Aphrael (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
silverthunder) wrote2005-02-24 11:21 am
silverthunder) wrote2005-02-24 11:21 am
Entry tags:
Het fanfics for official yaoi series
I was reading an old rant that I had saved a link to some time ago, on an issue I have some agreement with. Then I went into some of the comments - and found an interesting point in someone's reply.
The point being: if fans can take a canon het pairing and break it up to form a yaoi pairing... why can't het fans take a canon yaoi pairing and break it up to form a het pairing?
I'll admit that I've wondered about this before. I mean, it seems logical, right? What applies for one applies for all - this is our standard of fairness, is it not?
In theory, yes. In reality... there are a couple of problems with this.
One problem is that said fanfiction tends often to take the form of rigid intolerance. People watch the show (don't ask WHY, if they think this way), they take a liking to the characters, and they immediately feel said characters should be 'saved'. So they write the fanfiction where the character "sees the light" and gives up their evil, immoral gay relationship and parades into the good, pure het relationship like an obedientconformist member of society.
Hence the reason we get a reaction of 'wtf?' from the yaoi fandom. Hell, who wouldn't react like this? I remember on ff.net some troll who actually took people's *fanfiction* and re-wrote them so that the characters weren't gay in the end or some such nonsense. And it offends people! (granted, the second scenario is more offensive, but still) I wouldn't say that these people don't have the right to write this stuff if they so choose, but I will say that I raise my eyebrows when I come across it. Are they trying to write a story, or are they trying to preach in a place where they think a good number of yaoi fans will read it?
I think this leads into the second type: the self-titled "non-conformists" who probably watched the show just to write het fanfiction for it because they want to see 'how the yaoi fans like it' or generally create contention. Some of these belong to the first group as well, but in any case, most of the time they don't actually care about the characters and/or fandom and/or pairings. They're just trying to "get back" at yaoi fans for breaking up their canon het pairing.
Not a good reason to write fanfiction, in my opinion. Granted, a lot of people will write things to make a point, and it can be done really well, but churning out a short, crappy fanfic just to get revenge doesn't impress me much.
Despite these complaints, I think the argument is very valid. People who laugh and go 'wtf?' when fans try to claim that characters in canon gay relationships are really straight are often the same people who will claim that characters in canon het relationships are really gay. When you get right down to it, there's nothing essentially wrong with either claim. It IS possible that a character could be confused about his or her sexuality, either way. It happens.
The problem is that there's still so much intolerance in society these days that it's so easy to suspect the first claim of contributing to that. And the sad thing is, more often than not, the suspicions are well-founded. In an ideal world, both claims would be acceptable and no one would bother anyone else over it. But we don't live in an ideal world, period.
Thoughts?
The point being: if fans can take a canon het pairing and break it up to form a yaoi pairing... why can't het fans take a canon yaoi pairing and break it up to form a het pairing?
I'll admit that I've wondered about this before. I mean, it seems logical, right? What applies for one applies for all - this is our standard of fairness, is it not?
In theory, yes. In reality... there are a couple of problems with this.
One problem is that said fanfiction tends often to take the form of rigid intolerance. People watch the show (don't ask WHY, if they think this way), they take a liking to the characters, and they immediately feel said characters should be 'saved'. So they write the fanfiction where the character "sees the light" and gives up their evil, immoral gay relationship and parades into the good, pure het relationship like an obedient
Hence the reason we get a reaction of 'wtf?' from the yaoi fandom. Hell, who wouldn't react like this? I remember on ff.net some troll who actually took people's *fanfiction* and re-wrote them so that the characters weren't gay in the end or some such nonsense. And it offends people! (granted, the second scenario is more offensive, but still) I wouldn't say that these people don't have the right to write this stuff if they so choose, but I will say that I raise my eyebrows when I come across it. Are they trying to write a story, or are they trying to preach in a place where they think a good number of yaoi fans will read it?
I think this leads into the second type: the self-titled "non-conformists" who probably watched the show just to write het fanfiction for it because they want to see 'how the yaoi fans like it' or generally create contention. Some of these belong to the first group as well, but in any case, most of the time they don't actually care about the characters and/or fandom and/or pairings. They're just trying to "get back" at yaoi fans for breaking up their canon het pairing.
Not a good reason to write fanfiction, in my opinion. Granted, a lot of people will write things to make a point, and it can be done really well, but churning out a short, crappy fanfic just to get revenge doesn't impress me much.
Despite these complaints, I think the argument is very valid. People who laugh and go 'wtf?' when fans try to claim that characters in canon gay relationships are really straight are often the same people who will claim that characters in canon het relationships are really gay. When you get right down to it, there's nothing essentially wrong with either claim. It IS possible that a character could be confused about his or her sexuality, either way. It happens.
The problem is that there's still so much intolerance in society these days that it's so easy to suspect the first claim of contributing to that. And the sad thing is, more often than not, the suspicions are well-founded. In an ideal world, both claims would be acceptable and no one would bother anyone else over it. But we don't live in an ideal world, period.
Thoughts?
no subject
The ones that baffle me are the people who knew going in that a show was shonen ai/yaoi even though they don't like the genre, watched it anyway and *then* said, "This show would have been great if not for the yaoi, now I'm going to fix it!" Um, saying Gravitation would have been great without the yaoi is like saying Gundam SEED would have been great without all those pesky giant robots.
no subject
Yeah, I forgot about the self-insertions... I don't know why people would watch *Gravitation* if they want a character for themself, though... It's a romance! I'd think the same thing if someone watched a het romance and then wrote a self-insertion fic. It's... a little silly.