“While many people think fanfiction is about inserting sex into texts (like Tolkien’s) where it doesn’t belong, Brancher sees it differently: “I was desperate to read about sex that included great friendship; I was repurposing Tolkien’s text in order to do that. It wasn’t that friendship needed to be sexualized, it was that erotica needed to be … friendship-ized.” Many fanfiction writers write about sex in conjunction with beloved texts and characters not because they think those texts are incomplete, but because they’re looking for stories where sex is profound and meaningful. This is part of what makes fan fiction different from pornography: unlike pornography, fanfic features characters we already care deeply about, and who tend to already have long-standing and complex relationships with each other. It’s a genre of sexual subjectification: the very opposite of objectification. It’s benefits with friendship.”
YES. THANK YOU! This is why it bothers me so much when people call fic “porn.”
I’ve seen replies like – “yeah, but PWP still exists” – and I’m gonna disagree. PWP can’t exist in fanfiction!* Because the Plot and the character development are already baked in, from canon and from our shared understanding of the characters. Even a fic that’s 100 percent sex is told within existing context of the characters and the canonical story (and often within the context of other fic). Which is the point of writing a sex scene about specific characters. And not just writing about context-free bodies.
*very generally speaking and for the sake of this conversation; I’m sure there are rare exceptions
Can you even imagine being the poor alien sod responsible for auditing an earthling spaceship’s spending allowance? Like:
“I see, and why do you require many tubes of white plant flavoured paste?”
“Oh well, if we don’t rub that on our teeth twice daily the bacteria living in my mouth will begin to devour me teeth.”
“…Noted.”
“I have also noticed several large shipments of specific medications, and a variety of individually packaged absorbent material – however injury records do not show sufficient numbers to justify these recurrent deliveries.”
“Ah, yeah, it’s not really an injury per say. As part of our natural reproductive cycle approximately half the population will shed the lining of one of their internal organs and expel it.”
“…that is the most horrifying thing that I have ever heard.”
“Yeah.”
“Does such a process not hurt?”
“That’l be what the medication’s for. Pain killers for the cramps, birth control to stop the process.”
“…and your reasoning behind the fully functional, high-tech entertainment system?”
“Okay, that we could probably do without. But in our defence that was actually insisted on as a standard feature of all fleet-ships expected to encounter Terrans. Admiral Plo’Kaght insisted on it. Something about bored humans and a an illegal betting ring featuring a cleaning robot with a knife strapped to it going up against a human with a mop?”
“…I believe I should speak with my superiors.”
I love how Stabby the Roomba has become such a consistent in-joke among these sorts of blogs.
Galactic hero stabby the roomba: his legend continues
pacific rim really went OFF with drift compatibility. like, there was absolutely no reason the jaegers couldn’t be piloted by a single person; a bunch of teenagers managed it just fine solo in evangelion, but guillermo del toro was like “nah, we’re gonna reinvent the concept of soulmates with mecha and kaiju” and then went and did just that, the absolute madman,
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