has very neatly cut and brushed short black hair, pale skin and pointy ears. He is wearing a blue uniform with a black neck. Kirk has very lightly tanned light skin, short dark hair and is wearing a yellow uniform with a black neck. Spock is sitting, looking like he is considering something, while Kirk is leaning down and telling him something as he smiles.]

I hate when in slash fics one of the major conflicts is bigotry. Like, there is enough of that in real life, thanks. Please get the fuck out of my escapism fanfic and one true pairings.

Picture related - it's even worse when it's supposed to be the utopia future, like, come on.

[(Anonymous)]

you could try reading in a fandom that isn't 40 years old then? I've really noticed a shift away from coming-out-angst stories in the last ten years, and I find them really easy to avoid.

[(Anonymous)]

Depends on the character/universe, for me. If it would make sense, I don;t mind mention of prejudices in slash.

Kirk/Spock, in the future? No, homophobia doesn't make that much sense, especially with the way things are going in the present. But, for example, Cap/Iron Man, set now or in the near-future? There are going to be massive issues there, and considering one partner is from the forties, I'd imagine there will be a lot of issues with internalized homophobia for Steve - and that's part of why I find the pairing interesting.

[elaminator]

I actually haven't seen much of that in Star Trek fandom, but I haven't read TOS fic in a while so maybe it's more present in that.

Still, I can see both sides of this; why it's something people want to explore and why you would want to avoid it.

[(Anonymous)]

I...do like it, simply because it makes me feel good [and possibly, slightly less hopeless] to see someone, even a fictional character beating it. Granted, I don't like it in every fic, but I do like it in ones where it's plausible and makes sense.

[dancing_clown]

If you don't like the story someone else wants to tell, you can gtfo.

[intrigueing]

Yeah, I don't mind it per se, but it's so overdone in fanfic, like, people can't think of anything else to write their plots about?

And yeah, ITA about it in stuff like Star Trek. In fact, it kind of pisses me off, kinda feels like the writer is implying that they can't imagine a world with gays but without bigotry, which is a major downer and really unimaginative. (On the flip side, however, I find it hard to take long plotty fic set in, say, Victorian England where bigotry never comes up seriously, because in those settings it really has to be a great big fucking deal if the story involves them venturing out into society and depicts more characters than just the characters in the pairing).

[(Anonymous)]

Depends on what I want to read, tbh.

Sometimes I find more realistic stuff to be interesting - stuff that deals with prejudice and life and difficult issues, writing you can sink your teeth into.

But sometimes, I get real tired of that stuff. Especially when I have to deal with it IRL. Then, all I want is to find something fluffy and lighthearted and adorable, with none of the social bullshit and prejudices I have to put up with.

What fandoms am I hanging out in?

[nyxelestia]

Maybe I'm hanging out in the wrong part of fandom, but how much does this come up in Star Trek fic? I have only seen a few instances of this. Granted that, I'm only in the AOS part of Star Trek fandom, with dabblings in Voyager, so is this a TOS thing...?

Actually, now that I think about it, less than a third of the slashfics I read ever bring up homophobia, a number which drops even further down when it's set in a non-'real'/modern universe (Star Trek, Merlin, Harry Potter, etc). Even accounting for things like fluff and porn that don't connect to the universes' social situation at all and focus only on the couple/group, my impression has been that when homophobia comes up, it comes up hard, but otherwise fanfics just don't bother, or it's only mentioned in passing in the background. All of these things are usually pretty well tagged and warned for.

But judging by what other people are saying, I am apparently hanging out in a very bizarre intersection of fandom where homophobia doesn't come up in even half the fics I read. Is it because people are not counting fluff and porn? o.O This is doubly weird to me because in Steve/Tony fandom, I actually seek out fanfics where they have to deal with homophobia (especially if there is any form of social or mass media involved to do it).

That said, homophobia in Star Trek fic does tend to throw me off quite a bit whenever it does happen, and a lot of the time throws me out altogether (I think I've seen like one example where the homophobia made sense, in that the homophobic character had been raised on a planet that was expressly colonized by a conservative religion). Most of the time, the only issues I see are people objecting to Kirk and Spock's somewhat-interspecies relationship, and even then the focus usually ends up on Spock being 'mixed race' more than anything else.

[blunderbuss]

I'd say it depends entirely on the setting, OP. Like you mentioned, Star Trek? Yeah, homophobia's not going to be a problem. But if the show was set in the 50's? Gonna be a BIG problem, and can't just be ignored for the sake of fluff.

[(Anonymous)]

I agree.

[(Anonymous)]

Yep, I definitely get this too. Especially the way that in so /many/ fics centering around a character's discovery of their sexuality there apparently has to always be this whole internal 'but omg, i can't be GAY, this can't happen to ME!' crisis. Like, I get that this is a completely realistic and normal part of many people's figuring out who they are/what they want, but, damn, internalised homophobia isn't just an inevitable part of every queer person's journey, you know? Yeah it's common, yeah it may well be the author working out their own struggles, and yeah if you've experienced it you may want to see your faves experiencing and overcoming it, but it sends this really weird message that people are naturally homophobic until they realise they're queer or they get to know a queer person, it's kinda gross

[mimi-sardinia.livejournal.com]

I can live with both. Sometimes it's nice to read an uncomplicated romance story that doesn't bring up the sticky issues of bigotry. Sometimes it's interesting to read a fic where bigotry issues do come up.

The part I would really nitpick on is whether the bigotry or lack there-of is appropriate.
To use your example:

I really don't think homophobia would fit into Star Trek. As you say, utopian future. There may be grounds for playing with racism issues, since Nu!Trek shows that the Vulcans looked down on him for being half-human.

On the other hand, TNG had plenty of plots about alien racism and alien homophobia issues. If done right, such plots could work.

A 21st century setting has lots of room for bigotry, because Real Life has lots of bigotry.

I sometimes wish some medieval-type settings had fanfic that mentioned ingrained bigotry more, because it's unrealistic to have societies like that - even in fantasy worlds - be totally unprejudiced.

Example: I could really see Gondor having institutionalized homophobia. I can also see Hobbits having institutionalized homophobia, partly because they value family and would probably judge people on how well they breed.
I am willing to handwave the issue with Dwarves, because they canonically have a ridiculous gender imbalance and I don't really believe that all of the two thirds of Dwarven men who don't marry a Dwarven woman would really be content to bury themselves in their chosen craft (though I do allow for a good portion of them doing so.

I love fics that play with cultural differences between Middle Earth races. If those cultural differences are homosexuality issues, then it probably guarantees the fic is a romance where one of the characters has to get over that ingrained prejudice before he can accept the relationship.

So, TL;DR, fics that don't bring up bigotry are fluffy things that are fun to read when you don't want to read fics about bigotry. Fics about bigotry can be good reading too, and I like when people input bigotry into a sci-fi/fantasy culture in a believable way.