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meridian_roseOne of the things I love about fandom is discussion. Finding other people who understand your need to rant or analyse or otherwise engage with the canon. Canon which is interesting enough to draw you in, but, in many cases, can be frustrating to deal with given some of the questionable writing choices of later seasons.
Today I was talking about a show in which the obvious ships (those with chemistry, affection, development of trust) were passed over because we can't have "teh gay" in a show supposedly meant for Manly Men. Instead there was lots of what was called out as gratuitous heterosexuality, including the canonically bi character falling for a badly written female character who was largely a plot device.
She bedded him to gain access to his secrets, she was spying on his friends/patrons, she was working for his enemies and lying about all this for a significant period of time. Their entire relationship was built on lies.
And never once could I understand, other than lust, what the man saw in her, why he kept going back to her. It seemed to be a case of the writers saying Because We Said So.
It's not a new phenomenon of course. Sometimes the writers insist the chemistry is there even when it clearly isn't. Sometimes they deny it is there – Francois Arnaud commented that he (and the fans as it turned out, quelle surprise) saw the chemistry between Cesare and Lucrezia when filming the Borgias and argued with writer Neil Jordan over it. "When we first got to Budapest, my first rehearsal was with Holly. It was for our very first scene together. We were lying in the garden and Neil kept insisting that we had too many innuendos or it was too romantic or too sexual. And we both argued that it was already all over his writing." source
Too often show writers refuse to recognise their most loyal fanbase, largely female, and often additionally queer, and they don't think it matters when het-marriage-babies and dead lesbians are the tropes they focus on to the exclusion of other, more desired, stories. They don't understand the needs of their audience to explore and experience things relevant to them.
Then the writers wonder why fanfic is so popular. I believe we always want more stories and would always create transformative works, but I also believe that needing stories that satisfy us when we can't get them elsewhere is an important factor in the popularity of fandom and fannish pursuits.
Where does this leave those of us who are amateur or independent writers?
Honestly, I worry about this when I'm writing original fic. I have het couples, and bi/f and bi/m, and f/f, and m/m and asexual characters and poly stuff and childfree characters, bc that's how I roll, and IDEC if readers want to add ships - I write "fanfic" of my own work sometimes, mostly in my head. I want people to fill in the background and come up with AUs because that means I've created a world/characters worth playing with.
But I try hard to make the ships believable to me. I do it in fanfic, having a character talk about or recognise things that they love about someone. For me, especially, as an asexual, I need more than pure lust. I want love. I want conversations. I want demonstrations of affection. I want non-sexual intimacy – and I recommend the series of articles beginning here, which gives examples of many beautiful ways you can explore that.
I still gravitate to het when writing my own work, and I think some of that has to do with the fact that I'm writing women, primarily, and that I still skew hetero-romantic. I sometimes wonder if I'm "doing it right". Perhaps that I wonder, and worry, is a good sign. Perhaps that I'm writing the female POV more often than that, makes it less likely that my female characters are mere boob-owing love interests who are getting in the way of the more interesting relationships.
I'd also like to say that I'm not in the habit of killing characters on the whole, but even if I were, I'd steer clear of breaking up slash or femslash relationships by killing a gay character. The Dead Lesbian trope is currently under fire again, and with good reason. There are so few queer relationships onscreen that it’s a kick in the teeth to queer fans when a gay man or, more frequently, a lesbian, is killed for "dramatic effect".
I don't think there's one right way to write relationships, but there are a whole lot of questionable ways to write them. (I'm not even going to touch the Friend Zone bs, as one example).
For me, that the relationship is not the whole part of the characters, and that the characters have reasons to build a relationship together, makes it more likely for me to enjoy reading or watching it. Let me love the characters before you tell me I should love them together. Let me see them love each other and feel its real for them, so it can be real for me.
-I may post this, or an amended version, to my professional blog as meta musing on fandom vs indie writing and treatment of ships and sexuality. As such, if you have any comments or concrit, they'd be especially appreciated! Also more appropriate title suggestions are love. –
Crossposted to Tumblr
Today I was talking about a show in which the obvious ships (those with chemistry, affection, development of trust) were passed over because we can't have "teh gay" in a show supposedly meant for Manly Men. Instead there was lots of what was called out as gratuitous heterosexuality, including the canonically bi character falling for a badly written female character who was largely a plot device.
She bedded him to gain access to his secrets, she was spying on his friends/patrons, she was working for his enemies and lying about all this for a significant period of time. Their entire relationship was built on lies.
And never once could I understand, other than lust, what the man saw in her, why he kept going back to her. It seemed to be a case of the writers saying Because We Said So.
It's not a new phenomenon of course. Sometimes the writers insist the chemistry is there even when it clearly isn't. Sometimes they deny it is there – Francois Arnaud commented that he (and the fans as it turned out, quelle surprise) saw the chemistry between Cesare and Lucrezia when filming the Borgias and argued with writer Neil Jordan over it. "When we first got to Budapest, my first rehearsal was with Holly. It was for our very first scene together. We were lying in the garden and Neil kept insisting that we had too many innuendos or it was too romantic or too sexual. And we both argued that it was already all over his writing." source
Too often show writers refuse to recognise their most loyal fanbase, largely female, and often additionally queer, and they don't think it matters when het-marriage-babies and dead lesbians are the tropes they focus on to the exclusion of other, more desired, stories. They don't understand the needs of their audience to explore and experience things relevant to them.
Then the writers wonder why fanfic is so popular. I believe we always want more stories and would always create transformative works, but I also believe that needing stories that satisfy us when we can't get them elsewhere is an important factor in the popularity of fandom and fannish pursuits.
Where does this leave those of us who are amateur or independent writers?
Honestly, I worry about this when I'm writing original fic. I have het couples, and bi/f and bi/m, and f/f, and m/m and asexual characters and poly stuff and childfree characters, bc that's how I roll, and IDEC if readers want to add ships - I write "fanfic" of my own work sometimes, mostly in my head. I want people to fill in the background and come up with AUs because that means I've created a world/characters worth playing with.
But I try hard to make the ships believable to me. I do it in fanfic, having a character talk about or recognise things that they love about someone. For me, especially, as an asexual, I need more than pure lust. I want love. I want conversations. I want demonstrations of affection. I want non-sexual intimacy – and I recommend the series of articles beginning here, which gives examples of many beautiful ways you can explore that.
I still gravitate to het when writing my own work, and I think some of that has to do with the fact that I'm writing women, primarily, and that I still skew hetero-romantic. I sometimes wonder if I'm "doing it right". Perhaps that I wonder, and worry, is a good sign. Perhaps that I'm writing the female POV more often than that, makes it less likely that my female characters are mere boob-owing love interests who are getting in the way of the more interesting relationships.
I'd also like to say that I'm not in the habit of killing characters on the whole, but even if I were, I'd steer clear of breaking up slash or femslash relationships by killing a gay character. The Dead Lesbian trope is currently under fire again, and with good reason. There are so few queer relationships onscreen that it’s a kick in the teeth to queer fans when a gay man or, more frequently, a lesbian, is killed for "dramatic effect".
I don't think there's one right way to write relationships, but there are a whole lot of questionable ways to write them. (I'm not even going to touch the Friend Zone bs, as one example).
For me, that the relationship is not the whole part of the characters, and that the characters have reasons to build a relationship together, makes it more likely for me to enjoy reading or watching it. Let me love the characters before you tell me I should love them together. Let me see them love each other and feel its real for them, so it can be real for me.
-I may post this, or an amended version, to my professional blog as meta musing on fandom vs indie writing and treatment of ships and sexuality. As such, if you have any comments or concrit, they'd be especially appreciated! Also more appropriate title suggestions are love. –
Crossposted to Tumblr
