fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #2617 ]

[ SECRET POST #2617 ]

⌈ Secret Post #2617 ⌋

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

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Notes:

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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I'm actually okay with Holocaust AU. I'm actually ok with any AU, provided the writer does their due diligence and doesn't milk the setting for cheap drama. Just setting something in the time period can be good. It can also be terrible in the hands of a bad writer.

If you want to get technical about it, Captain America is a canon WWII AU which includes Nazis as a backdrop, for punching heroically in the face and stuff. But it doesn't use the setting for cheap angst or drama.

If it fits the characters and the plot of the fic, or the fic actually skillfully explores how the characters would react to such a situation or setting, then AU your heart out, I don't care. It's only when everything's shoehorned in that it's awful.

As another anon upthread I'd like to clarify my answer, that I don't think people shouldn't be *allowed* to write Holocaust AUs or anything, just that I sure as hell won't be reading it.

I actually am pretty firm that there are no "off limits" for writing and art.

ayrt

Well, OP specifically said "can't tolerate" and "don't like and won't read but won't stop" is... tolerating, isn't it?

The amount of people stating that they "can't tolerate" Holocaust AU was surprising to me, which is why I posted this. I totally get the don't want to read it, but that's a separate issue from the moral stance OP sounds like they're be taking.

ah, I interpreted "can't tolerate" as more of a personal thing. I personally cannot tolerate reading Holocaust AUs. I see the mix up now and wondering if I'm the only one who read it like that. Hm.

I like well done historical AUs because it forces the author or characters to react or consider events. It's another way of exploring history and things that happened. Like big superheroes. How do you fight a thing that's systemic? There's no one person at fault. Unless you want to kill the whole country. Superheroes are out of their depth in the world of global politics. EXPLORE THAT, that's interesting. This wasn't a sueprvillain this was people fucking people over, you can't power your way through this. So now what?

Using something to explore how characters are in it makes sense and can be done well.

I've read several Holocaust AUs that were decent, actually. None of the decently written ones were shipping Nazi/Jew and milking for drama, either. If I remember right, one was either a British or American POW shipped with a POW camp guard drafted there against his will, another one was reluctant German soldier/reluctant German soldier and neither of them could admit they didn't want to be there, that sort of thing.

There are lots of things besides ~Nazi/Jew~ that you can do with WWII/the Holocaust as an AU backdrop that isn't shitty and cheapening genocide for angst.

OP

I was talking specifically about AUs that center around the genocidal aspects, not any aspect of the war. POW AUs during WWII isn't a Holocaust AU imo.

I personally might not want to read a WWII AU, but it doesn't push my FUCK YOU AND YOUR DOG buttons like exploitation of the death camps/concentration camps for wangst.

Anon before the anon you're replying to - to me, fics set during the holocaust and taking those issues into concern and having the holocaust actually be a BIG DEAL to the plot would count for me.

I mean I do want to see characters actually deal with and confront genocide and note how they respond, that's interesting to me, I want to see how they might be affected.

It kind of seems like you're defining 'holocaust au fics' as 'badly written fic exploiting events for wangst and drama' instead of 'fics exploring this particular era of history and the pretty terrible shit that went down'. I'd argue the first is a subset of the second, but the second CAN be done well and effectively and doesn't HAVE to have both characters be jews or one of them being dead or someone being a guard or whatever.

Disliking exploitation of death cams and concentration camps makes sense, I don't disagree with that, I'd say there's a lot more ways to do holocaust AUs though - one of them being 'let's explore it from different perspectives, some close and some more distant'.

death CAMPS not death cams christ that was a hell of a typo

ayrt

I mentioned the POW story because eventually the Holocaust/a forced march to a death camp did get involved in the story. So it does count, IMO. The reluctant guards were also guards at a death camp and that fact was extremely pivotal, so...

Just, sorry, trying to figure out what you're saying - by "genocide AU" do you mean Nazi/Jew and none of the other possible combinations? I mean, lots of other types of people killed there, gays being significant for the slash fics and all, whether they were Jewish or German or Nazis themselves or not. A slash ship in the middle of Nazi Germany would definitely be affected by the Holocaust considering what would happen to them if found out.

I would find gays in WWII Germany in a concentration camp equally exploitative tbh. What, a high-school bullying AU or getting-run-out-of-town AU isn't high stakes enough? Gotta have concentration camps, amirite?

As for genocide AU I'd say I'm talking about at least one of the characters AU'd to be a member of the race/people being exterminated AND the setting being an area where the extermination is taking place, though either one of them on its own edges into nope territory for me.

It all depends on how you'd go about it, I suppose. Could it be cheap and angsty and an exaggerated high school drama with the wrong writer? Sure. Could it be heartbreaking and a fascinating look into psychology with the right one? Sure to that too. Sometimes things are interesting when they're extreme where things that wouldn't ever happen otherwise with lesser stakes, do.

Those are some pretty specific standards for genocide AU, anyway. And not at all as narrow a field I'd think of if you told me only "genocide AU". I'd think of any AU involving, happening alongside, or being impacted by a genocide. Like a "war AU" could involve anything to do with war, not only frontline soldiers, couldn't it?

yeah, but WWII is one thing, and specifically going out of your way to make a character Jewish and another one a Nazi so they can get it on is a bit of a different story.

I have never seen a, for example, Holocaust AU that was respectfully done. Never.

Also would your answer be the same about say, Cherokees and the Trail of Tears?

I'm actually ok with any AU, provided the writer does their due diligence and doesn't milk the setting for cheap drama

That was addressed.

And yes.

Ok, I accept that. I can say though, that in my experience of 10 years in fandom, the subset of people who do proper research and don't milk the setting for cheap drama does not overlap with the subset of people who go "you know what fandom needs? A Holocaust AU!"

I just posted this above, but:

http://fandomsecrets.dreamwidth.org/971461.html?thread=726952389#cmt726952389

nyart

there's a difference between 'all of this is bad / I've never seen a good version of this / I don't trust most writers to handle this topic with any sensitivity or due respect, therefore I won't touch fics I see about these' and 'all fics about this are universally bad this is a terrible setting no one should touch it ever it can never be done well EVERYONE WHO DOES IT IS BAD PEOPLE'.

OP was kindaaaa sliding towards the second one. as were a lot of other posters in the thread.

I don't mind saying 'tons of stuff done in this setting are rubbish and even worse than the usual AUs considering how exploitative of real life tragedy they are' though since that seems to be true enough.

lol this fits in surprisingly well with the kink shaming thread...

idk given the amount of asshattery i've seen concering Holocaust aus I'd probably default that anybody writing it is an uneducated exploitative asshat until proven otherwise

i don't think that i'm missing out on any great pearls of fandom literature or whatever. maybe of the exploiters were shamed more theyd bother doing research

There's nothing wrong with going 'yeah chances are if you see a fic like this / with these markers it'll probably be bad'.

That's different from going 'it all HAS TO BE I refuse to believe it could possibly be done well'. By all means go ahead and say the majority of people who try something like this are probably not very good at what they're doing and you'd rather not bother with the genre as a whole, but don't be all 'everything sucks forever', I don't think that's particularly fair.

No one's saying you have to READ all of it, I'm certainly not suggesting that, but there's no need to automatically condemn everything without reservations either.

OP

Never seen a reason to believe otherwise, so I don't know who'd benefit from this theoretical benefit of the doubt. Besides, it's not like I read and bash. I don't read, but it makes me ill when I see the exploitative stuff on my dash, for example. So what do you care if one person on the internet thinks that you are probably shit for writing exploitative fics in death camps?

I mean, I've said earlier in the thread that I'm not even talking about say general WWII or whatever. But if you write a fic about the Armenian Genocide (and I'm pointing this out because I want to emphasize that while the Holocaust is the major target for these, I would find any other genocide-exploitation fic to be equally offensive) specifically about the genocide parts, I would find it gross and you gross.

Actually I always wonder why the SJWs never comment on how the Jews were an oppressed minority and Problematic because of appropriation and such but I guess it's because Jews are too white or something idk.

nayrt

"whatever I don't want to believe in exceptions"

You should have just said that begin with so we could have avoided trying to engage. :\

Do you have an example of a good, respectful, interesting AU that actually takes place in a death/concentration camp?

tbh I found reading people's comments interesting, and there's no problem with other people liking that stuff or defining their own areas where they enjoy/don't enjoy whatever sort of fic. I just personally don't think I will be convinced to enjoy it myself, and I don't see how that eliminates discussion?

I was actually originally curious if other people had NOPE AUs as well, but nobody seems interested in talking about that since we're all arguing the fucking merits of Holocaust AUs. Whatever.
Maybe my mistake was detailing why I don't like those AUs so much, but I normally don't like saying I don't like something without stating why, if there's a reason, because to me it shuts down discussion and also because I don't normally dislike things for no reason.

Go forth and enjoy your genocide fics, anon. From this thread sounds like you've got a decent amount of variety to choose from.

Well, a Trail of Tears AU would involve angsty, self-indulgent fic written about non-white characters, and what are the odds of that happening?

A Trail of Tears AU would probably involve white characters being turned into Indians because let's be honest here

...fuck. You're right.

Welp, time to start drinking!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ SECRET POST #2617 ]

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