#23 — Brown Goes Down

[dekedangle_rpf_mod]

This is the twenty-third post of Deke Dangle RPF Anon, a community for all your ice hockey anon meme needs.

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Comments

Re: Fandom Venting

[(Anonymous)]

Fic is media, yeah, and while kink and let kink is a fun motto, people enjoying enjoying whatever kind of fic doesn't mean it should be immune from criticism or analysis.

Re: Fandom Venting

[(Anonymous)]

Wanting something to exist =/= thinking it's immune from criticism.

Re: Fandom Venting

[(Anonymous)]

NA

There's a difference between criticism and analysis and saying that something shouldn't exist, though.

Re: Fandom Venting

[(Anonymous)]

NA

+1 and I think this is becoming increasingly more accepted. People should, and now do, police fic that's racist or fic that's about Patrick Kane. Does this increased policing mean that some people feel within rights to police kinks and ships? Probably. But I'm okay with that because I'm sure it's part of the reason there's less misogyny, for example, in slash fic. Top/bottom dynamics being increasingly divorced from superficial factors. More fic about ace and aro people and poly relationships. Sure it's occasionally taken too far, but I'm quite thankful to tumblr culture for promoting quality control and evolution in fandom.

Re: Fandom Venting

[(Anonymous)]

quality control

Oh JFC.

Re: Fandom Venting

[(Anonymous)]

Hee. I lost it when they claimed there was less misogyny in fic. I am suspicious of the idea this person was active in fanfic in the 90s and has an actual basis for comparison of how fandom has changed.

Re: Fandom Venting

[(Anonymous)]

...eight years ago was in the late 00s. Where fandom was just picking up on tumblr. They have no basis for comparison other than being exposed to older archives.

Re: Fandom Venting

[(Anonymous)]

8 years ago? They are an Na, not the 12-year old anon.

Re: Fandom Venting

[(Anonymous)]

NA Yup. And I remember there being a lot more poly fic back in the day, tbh, at least in the fandoms I read.

Re: Fandom Venting

[(Anonymous)]

And a lot more gen fic and case fic, etc. etc. The issue in wanting more variety in fic is that you have to not have very narrow definitions of acceptability. The mentality that defines what is OK in fictional depiction is the same mentality that limits variety in fic, and the fact that they profess to want more varieties of fic and not want certain things to exist shows that they actually don't.

If you want more poly and ace and etc. fic, you gotta be OK with people tackling those topics in a way you don't approve of, since not every attempt will be successful. The 'write more kinds of stuff but only exactly within these narrow confines of acceptability' is exactly the kind of thinking that leads to less variety of fic.

Re: Fandom Venting

[(Anonymous)]

Absolutely. It isn't variety if everything has to fit within someone's (whose?) specific parameters or not exist.

(Poly just came to my mind first there because lately I've been wondering if it's worth trying to track down some of the LoTR rpf stories I enjoyed several computers ago, without remembering either author names or titles.)

Re: Fandom Venting

[(Anonymous)]

You sound like you haven't been in fandom for more than a few years, honestly, because these conversations have been going on for years, pre-Tumblr, even, and the fact that they are new to you doesn't make them new.

Re: Fandom Venting

[(Anonymous)]

MTE.

Re: Fandom Venting

[(Anonymous)]

There's nothing wrong with criticism or analysis, or, to my mind, politely calling something out if there's a huge problem, where that call-out concerns the text. There is something wrong with policing what types of fic should or shouldn't exist, especially when some corners of fandom have taken everything to such ludicrous extremes. Infidelity fic can't exist now, at least between fandom faves? Really? Any interpersonal conflict threatens the sanctity of one's OTP?

And kink fic is somewhat more impervious to criticism than other stories, because if you tell someone their mind control magical feminization misogyny kink fic is somewhat fucked up ... there's a good chance they know that and are actively engaging with that fucked-up-ness more than someone who's just writing a player being a huge, gross asshole to an unnamed girl in a club without questioning that in-fic, which could absolutely happen in a HEA fic. What people kink on and why and how kinks develop in response to societal pressures is an interesting conversation to have, but enforcing fluff-only takes on certain ships, which are, at the end of the day, simply a different form of fantasy, is not part of that conversation. Or any conversation.

Re: Fandom Venting

[(Anonymous)]

You can have infidelity in an HEA fic too theoretically, the couple work through it and move on to their real HEA. I feel like people keep setting up this false dichotomy between fluff romance and darker literary plot fic, that isn't really an issue.

I've always liked happy ending romances, and even I don't find the fic these days very satisfying. There's just a general lack of the characters doing things and making choices and in the end they are so passive and the storylines are so thin, the authors can't even include an ending. The stories just stop before the denouement.

(Not specifically a reply just to you, but something I've been thinking about while reading this thread.)

Re: Fandom Venting

[(Anonymous)]

This. The capacity for growth is tied to the capacity for mistakes, and to make characters devoid of the latter strips them of their agency. And yes, erases the need for an ending, because there's no story because there's no change.

Which is what I find really troubling in a lot of the push against 'problematic' fic: The characters that get the cinnamon roll treatment can't have any flaws or mistakes; they can't grow and change as people; they aren't treated people so much as chess pieces to be moved by an author.

Re: Fandom Venting

[(Anonymous)]

ayrt

You can have infidelity in an HEA fic too theoretically

Honestly, I don't think I've encountered infidelity in a fic that didn't have a happy ending. Either the cheating is on the Wrong Partner, so it's in service of a happy ending for the Real Couple, or the parties work it out. Or the cheating party only thought they cheated.

I don't mind happy endings, but I want them to be earned. I just can't care about perfect people who just don't realize how perfect they are getting a happy ending when their romantic interest says "btw you're perfect."

I also think that what people really don't seem to like these days is angst, especially where angst is caused by characters not being perfect cinnamon rolls.

Re: Fandom Venting

[(Anonymous)]

na

angst is my very favourite thing in the whole world (well, in fanfic) and I feel like it mostly happens in mutual pining fic now which, don't get me wrong, I adore, but I still miss some variety.

Re: Fandom Venting

[(Anonymous)]

da

Me, toooooo. And yeah, I love mutual pining, which I definitely hadn't encountered in this volume before hockey fandom, but I want other stuff, too.

Re: Fandom Venting

[(Anonymous)]

I know it's a different sport, but I feel like baseball had the absolute market on that, if you're interested at all.

Re: Fandom Venting

[(Anonymous)]

ayrt

Honestly not my sport at all (in that I don't know the rules...), but I'm still interested if you have any recs or names handy?

Re: Fandom Venting

[(Anonymous)]

ayrt

Unfortunately I hate mutual pining with every fiber of my soul, mostly because of overexposure in this fandom. I feel like it's acceptable because both parties can angst without ever doing anything wrong or ever coming into conflict, because they only have to realize that their feelings are returned by someone who obviously adores them.

Its not like I want unacknowledged abuse fics 24/7, either. I just want character growth. And angst based in real problems.

Re: Fandom Venting

[(Anonymous)]

What kind of angst would you like to see?

Re: Fandom Venting

[(Anonymous)]

This will probably make me sound like a terrible person, but for example dealing with trauma (for example childhood trauma), serious injury or depression as more "external factors", then struggling with relationships because of different expectations regarding the future (children or no? one wants an open relationship the other does not etc), long distance relationships (which hockey seems perfect for and there is some, so that's good), and I also just like fic in general that deals with more serious flaws of character like homophobia as an obvious example.

There's probably a lot more, but this is what I thought of first.

I feel like there was wank about even the concept of most of these at some point so I don't write it often or when I do, I don't post it...

Re: Fandom Venting

[(Anonymous)]

Kink and let kink isn't just a fun motto. It's necessary for coexistence unless you want every discussion to devolve into unsophisticated "BDSM is sexist" rhetoric, as an example, with a lot of people who don't know much about either weighing in with their two cents.