I've been thinking about this for awhile but could never make what I'm thinking make sense in words, and I doubt this attempt is going to be any better.


If an anime/manga series is set in a place that is /not/ Japan slash authors often don't bother with the Cultural difference issue, and often depict the characters/situations in a very Western POV. I'm not saying that anime/manga fic authors don't either, it is just that anime/manga authors (good ones anyway) seem more aware of the Cultural differences as well as the conventions that you find in anime/manga.

I'm not saying all slash authors turned to anime/manga is the same. It is just many of them seem to be completely unaware of certain conventions/ideas/assumptions in the initial text. One of the most interesting things I find is the Weiss Kreuz fandom. Slash-fic authors seem to be attracted to WK because of the moral issues of WK (or lack of); good guys actually killing type of thing. The whole meta stream on that one confused me a tad. I'm pretty sure most anime fans recognised that WK was one of the Bestest merchandising scheme, aimed completely at the female demographic. You watch it for the pretty boys, for the melodrama, and for fic-writing (or reading) purposes, but you really don't feel the whole 'good guys killing people' to be an issue. It isn't as if that was the point. But slash authors (initially) seem to fall madly in love with the series because of the complete disregard for societal conventions (I'm so reaching here.)

It is a given that everyone likes a series for different reasons, but there's usually a few common threads that links everyone up. And more often than not I find people from a slash fandom likes anime/manga for different reasons than someone who have been watching/reading anime/manga for years. And that's fascinating, but I realised that beyond the fact that I find the reasons for slash-writers in liking a particular series to be interesting, I also find it at times to be down right irritating.

I, I think I get the sense that most slash-authors seem to completely disregard the anime/manga fandom. Even when there's countless resources out there, most people from slash-fandoms tackle the anime/manga fandom (or series) from a complete W-media standpoint (and I know I haven't defined what W-media is, but I'm still trying to get everything straight in my head, so, it'll have to wait.) And that irritate me, on a completely personal level. The prime example being the whole 'Naruto' fiasco, and no I'm not linking it, especially when my own feelings are so ambiguous. It is as if the person in question didn't bother with any sort of 'research' (?) about a series that she supposedly like, and in fact seem to like the series for all the fucking wrong reasons. I admit I read about 90% yaoi fics for 'Naruto', and there are weeks where I only read 'Naruto' for the fic reading experience, but dammit, Naruto is more than the gay, and can be in fact read for complete none-gay-subtext reasons. Kishimoto has created a damn fascinating world; complex, layered, and so much left unsaid. I find all the levels of Ninja to the awesome, the implied clan and village politics damn interesting, and all she has to TALK about is the GAY. WTF?!

What gets to me is that most of the slash-authors that do these things are intelligent, but release them onto the anime/manga fandom and their brain size seem to shrink. And yeah, the disregard for cultural differences also gets to me, but I find that if you give them time they usually begin to get it. Usually.

And I just realised that there's three or four topics in this discussion that can be 2000 words essays alone. Unfortunately, I don't have time, and to tell the truth I'm getting tired of venting so much. I'll get over the whole irritance. Eventually. Or, I could avoid it. Probably makes better sense.

[EDIT: javelle, I have received your email and will hopefully have a reply to you by Sunday, at the latest.]