Two tangentially related bits of meta

The grumpy meta goes out of the way first: you know what's irritating? That even though big fandom comms like fanficrants seem to have reached a consensus in that warning for slash is offensive, the practice is still so prevalent. More insidious still is when people who label themselves as fans of the gay start talking about how slash "corrupted" them because it's just so edgy, I mean, look at these guys not being 100% straight! Plain amazing, I say. /sarcasm

I'm venting because I'm well past my stretch of patience with the idea of slash (or femslash, same "logic" would apply) as some quirky little kink. I realize it's not my place to police why people like whatever they like, but nor do (general) you get to police what slash is, especially if you insist on billing it as some "corrupting influence". Fandom is huge, after all, and more diverse than the mainstream stereotype would suggest. Some of us write what's labelled as slash for the characters, and if we also write porn we see it as a nice bonus. Some of us write slash and other queer fic because we like the opportunity to portray characters as not all cis heterosexuals for once. Still others are into this slash thing for different reasons, and that's all well and good! We can get along, whatever our respective motives are.

But. Look here: the exoticizing attitude is problematic. It bothers me because I'm a genderqueer pansexual guy and I kind of care about this equal representation thing. I'm not in this for the lulz or whatever. Therefore, if (general) you alternate between objectifying and warning for people like me (or somewhat like me), I will judge you. And I won't feel even slightly sorry.

(This isn't to say that all straight people who like slash act that way, but that much should be obvious.)

*

Moving on! I've had some meta sitting around for a while, and unlike the above rant this is actually fun. It's my favourite part of this post, in fact, but I'll cut it because it's fandom-specific. Not to mention it got long. ( Yeah, it's BB/Zero because that's apparently all I write these days. There needs to be more Zero meta. BRB GENERATING SOME. )