Slash, your doin it wrong

[ljwrites]

I am so sick of homosexuality in fiction being used to backdoor (durr hurr me clever) sexist tropes. Large swathes of yaoi/slash with their unrelenting rapeyness and hypermacho/hypersubmissive characters are obviously the worst offenders, but the same goes for certain subsets of fiction depicting girl-on-girl relationships.

Case in point: I once read the first volume of the Japanese shoujo-ai novel Strawberry Panic, smacking my lips like the lecherous middle-aged lady that I am at the thought of cute schoolgirls being adorably hot together. I obviously had no expectation that the lives and relationships of gay teens would be realistically depicted, but I still couldn't get past the first volume because it had the same patterns as the worst yaoi: sexual assault being played as sexy or even romantic, and girls playing clearly "male" and "female" roles in relationships where the "males" were chivalrous and sexually aggressive while the "females" were shy, submissive and constantly in need of rescue.

I don't like that sexist crap in fictional hetero relationships (unless it's deconstructed, averted, and/or parodied) and I REALLY don't like it in fictional homosexual relationships, because it doesn't even fit and has obviously been shoehorned in. It seems like a way to escape charges of sexism while using the same old tired sexist tropes.

What set me off just now, though, was this Azula/Toph fic I've been reading. I really like how they interact in the story and I wish there were more of that instead of pesky things like "plot" or "other characters," because frankly the plot full of holes and the characterization of the other ATLA characters is atrocious. (One of my notes for the review, which I'm debating whether or not to post because I don't want to discourage the author, reads: "Katara ran to HIDE in the middle of a fight?! This is the same Katara I know, right, the waterbending master?")

Even the main pairing is not without problems. The first time Toph got her ass kicked and had to be rescued by Azula, I raised some questions about how the greatest earthbender in the world was taken down but went along with it. The most recent plotline revolves around the second time Toph got her ass kicked and had to be rescued by Azula, though, and I start getting the sinking feeling Toph is being squeezed into the role of Helpless Blind Girl Whom Azula Must Valiantly Rescue. In other words, it's increasingly looking like Azula is The Heroic Man with a Dark Past who must be redeemed by the love of a pure helpless maiden and Toph is the Damsel in Distress. I find that not only laughably out of character but disturbing.

Also, the place where Toph was defeated and imprisoned was inside a mountain. A MOUNTAIN. Isn't that's like Azula being imprisoned behind a wall of fire, or Katara inside an iceberg?

Obviously not all slash is sexist. Speaking just in the realm of Tophzula, I love amyraine's You Don't Stop Running Until You're Dead and its sequel, Where You Can Find Me. Both stories that brim over with heartachy warmth and sensuality. I also have high hopes for lizbee's makes battle like a song based on the awesome of her other stories, though I haven't read-listed it yet because the size of the list is starting to discourage me. I will get around to it, though. It's my pernicious habit of reviewing everything, you see, that keeps me from reading quickly.

In other pairings, I loved loved loved amanda_violet's Between the Storms (Jeeko), and her other stories in The Boiler Room show Jee and Zuko as real people, not terrible stereotypes of a man and woman. I also liked dracomaleficium's Of Air and Fire stories (Zukaang), for all I have some issues with Aang coming across as a Manic Pixie Dream Boy and with Mai's and Katara's roles as evidently wombs on legs for the menfolk and nothing more. But Draco M (if it's okay to call her that) assures me, and I believe her, that Mai and Katara are neither beards nor breeders to Zuko and Aang and that the subtleties of these other relationships just didn't come across very well in the constraining format of short stories.

Really, when I review stories--and life in general, depressingly enough--I'm like a three-year-old who has no filter between her brain and her mouth. ("Mommy, why does Grandma stink?") I don't even know why people put up with my reviews, but for some reason most of them are saints about the abuse I dish out. I honestly hope I don't put anyone off creating, since it's not just them and I am critical about absolutely everything. I also hope no one takes mine to be the final word on anything, since being honest ain't the same as being right.

All this reading and reviewing reminds me I really should get around to writing some of my own stuff, especially the fic exchange order I haven't filled yet. Recently, though, my brain is all ate up by the Ultimate Heteronormative Bullshit that is the wedding industrial complex. It's nice to try on dresses I could never ever afford and for everyone to tell me how beautiful I look, but I've also never felt so much like a bug under a microscope. (A butterfly, no matter how brightly colored, is still a bug.)

I kind of hate that the bride is so much the center of attention in a wedding, it makes the whole thing about her and therefore implies that marriage is her sole domain and responsibility. If they want someone beautiful to coo over they should make my wedding about the groom, since Wishsong is a lot more attractive than I am. They gave Mark just three tuxedos (three jackets, really) to try on as opposed to the 301,637 dresses I changed into, but I still squealed so hard and took a bunch of pictures. His mom thought that was weird of me but SRSLY LADY don't you know how gorgeous your son is?! Don't tell him, though, they don't build elevators big enough to fit the big head he'd get.