#poor L'il Apple

[wangxianficrecs]

You guys, we get a beautiful canonical gay ship, which - how rare it even is? and y'all are already making up scenarios how to include wq into the ship? I guess this is why we can't have nice things. Why not just watch like 99% of other show that contain a het ship if you want one so bad? Poor wq being the scapegoat to ppl's unrealistic characterization is not only utterly OOC for her and Wangxian but also disrespectful to their canonical characterizations.

I think one of the best parts of fandom and fanfiction is that... it’s about people matching together characters who MESH, for whatever of a myriad of reasons, with a complete disregard for gender.  In our current media culture, most often the characters with the best chemistry/histories/etc. are male because our current culture doesn’t even bother fleshing out female characters beyond that of sexual objects.

So, the question is:  am I reading fanfiction because it is GAY, or am I reading it because it is explores the relationship and chemistry between the two characters that most intrigue me?

For me personally, the answer is both.  (I am not a fan of het sex, generally, because I am female, I am asexual, and I am uninterested in self-insert.)  The story in question explores two incredibly damaged people in a bleakly hopeless situation who are doing their damnedest just to keep from drowning... and in a dark moment, they find a way to draw comfort from each other.  Frankly... their genders don’t matter to me?  Would it be any different if Wen Qing were trans?  Would that make it more okay?  If it were always-a-girl-wwx?  What if it were Fourth Uncle?  Wen Ning?  Granny?  The story is simply about two human beings in a terribly unhappy place.  They are not in love, their relationship has no future, they are both very aware of that fact.  It is up to the author to make this pairing into something that I find believable and relatable.  In this particular case, the author did.

But listen, just like I told the other anon:  THE INSTANT you realize a fic is going somewhere that makes you feel uncomfortable, angry, attacked, negative in any way... leave it.  This is a very important life skill.

Some people want to look into corners that other people don’t.  That is okay.  It is the exact same okayness that allows you to peek into the concept of two people having a romantic homosexual relationship instead of a bro-ship.

Fanfiction, as I see it, is inclusive.  It’s not gay-only.  It’s a banquet, and you’re allowed to walk around with an infinitely big plate, loading anything you want onto it and avoiding the things you dislike.  Your dislike of a dish, however, doesn’t invalidate it for others.

Evaluate yourself.  Are you completely invested in your OTP?  Does it hurt to consider them with anyone else?  THIS IS FINE.  You can be that way.  (I usually am, actually, it’s VERY rare for me to accept anything else, and it usually has to sneak up on me unexpectedly.  Which is why this blog is 95% wangxian.)  Know yourself, understand your boundaries, and do not be ashamed of guarding them.  Just understand that other people may be or want something different, and that’s fine, too.

AO3 is not megalithic public media.  It’s not Hollywood, it’s not Simon&Schuster.  It is not an economic machine, and it doesn’t have the same influence over ALL of culture as CW, HBO or I-don’t-even-know-what-else-is-out-there.  I think that people are having a real problem lately with this distinction.  YES, demand that Hollywood, etc. stop portraying het-only couples, and DO demand that they watch every line of dialogue for racism/sexism/etc.  They shape our culture and make billions while doing it.  AO3, however, is where people come to hide.  It is VERY private.  No one makes money.  Each person who creates is doing so, on their own, from their own living rooms.  There is no $100M budget, nor is there a team of 1k people involved in a creation.  It is an entirely different thing.  If you don’t like what this one, single, unique, individual person is saying, then move along.  They are not beholden to you, nor you to them.