#qworduse

[thestuckylibrary]

The straight writers + mlm fic thing. I'm totally bummed that sounded like a dig at cis straight fans for being into + supportng m/m ships. Why s it bad for us to support slash ships just cause we're straight? LGBTQ writers matter + we need more of them, y'all! just why does our work mean less when we're here for and supprt those LGBTQ people and writiers? an I'm writing for everyone y'all, not just straight gals. We should support each other equally + not put others down dude

No one is putting you down, or saying you shouldn’t support or create content for slash ships. We’re just saying as fans writing about queer people, specifically mlm, we shouldn’t treat straightness and cisness as neutral or the simple fact that we are writing slash as allyship. We’re talking about queer issues, specifically mlm issues in fandom, and by sending an ask like this you are placing yourself in the role of a victim, which you are not. While I’m not mlm, I am queer. disclaimer that I’m not mlm I’m just a queer woman whos trying to show some solidarity. I’m not an authority by any means, I’m just riled and trying to put forth opinions Ive seen mlm give and you know, not hide from the fact that fandom isn’t perfect. but do note that I’m a cis, albeit queer, woman writing this, not mlm. 

We’re not saying your work is less or that you shouldn’t be here, we’re just saying, hey maybe engage with what you’re writing a little more critically and don’t act as though your writing is for everyone unless you are actively listening to mlm about problems that show up when women, particularly straight cis women, write about mlm.

As usual I could not keep it brief for the life of me so I put most of my queer rage under the cut

Ok so first off you have the whole side of fandom (once again, not mlm, but women, in my experience mostly cis straight women) that like calls bucky their “sad gay baby” or “smol sad gay” and calls m/m erotic fic things along the lines of “filthy sinful gay smut”. I can totally understand why this makes mlm uncomfortable, I mean like who wants their non heterosexuality to be the defining trait that makes them appealing to straight people, who would want their love to be routinely called sinful and filthy by a community that claims to love them? Seriously guys take a step back and think about how it would feel to have someone talk about you like that. 

I read a huge wonderful post by a bunch of mlm in fandom a while ago and I’ll sum up a little of it here. Basically it’s absolutely wonderful to have a huge community devoted to create content about lgbt+ characters. It’s amazing to have a space where people can come together and create content where queer people get happy endings and we can explore all sorts of themes all with lgbt characters. But since slash has a huge number of women, cishet or lgbt+, writing about lgbt+ men, stuff can get a not great. 

For example, its really, really common to see top/bottom debates among fans. It’s one thing for mlm to identify as a top or bottom, it’s a whole other for women to sit there and debate which character fits in which static role. The whole thing reeks of deciding whos the “man” and whos the “woman” all to appease (usually and I am speaking from experience, not statistics or anything) straight cis women. We used to have a mod here who was a sex therapist and she talked a lot about how top/bottom debates are a really stereotypical way to look at queer mens relationships and as they are now its basically all about perceived gender roles and fetishization which like, is one of those things that should be putting up a red flag. She also talked a bit about how statistically it’s pretty likely that most gay couples don’t even really have penetrative sex and stick to mostly oral, intercural and hand stuff. And I’ve seen like so many mlm say that the whole top/bottom debate in fandom is homophobic as fuck time and time again and people just keep on going. Randos (especailly straight people) debating whos penetrating and whos being penetrated in a gay relationship as static roles is really. hoo. yikes. You also see things like only trans writers writing trans men who top, which speaks volumes. While what you read and write is up to you, it’s a good idea to look at why these trends happen and how they happen and what they do. 

You also see a lot, like A LOT of unsafe sex practices because they’re “not hot otherwise” Just to start, me, a bi ace woman, cringes when I’m reading a fic and someone just shoves their dick into an asshole with like only some kissing as warm up. No. If you did that in real life, it would straight up just be painful and cause anal tearing. Also: rimming with no cleaning first? Like ok if you really think its hot to plunge a tongue into a dirty asshole, go for it but like, really? It takes literally one sentences to add in like “oh hey I did an enema and cleaned up before you got here” before delving into sex. It takes one sentence to do the same for lube oh my god seriously unlubed anal sex no matter the gender is just gonna lead to either 1. dick or toy stuck in asshole, 2. severe anal tearing, 3. both and even more delicate skin and tissue related injuries. While I’m on it if you are a vagina owner, or a penis owner or somewhere in between and are interested in playing with genitals, you should be using lube if you aren’t already. lube is your friend. 

While it’s not content creators duty to make sure people know how to have safe sex, it’s pretty troubling that unsafe m/m sex is looked at as being “hot” in a very particular way. From what I understand, proper prep is a vital, vital part of gay sex and woman saying fics that show proper prep aren’t “”hot”” and fics that don’t show it are, that speaks to a broader problem. 

Anyways this is me, a womans thoughts on the matter synthesized from reading a bunch of posts by mlm discussing the way them and stories about them are treated in fandom and it’s honestly better to just like, read their opinions. I tried my best here but I am still a woman and therefore don’t fully understand mlm experience (not that there is a single mlm experience)

Please do continue writing and creating and reading and making headcannons! No one is saying you shouldn’t be here or you shouldn’t wrote m/m! All that’s being asked is for women, especially straight women who read and write and create m/m fanworks, to engage with it mindfully and like, at least make your best effort to not to fetishize mlm, to treat them as people rather than objects, which I really don’t think is asking too much. 

Further reading

here

here (same post but with different topics discussed)

here

Feel free to add more links of mlm taking about these issues cause I know i’m long winded but I don’t want to talk over mlm!

[thestuckylibrary]

Okay, I tried really really hard not to comment but the most recent post on the authorship debate got on my admittedly thin nerves. Because fuck yes, the way things are being written (and I really hope that it's "internet misinterpretation") does come across as "if you're cis, you have no right to write m/m stories as you won't get them right." I've seen the same argument in the professional writing community and it's just as painful to read and deal with there as in fandom.

Well if you actually read my response in the last post  you would realize the whole point is we’re literally just asking cis straight people to maybe make a bit more of an effort to treat us queers like people instead of objects to be arranged for your pleasure. Also to stop assuming that by talking about problems we’re saying that you specifically are a bad person and not welcome. 

All we’re asking is to be mindful when writing about people whos experience you don’t share! It’s not that big of a request! This is not us trying to say you shouldn’t be here! We’re just asking for you to actually listen to us when we say you’re doing something harmful! I’m not saying you will get it wrong or that you’re a big bad evil cishet,who shouldn’t be here. I’m literally just asking people who aren’t mlm (including myself in this), especially people who aren’t lgbt+, to listen if a queer person, specifically an mlm, says something is harmful in a m/m fandom. Please actually read my response in the last one with your empathy goggles on instead of your thin nerve goggles and maybe you’ll get through the internet interpretation you came up with.

I thought I was more than civil in the last post, I know I’ve been less so here, I thought i went to extreme pains to make sure I was placating the cis straight people reading it so they would actually get the message, but now I’m Tired and Angry and it’s not fair to the other mods for me to have this discussion here, it just isn’t. I

f you really want to get into this message me @samthebirdbae. I’m ready.

[thestuckylibrary]

I'm a gay 34 year old man with a demanding job and ive never posted before. My bf and I read slash fic for fun, relaxation, and HEAs. Tumblr ain't real life, folks. Honestly, I get way more offended by poor grammar (it's breathe for the verb and breath for the noun, kids!) than I do about straight ladies inadequately writing gay sex. As a devout reader of het romance (vintage Harlequins!) there's not a lot of sexual accuracy there, either. I get your point but I'm not nit-picking my free hobby.

Thats all cool man! Honestly you don’t have to like be super politically engaged all the time, especially in what you’re doing to unwind, it does get exhausting. Not everyones gonna be upset by the things that upset others, I’m glad you’re having a good time with fandom! Honestly, Vintage harlequins are the best, I uses to work at a library and they just had stacks and stacks of them, it was great.

I started posting about this stuff here cause I really just want people to make an effort to be kinder to each other, especially in a fandom space since lots of us do come here to relax and have fun. Im solidly of the opinion that you can talk about problems in a thing you enjoy and still fully enjoy it, but not everyones always interested in reading the more political posts I do sometimes make. And thats ok! You can 100% be here for fun. I do always tag them #karins queer rage cause I know not everyones up for it.

Thanks for writing in, it’s always good to hear from other perspectives! 

[thestuckylibrary]

hey do you maybe have any really sad fics with like unrequited love or something on bucky's side or maybe ones where the serum "fixes" steve's attraction to bucky? that'd be awesome thank you so much!

I have the Unrequited Love tag, but I refuse to even look for anything about the serum “”””””fixing’”””” steves queerness because i think that sentiment is incredibly gross

[thestuckylibrary]

Hi! As an avid fic reader, there is something that has always bothered me about a lot of fan-fiction I have read in the Stucky fandom or the marvel fandom in general. There is almost always a level of casual sexism against the female characters, for example, in many fics the female characters are referred to as "girls" despite being grown fucking women also is it necessary to talk about how beautiful Natasha or Peggy are in every single fic? Aren't we reducing them to their beauty?

This is actually an incredibly complicated issue. Yes, there definitely is a fair amount of casual sexism in stucky fanfic and in fanfic in general. But on the other hand, compared to general fiction and the world at large, there is significantly less sexism. I’d also point out that the majority of transformative fandom is female identifying, queer, or both, this makes fanfics relationship with sexism a lot more complicated. Internalized misogyny is incredibly hard to sort out and be aware of, because it’s your own internal monologue and in the case of many fanfic authors, your own internal monologue as a woman and (in most cases) a feminist. 

The specific examples you pulled are tricky ones, cause on one hand, yeah theres certainly an element of sexism in there, but on the other hand there also isn’t necessarily a bad wicked thing. In most stucky fics, the narration is third person pov through either steve or bucky, and in the case of two men born in the 1910′s calling grown women girls would absolutely be a part of their vernacular. It’s absolutely sexist, but I’d argue that it’s a strongly internalized attitude and language pattern both of them would absolutely have problems recognizing and or getting rid of. So even if it’s not a carefully thought out choice from the author, it serves as interesting characterization. Also since the majority of fic authors are women, the relationship with using girls isn’t as simple, for one thing it is a part of common english to use women and girls interchangeably and it’s not something that’s closely examined by all women all the time. Also, I think theres as aspect of it’s usage that is reclaiming it in a way. I mean girls isn’t a slur by any means but it’s not free of negative meaning, and by referring to wonderful characters as girls it in some ways seeks to remove those negative connotations- by presenting to the reader a group of people who the reader admires and saying some of them are girls and thats great, it does something meaningful for a woman reading. Using the word girl/s isn’t always something bad, especially when women are using it.

As for calling them beautiful all the time, I’d argue that 9/10 times theres absolutely nothing inherently sexist about mentioning their beauty. I mean it is objectively true, mcu’s female characters are beautiful. Now the reason behind all of them being gorgeous is pretty sinister, hollywood has an insanely toxic and sexist beauty standard and the fact that female characters in movies have to be beautiful in the same way is a whole other barrel of fish and we’re talking about fanfic, we’re dealing with characters who have a appearance and personality not 100% set by the author of a fic. Honestly, I’ve read thousands of Stucky fics and I think I’ve read a handful where women were actively reduced to their beauty. I mean when was the last time you read a novel by a cishet man? It’s absolutely horrifying, the way they treat women is disgusting, and fic is so much better. 

Most of the time in fic, beauty is just one aspect of their character, for example Peggy’s strength and steely determination usually follow any mention of her beauty and Natasha’s dry humour and keen intelligence usually follow any mention of hers. On the other hand yeah, you get a lot of Bucky dancing with a beautiful nameless woman who only appears as an object of desire and jealousy and yeah, thats a problem. But I don’t think it’s a bad thing at all to mention a woman’s beauty provided shes being not shown as important only because she’s beautiful. 

I’d also argue that the vast majority of sexism in fanfic isn’t calling female characters girls or referring to their beauty, its demonizing or ignoring female characters who are “in the way” of a m/m ship. I see this happen a LOT with Sharon in particular, but also Peggy and Natasha. You don’t see the female character who is canonically with one half of a m/m ship is a controlling, violently jealous, homophobic monster plotline often anymore, but it does still come up. More common is the female character who is canonically with one half of a m/m ship is a endlessly pure, patient, supportive and unconditionally understanding prop who exists only to step graciously out of the way of the m/m pairing. I see that all the damn time and it bothers me. 

Female characters tend to not be as developed in canon and because of that often also remain underdeveloped in fanfic and also tend in both canon and fic to be there only to support the male characters not existing outside that context. That or the fact that f/f ships are incredibly neglected. I mean theres like one f/f fic for every like seven m/m fics. Part of that is the fact that there are so many less women than men in fiction. Part of that is on us for just not writing wlw and favouring mlm or m/f ships. I have really complicated feelings about this as a queer woman, I mean I‘m running a ship blog about two men. I could be putting my time into natsharon, cartinelli or claire temple/misty knight, but I’m here instead. I worked through lots of internalized homophobia, biphobia, transphobia and aphobia while reading m/m fics, not f/f and I spend so much more time and energy on m/m ships. I mean here I am, a wlw and here I am investing almost all my leisure time on men. I mean I love it in this fandom and it’s absolutely my choice to be here but part of me wonders what it would be like if I had gone through that process with a f/f ship instead and what it would be like to invest this time on women. I wonder what it would be like to be in mcu fandom if our source material treated it’s female characters better and had more of them.

You also see barely any not white, disabled, unattractive or poor women in fic, but once again part of that is a distinct lack of diversity within the source material. But you know what, I do not see many fics with Helen Cho or Claire Temple in them at all, let alone as developed characters.

Anyways sexism in fandom is a lot more complicated than it initially appears. Nothing is ideologically pure, even fanfic, but due to the nature of fanfic being written by people who you can easily contact in the sometimes caustic forum of tumblr I think it’s incredibly important to be gentle with authors who violate what you individually see as correct. Much of tumblr’s atmosphere of callout culture has a very black and white view of what justice is and what is correct, when in reality theres a lot of layers to this, it’s not a simple black and white dichotomy. People are at different places in their journeys, theres a lot of reasons why authors write things the way they do that you might not be aware of, broad sweeping statements saying x is always bad are a real dicey area to step into (and yes, I see the irony in saying that)

So while fandom certainly needs to take a closer look at our own internalized misogyny (and racism and ableism and audism and so on), I think theres much more to be gained from larger conversations, self reflection and making an active effort to be kinder to women than there is from things like carefully abstaining from words like girls.

[thestuckylibrary]

As you may have noticed, we’ve been having some trouble keeping up with demand over the past month or so. Most of our 8 mods are inactive and all three of us full time mods have had to drop back to part time due to life. So we’re opening the doors to bring in some new mods! Probably about 2, but that depends.

There are several things to be aware of before signing up though. Being a mod here is not an easy job. It’s surprisingly time consuming, often repetitive and tedious and sometimes mentally draining. Most of the additional help we’ve brought in to help in the past have become inactive after a few months or weeks because it’s a lot of work and most of the time it’s not exactly fun. 

I’ll be leaving in a few weeks for an art history course in germany and after that I have surgery so it would be lovely if you could handle the library mostly by yourself/eves for most of June and the last week of May. 

Expectations:

We need someone who wants to stay with us for a while, not just a few months. We will ask that you be willing to put in about half an hour to an hour about five days a week most weeks. This will of course fluctuate based on how much time and energy you have week to week and how fast you can answer questions, but it’s still a significant time requirement. 

We will also require you to be able to search for and find fics well on your own. We can of course share tips and tricks, but you must be able to search the library, navigate the tags on both the library and ao3 and be able to use the advanced search on ao3 as well as google for fics. Having lists of your own and a good knowledge of stucky fic in general is also something that will be extremely helpful.

You MUST be polite and patient with people asking for our help. We absolutely get repetitive asks, asks that can seem obvious (since they are being asked, they aren’t to everyone, so you gotta be chill about it, don’t make them feel ashamed for asking), asks for recs we have as a library tag and occasionally anon hate or super rude, sexist, homophobic, biphobic and entitled asks. You gotta be able to handle it most of the time. I can’t handle it all the time when shit pops up, but you gotta be able to delete it and move on without getting into a flame war with an anon. 

On the other hand, you absolutely do not have to answer asks you are uncomfortable with. I used to be ok if uncomfy with underage and teacher/student stuff but now I just can’t deal and I get other mods to handle it. You do not have to handle stuff you don’t want to handle. You can absolutely keep triggers and intense squicks blacklisted on tumblr saviour and never deal with them. But you cannot use the blog to kinkshame or to tell someone requesting darkfic or bdsm is immoral or whatever. That is absolutely not cool.

You need to learn what triggers we tag for and what warnings to add as well. We are not 100% infallible with it, but we need to do our best to keep people safe.

I know it’s a lot, but basically, if you can be kind, be patient, work your way around fics and tumblr, do your best to make other people feel happy and safe here and do your best to put in time to help people find some good fics then we’d love to have you.

Also

If you are a TERF,  SWERF, Nazi, white supremacist, support Donald Trump, support hydra cap or hydra magneto, think you’re not a racist but think Black Lives Matter is an overreaction, or that Muslims deserve to have scrutiny placed on them because they “could be a radical”, are straight and cis and call m/m ships things like “my sinful gay trash babies”, are straight and cis and ship a m/m ship but are uncomfortable with real life queer peoples “””lifestlye”””, or, think bi, a spec and trans or genderqueer people are faking it for attention, there is no need to apply. 

This is a BIG commitment, it is absolutely harder than you think it is. I was not expecting it to be anywhere near as hard or as much work as it is. This isn’t something to enter lightly, please take some time to think about it before you decide to apply. If you do apply, I’ll send you a more detailed email about how to do things and what is expected before any decision is made.

Apply to be a Mod