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: O_O!
Date: 2004-03-22 03:12 pm (UTC)Thank you!
i hate that so much... once you find a few authors, usually it's ok, cuz then you can read everything they have and check links off their sites or look for places that rec them or ask them for their favorite authors... but even then you can exhaust your resources quickly -_-
I can totally relate. That's especially frusterating if the fandom is really small. But I suppose it can be just as irritating in a large fandom, too. It's like sorting through an endless sea for that one pearl.
LOL! yes XD its actually pretty amusing if you step back and dont get involved, but yes. theres definitely that XD especially between het and yaoi. did you have a preferred pairing? im just curious.. im not going to yell at you or anything XD
Amusing, yes, but if you're involved in the fandom...the fray just sucks you in, whether you want it to or not. :P It was especially sad to see great websites close down because of such foolish arguing. Het and yaoi can be a real killer, but yaoi fans could get just as snarky at each other sometimes. Same with het, actually. You'd think they'd appreciate different tastes, with so many characters to pair. ^^; (I'm just glad we don't see too much of that in the OP fandom...yet. ^^; )
As for preferred pairings, I had a few -- kind of. I did enjoy reading anything with Quatre and Trowa in it, although I was more interested in seeing an emotional relationship between them instead of the physical one many liked portraying. Out of all of the "traditional" shounen-ai pairings, though, I thought those two had the most evidence supporting the possibility. (I never saw where 1x2 came from. Oo)
I also sort of fancied Quatre and Noin as a pair, to be honest. ^^; I think I was one out of...maybe three? Two people? Oooh, I totally got slapped for that one. "Noin belongs with Zechs! ZECHS!!" Granted, Noin and Zechs were a canon pairing (And I never disliked them together or anything!)...but...shoot...something about Quatre and Noin pulled my heart strings. X3 Maybe it was the subtle interaction between them during the battle at the Sank Kingdom? But I wasn't some sort of diehard fan of it or anything...I just thought it was cute. ^^; Is that so wrong? To many, yes. A reason why I left the fandom.
And, yes, I liked Quatre. ^^; And no, I didn't hate Dorothy. I actually liked her and wanted to see the fandom treat her better than they did/do. She's insane, yes, but I really did wind up feeling sorry for her by the end of it. (And, secretly, maybe I did like Quatre and Dorothy as a pairing together.) *gasp* I was a Quatre-fan traitor. Grr.
How about you? Any pairings for you? Even if you just dabbled in them? XP
yeah, no kidding! im lucky enough that i think i was beyond or approaching Arlong when i checked into the fandom, but even so, you can find tons of spoilers even way beyond that. it's kinda frustrating, but i guess it enforces the decision to go beyond and see as much of the anime/read as much manga as possible...
For sure. Just out of curiousity, how far are you into the series? Which story arc was your favorite? I'm curious what kind of wallpaper you saw that was so spoil-rific.
YES. it IS! i cringe when i think about what OP would be like dubbed... im usually very much into subbing above dubbing, but especially here... Luffy.. Zoro... Usopp.. Sanji.. Nami.. all of them... their voices fit them so perfectly. Zoro gets such a great growl sometimes.. i LOVE how Luffy's voice goes from being totally clueless and cheerful to screaming or soft and breaking (like when he's talking to Don Krieg about graves *_*).. *____* eeee! *loves OP and the seiyuus a LOT*
AMEN! I don't think I'll be able to bring myself in watching the dubbed version. Luffy's voice being played by a man seems just wrong. Oo (You know his VA will be male. Probably.)
LOL! excellent! as much as you write, i will read! definitely ^__^ also, it's probably better this way ^_~ now i dont have to risk putting you into a permanent writer's block while you fear for your life or something XD
Eee! Thank you for the kind words! XD I appreciate it!
Re: O_O! (part 1... doh >_<)
Date: 2004-03-22 04:18 pm (UTC)yeahh.. i guess no matter what we pretty much lose XD
Amusing, yes, but if you're involved in the fandom...the fray just sucks you in, whether you want it to or not. :P
XD yeah, it does. its a massive heathenous whirlpoooool! *dramadrama* XD sorry, i like poking fun at the fandom XD though i agreed with what you said... its pretty tragic. sites go down, authors disappear, fights break out, etc etc... there have even been some friendships seemingly permanently damaged over stuff like pairings -_- i dont really .. think that's the most conducive way to live, but live and let live, i guess ^^
eee Quatre *_* he was what pulled me into the fandom. *lovehimlots* i actually came into the fandom, like you said, thinking only Trowa and Quatre made sense. i pretty much regarded the 1x2ers as strange beings but let them go about their business. buuut somehow i got sucked into 1x2 O_o i dont know how. i definitely dont mind that people dont see it ^_^ i didnt at first, so hi, i cant blame them lol i just now think its adorable or something, im not really sure. Quatre and Noin.. haha! yeahhh dont hear that one much. yeah it was a pretty cute scene with the Sank Kingdom, though, so i cant blame you ^_^ they probably COULD be pretty adorable. as for Dorothy? O_O! *GLOMP* DUDE THANK YOU! i also LOVE Dorothy! i admit, first when i watched i was all "RAR BITCH DONT HURT MY QUATRE!" but later i was all "awww ;_; Dorothyyy *comforts her*" i wish more people liked her. she's really cool. there was an lj community for awhile that had all the main GW characters in it and i got to play Dorothy ^_^ and she wasnt evil, damnit! just a little insane, a little twisted, extremely intelligent, and probably too good of a strategist for her own good. *hmphs* i really loved playing Dorothy but eh, the rpg is gone now and yeah. no more Dorothy for me ^^; anyway, its really really a shame that people freak out so much. i mean, honestly. if you dont see the pairing, thats totally cool ^_^ everyone has their own opinion. but its not really something to like.. kill others over o_o; yes, even within yaoi its all "RAR 1x2! NO! 5x2! NO! 1x3! NOOO! 2x4! 4x1! 1x5! RARRR! *shakes fist!!!*" sooo yeah ^^; i cant really handle the het community too much, but thats not really anything wrong on their part. it's just that i haven't had a lot of great experiences with it and i dont agree with a lot of the opinions so i just kinda let it live on its own ^^
i as well am hoping the same doesnt happen to the OP community. ^^; that would suck so much >_<
(continued... >_< )
Re: O_O! (part 2 -_-)
Date: 2004-03-22 04:20 pm (UTC)For sure. Just out of curiousity, how far are you into the series? Which story arc was your favorite? I'm curious what kind of wallpaper you saw that was so spoil-rific.
im as far as K-F has subbed, which is 86 (Drum Island just after Chopper was introduced). it wouldnt have been TOO huge of a spoiler.. well it was. i was like "O_o; wtf?" but then i was looking at a different site that was all "blahblah btw this is one of the biggest spoilers in OP, follow this link only if you want to know..." and i was all *AVOIDS LINK LIKE MAD!* but then i realized after a few days that what that link was referring to was the same as what i saw in the wallpaper. and then i went "DOH! >_<" ..it doesnt really ruin the series or anything. it just wouldve been nice if i hadnt known ahead of time ^^;
anyway, i ordered the HK subs through 120 so hopefully that will help some ^^; and i DO have the manga, but i just didnt really want to read ahead cuz i love seeing it animated first and then going back and seeing the manga. but im pretty sure i'll give up on that soon and read as far as i can ^^;
AMEN! I don't think I'll be able to bring myself in watching the dubbed version. Luffy's voice being played by a man seems just wrong. Oo (You know his VA will be male. Probably.)
good god O_O; yeah. UGH. they totally did that to Kenshin. *shakes her fist at them* after awhile, you get used to it. but its just not the saaaame T_T
ahhh.. i just love their voices. i could go on an entire rant about how awesome the voice acting is! i LOVE them, all of them! but Luffy's especially makes me happy just because of its range *____* eeee! *glomps the voice actors!*
Eee! Thank you for the kind words! XD I appreciate it!
LOL no problem! yayyy ^___^ *waits a little impatiently for the next chapter of your fic* *hophop*
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also! sorry, x-parrot, for babbling so much in your lj ^^;; ahaha... *cough*