veronica_rich | who gets to decide what others can write?

who gets to decide what others can write?

If you're a woman or girl in fandom and you're eloquent enough to write reams of meta criticizing other female fans for writing m/m or male characters, and not enough female characters, I really have a hard time taking your criticisms seriously. Because if you spent half as much time and energy writing and creating the female characters you claim you want to read about, as you do complaining your fellow fans are not serving you by writing what YOU feel you have the right to read, there wouldn't be a problem. You'd have gone a long way toward solving it.

I write m/m. I have written f/m. I have written gen, humor and otherwise. I have not written f/f because I have not encountered a f/f pairing I want to write. It doesn't float my boat. It may never float my boat. You don't like what I write, don't read it. I have plenty of f-listers who don't like slash; they don't read those stories of mine. We still manage to get along. You don't see me complaining that the good J/N or W/E or even the two good J/E writers who exist in my fandom aren't writing the J/W that I want to read. If I want J/W that fits my specifications, I'll write it myself.

And I have. Many times.

I write m/m. I'm neither gay nor male. I don't pretend to be; I don't pretend what I do is groundbreaking or a blow for gay rights, though I do support gay equality. But my support thereof is separate from my fanfic; my fanfic is NOT political, even if I were to drop a political theme or statement into one. I would never pretend it is. I do not believe I am appropriating a culture to fetishize it, because (1) I make an effort to write from my characters' brains, not their genitals, even if it's just porn; and, despite my effort to do a good job, (2) I cannot imagine that anyone would take my POTC slash fanfic seriously as literature. I do not publish in literary venues; it's LiveJournal fan communities, for godsake. My stories show up alongside 14-year-olds' discussions of "OMG JOHNNY DEPP IS SO HOTT!!111" I mean, really. I won't publish my original writing HERE.

But, what if I DO want to write m/m original fiction? Do I not have that right, especially if what I produce is a fair attempted portrayal of human beings? Tyler Perry isn't an older woman, despite playing one in several movies. Anne Rice was never a 300-year-old French male vampire; Naomi Novik never captained a ship as a man during the Napoleonic war; and neither Ted Elliot nor Terry Rossio were ever a 20-year-old woman in the 18th century Caribbean. (Remember how Elizabeth Swann was seen as a feminist ideal in fandom? That was two men writing her, with input from various other men producing and directing. Was there even an XX in the bunch other than Keira Knightley? I'm pretty sure she didn't singlehandedly create that character. My criticisms of T&T never included the assertion that they didn't have the right to write that character.)

My point - and to paraphrase Ellen, I do have one - is that fandom exists for people to share what they enjoy with other people who also enjoy the same things. This doesn't mean you should shut up and never criticize anything. But think about who you're criticizing. If you see egregious offenses in the movie or book (i.e., Cannibal Island characterizations of the natives in POTC-DMC set some people's nails on a blackboard) and you want to discuss them in an adult fashion with other fans, there's a place to do that. Or, write a letter to the studio/publisher/literary magazine pointing out the problem. Those writers were paid a great deal of money, and you have a right to question their intent. But if you just wish you could read more free fanfic of your favorite character ... write her yourself or encourage those writers who do, to do more. Complaining about the free fanfic from writers who don't want to write her isn't going to garner you stories that you want to read. Fanfic is a labor of love, a fantasy that will never come true - it's not coursework for college-level Creative Writing 241, even if some people do use it to practice their writing skills.

But, eh, as always - what do I know of such esoteric topics? I'm just a middle-aged fanfic writer with a four-year education from a medium-level Midwest university. I don't have any advanced degrees or academic papers under my belt, or published novels. I never experimented with other women or multiple partners, never inhaled, shot up, or snorted, and I wear plain cotton underpants. LOL ...

ETA (from one of my replies below): I would point out in the POTC fandom that I may well be the only writer (other than someone who once kindly wrote a story inspired by one of mine) who has made a fat woman the star/protagonist of any of any fanfic - Prissy, from CotBP. I just wanted to throw that out there. I'm a fat woman myself - do I have the right to scream that I'm being marginalized by all the women in this fandom who only want to write skinny, beautiful Elizabeth Swann??

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

And I love you just the way you are.....

You are a Goddess.

*licks big gold star and affixes it firmly to your forehead*

(you also get your wings, the double-ended lightsabre and extra credit in Fanfic Heaven. And the toaster oven, of course. Choice of 4 enamel finishes. *G*)

Hee, I'm a teacher's pet! (I used to hold out for the scented stickers - except I always ended up with grape, and I hate purple grape. Ugh.)

Speaking of enamel finishes, I actually paid for a heavy duty aluminum Dutch oven at the Goodwill a couple of weeks ago, in avocado green. B-ARF. If my mother were alive, she'd never speak to me again over buying a color she worked so hard to rid her kitchen of for twenty years. But it was only five bucks!

Use it often enough and it really won't matter what colour it is. *G* ROFLMAO! Although I have to say that 70's avocado green was only a shade more barftastic than industrial cafeteria green. And most definitely a close relative. *giggle*

Honestly, I don't really understand why some people are determined to fuck up a hobby they don't share for those who do enjoy it....seems awfully dog-in-the-manger to me. Or just eff'ed in the head cyber-stoopid (more likely---people do shit online that in RL could result in tire iron impressions to the cranium).

Anymore than I understand shipwars. Metawars are the same crap....just tricked out in a different tutu.
(blast--only thing I miss about a paid LJ acct is the edit comment function! Because my fingers are rented.)

Very eloquent!

I have started liking certain female characters because of a fic or two I've read where they're very well done--I think one of the responsibilities of people who are fans of characters that are largely disliked in the fandom is to attempt to get their readers to see the reasons behind those things they dislike, certainly something I've tried in some of my fics and something people have even commented on to me. If these people can write all these metas, then can't they write fanfic that does the same thing? That makes people see why the female characters are likable?

I write m/m. I have written f/m. I have written gen, humor and otherwise. I have not written f/f because I have not encountered a f/f pairing I want to write.

I've written everything, but I rarely write f/f. Is it required that I should? If straight females aren't supposed to write m/m because there's no females involved, then, as a lesbian, shouldn't I be limited to writing f/f, as I have no personal sexual experience involving males? Nevermind that to me a lesbian couple is more than just shoving two women on screen together in a fic just because, or that writing f/f sex is the most boring thing I've ever done, since it can't be described well in words.

There's one female character I liked in canon just fine (while NOT liking all of her actions - but I didn't like all of the actions of a beloved male character in the same canon, either), who in fandom was nearly ruined for me by a chunk of her fans, through endless accusations about how other women who obviously hate their own vaginas didn't fall in love with her. Now in this same fandom, I would venture to say my favorite character got just as much (little?) overall fannish love as theirs, but I realized early it did no good for me to rail and scream about those who didn't like mine. All I could do was write him and encourage others who wanted to do so, to do likewise. It wasn't a "statement" or even meta, really - it was just an effort to produce more of what I wanted to see.

So, I think you're right on that first point. You want me to like your favorite character more? Set about writing them with that enjoyment in mind and show me what about them is delicious. Do not lecture or talk down to me about how immature or blockheaded I must be because I don't agree with you.

I think I've been reading a few of these metas of which you speak. But there are so many of them - and I think some of them might not be as related as they think they are.

From what I gather, some folks use m/m as a reference to slash fiction, and some folks consider m/m to mean solely original gay male fiction. The argument against women writing m/m fiction originated with the 'm/m as original gay male fiction' meta. That began at a Gay Fiction Writer's Award ceremony: a female writer of original gay male fiction won an award; she then made comments that were not well received by some of the male writers of original gay male fiction (I have no idea what those comments were); one of those male writers made some misogynist comments in return (I have no idea what those comments were); the meta 'do straight female writers have more or less privilege than gay male writers' begins; and then manages to get mangled up with the ever present 'why aren't there more great female characters' meta. In my mind, anyway. So there may be some Fandom and Original Fiction arguments that are 'crossing streams' in a totally confusing - and regrettably escalating - way. (Or I'm just confused. Probably the more likely option. :-p )

I'm in total agreement with the 'put your pixels where your want is' idea. The sheer volume of Strong Female Characters would be awesome. The more congenial atmosphere would likely improve the number and quality of slash fics, as well. And the folks who were always going to write lousy fic would continue to do so. (Bitching will never make that go away. That's how ~~almost all~~ some people learn.)

I'm also in total agreement with the 'I don't fetishize gay men' idea. I fetishize those characters because of those interactions (often involving intended subtext). It's not as generalized (for most of us) as some folks are trying to make it.

I have no idea what the female writer's comments might've been either, obviously, but I can tell you some comments I ran into at a convention I went to last summer. I was on a panel with three published authors of erotica, including gay erotica - a man and two women. I was the only nonpublished one. And while all three admitted they had written fanfic in the past, the two women proceeded to sort of marginalize and pooh-pooh it because it couldn't make money in itself and wasn't "real" writing - it was the male writer who agreed that the spread of fanfic, and especially slash, had helped grow a female audience for their kind of paid erotica in the marketplace.

So, yeah - women can say some incredibly shortsighted things when they're more interested in looking esoteric than in really examining something, just like men can. They don't get a free pass from me just because we've historically been a marginalized minority.

They don't get a free pass from me just because we've historically been a marginalized minority.

Hear! Hear!

Plain cotton undies = SO COMFY.

I think what's amusing is that when I write fanfic I write almost entirely male characters. In 90% of my original stuff that I've written in the last year the MCs and friends have been women. What does this mean? It means I like tv and films with male characters because, quite frankly, most of them are written better than the women because there are more men in the TV industry than women and women are not well represented in media. Which is why my original stuff has women. If I want them, I have to write them. Same with fanfic. Then when I become a world famous author/showrunner I can be like I'm in ur base, writin' awesome wimminz. (I have a rich fantasy life)

As it turns out, I don't care if my fanfic has more women because the shows didn't and I can read original fiction for my awesome women fix (thus, also, paying for it and supporting more women in fiction and film) That's not to say that I don't love the character pieces I've seen done on background female characters, some of which has blown my mind and changed my opinions of characters from meh to THIS IS WHAT SHE SHOULD HAVE BEEN LIKE ON THE SHOW!, but that's neither here nor there.

I guess what my point is, is that today I looked at films playing in the theatre near me and only one had a female lead, and it was a romantic comedy. This, I feel, is a bigger problem than the slashy pirates, or batman or wincest I write for no money in my spare time.

(Cotton undies are fabulous. There's a particular kind I get at TJ Maxx, and they're inexpensive, besides. *G*)

I like writing male characters. It's not a conscious choice I sat down and planned out one day. But I thought about this long ago, before I ever got on LJ, and as near as I could ever deduce, it's mainly because it's a challenge. I'm a woman; there's no real mystery for me in writing from a female POV. (Now from a black woman's POV, that would be different. I'm sort of scared to try that - not because of the flak fandom would give me, but because I would hate to screw up a marginalized POV. I could extrapolate and certainly try; and I hope to, actually, in the book I'm still outlining.)

I know this has caused eyerolling in corners of fandom, as evidence of an "excuse" of some sort when other people say it, but I see characters primarily as a collection of personality traits and thought processes. As I said, writing the male POV is just more foreign to me and therefore more interesting as a writer. Do I always get it right? You'd have to ask a man that; I don't know. I'd like to think men aren't much different at their core than women, but I know there ARE differences even in a vacuum of social constructs and rules. *shrug* WHICH MEANS ... my writing might be more simplistic than some other people's, but I'm always trying to do better.

I guess what my point is, is that today I looked at films playing in the theatre near me and only one had a female lead, and it was a romantic comedy. This, I feel, is a bigger problem than the slashy pirates, or batman or wincest I write for no money in my spare time.

I get really tired of there having to be romance in every movie, and I get AWFULLY TIRED of women being shoehorned in sometimes simply to provide that for the male hero. Make a movie with a man in the lead with no love interest! Make a movie with a female lead with no love interest or babies to save! Just do something different, Hollywood!

I think that it has gotten to the point where the thought police are knocking on our keyboards. And yes, you make an excellent point. So much of the brouhaha is about women writing men. And, as usual, it's women who end up sabatoging other women. Because frankly, I think a much more important issue is that the majority of screen writers are men and they are writing craptastic roles for women. And if they don't write craptastic roles for women, then the directors see fit to give what could be a stellar role to someone who is beautiful but can't act. And I am not talking about KK. I am talking about comparing the screen chemistry and pure acting chops of Robert Downey Jr and Rachel McAdams (who I actually like in other things) versus Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law. And yet Irene Adler is a STUNNING character in the Holmes books. Yet Hollywood can't help but declaw her. So yeah, who am I going to write about? Unless you're writing real fiction, you're stuck.

And yes, I do write real ficton and you wouldn't believe the shit I get because my protagonist is a full-fleshed out FEMALE character. The people who dislike my books do so because my protagonist is a bitch. So, what's a writer to do? At least if I write male characters, I don't have to justify them getting angry or getting irritated or screaming or swearing or, you know, generally acting like normal people, not cardboard cutouts that are familiar and safe.

I think that it has gotten to the point where the thought police are knocking on our keyboards.

The only good thing is at this point, the ringleaders are kind of ineffectual. They've pissed off so many fellow fans that they've had to withdraw and withdraw until they're largely talking in a circle with themselves. I just don't like the idea of somebody sitting back going "she doesn't have the right to write that." Say what?

At least if I write male characters, I don't have to justify them getting angry or getting irritated or screaming or swearing or, you know, generally acting like normal people, not cardboard cutouts that are familiar and safe.

Now that's sad. What about the protagonist is bad? I read those books. I liked her for the most part - she had her moments of unlikability, but don't your best friends, even? That's the way of things. No good character is going to be entirely likable 100 percent of the time - the hope is that when they're not, they're still able to evoke enough sympathy to make them worth reading.

They've pissed off so many fellow fans that they've had to withdraw and withdraw until they're largely talking in a circle with themselves.

That's only true for POTC. Read metafandom. There are armies of people out there with similar attitudes.

No good character is going to be entirely likable 100 percent of the time - the hope is that when they're not, they're still able to evoke enough sympathy to make them worth reading.

I'd like to think it's characterization. :) This is exactly what happened in the Harry Potter books. Her one attempt to make Harry 3D failed, so she essentially abandoned characterizaton for ever-escalatng world builing, which ended up make the series quite weak in the end.

As for specific fandoms, to be fair to other fandoms, POTC is the one with which I'm "inside" familiar. Others I only see from the outside, though I am given to understand this goes on in them, too. (But wouldn't it also be fair to extrapolate that because people have retreated from POTC fandom because of such as this, it's happened in other fandoms? Not all of them, of course. But some? Human response is human response.)

Yes, I've been on the 'inside' for PotC and Torchwood. The general breakdown, of the breakdown, has been virtually identical for the two. In fact, reading the rest of the comments here today, and your responses, I'm thinking I may not have been reading any of the metas you were referring to (unless you too have been boggling at the mess over at

metafandom). But it's all the same shit. So, we grok anyway. :)

The thing that I think is unique in the POTC kerfuffle was that we didn't have the numbers to sustain a wank of that magnitude. HP suffers through that sort of wank all the time, but because of its sheer size, people can huff off to their little corners and it doesn't affect the whole. In POTC, we didn't have that large enough of a community so that the segregation of the fandom, essentially, killed it. I'd like to see a statistical breakdown of how big a fandom you need to sustain major wank and still thrive. Clearly, POTC wasn't large enough. We're limping along at best.

Oh, that's interesting. Do you think that this kind of massed attempt to make an author write what [whatever group] think they ought to write is a problem no matter which genre you write in?

I've gotten lots of good reviews on my real-life fiction, and I hope I didn't give the impression that I haven't. But the negative comments, by and large, are from women who see my main character as a bitch. Men don't seem to have that problem! Interestingly, one of the best reviews I ever got was from a male critic! Because mystery has genres within the genres, hard-boiled detective fiction, agatha christie cosies, etc., there are a broad spectrum of readers. The agatha christie contingent find my books too raw. Which is fine, again, you don't like, don't read, but I can point to several male writers who have included strong minor characters who are women (and one who wrote an extremely successful mystery featuring a woman protagonist) and I NEVER HEARD ONCE that she was a bitch. And yet she swore and drank and made my character look like a Sunday school teacher. But he got away with it because he'a a guy. If I'd written that story, being a woman, I'd have gotten the rave reviews he did AND a host of comments by woman who feel betrayed by strong female protagonists. They want Miss Marple in the English countryside.

At least the reviewer has obviously read your book and isn't trying to tell you that you ought to write shiny, happy female characters simply because you're a woman. Or is there a pressure group that says that women shouldn't write hard-boiled female detectives because it's insulting to women and contributes to our ongoing oppression in society?

I can work out how to react to reviews where people didn't like my characters for one reason or another, but I find "you shouldn't write [whatever] because you belong to [the group of oppressors] and you're appropriating our experience" or "you should write [whatever] because you belong to the oppressors and you owe us representation" (which contradict each other, of course) or "you should write [whatever] because you belong to [the group of the oppressed]" much harder to counter. I mean "I write the stories that come into my head because those are the only stories I have to tell," doesn't seem like much of a logical defense. And yet that's pretty much the essence of the thing.

I mean "I write the stories that come into my head because those are the only stories I have to tell," doesn't seem like much of a logical defense.

And THIS right here is what I've been trying to say. NOBODY SHOULD HAVE TO JUSTIFY THAT THEY WANT TO WRITE A FICTIONAL STORY. If it doesn't meet standards to be published or posted somewhere, that's fair. But telling someone "I'm not going to publish this" is not the same as "You are not allowed to write this, period."

Of course. Seems rather elementay but I think we've cross over to the "silly" season, to quote Le Carre.

I think maybe that what we need is just higher standards for publication. I don't think it should matter who writes a book as long as it's a good book. And no one really benefits from the publication of badly written, badly plotted, stereotypical rubbish. (Of course, whether an individual book is good or bad is a matter of debate in itself, but I think that's a different debate that can only meaningfully be had in the context of one book at a time.)

As far as fanfic goes, I think that when people are entertaining you for free it's quite rude to demand they give you what you want at the expense of their own interests and desires. Gives "looking a gift horse in the mouth" a new use.

This is somewhat of a larger issue. I have no patience for someone who questions whether you have the right to write what you write. It seems to me that the marketplace will sort out those issues quite nicely. Either you write compelling, believable fiction (which, of course, you do, smooches) or you don't. The marketplace is an amazing barometer of what is acceptable or what is not.

I'm talking about people bleating for more realistic portrayals of women in fiction, and I'm saying, well, I wrote exactly that and got lamblated (in some circles) for writing EXACTLY that. So yeah, no winning period. And as such, you must write what you must write. Because you're going to take it on the chin in some fashion, therefore, you might as well be proud on some level.

Thank you *g*. And yes, I completely agree. For every "this author has no grasp of the gay male psyche. x would never happen," review I get, I get another saying "I loved your book. x particularly resonated with me because I had exactly the same experience." So I'm wary of anyone who thinks they can talk for an entire group of people throughout history as if all the members of that group were inherently the same. I think the key is to just remember that your characters are human and write them like individuals - whatever group they might belong to.

It's increasingly becoming clear to me that I'm not going to be able to please all of the people all of the time, no matter what I do. Therefore the only solution is to write what I want to write, in the way I want to write it, and if other people don't like it, they can write their own.

ABSOLUTELY! That's been my philosophy for years.

The whole "gay men vs. straight women" thing A) completely ignores the reality of the situation and B) is head-spinning, with tenable arguments on both sides (men have a long and honored history of suppressing any hint of females controlling their own sexuality; slash fiction can be pretty goddamn thoughtlessly appropriative or even homophobic-- hello seme/uke and "I'm not gay, I'm [his name]-sexual!)

I think I fall on the "write more female characters, dammit!" side of things, though. There's a lot of self-sabotage of women, particularly by younger writers. We've all read the fics where the female protagonist is turned into a raging bitchzilla for sake of slashy true love. I can't speak for the posts you've read, but to me it's a matter of better writing and not erasing your own gender (again, we've all read the fics where everyone is gay and there are no women around to do the annoying things they do, like breaking up the slash).

I'm almost exclusively a slasher, I really don't care whether there's more het and femmeslash is written, since I'm not gonna read it anyway. I just want to see Uhura kicking ass and taking names ~~and not wearing goddamn go-go boots and a miniskirt in the military~~ in my Kirk/Spock epics. But yeah, I think I have the right to ask for better portrayals of women in fanfiction, just like I have the right to ask for any other aspect of good writing.

I just want to see Uhura kicking ass and taking names and not wearing goddamn go-go boots and a miniskirt in the military

The historian in me has to point out something Nichelle Nichols said about her original miniskirt uniform. At the time, it wasn't a symbol of male sexual objectification, it was a symbol of female power. Nobody was telling her to cover up her legs or be a cookie-cutter Donna Reed sort of mouse.

I was going to say, I'm reminded of the Nancy Sinatra song and how she usually dressed to perform it. It wasn't military shit-kickers she was wearing.

While I can agree if Trek were being invented NOW the costuming should be at least current, if not futuristic, I will say JJ Abrams was partly hamstrung by 1960s convention. There was only so much he could update and not completely alienate TOS fans (and he was already changing a LOT); on the other hand, as long as he kept the colors and basic designs from TOS, I would have liked to see pants for the women or long tunics for the men. Actually, a combination of both would have been fine - it would have fairly justified keeping Nu-Hura in a skirt, at least.

I'm really speaking more of the movie, as I'm not familiar enough with TOS itself or its fandom to comment there. To me, that is something that definitely should've been changed.

It makes no difference if a girl wears a skirt or pants in day-to-day life; I enjoy having the choice. But wearing a short skirt and heels in the military? No, that doesn't really fly with me. It's ridiculous and impractical. What if, God forbid, she has to run? Why would this relatively idealistic future-society which is supposed have absolved many of these issues cripple their female officers that way when we don't even do that now?

Actually, I don't think you have the right to ask for better stories or better portrayals of women you just hope for them. :)

Mmmm, I don't agree at all. I don't see anything at all wrong with pointing out, "hey, your grammar needs some work," "your characterization is a bit awkward," "your female characters are cardboardy/villainized/completely absent." In my mind, it's a whole lot better than sitting around and wishing that everyone around you would stop erasing your gender in favor of unadulterated squee.

...which actually leads to a whole other epic meta wank/discussion/whatever over criticism and negative feedback.

All good points. I have three of my own:

First, I don't believe female exclusion is the exclusive province of m/m slash writers. There are plenty of gen stories with straight men that exclude the female - and then there are those which nominally include one or more females, but water them down to such a point or keep them backgrounded that they might as well not be there. I myself have written m/m slash stories including female characters that I felt I represented them well with adventure and dialogue - with or without an accompanying relationship. (The best part about these is I was NOT consciously trying to "include the female" - I did it because I wanted to write that character. Politics makes for great arguments, but lousy fiction, IMO. Well, outside of a David Baldacci novel, anyway. *G*)

Second, you cannot make people write what they don't want to write, when they are doing it for free and their own enjoyment. You can't. You can certainly lodge a request, of course, but you do not have the right to any such thing out of another person. As I said above - if you want to see something happen, make it happen yourself. If you're not a writer or artist, seek out those who are amenable to those female characters you like and encourage their work. (The corollary to this is, if you see someone writing a female character - ANY character - and you feel it isn't being done well, you have the right to leave polite feedback to that effect, provided the writer has not specified in their notes that they don't want concrit. That's entirely a personal choice. But they do have the right to ignore you, no matter how much it makes you grit your teeth.)

Third - I don't think I ever advocated NOT having more females written in fandom, or erasing them. In fact, my point was: If you want to see them, write them. Create more of those stories. Never once have I said "gee, I wish there were fewer Elizabeth or J/E stories in the POTC fandom" - I have said "gee, I wish there were more J/W or Will stories that I like to read." One does not preclude the other. There is infinite space on the Internet to post all stories. ;-)

NOTE: I would also like to point out in the POTC fandom that I may well be the only writer (other than someone who once kindly wrote a story inspired by one of mine) who has made a fat woman the star/protagonist of any of any fanfic - Prissy, from CotBP. I just wanted to throw that out there. I'm a fat woman myself - do I have the right to scream that I'm being marginalized by all the women in this fandom who only want to write skinny, beautiful Elizabeth Swann??

I think you're under the impression that I was arguing with your post, which was not the case. Also, I never said anything about it being only slash which does this, anywhere, so I'm not sure what you're addressing there.

"Scream[ing] that I'm being marginalized" is not what is happening here, and if it is, it is the minority. What I see is women making posts, not directed at any individual author, lamenting a lack of strong female characters in fanfiction and encouraging people to write more of them. Unless you have personally been attacked, I don't think you should feel persecuted because of this, and I don't think the appropriate response is to say the the people talking about it should just keep quiet and write their own fics.

To quote you: again, we've all read the fics where everyone is gay and there are no women around to do the annoying things they do, like breaking up the slash and We've all read the fics where the female protagonist is turned into a raging bitchzilla for sake of slashy true love. Forgive me, I wasn't trying to imply that was all you wrote or addressed; actually, I wasn't even picking particularly at your remarks, and perhaps should have made that more clear. I was simply setting down some thoughts your comments brought up, directly and tangentally.

Unless you have personally been attacked, I don't think you should feel persecuted because of this

It isn't a matter of me being persecuted (I'm not even sure that's the right word, considering the historical connotations it carries; it seems strong IMO). This is a matter of me seeing across the bigger Fandom, people who dabble in a fandom and who are doing their own thing for stress relief, and not forcing anyone to read their stories, being derided for not doing somebody else's work for them. I wouldn't expect anyone who doesn't like the characters I like to write them for me, especially in the way I want to see them written. I can certainly ask - but I can't expect it.

I don't think the appropriate response is to say the the people talking about it should just keep quiet and write their own fics.

I don't think I ever wrote "keep quiet" in here. I said: Complaining about the free fanfic from writers who don't want to write her isn't going to garner you stories that you want to read. "Keep quiet" is an order; this is simply advising people they can't expect to order a story to their specifications like a hamburger at Fuddruckers. Which I would think is obvious, unless it's part of a fic exchange where someone has agreed to write what you want to read. (For the record, I like participating in those. But not every fanfic writer does. And that's OK.)

"Scream[ing] that I'm being marginalized" is not what is happening here, and if it is, it is the minority.

But I didn't use those words to refer to anyone but me - I asked if it would be proper for ME to do that. I'm pretty sure the only verb I used throughout my post to refer to the fans I'm talking about was "complain," which is a perfectly decent verb without any connotations of gender or class.

While I can see valid points on all sides involved in this and any other discussion, for me, there's basically good writing and there's crap writing. I'll stick to reading the first and hope I'm not guilty of the latter.

And the more I read meta, the more I come to suspect that some of those discussions are not about fighting oppression in fandom, but about fighting oppression itself becoming a fandom, BNFs and dogpiling included.

Whether this is an intentional development or not (or just me seeing things), I can't tell, but I'll keep as far away from it as possible.

I come to suspect that some of those discussions are not about fighting oppression in fandom, but about fighting oppression itself becoming a fandom, BNFs and dogpiling included.

I agree. And the important points get lost as people jockey for power

Absolutely. It's a power grab. It makes me wonder if these women feel so powerless in their real lives that they think the only way to respect/power is to try to gain it by bossing other people around online. Or, if they're just having fun and disguising it as politics that can't be argued with without the arguer looking like an oppressive wanker.

I am a skinny-ish woman though not model skinny, I'm 5"7 and a size "small", I don't know American sizes, and I think pudgy people are great, my Mini Gov OC's are, if that counts?

And pudgier women have actual boobs, while I'm almost 22 with a sad a-cup! ;-;

Oh, and I think everyone has the right to do what they want! I'm a young Dutch woman and not an old British/French fop, yet I still draw that. Haha.
Fantasy is about not having any limits! <3

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

who gets to decide what others can write?

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject