#also people posting the wildest untrue takes about the comic on my fics and I am just

[fallloverfic]

I totally understand where people are coming from when they comment on my Jinx fanfics saying they wish this or that happened in the comic or, amazingly, that Mingwa should take notes or something. I am, however, probably the very wrong person to say this to lol

Mingwa is far and away (obviously) a better writer than I am. And also I adore the manhwa. I have thoroughly enjoyed every single episode, including the ones that came out in the nearly two months since I first read the manhwa, and reread at least parts of it every single day. I know fanfiction can be a fun stopgap between updates, and I'm glad my fics are enjoyable to other folks from that perspective. I get that the manhwa is not going to be everyone's cup of tea, and there are things people want to happen that are not happening (at least yet). I am sympathetic to frustration with the thing you are reading and on some level enjoy and wish were more like what you wanted. I am also interested in analysis of the story and love fanworks for it. And I'm very open to critiquing stuff you enjoy. I love doing it, and it's a great way to better appreciate art (and it's part of why I write fanfiction in the first place).

I am, however, truly not the sympathetic ear for anger about Jinx from a story or character perspective that people seemingly think I am, nor do I wish for my fic comment section to be the dumping ground of such stuff. As I've said with ENNEAD before this, I write the fanfics I do because I love the comic, not because I hate it or its author. Jinx is imperfect - as all art is - and I have criticisms (minor ones, though, like a few art errors or the overuse of stock assets solely in lieu of comic art). But I do not hate the story, the characters, or the direction the plot is going (I have tons of drafts of basically "I really like this thing about Jinx" that I just don't post for my own sanity and time). Maybe that will change, who knows! I liked BJ Alex well enough before I dropped it around the 1/3 mark due to something Dong-gyun did (though I did not like it even close to how much I love Jinx before dropping, and the thing that got me to drop it was good writing and understandable narratively, just also squicky for me). There are things I would like to see happening in the story. But also, there are at least 40 episodes left of the story (if not more, given Mingwa's comment that season 2 would be longer than season 1, and I doubt she meant just 1 episode longer). That's a lot of time for stuff to happen, and even if everything I wanted to happen happened next episode, I'd still be hungrily waiting for the following episode.

My fanfics are for fun, to ease the hungry monster in my head that wishes for more Jinx between updates. Mingwa is pacing the story well, in my opinion, and I trust in her ability to continue to do so. I am, however, less patient in my own writing (in part because I'm in a lot of fandoms and writing several fics at the same time), so I unfortunately kind of rush through things to get to the catharsis faster, which I know would be better served in a longer story. That's fine, because it's fanfic, and obviously it works for more than just me. But Jinx the comic is a lot better than that, which is part of why so many of us love it.

Now excuse me while I return to fic editing and rereading the latest episode another 40 times.

[deliciousscaloppine]

Hot takes galore 2: A brief overview of fandom backlashes that influenced fanfiction writing traditions as I have personally experienced them.

In this segment we examine...THE INDOMITABLE MARY SUE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So, as I was entering fandom in 2008 (Bleach, a manga by Kubo Tite), the hottest, sweattiest discourse pertained perhaps to Mary Sues. I thought the hatred of Mary Sues had completed its cycle and it was dead and gone in our days, BUT I happened upon a post that said that we are all stanning Moxiang Tongxiu’s OCs (original characters), in a sort of admonishing tone, and I couldn’t help but smile.

For back in the day, OCs, were termed self-inserts at best, and if they were a female protagonist that would sideline the canonical cast of characters then they were Mary Sues. And there were as many people hating original characters, and Mary Sues in particular that I remember sitting up all night thinking on whether I should post or not this fic that had some OCs in it that were there to just deliver some messages.

And of course this bled into accusations of writing canonical characters as basically “original characters” or “self-inserts”, by use of the term “ooc” (out of character). Personally, I thought this was over, but recently Riri accused me of disregarding the existing characterization and turning the CQL characters into my own original characters...for KINKY HAVOC IN VOLCANO PALACE!

An unjust accusation, I feel, Riri, because I do my damnedest to maintain characterization even under the wildest circumstances. 

People were looking to extend their enjoyment of the existing characters and story, and for some reason fanfic authors could come under fire for not catering to that, and writing for their personal self-fulfillment. 

And there were as many people writing oc’s and Mary Sues as there were people hating them, and the writers for it. It was chaos, there were journals (i was in livejournal) devoted to roasting mary sues, laughing at authors etc. If you came in fandom after me, you live in much much gentler times, and perhaps you have the Mary Sue to thank for that, because the Mary Sue kickstarted a lot of fandom feminist discourse.

Back in the day they usually determined “Mary Sue” as an overpowered, female character, whom everyone loved even though she might not be particularly charming (by whose standards?), who was adept at everything, knew everything, felt everything etc. 

The thing is that Mary Sues did not seem to exist only in fanfiction, but everywhere around us, whenever there would be a project film/show/comic/book that had a strong female protagonist.

And that was because fandom and male nerd culture were intertwined. Anime, games, comic books were heavily “invaded” by swaths of girls who were not quite fulfilled by corny pop stars, or saccharine rom coms, and seeing that there were no female power fantasies available in these media, they created their own.

It was a very interesting time because if you remember, Marvel Movies started getting made around that time, riding on that convention power, which was dominated by male nerd culture - and that is why they gave so little screen time to female characters, because the demographic was pretty thoroughly examined and they were found to dislike any and every female character that was not there to validate the male character’s cishetero sexuality (YEAH BABY)

I mean women, actresses, female characters had a good portion in media, and the marvel cinematic universe and its imitators pretty much sidelined all these people very aggressively. Male stories started exploding and taking over during this time, exploiting that very vocal male nerd demographic. 

But where is the backlash you ask, because so far we’ve only seen the oppression. 

I saw a lot of writers struggle with the validity of the female character, and then the validity of female writing. They conflated writing female characters, as writing without examining themselves, or attaining a neutral voice and a role of representing accurately reality (lol). Writing Mary Sues was bad writing, and at some point all women were Mary Sues.

...So can you guess what happened?

A lot of these people turned to male slash in order to cope. Before the Mary Sue hate, male slash was a considerable but not dominant piece on the fanfic pie, which was mostly dominated by main het ships. Male slash was already enjoyed by female heterosexual audiences, but it started gaining more and more traction until a term was coined (shipping goggles), and accusations were once more flung: that fangirls will ship any two white dudes - not untrue. 

This audience was not very friendly to actual gay people. There were all sorts of strange views passing before my bespectacled eyes at the time. People proclaiming that they loved yaoi (i was in manga, so this was the term used), but would not watch gay porn, and thought gay people were gross. And in the case where gay people were in fandom these people often complained of not being included/invited in fandom activities, or having minimal readership from groups that promoted male slash, but not gay writers.

This is why I often say fandom is not a friendly place for lgbtq people, because this type of audience still exists, even if it had to suppress their discomfort and assimilate the rhetoric of allyship at some point. And sadly a lot of people who dominated these early discussions about fandom becoming more lgbtq friendly since it consumed such relationships in media, managed to set this climate of dishonesty where everyone is pro-lgbtq in theory, but not in action.

Meaning a lot of stereotyping that is not endemic to actual lgbtq communities. Like top-bottom (most people are verses), whiny bottom, subby bottom, violent top, aggressive sex, hypersexual gay characters, almost complete erasure of bisexuality, lesbians what are they?, a complete and absolute fear in portraying trans characters, suppression of genderfluidity, accusing people of writing male gay characters as female characters as a form of wish-fulfillment or supposed homophobia.

A while ago I saw this article asking why lgbtq people are so mean to each other that confused me thoroughly, until I remembered this call out phase that happened a while ago and still goes on, where everyone blames everyone else of abusing and gaslighting them, friendships falling out etc, which is not at all the reality of older lgbtq scenes, because these were not formed online under this climate. 

And because fandom is a vehicle for self-exploration a lot of people to this day conflate consuming lgbtq relationships through media as being lgbtq themselves, or these “actual” relationships being set as these other fictional “idealized” relationships. Whereas in older lgbtq scenes a lot of people come into them by realizing their attraction to actual, real, live people and not characters, or hot celebrities.

I am not saying that current lgbtq people who discovered that about themselves online are lying, or lying to themselves, but they definitely came out in an environment of fake acceptance, and have a hard time reconciling reality with that lie of acceptance through no fault of their own, of course, because they never developed the language and the understanding that language brings in order to communicate amongst them. The characteristics were set by a group outside of them that might be pro gay marriage, and having a cool gay friend, and the inherent tragedy of homosexuality or something, but are not really for it - as a very wise queer eye contestant once said. 

And so every trespass by their own people, becomes a proof of this generalized rejection with tremendous consequences for young people’s mental health. YOU ARE BEING GASLIT IT’S TRUE - but not by your own people, it’s just a miscommunication going on there.    

BUT WHAT HAPPENED TO THE MARY SUE. She changed. She stopped seeking love, sex, and power, or at least pretended that she did not want any of these things, or did not understand them, she stopped speaking, and became more stoic so people wouldn’t judge her opinions, and finally one day she went on to accomplish great things, because women seeking representation was also a pretty set demographic, and somebody could and would exploit that!

The Twilight Saga, Fifty Shades of Grey, even Hunger Games, are the media progeny of the Mary Sue powering through the entirely of male nerd culture. In a whole decade where people wanted Marvel to release a Black Widow movie, there have been three major spy/action girl movies that did very well in the box office, and since producing and releasing a movie usually takes three years, i’d say the audience was heard loud and clear - even though not by Marvel. 

And the side girls in these Marvel movies, or other action movies, became more and more badass - they all went from damsel in distress, to saving the hero, and of course the male characters were subsequently “queer-ified” until everyone was finally happy, and nerd culture was exposed as having been infiltrated by neonazis and that’s why it was making those unreasonable demands for no women ever in the first place.

And everything was right in the world, except that it was not. Because...girls had also been infiltrated by “neonazis”. A lot of these media, and a lot of these “white” Mary Sues, fall under many conservative criteria. Conservatism being a nice word for fascism. 

A few examples is the person of color always dies, or is brutalized, or is admonished constantly even as they shadow the protagonist in order to reinforce their inherent radiance. Characters who might be poc in books or in the anime (hur hur), are whitewashed in the visual media. The women are almost never comfortable with sex or romance, always thinking about the future and amassing power, not for themselves, but for the benefit of the resistance, or the family, or any other entity they belong to. And of course they are forever incredibly flawed - as opposed to idealized versions of male heroes always on the side of good for the right reasons! Also a minimal cast of women, with one woman being the protagonist, and the rest functioning as side characters or mostly antagonists.

So every time you feel a slight trepidation for not being the right type of lgbtq for writing something that is not strictly anal, or fear to include feminine characters, every time you erase yourself from the narrative it is it, the spectre of the Mary Sue coming to haunt you with a “We won, what more do you want?”