Apr. 1st, 2021

x_los: (Default)
Someone asked if I was going to continue my cis-het swap Wangxian series, and because I'd just seen someone else on Twitter complain about how I hadn't this week, I wrote a rather TL;DR answer, as I've been thinking about that. It's substantive enough that I thought maybe I ought to bring it back to meta cave:

I'd really like to, eventually! It's interesting because in slightly older fandoms (and still, in smaller fandoms), this form of gender swap fic has been very common for a long time. What you do with it ranges from, you know, sloppy to great. But a lot of younger tumblr-bred fandom isn't used to cis-het swap, so it can strike them as a really active, almost hostile gesture. There are a lot of comments even here re 'I hate this trope, but you did it okay'. People didn't mean to be rude, I know, but it is weird and kind of rude, given that: I wrote 20k of it, so I evidently have some time for it! [A/N: Further, who are you disclaiming to? What personal brand do you think you're protecting? I don't even know you, so?]

And to me, this particular reticence doesn't make a lot of sense considering how actively contemporary fandom engages in a lot of other gender play (ABO, forms of feminisation, etc). It can strike me as weird (frankly, as dubious) to, in that whole schema, draw the line at Actual Woman. I feel like wlw swap almost 'gets away with it' because people can't formulate an argument to address their still-extant discomfort. But given that (as I discovered after posting this) a lot of people are WILDLY ill-at-ease with cis-het swap as a concept at the moment, it does give me pause, even though I personally find this form of gender-exploration really interesting.

Because I could write 3k for me, but fandom is largely communal and about readerships. The outlined next bit of this is a substantial 40kish plot fic. So, given my time and people's interest, are the necessary hours better spent on something other than a trope people dislike, for reasons they're further constructing as political? (A claim I think is being rather too easily made, but.) A lot of people flat-out won't read it (and you know, it's anyone's right to not like a trope), and a lot of people who do will rush in to tell me they disdain it, but I am okay, and frankly I don't need that.

It's not like I'm Here to Do Numbers, with my absolute disinterest in having fandom social media and monetisation, etc. etc. But also I can't say that I don't care that this is my least popular substantial project, because no one wants to spend time telling a joke that doesn't land. 

So I may come back to this: there's an outline and 3k written on the next part. But it'll really depend on how I feel about the fandom and other projects and negotiating All That. 
x_los: (Default)
(That last post counted for yesterday, when I was Out of Commission with a migraine.)

It's consistently funny, when you read the Book of Odes, that kudzu is mentioned in half the fucking poems, because there are STRONG vibes of—

Me: in other important news:
dolichos
always with the dolichos

[personal profile] aeriallon : ALWAYS

Me: it's just kudzu, we think?

[personal profile] aeriallon : KUDZU
so romantic
also possums
armadillos

Me: where is my neglectful husband gone?
eaten by a fucking raccoon:
probably a yankie.

[personal profile] aeriallon : fell headfirst into a gully chasing a javelina
strangled by spanish moss

Me: he accompanied his honourable general to the NASCAR
and there plunged beneath the stands

[personal profile] aeriallon : are we just reading like southern gothic poems, is that what's happening here?
trampled by cowboy booted feet
my heart is heavy and sad as i sit here smoking a pack of Dorals next to the propane tank

Me: oh! my love! you were wearing your best Dale Earnhardt shirt—
I, in my flip flops—

Please plot your CQL/MDZS Nascar AU accordingly.

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