Look out, she's cranky

[thebratqueen]

Okay, let me just say right from the beginning that I'm fully aware that by doing this I'm probably cracking open a can of gasoline and pouring it all over that nice, toasty fire, but there's few things that get under my craw more than misinformation. I don't mind if people bitch - I present myself as people's exhibit A - but bitch for the right damn reasons.

There is currently a meme going around. And when I say "meme" I mean it in the old school definition of the term, just so we're clear. Said meme is about the recently created Better Buffy Slash list and so far in every permutation of this meme I've seen has been staggeringly incorrect.

So before this thing purple monkey diswashers itself into even more of fandom's collective unconscious, I wanted to nip it in the bud and set the record straight. And for the record I do this only as a member of the list. I don't mod the list, I don't own the list, I'm just on the list, which is why I know what goes on there as opposed to some people who haven't even joined and yet see fit to position themselves as authorities on the subject, to which I can only ask them for the favor of tomorrow's lottery numbers since lord knows I'd love that kind of psychic ability.

Did I mention I'm feeling cranky? I'm feeling cranky.

BBS, contrary to those whispers you may have heard going 'round, has not proven itself to be a hotbed hell bent on sanitizing all of slashfic everywhere so that the only stories that ever get recced involve the non-ironic use of the words "curtains" "teddy bear" and "snuggling". Nor is it trying to form a secret bitch cabal coalition with the sole mission statement of trying to make sure the theme of every slash story from here on out revolves around the concept of "fluffy".

IT DIDN'T HAPPEN.

One person - ONE - brought up the concept of the list being used to - and I'm quoting here - rec stories which "represent slash in a positive way". To which multiple people, including yours truly, jumped in to make it absolutely clear that in no way did we want the word "postive" to mean "only the happy, non-controversial stories". To which the person who posed the idea in the first place immediately posted to the list to clarify that she didn't mean that definition of positive either. So in the grand scheme of viper pits intent on sucking the darker side of the slash right out of its sexy little body BBS has so far proven to be a spectacular failure what with a grand total of nobody, so far, wanting that in the mission statement.

Speaking of viper pits, let's hit the next rumor which is that BBS has done nothing so far except tear down every story that's been recced (with a side order of some saying that there was little to no cause for the tearing).

Say it with me: DIDN'T HAPPEN.

First off every story which has been recced on BBS so far has been given enough "yay" votes to get into the archive. Every story. The only exceptions to this rule, as of me writing this post, are the stories which are still being voted on. (ETA: One of the mods has now corrected me on this. Apparently so far there are two stories which did not get enough "yay" votes for the archive, but neither did they get any "nay" votes either. Translated for those who do not speak BB, it means that while not enough people approved those stories, nobody disapproved of those stories either.) Beyond that if it was recced it now has the BBS seal of approval. I am now going to be so daring as to suggest that if BBS's mission statement, unwritten or otherwise, was to tear down all stories that got recced on it this process of saying "Hey, these are really good stories which our list recommends that you read" is a seriously roundabout way of doing it, especially since "Dear fucking God we hate these stories" is a lot faster to type.

Now, granted, this could possibly suggest that BBS is too easygoing with the stories that it approves, since it's got that 100% average so far, but since nobody's been spreading that rumor around I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.

Have some stories gotten nay votes? Yes. Have some stories sparked debate about yay vs. nay? Again yes. Would said debate be the purpose of the list, what with providing that handy dandy "you can vote yay or nay and talk about your reasons why if you want to" system? Oh yeah, I guess it must be.

To be fair, there have been two stories which have sparked serious debate. One is an RPG done in email format, which raised the question of whether or not the quirks of that format made a story too difficult to read and likewise too problematic to rec and the other one was an Angel/Connor incest story which, depending upon the point of view of the readers, might have also had shades of pedophilia.

Now for the record I would like to make it absolutely clear that yours truly fully supports the right of any fic author to write incest and pedophilia to the point where if somebody walked up to me and said "I've just written Joyce/3 year old Buffy NC-17 fic" I'd say "More power to you" not because I would want to read it, per se, but because I just so happen to believe that words typed on a page actually don't do any harm to the imaginary people that are being written about. Somebody who wants Joyce/3 year old Buffy fic and writes said fic and is therefore satisfied is a problem that solved itself if you ask me. Freedom of speech and all that rot.

That being said, though, it is incest fic. Incest fic, people. I'll grant you that I haven't asked her but I'd definitely go out on a limb and say that the author of said story, who to all appearances has a working brain in her head, did not write it and then think to herself "I'll bet nobody is ever going to have a problem with this story! Incest for everyone! It's the new vanilla!" because it's incest fic. Being surprised that an incest story earned a "nay" or two is like being surprised that that burning thing shows up in the sky every day. It's what you might call a slightly predictable occurance.

And even then, with some people voting nay on the story for being A) incest and/or B) out of character because of A) incest, the story still got enough yay votes to be put into the archive. So what we have here is a debate about a story that had a debate-worthy topic that happened on a list about stories that people may or may not want to debate about. Yes, by all means, let's alert the media about the nasty bitches of BBS (who are of course one single entity) who are attempting to squash slashdom as a whole.

Look, I'm not saying the list is perfect. I was one of the people hauling mods aside and saying we needed to tweak the rules to create some change and better communication and, possibly, figure out things like incest and RPG and whatever the hell other catagories out there might be debatable before some other author found herself in the unenviable position of being a test case, but for God's sake if you're going to bitch bitch about the right things. Don't go making up faults and then running around to tell all of fandom that the purple-colored slash sky is falling because for fuck's sake that's not going to help anything.

There. I feel better.

(ETA: Two incest fics were recced, with different responses. This thread talks more about it.)