[ SECRET POST #2553 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2553 ⌋

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

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 03 pages, 062 secrets from Secret Submission Post #364.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 1 2 3 4 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[ketita]

I get you. I prefer the 2003 anime, but I loved the manga and Brotherhood too, I just felt like I had to get more and more defensive about the fact that I didn't think the 2003 anime was total shit. Though maybe that was just my corner of the fandom, who knows.

Then again, the ending of Brotherhood led to a whole crop of "Al goes to Xing and has joyful sex with Ling's harem!!" type fics which I hated with the fiery heat of a thousand suns.

[likeadeuce]

"Al goes to Xing and has joyful sex with Ling's harem!!"

LOL, that sounds kind of great to me but I can imagine it being done in a lousy way.

[ketita]

idk, personal preferences and whatnot, but I found it insanely squicky. Mainly because harems are... pretty darn awful places for women, and if you read about the way the emperor's wives and concubines were kept in China, for example, it's just horrible. I mean, okay, yes, it could be worse, they could be starving to death in the streets, but as an establishment? Ick. I just don't see Al joyfully partaking in the enslavement of women.

Secondly, it's boring and ooc imo, especially after the Nth time reading variations of it.
//just me and my annoyed two cents

[likeadeuce]

Ahh, I can see that.

[likeadeuce]

What if it's Roy hanging out in harems?

[ketita]

Marginally more IC since he's got a reputation as a womanizer, though I'm pretty sure most of it was show and not reality. His little black book was code, iirc, for example.

Besides, I'd expect manga!Roy having more feelings about that, what with growing up with prostitutes. At least they were shown to have some agency and were paid. Harem girls have no choice at all, and I can see Roy being very aware of the distinction. That kind of upbringing would make him see prostitutes /more/ as human, not less, imo.

[likeadeuce]

He'd be there for a week and convince them to strike for better wages and vacation time! (Now I want that fic.)

[ketita]

This I would find both entertaining and IC.

[likeadeuce]

A good deed and revenge on Ling for coming to his city and fucking up his plans. And he'd probably still manage to get a threesome out of it.

[ketita]

Haha, well, I was with you 'till the threesome because I don't ship that, but yeah XD

[likeadeuce]

Ever at all?

[ketita]

Roy/Ling? Or do you mean a threesome?

[likeadeuce]

LOL, well I wasn't being picky about who the threesome would involve.

ETA: Just that Roy would manage to have a sexual adventure at some point in the story.

[ketita]

Hmm, ok I get it now.

TBH I don't normally really like sex in fics, personally, unless it's a pairing I actively ship, so for me him getting sex wouldn't improve the fic (though it might not detract from it, either). (I really kind of tend to prefer genfic, at heart...). In the same vein, I wouldn't necessarily be super enchanted by the idea of anybody having a threesome.
Though on the other hand, I could see it as being empowering from the POV of the ex-harem-girl, being finally free to choose her own partner. In that sense, I care more about this hypothetical character's choice of partner and whether Roy would be good for her, because she's the vulnerable party here. Roy can get laid whenever. I have to consider whether or not I feel like him sleeping with her would have some kind of power-imbalance overtones or something, with him being her "rescuer" and all. So in that sense I mind him getting with Ling less, because Ling isn't a vulnerable party.

[likeadeuce]

Y, this is why Roy is needs to incite/facilitate the strike, not lead it. He's not saving the girls, he's just stirring up trouble and they do the heavy lifting.

[ketita]

*shrug* well my comment still stands XD I don't really care if there's sex one way or another; that wouldn't be the draw of this kind of fic, for me personally. I'd be interested in the adventures and shenanigans, and hopefully some snappy dialogue.

[likeadeuce]

Y, I'm just having fun with the idea.

[ketita]

No no, I get that! I just guess we have slightly different tastes in fic, that's all. Or rather, we're looking at the same story ideas from different angles :)
Like I said at the beginning, this is an actual story idea that sounds both entertaining and IC. I haven't read too much post-series mangafic - I mostly quit the fandom a bit after the manga and Brotherhood ended, around when being a 2003 anime fan was kind of considered lowly and evil.

[likeadeuce]

I have obviously not seen the communities where fans of the various series were hating on each other, though this thread certainly convinces me it happened.

I guess it's a benefit of coming to the fandom late.

[ketita]

It's not so much communities where hate was constantly spewed, but a kind of more generalized... bad feeling. Posts about how one series was better/deeper/whatever than the other, passive-aggressive comments, stuff like that. It was going around, though, and not super nice on either side.
I'm definitely glad you didn't have to go through that, and had a positive fandom experience, though :)
I generally do have fond memories of the fma fandom, though it was kind of wanky, looking back. I guess most large fandoms are, though.

[likeadeuce]

Just like journal posts? Message board posts? I don't think I was ever able to track down the fandom proper. (I wouldn't say I had a positive fandom experience, just that I never found much of a fandom to have an experience in -- by the time I got to the journal communities, people were mostly posting mangaverse fic without commenting on the canon one way or other.)

It just seems a shame to me that there's enough bad energy remaining in the fandom to fill up this thread but not enough to celebrate the good stuff about it. (Granted this thread might just be the same four or five people, which is probably the same number who are still posting fanworks regularly!)

[ketita]

Back in the day, the fma fandom was extremely active on LJ. That's where I made most of my fandom friends and where all the big conversations and stuff were going on, and where the fanfic was. Things really slowed down with the end of the manga, though.

To be fair, though, the original secret was about negative stuff in the fandom, so it makes sense that people would respond to it that way... but I think it also has to do with the fact that for a lot of people, that's probably nearing the end of their experiences in the fandom, so people tend to remember what happened latest, especially if it had something to do with them leaving the fandom.
I had a really good fandom experience overall, but even I find myself with bittersweet memories looking back...

[likeadeuce]

Yeah, I get it, it's just a shame to see something that still has so much potential dissolve into so many bad feelings.

[ketita]

I really don't think the bad feeling is what really killed the fandom, though. It's a combination of the manga taking over (and edging out the remaining 2003 fans), general lack of interest in writing the longer and more convoluted type fics, the fandom transferring over to tumblr, stuff like that.

(and for me, personally, a lot of my friends have dropped off the radar)

[likeadeuce]

I don't mean to say that's the whole story, there's just a lot of angry sniping and bitterness on this thread and that's always a shame to see.