(no subject)

[unwritten_icons]

Dear Bleach fandom:

I'd just like to remind you that not all love is romantic and sometimes, a cigar really is just a cigar.

A man and a woman don't have to be in a romantic relationship to love each other.

A  good friend sometimes is just a good friend.

Admiration is sometimes just admiration.

There are straight men and women in Bleach. Not everyone in a yaoi/yuri fic has to be homosexual.

There don't have to be male/female roles in a homosexual relationship, either. Now a days, such roles in a relationship aren't as exaggerated as they are in your fic.

Oh my god I am so sick of seeing these cliches in fandom. I'm almost tempted to write a big long essay and post it on bleachness to remind people of this.

(I have, however, written a big long essay on why Byakuya/Yoruichi makes sense to me, and it expands a little on the relationship cliches I ranted about here. You can read it here).

Comments

[kanjo-girl.livejournal.com]

...hee. You've been reading my fics, haven't you?


Anyway, I've been following a selective few people to read bleach fics. Since I primarily read het only, I don't run into much slash as I probably could. I'm sorry you're so frustrated. :(

[afteriwake.livejournal.com]

Amen, my dear. I mean, I primarily write romantic het because it's what I enjoy reading, but I love reading fic where Ishida & Orihime are just friends, or Ichigo & Orihime are friends, or Renji & Rukia are friends, even though I ship them also. I love writing Shinji & Hiyori in a completely non-shippy way because they have such an interesting friendship. Same with Ichigo and Rukia.

Like kanjo_girl I primarily avoid slash to begin with, with the exception of the occasional yuri pairing that catches my fancy, so I don't see as much a problem with it, but I've seen that same thing run rampant in a few other fandoms where slash is the prevalent type of fic being written, and it generally turns me off to it. It did it for this fandom, too.

Please write that essay? ::bats eyelashes::

[unwritten-icons.livejournal.com]

I like those fics, too. I don't always want to read ship fics, because friendship is nice to read about too, even if I do ship them as a romantic pair. I like reading ByaYoru fics where Yoruichi is more like a big sister, or a friend, as well as a romantic figure in Byakuya's life. Same with other characters (I have a weakness for IchiRuki fics where Rukia is like Ichigo's little sister. Aw).

It's not that I dislike slash in and of itself. But it gets tiring, especially because a lot of slash fics are only written to get hot character A and hot character B together. There are exceptions, of course, not all slash fics are bad - but most of them just don't interest me. It's either the pair is overdone (ByaRen) or the characters aren't written like I imagine them to be. Sappy, submissive Byakuya? No thanks.

Of course, the same can be said of het. But maybe I'm just too picky with what I read in fic, because I've been writing it for some 12-odd years.

I might write that essay if I get bored enough. The Bleach fandom in general is pushing me away, too, though I still love Bleach.

[miss-ragdoll.livejournal.com]

thank you for this post, sometimes we need to be remebered not to go so far when writing fanfics xD the thin boundary between a certain behaviour and being completely ooc is too thin and much stepped nowadays XD guess we're eager for some raw meat xDD btw, I love your way of writing :3

[unwritten-icons.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I too feel that the boundary between normal and ooc is often overstepped. I also think feelings that one character has for another is sometimes over exaggerated, too. Like Renji's admiration/respect for Byakuya. People are always making such a big deal about it, and that a part of his name means "second love" and fangirls are going "omg! that means they're in love and are destined to be together! omg!"

Like, come on, people. Really. Not all feelings one person has for another has to be romantic to be significant. His name could just be his name and has nothing to do with Byakuya. I'm baffled that people take such simple things to such extreme concepts.

[miss-ragdoll.livejournal.com]

people tend to see things where they are not just becuase they don't bother looking at the background of the feelings; it's not that easy, characters are not that plain. You don't get to hate or love without a certain background e.g. youruichi-byakuya, renji-rukia, renji-byakuya (srly, that one freaks me out, I mean... renji's obviously obsessed with his taicho. why? 50 years ago he took his friend and renji wanted to get stronger and surpass him. that grew into admiration. end? guess we love yaoi but really, coherency, duh)
well, then again, I hope I can get to read more of you :DD I love getting alerts from your lj :3

[unwritten-icons.livejournal.com]

I never said characters were "plain." I just feel that fandom sometimes takes the feelings of one character for another and instantly equates it to romantic love too often.

The extremes Renji took to surpass Byakuya is, to me, more about Rukia than Byakuya himself. I don't think he's "obsessed" so much as "determined." 50 years seems like a lot of time to us little humans, but I don't think 50 years would be that long to people who can live upwards of 2000 years. I do think, however, that Renji certainly respects Byakuya, but the argument of "Renji loves Byakuya/wants to be in a romantic relationship with him because he wants to surpass him and admires him" doesn't make sense to me. But maybe I'm biased because I'm tired of that particular ship.

[miss-ragdoll.livejournal.com]

Sorry, I think you got it wrong; I never meant to say you thought they were plain, I was third person speaking, no one particularly XD.
Also, I agree with the main reason for renji being how he is towards byakuya, that being what you exposed. Again, I expressed myself very bad (and I'm trying to write a fanfic, I'm stupid ¬¬U)
xD I only ship evident yaoi/yuri; I don't like to pair two together just because of their looks (that would be like raping in my mind XD) which is why people tend to use byakuya as a... well, you know XDD I wonder if they pair him as uke because of his looks or for some resentment XDDD

[unwritten-icons.livejournal.com]

Omg, I'm the exact same way, don't worry. My mistake, not yours :3

I always thought it was pretty obvious Renji's motivation towards getting close to Byakuya (in a captain/lieutenant type of way) was to get closer to Rukia. It seems a lot of his motivation for things comes down to Rukia, which is sweet. He's so devoted. Aww Renji I <3 you.

Same here. Unless it's explicitly shown that a yaoi/yuri couple is canon, I don't usually ship it. I like playing with the IDEA (I have a weak spot for Orihime/Tatsuki) but yaoi is so prevalent in the Bleach fandom it's getting old. While I don't have anything against it (hell I'm a lesbian) I want to see fic featuring my favorite male characters where they aren't having OOC sex.

Lol I think he's paired as an uke because of his looks, which is so cliche. I hate the seme/uke stuff in yaoi, because most relationships IRL aren't even like that. I'm lesbian, but I don't want to be a man, and I don't want to be with a woman that acts like a man :|

(Or they could be jealous of Byakuya. I don't blame anyone for that. Gorgeous SOB).