I like it when people anticipate my thoughts

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I saw a link posted for The Men's Ficathon, and I was all ready to post a rant (using one of my WTF icons naturally, lol) asking why on earth someone would think we needed a men-only ficathon. It's not like men aren't already the overwhelming focus of fic in just about every fandom or anything. :\ But then it turns out other people beat me to it. Good job, other people!

Comments

[stormwreath.livejournal.com]

My initial reaction was much like yours; WTF? From reading the creator's LJ, she didn't have any particular political motive, just "I like men, I want to read fic about men!" Which, fair enough, but like you say isn't there quite a lot of that already out there? Do writers need special encouragement to post it?

Especially since from what I can see of the prompts, they're mostly bog-standard ones with M/F and M/M pairings and single characters , like you'd find just about anywhere... I mean, they could at least have made a Men's Ficathon specifically about, I dunno, deconstructing masculinity or talking about what it's like to be male in a changing world, or something...

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Yeah, exactly. In the second post I linked, several people suggested turning it into a "men of color" ficathon, so at least there'd be SOME encouragement to write characters who don't get a lot of fic, but the OP seemed uninterested in that idea.

[angearia.livejournal.com]

All that conscientious thinking gets in the way of the FUN! :-/

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My bad. As penance, I will go write about white boys fucking and saving poor black people who can't help themselves.

[angearia.livejournal.com]

Good to see one fangirl has learned her lesson. *nods*

[stormwreath.livejournal.com]

Well, a "men of color" ficathon would immediately demand the question "What about women of color"?, so I don't think that would work too well either. Though I'm assuming here that fandom typically ignores black women as much as or more than it does black men, so there's not a sex-based imbalance that needs to be addressed before we look at the race-based one. Maybe i'm wrong. (Who gets more fic written about them , Kendra, Kennedy and the First Slayer, or Gunn, Gavin and Mr Trick, or is it about equal?)

Still, I'm pretty sure none of that was on the OP's mind. I feel kind of sorry for her, to be honest; she obviously wasn't expecting the reaction she got. (Which isn't to say I disagree - she definitely made a mistake.)

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I'd say the gender representation is probably about equal for characters of color. I might expect Gunn to get a little more attention as the only series regular, but overall there's just not much out there, period. Other similarly themed ficathons have included women of color - the only real reason not to here is that the OP had already defined it as a "men only" thing, and this was just an attempt to salvage it.

I agree, the OP obviously had no idea this would be an issue, but as rahirah pointed out, how ignorant do you have to be to be in fandom and not realize this would be problematic? So I don't particularly feel bad for her, lol.

[stormwreath.livejournal.com]

So I don't particularly feel bad for her, lol.

Clearly you're harsh and cruel while I'm just a big soft-hearted fluffy puppy. ;-)

Which makes me think a ficathon for men who aren't performing traditional heteronormative, patriarchal masculinity might be a nifty idea. (Or fics where they are, but it's subverted somehow.) Hmm...

[next_to_normal]

Heh. So I've been told. :)

And that'd be an interesting idea... Hmmm...