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wisdomeagleI wish it were not today. Going to class just irks me to no end. I almost had a severe depression moment, but I managed to avoid it by reading several sappy fanfics.
I've been trying to figure out just what it is about fanfic that's so awesome, yaoi in particular. Personally, NC-17 fics squick me, not because I have issues with NC-17 content, but because I don't find it particularly in character. I read fanfic because I like characters and their interaction in canon and because there is a perceived sexual tension/relationship there that needs to be made explicit. But that doesn't mean the sex needs to made explicit.... I like fanfic that's stylistically similar to canon. Sherlock Holmes fic that includes a mystery, SG1 fic that includes a mission. Alternate universes where the characters are ordinary people living in America at the end of the millennium (ooo! RENT quote!) don't do it for me. This is why good fanfic can be so terribly hard to find: Characterization needs to be precise: the mark of a good fic is being able to hear the characters' voices in your mind's ear (especially in fandoms where canon has an audio aspect, that is, for movies and TV shows).
I like my yaoi to touch on the important issues of: canonical het relationships (preferably with lots of angst, 'cause angst is fun), potential professional repercussions, real life relationship issues, and canonical non-compatibility issues, and homophobia (which is an issue in all non-fantasy fandoms, but I personally find Frodo and Sam bitching about internalized homophobia to be squick. Probably because I just don't see hobbits in that light). If you can do all that in the context of a plot, all the more the better.
Anyhow, why does yaoi make me go eee!? I think it's because the relationships between male characters tend to be so, well, difficult. Complex. Power struggle stuff. Take Holmes and Watson--now that's a 'ship that can be written from about ten different angles. The cold, unemotional Holmes and an angst-ridden Watson. The happy heterosexual Watson and the angst-ridden Holmes. It's a fascinating relationship. I can't think of any het or yuri pairing that has that sort of tension. Perhaps this is internalized sexism on my part; perhaps this is a function of the sexism of society that male characters are more interesting than female ones.
Maybe I'm in denial about my bisexuality. (Well, duh, Ari, this is not exactly news)evidence forheterosexual attachments. Most of them of the mysterious male creature variety. But I've decided to go through yet another questioning stage.)
All right. In which Ari questions her sexuality once again. I think that most-if-not-all people are capable of bisexuality--of relational and sexual attachment to members of any gender. Lesbian is a descriptive, not a prescriptive, word. It's not an essential facet of who I am; it's rather a word I use to convey my tendency to fall butt crazy in love for people with two X chromosomes. Argh. Obsession with fictional characters shouldn't make me question myself like this. I'm mostly lesbian, I've got a girlfriend, and now I'm going to shut up and get ready for class. Love.
I've been trying to figure out just what it is about fanfic that's so awesome, yaoi in particular. Personally, NC-17 fics squick me, not because I have issues with NC-17 content, but because I don't find it particularly in character. I read fanfic because I like characters and their interaction in canon and because there is a perceived sexual tension/relationship there that needs to be made explicit. But that doesn't mean the sex needs to made explicit.... I like fanfic that's stylistically similar to canon. Sherlock Holmes fic that includes a mystery, SG1 fic that includes a mission. Alternate universes where the characters are ordinary people living in America at the end of the millennium (ooo! RENT quote!) don't do it for me. This is why good fanfic can be so terribly hard to find: Characterization needs to be precise: the mark of a good fic is being able to hear the characters' voices in your mind's ear (especially in fandoms where canon has an audio aspect, that is, for movies and TV shows).
I like my yaoi to touch on the important issues of: canonical het relationships (preferably with lots of angst, 'cause angst is fun), potential professional repercussions, real life relationship issues, and canonical non-compatibility issues, and homophobia (which is an issue in all non-fantasy fandoms, but I personally find Frodo and Sam bitching about internalized homophobia to be squick. Probably because I just don't see hobbits in that light). If you can do all that in the context of a plot, all the more the better.
Anyhow, why does yaoi make me go eee!? I think it's because the relationships between male characters tend to be so, well, difficult. Complex. Power struggle stuff. Take Holmes and Watson--now that's a 'ship that can be written from about ten different angles. The cold, unemotional Holmes and an angst-ridden Watson. The happy heterosexual Watson and the angst-ridden Holmes. It's a fascinating relationship. I can't think of any het or yuri pairing that has that sort of tension. Perhaps this is internalized sexism on my part; perhaps this is a function of the sexism of society that male characters are more interesting than female ones.
Maybe I'm in denial about my bisexuality. (Well, duh, Ari, this is not exactly news)evidence forheterosexual attachments. Most of them of the mysterious male creature variety. But I've decided to go through yet another questioning stage.)
All right. In which Ari questions her sexuality once again. I think that most-if-not-all people are capable of bisexuality--of relational and sexual attachment to members of any gender. Lesbian is a descriptive, not a prescriptive, word. It's not an essential facet of who I am; it's rather a word I use to convey my tendency to fall butt crazy in love for people with two X chromosomes. Argh. Obsession with fictional characters shouldn't make me question myself like this. I'm mostly lesbian, I've got a girlfriend, and now I'm going to shut up and get ready for class. Love.
(no subject)
Date: 2003-02-24 05:29 pm (UTC)Oh oh oh, no! Don't disregard all NC-17 fics! First of all, while ratings are all well and good, they irritate me because they put a blanket statement on a fic. "I'm NC-17! I have too much sex and stuff and I make no sense, but all the characters DO have a massive orgy, so read me!" "I'm R! I've got some sex, some violence maybe. Who knows. I'm just dangerous, okay?" "I'm PG! Safe for you little little teenagers! I may have a bit of innuendo, but, you know. ::shrugs:: I don't know about me, I'm pretty clean cut." "I'm G. What am I here for again? Oh, yes. So nine-year-old Little Mermaid fans have something to read in their spare time." I mean, it's not necessarily accurate.
There's beautiful, BEAUTIFUL NC-17 HP stuff out there by MK, Rhod, and other fun ones of the fandom. They are sincerely lovely, eloquent, well-written pieces of writing. Yes, they have sex; yes, they have character, style, poise, and hold to the character of the books. I've written some stuff like this. I'll show you sometime, even though you haven't read HP which you MUST.
Then again, there's ridiculous wall-banging-repulsive NC-17 fics.
On the other side of things, I SWEAR TO GODDESS IF I READ ANOTHER PG HUMOR FIC WITH REALLY BAD PUNS I THINK I AM GOING TO DIE OF NAUSEA. Just a personal squick. Then again, I'm a fan of angst in my fodder. I think angst makes for good fodder.
Uh, the purpose of all that? Don't judge a fic by it's rating. :) I could have written that in one line instead of talking for ages, couldn't I. Ah well.
Re:
Date: 2003-02-24 08:14 pm (UTC)Part of the reason I like BDSM stuff is because of the great potential for creativity and for lots of really intense emotion in a sexual context. I read an absolutely beautiful BDSM NC-17 fic last night where a couple was role-playing and the top used the safeword, in tears. It was a gorgeous moment. But two characters having sex doesn't usually do it for me, especially not when it's described in great and infiinite detail.
Not to mention all the cliches of the genre: the lack of lube, the first time that's absolutely perfect, the best sex they've ever had, the lack of discomfort, the grumpy, macho guys going all gooey-eyed... but that happens at every rating; you're right.
Maybe part of my squick is the difficulty I have conceptualizing real people doing sexual things, as opposed to the nameless, faceless creatures of my fantasy life. In TV and movie fandoms, you've got a mental image of the character, and that's a bit too close to RPS (real person slash) for my tastes. (I know this is exceedingly hypocritical given the stuff I've been writing this year, but bear with me here.) It's not so much that I have moral problems with RPS as that it just squicks me.
My favorite fics make me laugh out loud exceedingly hard for several minutes (the Very Secret Diaries) or make me want to cry with the angst of it all (this role-playing fic I read last night, for instance). Fic is an emotional turn-on (in that it manipulates my emotions like all good media
(no subject)
Date: 2003-02-24 08:20 pm (UTC)Slash fic and fic in general
Date: 2003-02-24 09:05 pm (UTC)I wouldn't really say I like slash fic per se, I like gen fic and shippy fic in my pairings. Add that to the fact that I only have two pairings that I'm obsessed with, and I've yet to find much Farscape fanfic that does the series justice (ok, I haven't looked that hard, but...oh shut up. I like reading fic in series I can write for, and Farscape's really hard to write, ok?), so I end up reading a lot of slash. And I'm not too fond of the explicit stuff, don't go looking for it, for one, and usually end up kinda skimming over it when I do, stick to authors I know are good, that kinda thing.
And I like fics that sound like they could be episodes, or episode tags or such; fics that seem real are definitely the best. But then, one of the best (and coincidentaly the most depressing) fanfics I ever read involved the characters living in their hovels at the beginning of the millenium as slaves, and in the end several of them acting completly out of character. But it was wonderfully written because although the character wouldn't have done that before, considering that a, b, c, d...g' had happened, it made sense; you could trace their fall from wonderful person to...something less than human. Third most depressing fanfic followed a similar path, second involved an au with almost recognizable characters.
I love the angst, love h/c, complexity, realism in all save humor. Non con's one of my major squicks; some really good ones use that, some really bad ones get it wrong and make me want to vomit just thinking about them.
Hmm. Didn't like most of the yuri stuff I've read; some's all right, most is way too far out of character. Then again, most of the explict yaoi (particularly first time stuff) is way too far out of character.
Shrug
Should have fun reading fanfic, although "fun" isn't exactly the right word, some of the time it's depressingly unfun but really frelling good...shutting up now.
Like what I like, don't like stuff that contradicts stuff I like (usually).
Grand conclusion that'll change the face of the universe...whatever. And don't go to class. Class bad.
(Sidenote: Names to all fanfic available or can be found on request. I don't recommend reading any of them unless you're in a spectacularly wierd mood.)
(no subject)
Date: 2003-02-25 08:12 am (UTC)ahh my fanfic obsession..
Re:
Date: 2003-02-25 09:26 am (UTC)Re:
Date: 2003-02-27 03:32 am (UTC)