Wait just a minute, fandom.
Wednesday, 6 July 2011 12:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rosiedoesThings I don't understand about fandom right now:
- The strange and on-going shift into darker and darker and more and more violent/outlandish sexual themes. It's an endless stream of non-con, dub-con, child abuse, domestic abuse, extreme BDSM (which is fine, but seems more abundantly common, lately) and D/s relationships. The latter two can certainly be accepted as kinks rather than the earlier ones and I'm totally cool with that. The point is more that they seem to be much, much more common and explicit in fanfics than they used to be, and I wonder why. What has prompted such an enormous upsurge in stories focusing on rape, abuse, violence and role-played versions thereof? When did that change? Am I the only one who remembers when the height of Teh Shock was Aliens Made Us Do It, We Did It With Aliens and Epic Sex Pollen?
- X-Men: First Class. How - and I am genuinely curious about this - is the pairing comprising A MAN PAINTED RED WITH BAD GREASEPAINT and A MAN WHO HAD NO LINES IN THE FILM WHATSOEVER more popular than the pairing comprising the DELIGHTFULLY DAMAGED BUT RIPPED YOUNG MAN WITH DANGEROUS POWERS and THE ADORABLE SMARTASS WHO CAN FLY BUT CAN'T FLIRT? WTF, fandom. Seriously? What the fuck is that? Also: you realise that after the end of the film Beast doesn't turn back into Nick Hoult, right? So all your three-some fics involve loads of blue, matted, semen-sticky fur, right? Okay.
- And while we're at it: why so little love for Caleb? FUCK YOU LOOK AT HIS FACE.
And when you've stopped laughing at the lengths they've gone to to make his skin look normal after PAINTING OUT HIS FRECKLES, let's note that he's the only main character other than Riptide (does Captain Hot-But-No-Speaking-Role even count?) who didn't make it onto the posters. Nor did he get a Marvel Minimate made of him, even though Havok, Beast, Mystique and even Azazel did. He's the only member of the X-Men who didn't. And he was so excited by the idea of getting to be a redheaded action figure for little redheaded kids to have, too. :*( Fucking ANGEL gets on the posters, but not Banshee. What the fuck is that? She didn't get her own BRB SAVING THE FUCKING DAY theme music in the film. That kid is the first to volunteer himself to go into battle. He's the reason they locate the sub. He saves Alex's life and gets himself fucked up in doing so. The character is probably 30% of the comic relief in that goddamn film! C'MON. WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS SHIT, MARVEL? AND ALSO: FANDOM. GET ON THIS SHIT LIKE SUNBURN ON A GINGER.
- The strange and on-going shift into darker and darker and more and more violent/outlandish sexual themes. It's an endless stream of non-con, dub-con, child abuse, domestic abuse, extreme BDSM (which is fine, but seems more abundantly common, lately) and D/s relationships. The latter two can certainly be accepted as kinks rather than the earlier ones and I'm totally cool with that. The point is more that they seem to be much, much more common and explicit in fanfics than they used to be, and I wonder why. What has prompted such an enormous upsurge in stories focusing on rape, abuse, violence and role-played versions thereof? When did that change? Am I the only one who remembers when the height of Teh Shock was Aliens Made Us Do It, We Did It With Aliens and Epic Sex Pollen?
- X-Men: First Class. How - and I am genuinely curious about this - is the pairing comprising A MAN PAINTED RED WITH BAD GREASEPAINT and A MAN WHO HAD NO LINES IN THE FILM WHATSOEVER more popular than the pairing comprising the DELIGHTFULLY DAMAGED BUT RIPPED YOUNG MAN WITH DANGEROUS POWERS and THE ADORABLE SMARTASS WHO CAN FLY BUT CAN'T FLIRT? WTF, fandom. Seriously? What the fuck is that? Also: you realise that after the end of the film Beast doesn't turn back into Nick Hoult, right? So all your three-some fics involve loads of blue, matted, semen-sticky fur, right? Okay.
- And while we're at it: why so little love for Caleb? FUCK YOU LOOK AT HIS FACE.
And when you've stopped laughing at the lengths they've gone to to make his skin look normal after PAINTING OUT HIS FRECKLES, let's note that he's the only main character other than Riptide (does Captain Hot-But-No-Speaking-Role even count?) who didn't make it onto the posters. Nor did he get a Marvel Minimate made of him, even though Havok, Beast, Mystique and even Azazel did. He's the only member of the X-Men who didn't. And he was so excited by the idea of getting to be a redheaded action figure for little redheaded kids to have, too. :*( Fucking ANGEL gets on the posters, but not Banshee. What the fuck is that? She didn't get her own BRB SAVING THE FUCKING DAY theme music in the film. That kid is the first to volunteer himself to go into battle. He's the reason they locate the sub. He saves Alex's life and gets himself fucked up in doing so. The character is probably 30% of the comic relief in that goddamn film! C'MON. WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS SHIT, MARVEL? AND ALSO: FANDOM. GET ON THIS SHIT LIKE SUNBURN ON A GINGER.
no subject
on 2011-07-06 01:09 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2011-07-06 04:15 pm (UTC)I think he's the least experienced of the cast in terms of work - less high-profile - but his character had more to do in the film than Havok, in fact aside from being a turn-coat, his role had more function than Mystique, too.
It just seems wildly unfair that the poor kid has been massively overlooked.
(Although it does improve my chances of convincing him he wants to do that one screenplay I've been planning and for which he would be ideal... :P)
no subject
on 2011-07-07 05:43 pm (UTC)I did read an amazing threesome of Beast/Havok/Banshee, although the timing was squiffy and Beast was still Nick Hoult. Really good though if you want a link.
no subject
on 2011-07-07 05:47 pm (UTC)He was totally precious in the film and I just posted a really sweet quote to my Tumblr, by the director of The Last Exorcism, saying he's a genius and listening to him is like a young Bob Dylan or something. <3
no subject
on 2011-07-15 03:13 pm (UTC)though, possibly it's also an effect of what fandoms you're currently reading in? i know bbc!sherlock has given a much angstier flavor to my writing compared to my last fandom.
no subject
on 2011-07-15 03:39 pm (UTC)I, meanwhile, have gone to hide in an original screenplay and fics about obscure tertiary characters I was writing in the SGA fandom half a decade ago.
The only other fandoms I'm aware of are Sherlock (by default), Loki (Hammer? What hammer?) and XMFC, which I don't actively read for the middle reason in the list above: no one writes my ship. I'm more involved in the non-ficcing, actor-appreciation fandom for those. I don't have a lot of time to read fics, these days, because SBBC really does take up a huge portion of my time; then reading fic after that is a bit like homework.
It's definitely more of a general awareness, though - I've seen grittier and darker subjects just seemingly overwhelm everything else. I know a couple of people specifically lay the shift at the door of the kinkmemes - in that it gives people a more private avenue of asking for what they actually want to see, which they weren't keen to do publicly before they began to crop up, and that subsequently made harder kinks more socially acceptable as they grew more common.
They could be right; I dunno. I'm a fairly vanilla person myself in terms of my ficcing interests, and never read above a soft-R, but to me the rise of those subjects has seemed really sudden.