I'm a bad yaoi fangirl
Feb. 23rd, 2004 04:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
xparrotNew fandom, new fanfic, same old issues. For all that many animanga series give me in canon more of what I crave than nearly any Western show, anime fic too rarely satisfies. Mainly because despite my One True Pairing tendencies, I'm honestly not that into pairings--any pairings, a kink which puts me at odds with fundamental fangirl tenets. Ranting to follow, with the caveat that I know my tastes are not the norm, but after this long they're unlikely to change. I'm always up for trying to figure out why I like certain things, and I have my theories, but when it comes down to it, I like what I like and knowing why doesn't alter that I do.
First off, lemme get this straight - I am a yaoi fangirl. I own and love Kizuna, KKH, Gravitation, FAKE. I read Smallville slash and suspect Ban and Ginji are locked in passionate liplocks whenever the camera pans away from their hugs. This wasn't always the case; for a while I avoided slash, on the principle that I didn't like romance. While that's no longer so, the truth is, I've always loved stories about friendship more than sexual attraction. "Smarm", it's called in some Western fandoms - "the physical/verbal display of platonic friendship". I'm a hopeless hurt/comfort junky and a smarm fan to the end; giving into slash did not affect that. I'll enjoy a good bit of smut, but give me two guys putting their lives on the line for one another, and you'll melt me into a puddle of fangirl goo faster than a box of Crayolas cast into the sun.
Obviously h/c and slash are not mutually exclusive; where would yaoi be without comfort sex? But platonic love can be just as appealing. And here's where I run into problems, because anime gen fic is a rare phenomenon, and too often it's what I most crave.
I'm not sure why it's unusual. In most of my Western* fandoms, there was a strong gen contingent. Stargate has tons of Jack/Daniel (and Sam/Jack, but there's only one blonde officer making it with her colonel that I care for at present, and they're not it), but scads of well-written team-fic as well, and a surprising amount of authors who divide their time between both. I only wrote gen for The Sentinel, and was far from alone. Even X-files had quite a number of fics in which Mulder & Scully stayed true to their show-selves and solved cases together with extreme angst but no forays under the covers.
[*in case it isn't self evident, by "Western" I mean North American & European shows, movies, cartoons, etc. Not really into the whole cowboy thing unless it's Bebop or Trigun]
In most anime fandoms, however, it's difficult to find any fic in any fandom that doesn't involve someone lusting for someone else, be it a het or yaoi coupling. And I'll be damned if I know why.
Obviously if you're writing a fic for, say, Fushigi Yuugi or X/1999, the majority of your chars have gotta be romantically interested or else they're not going to be in char. And yes, to write a long story in which no one is thinking about a special someone or sex in general is not going to be believable if your chars are over twelve. But does it always have to be the central theme? Go to ff.net's anime category and page through the archives of a show; how many fics don't have a pairing or two or six listed in the summary?
I'm not anti-romance; the amount of shoujo manga on my bookcases would debunk that argument fast enough. But take a look over my oeuvre of fanfic, and consider that most of the time, what I write is what I want to read. I've got one long story with a focus on a romantic relationship, though it wouldn't be classified as a romance (it's for Final Fantasy 8. I like Squall/Rinoa. Sue me. I also like Miaka/Tamahome and Cyclops/Jean Grey, so you'll have plenty of supporting evidence). The rest of my longer stories may have touches of romance, but tend to focus on friendships, partners, teams, "brothers in blood", etc. You'd also note that a lot of the relationships I love to pieces in canon - those above, not to mention Van/Hitomi, Sheridan/Delenn, Enjouji/Ranmaru, many more--I don't read or write about. I like them, but I don't crave more action than what we're given.
Even when I do read yaoi/slash fic, it often is for the story--no, really!--the character relationships involved; once they're in bed, unless it's damn fine writing I'll usually skim. I can argue I'm not that into smut because there's only so many ways to write a guy banging another guy, or a girl, or whatever; you run out of metaphors and bodyparts sooner or later. But that doesn't explain why I don't tire of snowfic h/c, even though there's only so many ways to save a hypothermic buddy, and no matter how many times one char screams his friend's name when said friend goes down in a fight, I'll still love the next time they do it. I can't say why sacrifice and concern and empathy stir me quite as they do, but a well-written affirmation of friendship will move me more than the hottest sex scene. My bro calls the over-the-top h/c and smarm stuff my personal porn...embarrassingly accurately.
It doesn't help that over time I've become a fanfic snob; I want well-written, grammatically correct, in character stories, preferably with a modicum of plot to keep things moving. All this, and for someone to get injured or mentally tortured or whatever, so I get their friends worrying about them. And while I'm at it, I'm an inveterate lover of happy endings as well.
When I first got into anime, I was assuming that since that kind of thing was so thrillingly prevalent in the canon--how many fight shounen don't have the scene when the best friend/rival goes down and the hero goes psycho, often with tears and flashbacks?--there would be plenty of fic with it. And sure, there was tons of fic out there--but more people cared about how Vegeta and Bulma got together than exploring the complexities of Vegeta and Goku's relationship, and no one at all wrote about Tasuki and Tamahome's friendship despite all their squabbling. It was a disappointment--but I did find some excellent DBZ out there of the sort I wanted; luck of the draw, maybe I'd picked poorer fandoms.
Four years and countless animanga later, I'm still going back to my Western fandoms when I want a good dose of h/c smarm, and not just because word for word, Western fandoms have better-written fic (Western fans tend to be older; anime fen are mostly teens, while the majority of Western fen are 20s-50s. Not to say there aren't some 16 years old who write better than some 30 year olds, but in general older fen are more discriminating) And this frustrates me, because there's a lot of anime fandoms for which I'd love to read some good friendship stories.
I thought for a time that I had it made - with GetBackers and Saiyuki, the friendships I fell in love with I also saw romantic sides to; I wanted them to see them be more than just friends. Maybe I was at last becoming a true yaoi fangirl, squeeing madly over my favorite couples with hearts in my eyes and shoujo bubbles in the air! Disregard that in Saiyuki my favorite relationship became Gojyo and Sanzo's sniping, though I'm a 58/39 girl so deeply and completely that alternate numerology almost makes me cry--and it was easy enough to ignore my love of the platonic Ban-Shido dynamic in the overwhelming light of the BanGin. (Ignore, too, that my main reason for wanting BanGin is because I can't see them with anyone else, more than wanting to see them with each other. Which isn't to say I don't want to see it, but it's outweighed by the friendship factor, which explains the paucity of sex in my GB fic, if you were wondering.)
And then I got into FullMetal Alchemist, and now One Piece, and I'm back to square one - not seeing any slash, hardly seeing any het, and not wanting any pairings because the relationships that most interest me aren't a whit romantic or sexual. FMA isn't so much an issue, because I'm not especially interested in reading fic for it; One Piece is another story altogether, but I'll save that rant for another day. OP is a bigger problem for me than most; in a lot of my fandoms, it's not that I'm against the yaoi, it's just I enjoy more. There are other relationships every bit as compelling, intense, and fascinating as the sexual or the romantic, and I wish those realms were more explored.
And if you know of some good gen anime fic, go ahead and point 'em my way!
First off, lemme get this straight - I am a yaoi fangirl. I own and love Kizuna, KKH, Gravitation, FAKE. I read Smallville slash and suspect Ban and Ginji are locked in passionate liplocks whenever the camera pans away from their hugs. This wasn't always the case; for a while I avoided slash, on the principle that I didn't like romance. While that's no longer so, the truth is, I've always loved stories about friendship more than sexual attraction. "Smarm", it's called in some Western fandoms - "the physical/verbal display of platonic friendship". I'm a hopeless hurt/comfort junky and a smarm fan to the end; giving into slash did not affect that. I'll enjoy a good bit of smut, but give me two guys putting their lives on the line for one another, and you'll melt me into a puddle of fangirl goo faster than a box of Crayolas cast into the sun.
Obviously h/c and slash are not mutually exclusive; where would yaoi be without comfort sex? But platonic love can be just as appealing. And here's where I run into problems, because anime gen fic is a rare phenomenon, and too often it's what I most crave.
I'm not sure why it's unusual. In most of my Western* fandoms, there was a strong gen contingent. Stargate has tons of Jack/Daniel (and Sam/Jack, but there's only one blonde officer making it with her colonel that I care for at present, and they're not it), but scads of well-written team-fic as well, and a surprising amount of authors who divide their time between both. I only wrote gen for The Sentinel, and was far from alone. Even X-files had quite a number of fics in which Mulder & Scully stayed true to their show-selves and solved cases together with extreme angst but no forays under the covers.
[*in case it isn't self evident, by "Western" I mean North American & European shows, movies, cartoons, etc. Not really into the whole cowboy thing unless it's Bebop or Trigun]
In most anime fandoms, however, it's difficult to find any fic in any fandom that doesn't involve someone lusting for someone else, be it a het or yaoi coupling. And I'll be damned if I know why.
Obviously if you're writing a fic for, say, Fushigi Yuugi or X/1999, the majority of your chars have gotta be romantically interested or else they're not going to be in char. And yes, to write a long story in which no one is thinking about a special someone or sex in general is not going to be believable if your chars are over twelve. But does it always have to be the central theme? Go to ff.net's anime category and page through the archives of a show; how many fics don't have a pairing or two or six listed in the summary?
I'm not anti-romance; the amount of shoujo manga on my bookcases would debunk that argument fast enough. But take a look over my oeuvre of fanfic, and consider that most of the time, what I write is what I want to read. I've got one long story with a focus on a romantic relationship, though it wouldn't be classified as a romance (it's for Final Fantasy 8. I like Squall/Rinoa. Sue me. I also like Miaka/Tamahome and Cyclops/Jean Grey, so you'll have plenty of supporting evidence). The rest of my longer stories may have touches of romance, but tend to focus on friendships, partners, teams, "brothers in blood", etc. You'd also note that a lot of the relationships I love to pieces in canon - those above, not to mention Van/Hitomi, Sheridan/Delenn, Enjouji/Ranmaru, many more--I don't read or write about. I like them, but I don't crave more action than what we're given.
Even when I do read yaoi/slash fic, it often is for the story--no, really!--the character relationships involved; once they're in bed, unless it's damn fine writing I'll usually skim. I can argue I'm not that into smut because there's only so many ways to write a guy banging another guy, or a girl, or whatever; you run out of metaphors and bodyparts sooner or later. But that doesn't explain why I don't tire of snowfic h/c, even though there's only so many ways to save a hypothermic buddy, and no matter how many times one char screams his friend's name when said friend goes down in a fight, I'll still love the next time they do it. I can't say why sacrifice and concern and empathy stir me quite as they do, but a well-written affirmation of friendship will move me more than the hottest sex scene. My bro calls the over-the-top h/c and smarm stuff my personal porn...embarrassingly accurately.
It doesn't help that over time I've become a fanfic snob; I want well-written, grammatically correct, in character stories, preferably with a modicum of plot to keep things moving. All this, and for someone to get injured or mentally tortured or whatever, so I get their friends worrying about them. And while I'm at it, I'm an inveterate lover of happy endings as well.
When I first got into anime, I was assuming that since that kind of thing was so thrillingly prevalent in the canon--how many fight shounen don't have the scene when the best friend/rival goes down and the hero goes psycho, often with tears and flashbacks?--there would be plenty of fic with it. And sure, there was tons of fic out there--but more people cared about how Vegeta and Bulma got together than exploring the complexities of Vegeta and Goku's relationship, and no one at all wrote about Tasuki and Tamahome's friendship despite all their squabbling. It was a disappointment--but I did find some excellent DBZ out there of the sort I wanted; luck of the draw, maybe I'd picked poorer fandoms.
Four years and countless animanga later, I'm still going back to my Western fandoms when I want a good dose of h/c smarm, and not just because word for word, Western fandoms have better-written fic (Western fans tend to be older; anime fen are mostly teens, while the majority of Western fen are 20s-50s. Not to say there aren't some 16 years old who write better than some 30 year olds, but in general older fen are more discriminating) And this frustrates me, because there's a lot of anime fandoms for which I'd love to read some good friendship stories.
I thought for a time that I had it made - with GetBackers and Saiyuki, the friendships I fell in love with I also saw romantic sides to; I wanted them to see them be more than just friends. Maybe I was at last becoming a true yaoi fangirl, squeeing madly over my favorite couples with hearts in my eyes and shoujo bubbles in the air! Disregard that in Saiyuki my favorite relationship became Gojyo and Sanzo's sniping, though I'm a 58/39 girl so deeply and completely that alternate numerology almost makes me cry--and it was easy enough to ignore my love of the platonic Ban-Shido dynamic in the overwhelming light of the BanGin. (Ignore, too, that my main reason for wanting BanGin is because I can't see them with anyone else, more than wanting to see them with each other. Which isn't to say I don't want to see it, but it's outweighed by the friendship factor, which explains the paucity of sex in my GB fic, if you were wondering.)
And then I got into FullMetal Alchemist, and now One Piece, and I'm back to square one - not seeing any slash, hardly seeing any het, and not wanting any pairings because the relationships that most interest me aren't a whit romantic or sexual. FMA isn't so much an issue, because I'm not especially interested in reading fic for it; One Piece is another story altogether, but I'll save that rant for another day. OP is a bigger problem for me than most; in a lot of my fandoms, it's not that I'm against the yaoi, it's just I enjoy more. There are other relationships every bit as compelling, intense, and fascinating as the sexual or the romantic, and I wish those realms were more explored.
And if you know of some good gen anime fic, go ahead and point 'em my way!
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Re: Agreed!
Date: 2004-02-24 08:59 am (UTC)And I know just what you mean about your first discovery of h/c. It hit me the same way - I loved it for years, but for the longest time thought I was some bizarre sadistic freak (I loved seeing my favorite chars hurt! what was wrong with me?) Star Trek novels were my first introduction, since I didn't have internet access until college; I was absolutely amazed to find such concentrated doses of the intense friendshipping I always loved most...
Re: Agreed!
Date: 2004-02-24 06:25 pm (UTC)Oh, yes, I totally know what you mean about the whole sadistic thing. It was my little secret that I basked in h/c for the longest time, and I really did wonder if there was something wrong with me. I've always loved the gut-wrenching feeling that good h/c gives me. I've only met one other person who gets the same feeling and enjoys it. It's quite amusing. Or have I just over stepped the bounds of being a sadistic person? :P
And, yes, although filled with slash, the Star Trek fandom has tons of smarm as well. I've read a few of the novels myself, but I'd say the relationship between Kirk and Spock fascinated me most. The Vulcan word "T'hy'la" (which, if I recall, was also used in several novels) is extremely intriguing to me, and I often wished there was an equivalent in the English language. "Friend" is a word that's used way too casually, in my opinion, and I find it hard to convey the significance of it to a lot of people. The use of brother or sister is probably more efficient in that sense.
Re: Agreed!
Date: 2004-02-24 07:20 pm (UTC)I was lucky to find that my sister shared my sadistic tastes, and since then I've found a few more people who know that warm squirmy feeling in your belly that good h/c evokes...but we are a special breed ^_^
T'hy'la! wow! haven't thought of that in years!! Some of the early novels were absolutely delicious (there were a few semi-official publications from zines, out of print but discovered in used bookstores, that gave me the purest h/c I found until I hit the 'net) And yes, Kirk-Spock, totally, all the way. Presently I can see the slash there (really, with pon farr they made it unavoidable) but at the time it was all about the friendship. (have recently been reminded of some of the dynamics of Kirk & Spock by a certain other headstrong, emotional, impulsive captain and his long-suffering but impossibly loyal first mate ^___^ But then in my head Sanji starts up with the, "Dammit, Luffy, I'm a cook, not a xylophone player!" and it all goes to hell...)
Re: Agreed!
Date: 2004-02-24 07:46 pm (UTC)Concerning that wonderful feeling in the pit of your stomach -- yes, a rare breed indeed. I pity the rest of the human race.
I've seen massive ST fan-zines that have been published on the net. Most of which are Kirk&Spock. I've thought about certain elements of their relationship being reflected in Luffy and Zoro's relationship also. Often times, the bond between captain and first mate is portrayed as strong and true. I love. I get what you're saying about the pon farr stuff, though. I've wondered about that myself -- I guess there really wouldn't be very many options. But many fans, being the dutiful writers that they are, have taken that theory upon themselves. But you probably already knew that.
--Hah hah! Sanji! I can almost see him saying that, too. Oh, the humanity...
Re: !!!
Date: 2004-02-24 11:15 pm (UTC)OMG I love you...well, at least I loove to find another person that understands that feeling!! Mmm...my wonderful h/c (I just got outta a three hour lecture in which I spent the entire thing drawing pics, most of which were hurt guys holding each other...and luffy carrying Sanji for neechan but that's another matter, ne neechan? ;) ) I just always get this warm squishy feeling...especially at collapses...and just...yeah...err, gomen for the complete lack of coherency, been a LONG day...
but its always so wonderful to find others who enjoy the wonders of smarm and h/c. Since entering into the world of anime fanning...three? four...years ago...four now I think...? I've discovered quite a few fellow yaoi fans, even some fellow h/c fans...sorta...but none who really understand the joys of smarm and the friendship sans the sexual relations.
Other than Star Trek, what other Western fandoms have you inhabited? Over the years we've gone through...um...a LOT...a lot a lot...its so great, there's been several fandoms we've gotten into purely because we see like one episode and there's some worry or h/c and boom, we hound down that fandom...X-files comes to mind "but neechan, they WORRY 'bout each other "
And you say an OP fic? angst and h/c? weee...those are always wonderful! ....right neechan?! *cough* wantmoreofthatficeventhoughI'vebeenorderednottoaskforit! Gomen...getting off track....
Actually, for that matter, what other anime fandoms have you made your way through other than the joys of One Piece...of which have just JUST gotten into...and have now seen as much as the subs were available..a.nd then ran out...so started renting it raw...and then ran out of that...so um...yeah...and now read all of the manga that's scanlated..which I think is pretty much everything and OMG need more...err...yeah. I'm better now, realllly I am!
I think I'll shut up now cause um...yeah, I've rambled Waaaaay to long, but truly is wonderful to find another h/c smarm lover! Few and far between, especially in the anime community so we must all unite together! err...or something! *is shot
Re: !!!
Date: 2004-02-25 01:45 pm (UTC)Really, it's been so long, I don't remember all of the Western fandoms I've been into. I think the first one I really got involved in was Hogan's Heroes. :P It happened the same way you described what happens before you're converted -- there was one moment, one scene, that makes you dive into that fandom. "Am I sadistic? Is there something WRONG with me?! Argh, I don't care -- I want more of it!" It's really funny, though, because as goofy as that show is, there are a chunk of angsty, fairly h/c fanfics to go around. Which is more or less the time smarm first ate my soul, and it hasn't let go since. The people in that fandom are usually really nice, though, and get along really well. They don't argue about pairings there, nope -- they just mildly disagree on who is closer friends with who. For some reason, that struck me as great.
I had ventured into various other fandoms, but never really wrote for them. I just read their smarm stories and waddled away happily onto the next fandom of interest. Like you, however, I've been involved with the anime fandom for about four years. I mainly started out with stuff like DragonBall Z and Gundam Wing, like many people, but left those fandoms completely after a long time of watching people scream at each other about who should be paired with who. Neither were really good places to find the kind of stuff I was looking for. Not to say that there weren't any well-written stories there, I just wanted to find some nice h/c smarm. That was around the time I fell into the Star Trek fandom. I flirted with the Star Wars fandom not long after, too. I was surprised and delighted at the good chunk of h/c I found in both fandoms.
Other anime fandoms I've jumped around in are Naruto, Trigun, Outlaw Star, Gundam 0079 and Cowboy Bebop. But I'll flitter around to look for some good fic in other areas, depending on my mood. What about you? What are the kinds of fandoms you've been involved and what did you think of them in regards to the h/c factor?
I sympathize about the lack of OP, though. I just got in 16 more episodes from good old Hong Kong, and I'm all read dreading over what I'll do when I run out.
It's nice to see other people who know about the warm, squishy feeling in the stomach when something awful happens to a character. Looks like we should start a smarm community on LJ. XP
Re: Agreed!
Date: 2004-02-25 05:29 am (UTC)Hmmm, ST fanzines online? Got links? with Kirk-Spock friendshippiness or slash? I've seen a fair bit of slash online, but...wouldn't mind some plain old smarmy h/c with 'em...
Re: Agreed!
Date: 2004-02-25 01:58 pm (UTC)As for that link, I've got one for you. You're in luck, too, because it's filled to the brim with Kirk-Spock stuff. I don't know if you're familiar with Gloria Fry, but she's written many out-of-print fanzines and has since published them on the internet for all to see. (At least, that's what I gathered.) Here you go:
http://www.fry16.freeserve.co.uk/
There are a variety of stories on there, most of which being quite lengthy. Although it's been years since I've read them, the ones that stick out to me the most are the T'Varon chronicles, an AU in which Kirk is the first human to serve on an all Vulcan ship and how he works to gain the trust and friendship of a certain Spock. :P
Have fun!
Re: Agreed!
Date: 2004-02-25 05:32 am (UTC)Re: Agreed!
Date: 2004-02-25 09:16 am (UTC)Heh. I guess I belong to that rare breed too, then. ^_^ I know exactly the feeling the two of you describe. :P I've been like that all my life - I always loved the scenes where the heroes were suffering (in canon, long before I even heard of fanfiction), and I often felt a bit ashamed of it. But now I know several people who feel the same, so I guess I'm not a sadistic freak? ^^
Re: Agreed!
Date: 2004-02-25 03:23 pm (UTC)Re: !!!
Date: 2004-02-24 10:57 pm (UTC)