askerian: Serious Karkat in a red long-sleeved shirt (NaruSasu_switching seme omg OUTRAGE)
askerian ([personal profile] askerian) wrote2010-01-18 06:19 pm
Entry tags:

sasunaru contest thinger?

I don't know who nominated Crossed Wires, but thank you, I'm super mega flattered. ♥

With that in mind, I declined the nomination anyway.

reason one: The fic has been on hiatus for almost two years and I STILL get "wahh wahh how dare you not update that story, I want more now" emails about it. Getting a fresh wave of "this story is good! WHY ARE YOU NOT WRITING MORE" really wouldn't motivate me to do anything but drag in my heels and grit my teeth at this point.

reason two: it was nominated to a section that was not helpfully marked as "narusasu allowed".

Which prompted an immediate kneejerk reaction of AAAAAA NARUSASU/SASUNARU IS THE SAME DAMN PAIRING -- OR IT DAMN WELL SHOULD BE, due to the old bullshit I got about this very same story. (Crossed Wires is so far mostly gen, but when it stops being gen, who do you think will take the lead for the first time, the guy who's been flesh and blood and loved porn all along for the last twentysomething years, or the guy who left his production line ten years ago and doesn't even come equipped with a cock? But no, Sasuke-sama is so virile and Naru-chan is so cute and shy and of course Naru-chan is going to be "the girl of the relationship". Frrrrrgh.)

Therefore I'm oversensitive about combinations of uke/seme issues with that story in particular. I know that.

I don't have a problem with stories where the behavior out of bed is IC -- you can make a case either way for who takes it up the ass in bed, it shouldn't affect the rest of their behavior. What I think we really should separate in stories? Stories that have the sexual behavior as just that, sexual behavior, and if the lemon doesn't ping your buttons then you can just skip it, and stories that have the seme/uke bullshit tropes as one of the core building blocks of the characters themselves and every single interaction they have. so I can avoid the fuck out of them kthxbai DDDX

So... yeah.

I understand the seme/uke thing is a kink. Your Kink Is Not My Kink and that's *okay*. I'm not judging. Dude, I'm into genderbending and polyamory and violent!bloody!sex and I don't mind a side of furries. It's cool to me. I just personally don't want to read it. And I don't like it when sasunaru isn't assumed to mean "naruto and sasuke in a pairing" because sasunarusasu is just too long to type, but to mean sasu-seme/naru-uke = natural order of things and when they reverse it, it's so out of place that it deserves its own warning tag. If the seme/uke order is important to the story and the fans (and yes, I know it is) then it should be in the story summary. It shouldn't be just assumed like this.

Anyway, it's my own problem, not the archive's problem. I don't get why some sections allow narusasu and some don't, but I'm not the one calling the shots and I'm sure they have their reasons. I'm not complaining that they should do things my way either. Obviously I'm in a minority in the fandom, and since I'm way too lazy to organize something time-consuming like a contest, I have no grounds to complain. But it clashes with my own biases and this specific fic's history pretty harshly. I don't think I would have reacted like that for Locker Room Therapy.

Actually the second reason was mostly me going TWITCH TWITCH but in the end when I paused to consider things rationally, it wasn't what prompted me to decline. The first one was more than enough on its own. I'm so tired of *gentle nudges* and "aw, I'm disappointed" about that fic. I know you guys like it. I like it too! Sort of. But I wrote myself into a corner, and the only way out I can find makes me queasy. I'm not even sure it'll work, I might have to delete all the new stuff because turns out it doesn't, but I can force myself to write it anyway! The thing is, writing is a *hobby* that I do for *fun*, and unless I'm in a very specific state of mind when I write the next several chapters, I'm not going to have much of that. So yeah, you can bet I'm dragging my heels about it.
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[identity profile] belledragon.livejournal.com 2010-01-18 05:56 pm (UTC)(link)
Haven't read 'Crossed Wires' but am definitely going to check it out now. It amazes me when I see people leave reviews that complain about seme/uke issues and maybe that is because I *twitch twitch* at those stereotypes as well >.>. Still 'complaining' about it to me means they have a completely different understanding of who Naruto and Sasuke are to each other than I do.

LOL typing SasuNaruSasu is too much trouble for me too, so I always refer to it as SNS [I'm the current owner of the SasukexNaruto FC on NF, just called that - fc reflects all facets of their bond and has nothing to do with specific seme/uke] as I'm frequently discussing it and am too lazy to keep typing it all out XD.

I very much enjoy your writing and just read your 'prompt 15 response originally for the AU meme' [for lack of a better title LOL] and loved it, though I need to go back and leave a comment :).

Have a feeling I'm going to love 'Crossed Wires' and hope you won't be offended if I add another 'would LOVE to see this updated' at the end of my 'review' :). Can understand you are frustrated though :/ and hope you continue to be inspired to write for the fandom, despite others' inability to be tactful sometimes when leaving comments.
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[identity profile] belledragon.livejournal.com 2010-01-18 11:38 pm (UTC)(link)
Don't think I've ever read a cyberpunk AU fic, but I'm familiar with what the genre is about and think I'll find it interesting/intriguing.

Ah ok lol and it's called SN fc [for short] instead of NS to differentiate from NaruSaku FC XD. Would love to have you stop by the SN fc some time, it's extremely active with fairly regular interesting on-topic discussions going on.