Fanfic and the Magical Forget Ray, or Things I do when I should be doing homework.

[icarus]

Recently a gen fanfic writer wrote a anti-slash screed. (Doesn't she know that an anti-slash screed is what got me reading and writing slash in the first place, says Icarus, 150 slashfics later.)

The question came up as to whether or not we should read or rec this gen writer's stories in the future. You know, the usual, "Ew, if that's her attitude I don't want to read her." -- "Me neither."

destina had a really good post/article about this... somewhere... a very long time ago. But I can't find it. Guess I'll have to write my own.


Fanfic and the Magical Forget Ray

Because we post stories to personal networking sites, we know a lot more about fanfic writers than we once did. Instead of belonging to a list or Yahoo Group and reading fics in a vacuum, we enounter... people.

This can be good. We might like them. We might wonder why they haven't updated their WIP in ten million years -- and reading their Livejournal, we can find out why.

This can also be bad. We can learn that not only do they write gen, they also write slash (oh my). We might stumble across political beliefs we don't agree with, or an anti-slash screed (uh-oh). I know I liked Anne Rice a lot better before she had a blog.

The person who wrote this screed, well, 1) I didn't like her screed, 2) I didn't like the fact that she deleted comments who disagreed with her and left the ones she agreed with, I think that's dishonest, 3) I didn't like how she started banning people who wrote comments she disagreed with, no matter how mild (for example, "Huh. Really? I'm surprised. I think people should write what they like").

That doesn't matter. In my view at least, the personalities behind the stories are irrelevant. The stories stand by themselves. I may not like someone. I'll still read their fic. I'll still recommend it if I think it's good.

Why?

Because my own credibility will be done for as a reccer (okay, I don't rec as much as I used to, but anyway...) if my recs are swayed by my personal feelings about the authors. That is why the Oscars suck. Overblown Hollywood crap wins because the judges like the director and feel he's deserving.

It's hard to forget when someone's been an utter wanker, of course. And here I wanted to quote destina because her response was classy. (I still can't find that post.)

For myself, I use the "Magical Forget Ray."

It works a bit like the S.E.P. field* in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and looks exactly like an oversized hair dryer from the 1950s (curlers not required). You sit under this baby for about 50 seconds, and voila! What a fine new author you've discovered. Never heard of them before. All that's left behind is a vague sense of unease that causes you to never, ever, read their personal posts again.




* = Somebody Else's Problem, the most effective form of invisibility cloak.

Comments

[ix-tab.livejournal.com]

Ha, oh sigh. I need one of those.

There is a writer who writes in a tiny fandom, and is fabulous, and who posts snippets under flock, so I can't delete her...but all of her personal and opinion posts make me want to rip out my hair and teeth.

Next time I stumble across her personal stuff, I'll just zap myself with the Magical Forget Ray.

[orca-girl.livejournal.com]

I do see what you mean, and I think it *is* a fair way to approach things.

But it does get me thinking. Because I've had this reaction to published authors, where I find out more about the author and their views, and that colors how I view the books they've published, and it affects whether I'd ever read them. (Plus, often, an author's skeevy issues come out as skeevy issues in their books.)

I'm still a fan of McCaffrey's world (inasmuch as I still play in it), but I won't read anything she or any of her proxies wrote after ca. 1995, because I feel that strongly about her Issues with Homosexuality. I've actually never read any Anne Rice, but everything I've heard about her since makes me even more unlikely to ever give her books a try. And don't *even* get me started on Orson Scott Card. :P

Should the art stand on its own? It'd be nice if it did. But the asshatness of those three permeates their work, IMO, so... yeah.

As far as I'm concerned, this is just a function of the market. I don't feel much need to be "fair" to those authors -- they've said what they've said, and I'm reacting to it as a consumer.

And it gets me to wondering... why is it "unfair" if we do much the same thing to fan writers? Why do we worry that if we hold a fan-writer's thoughts *about fanfic* (what "should" be written, which means, what her peers and fellow fans are doing) against both her and her own works, that we're somehow engaging in a popularity-contest? Is that what I'm doing when I say that I think OSC is a vile person and that the worldview presented in his books is vile? I don't think it is. Sure, I'm making a statement, but I don't think I'm engaging in a popularity-contest type of politics.

To be clear, I don't have a dog in this hunt -- the person you're referring to writes in a fandom I'm not in and don't read. So my feelings on her case are pretty much hypothetical. (I've read her screed, but it doesn't affect how I would approach her fic.)

Hmm. To address another salient example -- I don't know that I could ever rec "The LOTR Very Secret Diaries" today, without *at least* including a caveat. That's not the same thing as refusing to rec them at all; but I can't forget the other context I've come to know about their writers, and what's more, I wouldn't *want* to rec them without reference to it, and have people think that I just don't care about those issues. (That I think that having written something very funny excuses asshat behavior, that is.)

I agree that these are difficult waters to navigate, though.

[princessofg.livejournal.com]

i agree that it's really important to rec stories on the basis of the story, not because you either loathe or adore the writer. that's why I try to do.

as far as the anti-slash screed, was she anti-homosexuality per se, or was she totally invested in the totally literal heteronormative idea of sticking to canon Above All Else, a literal canon purist, as it were, or was it Some Other Reason?

*cheers*

[isiscolo.livejournal.com]

This is why anonymous fests are so wonderful. It gives us a chance to evaluate stories (and rec them or not, and feedback or not) based on nothing other than the story itself.

I mean, of course I try to let each story stand on its merits entirely, without considering my personal feelings toward the writer. I try. But I suspect that I am unable to completely rid myself of bias, despite my honest attempts to do so. And I suspect most people are like this, as well.

[magic-8ball.livejournal.com]

We might stumble across political beliefs we don't agree with . . .

Funny, just before reading my flist posts, I wrote an entry where I stated an intention to refrain from the political stuff in my LJ, which is a trend I've been enforcing on myself for awhile, anyway. And it's not like anyone goes to my journal much anyway, but still... it seemed odd to have an LJ with political stuff, fandom stuff, fanfic, and the emotional trials and tribulations of being a Mets fan. And it's not like I'm afraid of offending people -- I've had years of practice getting used to doing that in person... offense via blog isn't going to bother me at all -- I just think it's not something someone might be interested in if they go to my LJ to read fic. But if I could just get an SEP Field instead...

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Fairness isn't the issue. Professionalism is.

A reader and a reccer have different roles. As a reader I can avoid McCaffrey. Or I can write subversive Pern slash. (I so slash that universe. Those green riders? Totally taking it up the ass.) As a reccer I value the trust people might have in me, and I'm recommending stories, not people. There's a writer who completely trashed a friend of mine. I still recommend her stories.

If I were a professional reviewer for a journal, I would feel responsible for reviewing the author sans their personal beliefs. I feel the same way about my recs. Someone's views may affect my reading of the story but they aren't relevant to the story unless I'm including biographical details. How relevant are biographical details to the story itself? If reccing the Draco Trilogy I might include a nod to the controversy about that series. If reccing the "LOTR Very Secret Diaries," no, I wouldn't.

Most of my individual story recommendations are formalist in their approach. For fanfic I read for the form of the story. I'm on board with Tolkien in that respect. The exception is my yearly (2007 is still in the works) "flavor of the year" for SGA where I look at stories in context with each other, focusing on intertextuality. Even then, I don't go into such-and-so's personality issue with such-and-so, but rather look at themes.

If my attitude results in fairness, good. I like fairmindedness. But professionalism's my aim. You should be able to trust that I'm not recommending a story just because it was written by a friend, and that I won't be silent about a story just because it was written by an "enemy."

[slb44.livejournal.com]

I have the same issue with actors. Don't want to know, because there are several I can no longer watch because it just turns my stomach knowing what they did in rl.

However, just like with actors, it depends on how egregious the act, statement etc. is. I can overlook some things but others just stick in my craw and no matter how hard I try I can't get over it.

I wish I had the Magical Forget Ray. It would make life much more fun.

Above you mention Anne McCaffrey and Orson Scott Card. I share your issues and will not read their work any more because of it.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Oh, I didn't mention McCaffrey or Card, someone else did. I still read (and recommend) both. But I so slash McCaffrey's universe. In my world, the Weyr is homoerotic heaven, overlaid with the kind of machismo you find in a leather bar.

*g*

[slb44.livejournal.com]

Ooops! LJ is playing tricks on me today. Sorry about that.

I felt the same way about Weyr too until I actually met the author and got into a discussion with her. That sort of put an end to any positive feelings I had about her work.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

My reading of her post was that she hated slash, incest in particular, and was particularly horrified by its predominance in her fandom. On the one hand, she didn't like being called homophobic. On the other hand, she thought that slash should go back into the closet where it belonged. She referred to her gen-only journal as a "safe haven" for non-slashers and was annoyed that she'd clicked on a Gen story link, only to be taken to a journal that had a photomanipped slash banner.

Therefore, the fact that the dark side of this fandom has become so vocal, so in-your-face, and so "I can do what I want, and if you don't like it, I don't give a shit" to the point that all fanfiction is painted with the same unfriendly brush, that my work is thrown into the same basket with things that years ago were underground and I believe SHOULD HAVE STAYED THERE, infuriates me.

I would say she's NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) about homosexuality at best.

[orca-girl.livejournal.com]

I'm about to address that "Weyr atmosphere" thing above. ;-) (That was me.) The thing is, when AM finally came out (heh) as so homophobic (despite having managed to create a framework that could be -- and *was being* -- viewed as gay-positive, and as a way to address problems of homophobia in the fantasy setting), I already had something like 15 years in the fandom. That made it a little easier to separate her from her world (though as I said, I swore off reading any new material she might put out; *especially* because she then went on a bit of a crusade to "correct" the notions her readership was getting from her earlier books by enshrining her current attitudes into later ones). But it was certainly highly disillusioning to find that not only had she not created that gay-positive framework on purpose (actually I never really thought that she had), but upon being informed that she had done so subconsciously, she was not only dismayed, but then actually put effort into revising things as best she could in order to make a gay-positive interpretation difficult to impossible.

Now *that* is asshatty!

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

I know that McCaffrey doesn't like slash. I figure Tolkien would have blinked and been mildly appalled by what I do with hobbits. Neither have any say over what I do with my paper dolls.

There's this fic bunny I have floating around where the riders aren't truly considered part of the Weyr until either the first time their dragon has "flown" another dragon. There's much good cheer -- and a bit of a party if it's a rider's first time (after all, it is a group event involving at least a dozen men and dragons) -- haranguing the two riders once they've recovered. The entire attitude of the Weyr shifts towards them, like they're now adults, whereas before they were still Weyrlings. And there's an extra tension in the air, because no one's sure how a Hold-bred dragonrider will take it. So they really are an outsider until then.

If the rider (particularly a green rider) doesn't take it very well, these being men, well, he'll get teased mercilessly until he deals. Wingleaders keep a close eye on these situations because they can tear a wing apart.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

I think it impacts my tone and level of enthusiasm. I don't gush about a writer who's offended me (not that I'm all that gushy to begin with). But when I catch myself resisting a story because of the author, I cut that off at the pass and read, and if the story is good, I'll rec it, period. I do my best. That's all we can do.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

They're surprisingly inexpensive, although the shipping's exorbitant.

[orca-girl.livejournal.com]

But professionalism's my aim. You should be able to trust that I'm not recommending a story just because it was written by a friend, and that I won't be silent about a story just because it was written by an "enemy."

Mmmmm, yesssss. But. I fully agree that one does not want a reputation for only reccing stories written by friends and not by "enemies". (Whenever I rec a story by someone who is genuinely a friend, I *also* feel that it's necessary for me to point that out.) What I was trying to say, though, is that as a responsible reviewer, there shouldn't be anything wrong with saying, "I'm reccing this story, although with the caveat that the writer espouses some beliefs with which I vehemently disagree (or, she has behaved in this questionable way, that I cannot condone)", and that that is *NOT* the same thing as saying, "I won't rec this story by this writer because she once dissed my friend."

Or I can write subversive Pern slash. (I so slash that universe. Those green riders? Totally taking it up the ass.)

Well, *yes*. I still remember realizing this when I was about 14, and further realizing that if Benden only had one queen at a time, then the only way most of the browns and bronzes were gettin' any was in green flights, and it seemed Highly Unlikely that F'lar's Biggest Bronze On Pern wasn't winning a good share of those, and thus... *lightbulb*! And I thought that was *fantastic* and wonderfully subversive, to just imply clearly like that that F'lar and F'nor and other main chars must be well-adjusted bisexuals. And I certainly promptly started writing with that in mind.

Sadly, the most problematic part of Later-McCaffrey isn't that she didn't agree that the greenriders were taking it up the ass. It was the way she recoiled in horror from the idea that it was her Beloved Bronzeriders who were *giving* it to them... let alone the notion (apparently too horrible to contemplate) that, you know, in a situation in which you're both just seeking pleasure and you are half out of it because your mind is entangled with your dragon's, her Beloved Bronzeriders might actually be on the *receiving* end. *rolls eyes*

No no no no no! Upon being informed that some of her fans were doing it wrong and concluding that there was no particular reason that a bottom-preferring gay man couldn't be both a bronzerider and a Weyrleader, all other things being equal (including him not being particularly bothered by the occasional bout of hetero sex with queenriders necessary to attain such a position)... she flipped the hell out, and that's when we got into all the Tent Pegs and bizarre, convoluted rules arguing that sexual expression and sexual orientation are [a] inextricably linked; [b] utterly discrete categories (no grey areas, no overlaps, no bisexuals); and [c] unquestionably related to leadership ability.

Lesbians, of course, weren't even on the table.

Thus it developed (in canon Pern, anyway) that the men who ended up on greens *had* to be effeminate-acting gays who only ever take it up the ass; men on blues and the occasional brown could be butch gays who only pitched; and bronzeriders apparently NEVER EVER won green mating flights or if they did, they grabbed some nonrider woman to "take care of them" (leaving the other rider to who-knows-what accomodation; tent-pegs, most likely).

And I mean... that's just *sad*, as far as I'm concerned. It was also, I suppose, a neat illustration of the depth of the generation gap between McCaffrey and her readership of the 80s/90s. It wasn't as if the crisis had been precipitated by people coming and *complaining* to her about Big Gay Pern. No, pathetically her reaction was mainly against fans who were in essence *congratulating* her on what a stealth-progressive framework she'd created. *sigh*

The best thing you can say, really, is that a lot of the more well-established groups utterly ignored her and puttered along portraying the Weyrs as they always had; until recently, when she did not recant, per se, but she *stopped talking about it* and stopped insisting that fan groups explicitly follow her retconned beliefs. I don't even know if one can call writing Pern slash "subversive" any more. But I'm still doing it. ;-)

[orca-girl.livejournal.com]

(FWIW, in our group, we have this addressed explicitly during the Weyrling training period -- because nobody wants a rider who still has a problem with it doing something *stupid* in their first mating flight, and having it wind up with tragic results. So actually, from the moment they're candidates, the Weyrlingstaff takes *great delight* in delivering The Lecture, which amounts to, "here's the reality, if you imagine you'll never encounter it you're dead wrong, Deal With It or get out of here now", and it escalates once they actually Impress. This doesn't entirely weed out problems -- that's where good stories come from -- but we've also got a policy in which weyrlings have to be celibate for like the first 6 months while their dragon's a baby, and after that, the staff pretty much all-but demands they experiment with each other with an eye towards those impending First Flights. Because the only problem with waiting to consider the rider of a male dragon "adult" until after he or she has been through their first flight is... there's no guarantee the young dragon will *win* his first flight, or even his first *five*. Riders of the females of course get to "win" every time. ;-) For riders of the males, it can take a bit until the young dragon gets the hang of it and actually catches a female. Again, not to say that particularly hung-up youngsters can't try to dodge the issue, but the Weyrlingstaff are totally watching for those dodges, knowing it's not good to let them, because they've *seen* the worst-case scenarios play out.)

... I'm sorry; this is more than you ever wanted to know about how Pern Fandom deals with this stuff, isn't it? ;-)

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Then there's the settled green couples, the blue rider who consistently flies the same green, and the other men and dragons stand aside, make a half-hearted attempt but they who the green will choose. Sometimes the two riders like each other and there's a genuine warmth; sometimes they tolerate each other for the sake of their dragons. If they're in the same wing, in some Weyrs one will be moved to another wing.

With green riders there's a whole host of other issues (in my fic bunny world). They're exposed to the fast side of the Weyr relatively young, whereas the other dragons will have a few flights before they successfully fly the female. There's a tendency to objectify the green riders, so many green riders react by projecting a hypermasculinity by becoming either womanizers or total tops outside of flying. It can impact their relationships with their dragons. For this reason, some Weyrs adopt a "keep it within the wing" policy, because riders in the same wing protect each other. That way the green rider knows everyone who's even a possibility. There are usually enough greens going into heat that they can enforce it (although that doesn't always work).

[princessofg.livejournal.com]

thank you for the summary.

i'm always very curious about why people are anti slash nowadays, if they are.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Oh, no, I like hearing it. But it's too idealistic to me. I think among guys there will less "talking about it" and a lot more "harrassing each other about it." Which is their way of talking about it.

It's like my high school Sex Ed class. You can't mandate social norms. Kids will take in the information, sure, but they'll still deal with it through their friends and each other and in their own way.

I think that the political set-up of the Weyr will trickle down. The fact that the leadership of the Weyr is determined by which bronze flies the queen will automatically put importance on your first flight in other contexts, regardless of whether it's fair or reasonable, or means that some guy with a particularly small blue will feel somewhat excluded until he's 30.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

What I was trying to say, though, is that as a responsible reviewer, there shouldn't be anything wrong with saying, "I'm reccing this story, although with the caveat that the writer espouses some beliefs with which I vehemently disagree (or, she has behaved in this questionable way, that I cannot condone)", and that that is *NOT* the same thing as saying, "I won't rec this story by this writer because she once dissed my friend."

Mmm. I would never even bring it up. Possibly because of the effectiveness of the Magical Forget RayTM!, or possibly because I don't want to bring personal issues into my recs. My recs are about the story. Period.

As for her retconned version -- LOL! I've only read the earlier books (and the Harper series, and....). There were some books that came out way later but I was "busy with other things" by then. It's always dreadful when a writer approaches a story with an Agenda. The writing is almost always stilted and the story dull.

Oh! And--

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Rec me the good Pern slash, please. *grins*

[aerynvala.livejournal.com]

You raise many good points. I just can't read/watch/listen to things sans context once I know it. I've tried, my brain just doesn't work that way. However, knowing this about myself, I do try to limit the negative context I encounter. If I see an article about some paid-writer, actor, etc that looks like it's going to tell me something I'd really rather not know I skip it. And with fan writers/artists I do the same. If I like one story/art I'll poke at their journal or website for more, but the second I see the least hint of something that will piss me off I avert my eyes (so to speak). And for the most part, that works for me. There are times when the negative context is too big, too obvious, too horrid for me to ignore/miss/skip. And while that's a pain, and often sad, I realize that it's my issue and I am fine with owning it.

Re: that particular anti-slash screed? I think she's um...special and I laughed my ass off at her post. I won't be reading any of her stories again, not because she's anti-slash, but because she is a whiny "poor me I need more feedback!" sort. That's WAY more off-putting to me. The fact that she tried to pair that with her homophobia was just pathetically funny.

And I'm not sure my non-angry/casual tone comes through above, but just in case: I'm not upset and ranting.

[orca-girl.livejournal.com]

Well, there's the *ideal*, there's the standard practice... and then there's how the groups, the individual classes of young-adults, negotiate it amongst themselves. ;-) Procedure versus individual expression, that is; wherein lies the generation of stories. :) (A good half of any of our group's weyrling classes are young women, too; some of whom are weyrbred, and some of whom are holdbred and have their own Issues to deal with. Also, this fact means that riders of male dragons have a generally 50-50 chance of having hetero flights even with greenriders; it's not quite the same as the situation in the books.)

The way things actually work in those weyrling classes that get written about in our group, yeah, harassing each other, goading each other, teasing each other, daring each other, placing bets -- all of that is part and parcel of how it actually falls out. I mean, they're *teens*, after all. (The oldest would only be 22 or so.) I'm just saying that the way we approach it, the Weyrlingstaff has a very keen interest in making sure there's no virgins going into actual First Flights. Because the risk isn't merely the interpersonal problems that can result and fester in a wing situation. The worst-case is that somebody freaks out so badly it scares their dragon into trying to go *between* to come help them or something, and boom, you've got a dead dragon and a severely messed-up ex-rider. Nobody wants that. (Though we've had those stories, as well.)

Generally, though, I agree with you that given the culture of the fighting wings, there's going to be *some* kind of big deal made out of how long it is until the young male dragons finally win a flight. The weyrfolk all have to be aware of the mathematics of the situation, that is, the relative odds against younger male dragons winning even the frequent green flights -- but being aware of it, and being sensitive/understanding about it, are two different things. ;-) Given that it *could* be 5 years before your male dragon wins a flight, I don't quite agree that the prevailing attitude would be that you're still "a weyrling" until you pass that final hurdle -- not when you've been on the combat front-lines for those 5 years. (And when merely surviving your first 5 years of fighting is itself such an achievement.) Especially since everyone also knows that no matter how keen the rider may be to get that rite of passage over with, he or she can't do much about it, it's down to their dragon. (So it's not like a unit trying to help virgin soldiers get deflowered; you can't just buy 'em a hooker!)

But at the very least, I would expect that the first won flight for any male dragon is grounds for a big "welcome to the club!" party. That's going to be human nature. Plus it totally makes sense for wingmates to express it in "now you're *finally* a full rider!" terms.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

I try to deal with this stuff by seeing if I can put myself in the other person's shoes. I don't get the "this should have stayed underground" issue at all.

But I can kind of relate to the bummed out feeling you get when you're in the "dip" of a long story and the reviews slack off. It always leaves the author feeling vulnerable. Even though it's natural. There are certain points where you get reviews: in the beginning, when the story's fresh and new. After the sex scenes. After the funny parts. At the climax. And at the end. Transition chapters (and just the name "chapter 11" sounds like a transition to me) always get less attention.

[aerynvala.livejournal.com]

"this should have stayed underground" is the part that screams homophobia to me.

And I do totally understand it being disappointing when comments slack off. I've written enough to feel that (and watched my friends go through it). But there's a difference between being bummed about a dip in comments versus being bummed and saying "if you support moral/good fan fiction then you should totally comment on my fic!" Because wow is that arrogant.