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welcome-to-the-gay-bar · 3 years

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So I we started to watch Attack on Titan again after many years and I’ve just finished season two and before starting season three I wanted to take a trip down memory lane and look at all my old favourite AOT fan fictions from 2014 (and see what’s popular nowadays that I may have missed, since wow, a lot has changed since I was last present in this fandom and compared to what’s happening in the current episodes season one was tame).

I’ve noticed a huge divide between fanon and canon and I kinda wanted to ruminate on this a bit.

Eren’s character in the show isn’t my favourite. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still fond of this brash idiot, but he’ll never be my favourite. He falls into this shonen protagonist trope of being hot headed and ill tempered. He doesn’t take advice, he’s not going to listen to plans or authority, he always thinks he’s right and only follows his moral compass, and to tie it all up he’s not even that strong. He can’t back up the threats that he’s laying down and yet he always rushes into situations with fists flying and never thanks or appreciates the characters (Mikasa) that get him out of those tricky situations. The only way to get through to him is to physically beat him down and even then it may not work if he hadn’t already somewhat respected you (Mikasa again). This character type is seen so often in shonen and I’m really not a fan, I like the cool and calculating protagonist better. Someone who has the power behind their threats and doesn’t rush into situations. Again, I like Eren, but I think it’s the other characters in the show that balance him out and the plot itself that makes me like Attack on Titan.

Compare this to fanon where his default character is happy ray of sunshine who’s a little bit naive. It’s a rather jarring comparison but I also don’t necessarily dislike it either. To me canon and fanon characteristics are almost completely seperate. If I had to always think a d compare fan fiction to canon I probably couldn’t read it. I read about happy fanon Eren and see canon angry Eren and to me they are two completely different characters - two completely different people even. If I had to read fan fiction about canon Eren I can 1000000% say that I just wouldn’t. I couldn’t. I’d be totally bored. As I said before, I like Eren but it’s the people around him and the plot itself that makes him bearable. I can watch a show about him because it takes less time and emotional energy, but I couldn’t invest in reading a book about him (which is why I haven’t read the manga either).

This isn’t even exclusively towards Attack on Titan. Back in my Teen Wolf phase I noticed how different canon and fanon characters were. Small secret - I was knee deep in the Teen Wolf fandom before I realised that I hadn’t actually watched an episode of Teen Wolf. One of my mutual’s reblogged TW artwork that was linked to a story and from that I never looked back. When I actually did get around to watching TW I can honestly say I was more than a wee bit disillusioned. Derek and Stiles are obviously not the main characters and I was prepared for that, but then they barely interacted, and when they did interact it was nothing like what I had read about - nothing like what their fanon characters or interactions were like. I can honestly say that I never made it past the first season - the show just wasn’t for me - but I was still thoroughly invested in the fandom for another year or two.

Something about fanon Sterek dynamics just did it for me, their characters and relationship was just so on point for what I wanted, and this is kind of when I came to accept that canon and fanon can be so different that it almost feels as if it’s two pieces of completely different media. I mean, fanon has its own set of rules, it’s own character tropes and story arcs that even completely different authors with completely different stories somewhat instinctively know to follow. I think that’s amazing, but it’s also a double edged sword. See these first two examples were of shows that I A) never watched/finished before reading fan fiction, B) don’t necessarily love love the characters in canon. That means that fanon is more appealing because it takes something I don’t care too strongly for and changes it to something more appealing. But what about when fanon takes something I love and cherish and remoulds it?

I want to briefly take this time to talk about something I’ve dubbed “the twink affect”. When you take a character that’s originally strong willed, self sufficient, and somewhat masculine and you pair the, up with someone EVEN MORE strong willed, self sufficient, and masculine - the “Alpha male” of characters if you will. I find that fanon is incapable of seeing two strong men together in a relationship and will eventually slowly twinkify one of them. Make them smaller, softer, lonelier, less self sufficient and more reliant on others, they need to be taken care of, they’re now a ball of sunshine that’s radiant and joyful, they’re cotton candy that melts on your tongue. You put them next to the pairing you ship them with and instead of seeing two strong men you see a bear and a twink. That’s definitely what’s happened to the two characters/pairings mentioned before and I honestly didn’t mind because I wasn’t protective of the source material, but when it does happen to a character I love it’s the most frustrating thing in the world, and I can’t even complain because I’ve already reaped the benefits from other fandoms. (I am going to complain though, this is my blog and I can do what I want mum.)

I’m going to talk about Mo Dao Zu Shi. Beautiful story that I love in (almost) all its various adaptations, but I’ve noticed the ever slow changing of fanon’s Wei Wuxian. For anyone reading this that hasn’t read MDZS (or if anyone’s reading this at all, I am expecting to just be shouting into the void at this point) Wei Wuxian dies - not a spoiler, it happens at the very beginning of the story - and comes back to life in the body of Mo Xuanyu. Mo Xuanyu is small malnourished and twinky - he even canonically wears makeup (or at least has it in his possession, I’m getting the various adaptations confused and I can’t remember if in canon Wei Wuxian woke up in Mo Xuanyu’s body already wearing the makeup or if he just finds the tin of makeup in Mo Xuanyu’s possessions). Wei Wuxian’s character is also a bit of a tease, and now he’s alive and unburdened by the past he’s much freer now than he was in the past, couple that with the fact that he’s pretending to be Mo Xuanyu (a character who is rumoured to be gay and also a bit insane) he goes all out in pretending to be a shameless flirt, and it’s honestly hilarious, I love his character. So in a sense he has all the makings of a canon twink and I’m really not here to shame on those who portray him that way while he’s in Mo Xuanyu’s body.

My personal issue is with the same extreme twink portrayal while he’s in his original body. In his original body Wei Wuxian is BUFF. He’s hunky, he’s in the top five most eligible bachelors, he’s *car honks* woof woof bark bark *whistles* puurrrr, he’s one of the most powerful cultivators of his generation, he’s a genius too. He’s hunky. He still has the cheeky shameless character, but when you compare him to the male lead Lan Wangji, they’re about the same size and strength. My favourite type of fan fiction in MDZS is fix it/everybody lives nobody dies/no war/etc etc. Basically stories where Wei Wuxian keeps his original body. The fanon twink portrayal of him being so small and soft and weak while in canon he’s one of the strongest and smartest urks me in ways I can’t explain. It’s not what I want, not what I’m looking for. I love him for who he is in canon and to see his character so distorted by fans of the original work is frustrating. I just want to read about Wei Wuxian as a jock with his equally buff and tall nerd boyfriend.

I want to pause here and say that I have nothing against authors that write him in a twinky way, I respect your work and your characters (and as I said before I’ve reaped the benefits of other fandoms twinky character portrayals numerous times), if I read a fic that I’m not happy with the characterisation I just close the tab and move on so absolutely no hate to anyone who enjoys this character type. I’m just ruminating on the fact that I’ve been seeing it happen more and more often lately to the point where I’ve kind of bounced the fandom and am sticking to other works like Scum Villain that haven’t yet twinkified too much (there will always be one or two stories in every fandom that twinkify and honestly? I respect that. Authors said twink rights ONLY, good for them).

Mo Dao Zu Shi isn’t the only fandom I’ve been in that I’ve negatively reacted to fanon. Another one would be Batman (I love Tim with all my heart and I love him getting treated nicely but damn I sometimes wish people would remember how freaking strong and amazing he is too), 2Ha is another I’ve started to see “twinkified” (although I don’t mind seeing Chu Wanning being soft and taken care of, he is canonically called handsome and masculine and he’s quite tall too), I’ve even seen the canonically “top” character (and that seems so weird to write oml) be twinkified by fandom because they want to see him get bottomed for ~equal rights~ because apparently bottoming is seen as a “woman’s position” to them and they’re trying to be woke by switching the sexual positions up but failing to see how misogynistic and homophobic that take is (imma stop myself here because that a WHOLE ‘nother can or worms to be opened right there).

What I’m trying to say is fanon is a double edged sword and I’ve definitely enjoyed some and hated some. I think it’s important to seperate the two. I do think it’s annoying for fandoms to be flooded with mischaracterisation when you actually do like the original characters and I wish there was some way to seperate fandom into “actual canon fans” and “fans of fanon”, but I don’t have a solution and I’ve definitely contributed to the problem in the past so for that I’m sorry.

I don’t know how to end this long ass rant, I don’t know what the goal was in writing this, but taadaa ~ here’s my exceptionally long take on fanon.

#rant #I don’t know if I should tag the fandoms mentioned in case I wake a sleeping bear #but I’m going to do it anyway in case someone has the tags muted #mdzs #aot fanfiction #AOT #mo dao zu shi #fanon #ao3 #attack on titan #ereri #wei wuxian

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pankopop · 7 years

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Sono Chi No Sodomy

Renegotiating Gender Politics of Anime and the Complex Queerness of Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure

Now, I’ll be the first to admit I’m a dumb baby newcomer to anime. And I’m not gonna pretend that I have any authority at all here. I think letsplayer Arin Hanson once tweeted about “The Weeb” being like chicken pox – you’ll be okay if you get it early but if you contract it in your twenties you’re basically doomed.

When I was 13 I never let my sister off the hook for being into Inuyasha. One day, I walked into the anime club at my highschool and just belly laughed at the dorks who dared to enjoy things. I’m a recovering fuckhead, and boy do I feel bad about the assholey things I thought and said.

The sneerishness stemmed from this idea that ALL anime was sexist, racist, and sexually obsessed with underage girls. To me, the entire country of Japan was ideologically written off as an ethical dystopia. That was when I still thought of myself as a real hard manly masculine boy, with long hair and motorhead on loop loud enough to drown out any opinions but Lemmy’s. I had things to prove! Boycott Japan! I’m very insecure!

Of course, things have changed (I hope). It took me many years of hurting and deriding really wonderful people to come to terms with how fucked up my thinking was. Studio Ghibli flicks became something to share with my partner, and then I happened to sit in on a pal watching subbed Attack on Titan. I had realized how much incredible stuff, how many fantastic worlds I was missing out on. How I didn’t need to worry about authentically being my true analog self if I was just fucking enjoying something.

***

When I first heard of Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure, it was through the tweets and tumblr posts of femmes and queer folk. That should have been a tell…

I had previously looked into the entirety of the Fatal Fury anime films because of cartoonist/roadwarrior/bisontaur Coelasquid waxed on about the pretty bara boys. That was kinda my first introduction to enjoyably dumb thousand-punch-a-second anime, but I was more interested by the way in which Coelasquid read into the schlock, seeing more complex narratives and richer characters than at face value. I began to see this blatantly masculine-centric misogynist text as more complex than what was intended.

Fragile and Close to the Edge were cornerstones in my musical childhood, so the roundabout meme (playing on the first couple series’ “to be continued” sepia freeze frame) was enough to get me interested. Also, I had just finished One Punch Man, and that left a big ol’ fist-shaped hole in my heart, so I was down for some new hyper weeb fighty fights.

Eventually I took it upon myself to find some Jojo episodes, starting S1E1. I got about six episodes in, and kinda lost interest. I think I got to about the episodes that involved the warriors devout to Mary queen of Scots. I can’t remember exactly why I fell off the wagon (anime Queen Mary really spoke to me). I probably had shit to do, and life gets in the way. Excuses excuses.

It was around this time that Lego Bionicle had received its half-hearted and ultimately futile reboot. By way of a 4chan /toy/ thread I came across the tumblr bionicle fandom, and then was redirected to someone’s twitter which had some fireemoji 100emoji fireemoji shitposts. She also posted jojo stuff non-stop. Which was cool. I didn’t mind not “getting it”; it was all so absurd that it was kinda just a joy to have on the feed.

It also piqued my interest as to why someone so into a weird niche robo-tiki fandom would be into this big boy barafest. In Bionicle, there were very few female characters. The extant few were actually pretty well written, but this left a big population of masculine heroes with a fandom hungry to ship romance into. I remember one person posting “If they didn’t want bionicle to be so gay, then why did they write men almost exclusively?”

“Alright”, I thought. “If they’re on the same wavelength regarding avatar-but-robots, Jojo might be cool.”

So I picked up where I left off, and was hopelessly hooked. I finished part 1, was admittedly chuffed by some pretty fun plot twists, and I absolutely got into Joseph Joestar in the part 2. The outfits, posing, and artistic obsession with lips, hips, and eyes were all so decadent, and the absolute disregard for toning it down really got me into the series.

Simultaneously, I was watching Steven Universe and absolutely adoring the story for its inclusive, positive social activist platform and it’s kindness. Each episode basically became my time for cry. I was also finishing up a cultural anthropology degree that would sustain that allowed me to unpack all the self-loathing I had as a teenager. I came out of that degree a kinder, more open minded person.

I was in a mire of anti-bigotted pink futurism. So why the fuck was I so into this show about big muscular boys punching big muscular boys? Well for one I started realizing things about myself but ALSO:

In some sense, the absence of women as plot characters had left the shipping possibilities open. As previously mentioned: all men, all gay. I noticed hard aesthetic resemblance to hyperbutch homo-ero british and American schlock portraits of the 60’s and 70’s. In many ways, yes, it is a male power fantasy. But in other ways it is absolutely a bergerian spectacle of pecks and soft lips and sad eyes and thighs and midriff and chiseled V. It’s an animated pinup mag.

I saw more porn of the characters than battle portraits. The fanart knew what was up. The fanfiction was dripping. Jojo is so sexually charged, and more importantly, sexually charged for a specific audience.

Now you could probably write a paper drawing a lineage from Charles Atlas through the dark ages of comics and into jojo, but I feel that’s more of an artist-centric industry perspective. The fact that Jojo sits comfortably in Shonen Jump, with a reader base insistently for boys, raises some exciting questions. I mean, it’s definitely not classically bishounen - there’s no accessible femme softness playing into romantic hetero dating scenario.

I think what, in the very least, feels revolutionary about Jojo is its unapologetic, unspoken, and hard sexualization of male forms. There’s really not a lot of actual fighting going on - so much frame time is spent ogling these tight bodies. You know this sexuality is for someone, and that someone is heckin’ queer and/or heckin’ female.

Furthermore, this powerful sexual decadence is fairly uncommon for non-hetero male eyes. It’s cruder and far more raw than your average bit of media meant to titillate boy-lovers. I can really only think of Magic Mike XXL as an equivalent.

This isn’t what your average dudebro wants to be. There are examples of male power fantasy you could point to, but deep down you know: jojo is for the loins of the spectator. There’s something incredibly subversive about putting the power of sexual spectatorship in the hands of women and queer folk. Tailoring to that spectatorship.

Yeah okay. That could just build off of the cliché of the big beefy hunks that naughty suburban blondes get flustered over after their 4th glass of white wine. But hear me out: Jojo’s not at all getting his beautiful body out of this queer reading.

For example: there’s a theme of piercing in Jojo. Bits of wood and shrapnel in bodies, the Pillar Men’s betrothals to Joseph (which y’know, gg ez), Dio’s obsession with fingering people’s necks… etc. Unlike the invincible bulletproof armour-bodies of Superman, Goku, etc etc, these bodies are fleshy and soft. They are vulnerable, even if the character himself is stoic enough to tough it out.

Men’s bodies, in the patriarchal scheme of things, are not supposed to do that. They should be hard, to pierce the bodies of the subjugated (read emasculated/females) that defy them. But here we are, Araki, with the men who can be penetrated, curiously burning gender roles and expectations with violence in a very violent narrative. Far from subtle, sure, but it’s nothing to ignore.

If the Jojoboys were really just a heteronormative eye candy for thirsty women, I don’t feel like male penetration would have been as pervasive. The male would be doing the penetrating, but no real males would be penetrated, especially not the protagonists.

To build on that, the garish, revealing fashion doesn’t point to male power. There are no massive pauldrons or chestplates, everything is laid bare, sensuous and exposed. These adjectives tend not to be associated with hegemonic masculinities. Nor is the world of textiles and high fashion seen as a socially acceptable male venture, as much as a trivially feminine pastime. There is genderfuckage abound in this hard boy cartoon.

***

I overheard someone talking about how they tried watching Jojo and they couldn’t understand for the life of them why any self-respecting femιnist would be into this mess of tropes. I’m not gonna argue against that. The whole argument for Jojo as a progressive show sounds like someone covering their ideological ass. I’m in no way suggesting that Jojo does the same work for femιnism that shows like Steven Universe and Avatar/Korra might be doing.

The point I’m trying to bring home is that I came of age thinking that anime was inherently sexist. That idea came from a whole lot of not listening to the people who were actually experiencing real sexism. Especially in those incredible cultural circumstances where the distinctions between content creator and content interpreter become blurred, it’s always worth it to investigate what identities, intentions, and libidos are involved. Something that seems like run-of-the-mill propaganda might actually be backfiring in a more progressive direction than media with actual progressive intentions.

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