Entry tags:
H/C Bingo
So I signed up for ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
hc_bingo. Ayup.
Truth be told, I findhc_bingo to be charmingly absurd and straightforward in concept in a time when it's really, really uncool to admit you like stupid shit in fanfiction unironically. I also like bingoes because they have a maximum sense of accomplishment for a minimum time pressure, and also because you get a bingo card. There is something inherently appealing about bingo cards. Also, this challenge has soulbonding in it!! Soulbonding!!! What even is soulbonding??? Who knows!! Who cares!!!
Probably going to do a mixture of original and fandom on this one! Who knows, I'm sure I'll make up my mind in the eons of time allotted to make up my mind.
The short answer: I don't like any of the 31_days prompts these days. It was there. I'm amazed it even exists.
The long answer:
hc_bingo is an interesting beast. I think pretty much everyone is aware of the massive shitstorm that its existence and handling caused the first time around, probably because the whole genre is wanky, exploitative, and badly handled to a T -- what I find interesting about it isn't that it exists, though, but that it's become so passe to cop to liking it. The fact is, people fucking love H/C stories. The entire existence of Law & Order: SVU as a fandom is a testament to how hard people get their rocks off on H/C. Fandom is a pretty universally tasteless place -- if Criminal Minds had existed ten years ago, people probably would've been writing "darkfic" about Spencer Reid getting kidnapped and sexually assaulted by unsubs and gleeing about how wrong-but-hot it was. Nowadays, people write "serious fic with dark themes" about Spencer Reid getting kidnapped and sexually assaulted by unsubs and claim they only did it as a character study that they totally intended to be sensitive. This is kind of like watching people claim they read Playboy for the articles. Don't insult me, sister.
Honestly, I think this says less about the progression of fandom in sensitivity and respect of serious subjects -- which is about as insensitive and disrespectful as it was in 2002, honestly, bless its predictable little heart -- as it does about the increasing split between Old Fandom and New Fandom, and between Media Fandom and Anime/Manga Fandom as well. The fact is, the hand-wringing concern troll trend is undeniably an Old Fandom thing: a media fandom thing, an adults thing, an AO3 and Dreamwidth thing, a social justice thing. It's also kind of awkwardly undeniable that to the kids who frequent stuff like the #homestuck hashtag and kinkmemes, this is kind of hilarious, and they keep on doing the horrible stuff they want to do secure in their hipster privilege of lulziness and insensitivity. I'm not criticizing the attempts to be sensitive and caring, actually, they relieve me a great deal: I'm just saying I think there's a huge unspoken and awkward generation and subcultural gap between the kinds of people who do bingoes and the kinds of people who participate in a lot of other, particularly younger, fandoms. When I say fandom's becoming increasingly unwilling to openly cop to getting off on angst porn and eroticized rapefic and other whacked-out genres, what I mean is that old-LJ/media/AO3 fandom is: the existence of anon kinkmemes, their popularity, and what actually gets written on them proves something of a backlash to this. Kinkmemes tend to be full of terrible exploitative bullshit that nobody wants to admit to requesting with their name on it; and why would they? What does a person in this fan subculture have to gain any more by openly admitting they like to see characters suffer when there's an anonymous backalley outlet for it waiting right there?
That is all kind of a generalized tangent, though, about fandom sociology. Back to my reasons for doing this. What I am driving at is: I have suspicion and contempt for both the H/C genre and the H/C-masquerading-as-faux-concern-trolling-seriousfic genre that's come into vogue lately. Both have massively exploitative and voyeuristic tendencies in execution; I've read many a skeevy, condescending tortureporn rapefic hailed as being "serious" and "dark" and "heartbreaking" by hymn-singers unwilling to admit the damn thing is still a rapefic, and the entire act of writing about tragedy and suffering for fun is questionable whether you stick a H/C label on it or are hip enough to know not to. The fact is, tasteful is tasteful. Offensive is offensive. I have seen a lot of offensive things with all the correct warnings on them. I have seen a few tasteful ones without. This is not to say anyone should forego all the right warnings, God no, but rather that it is not enough. Checking off all the fashionable fandom ticky boxes does not a respectful story about trauma make.
Why I'm not doing something else:![[profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
schmoop_bingo actually just isn't my thing, I don't have any quarrels with it, I just dunno what I'd write for it. kink_bingo is also not my thing, but I also find it sort of pretentious and unacknowledged-that-it-takes-more-than-just-a-wiki-and-the-'proper research'-to-not-fail essentially; it's designed for the sectors of fandom who want to write about formalized, 20th century, Western BDSM and fetish culture, basically, and if your experience with kink runs otherwise... well, too bad. I find the whole thing kind of ragingly AO3, and as with something like Yuletide, it's very telling that the sector of fandom who's largely into this has no idea what "ragingly AO3" even means and might assume it's a passive-aggressive shot at "political correctness" or social justice rather than a poke at how out-of-touch the fandom language and trends of LJ media fandom are with the rest of internet fandom.
I think writing about trauma and tragedy is risky and often exploitative no matter what label you slap on it -- and when I try to fill out my card, I'll try and abide by the usual rules of taste and respectfulness that I do when I write anything, including trying not to touch subjects I don't actually know fuck-all about. Whether I'm doing so from a bingo card openly touting itself as H/C or not doesn't change my obligation to act as a thinking individual here, I'm pretty sure. Ultimately, I don't think the self-questioning of Am I Appropriating Someone Else's Pain To Get My Emotional Jollies is limited to people who admit they find tragic fic emotionally fulfilling -- people who write it at all should be doing it, period, and God I wish fandom did it more.
I dunno. This was never going to be an essay-worthy essay. I guess what I'm saying is: I'm a person, one to whom the occasional bad thing has happened like pretty much all people, and I find prompts about bad situations to be good writing fodder sometimes. I hate SVU. I loathe the culture of white-knight narratives about abuse. I don't like the vast majority of darkfic. I still write things where bad things happen, and if I mess up and disrespect people's experiences while I do so, I'm still accountable for any pain I've caused them -- no matter what my intentions were. Or what tag I do or don't put on it in AO3.
hc_bingo. Ayup. | runaways | depression | abuse | nightmares | homesickness |
| family | attacked by a creature | brainwashing | therapy | coma |
| suicide attempt | septicemia / infected wounds | WILD CARD | slaves | surgery |
| medication | insomnia | mental health issues | trust issues | hallucinations |
| hostile climate | zombie apocalypse | asphyxiation | forced to participate in illegal / hurtful activity | hypothermia |
Truth be told, I find
hc_bingo to be charmingly absurd and straightforward in concept in a time when it's really, really uncool to admit you like stupid shit in fanfiction unironically. I also like bingoes because they have a maximum sense of accomplishment for a minimum time pressure, and also because you get a bingo card. There is something inherently appealing about bingo cards. Also, this challenge has soulbonding in it!! Soulbonding!!! What even is soulbonding??? Who knows!! Who cares!!!Probably going to do a mixture of original and fandom on this one! Who knows, I'm sure I'll make up my mind in the eons of time allotted to make up my mind.
The short answer: I don't like any of the 31_days prompts these days. It was there. I'm amazed it even exists.
The long answer:
hc_bingo is an interesting beast. I think pretty much everyone is aware of the massive shitstorm that its existence and handling caused the first time around, probably because the whole genre is wanky, exploitative, and badly handled to a T -- what I find interesting about it isn't that it exists, though, but that it's become so passe to cop to liking it. The fact is, people fucking love H/C stories. The entire existence of Law & Order: SVU as a fandom is a testament to how hard people get their rocks off on H/C. Fandom is a pretty universally tasteless place -- if Criminal Minds had existed ten years ago, people probably would've been writing "darkfic" about Spencer Reid getting kidnapped and sexually assaulted by unsubs and gleeing about how wrong-but-hot it was. Nowadays, people write "serious fic with dark themes" about Spencer Reid getting kidnapped and sexually assaulted by unsubs and claim they only did it as a character study that they totally intended to be sensitive. This is kind of like watching people claim they read Playboy for the articles. Don't insult me, sister.Honestly, I think this says less about the progression of fandom in sensitivity and respect of serious subjects -- which is about as insensitive and disrespectful as it was in 2002, honestly, bless its predictable little heart -- as it does about the increasing split between Old Fandom and New Fandom, and between Media Fandom and Anime/Manga Fandom as well. The fact is, the hand-wringing concern troll trend is undeniably an Old Fandom thing: a media fandom thing, an adults thing, an AO3 and Dreamwidth thing, a social justice thing. It's also kind of awkwardly undeniable that to the kids who frequent stuff like the #homestuck hashtag and kinkmemes, this is kind of hilarious, and they keep on doing the horrible stuff they want to do secure in their hipster privilege of lulziness and insensitivity. I'm not criticizing the attempts to be sensitive and caring, actually, they relieve me a great deal: I'm just saying I think there's a huge unspoken and awkward generation and subcultural gap between the kinds of people who do bingoes and the kinds of people who participate in a lot of other, particularly younger, fandoms. When I say fandom's becoming increasingly unwilling to openly cop to getting off on angst porn and eroticized rapefic and other whacked-out genres, what I mean is that old-LJ/media/AO3 fandom is: the existence of anon kinkmemes, their popularity, and what actually gets written on them proves something of a backlash to this. Kinkmemes tend to be full of terrible exploitative bullshit that nobody wants to admit to requesting with their name on it; and why would they? What does a person in this fan subculture have to gain any more by openly admitting they like to see characters suffer when there's an anonymous backalley outlet for it waiting right there?
That is all kind of a generalized tangent, though, about fandom sociology. Back to my reasons for doing this. What I am driving at is: I have suspicion and contempt for both the H/C genre and the H/C-masquerading-as-faux-concern-trolling-seriousfic genre that's come into vogue lately. Both have massively exploitative and voyeuristic tendencies in execution; I've read many a skeevy, condescending tortureporn rapefic hailed as being "serious" and "dark" and "heartbreaking" by hymn-singers unwilling to admit the damn thing is still a rapefic, and the entire act of writing about tragedy and suffering for fun is questionable whether you stick a H/C label on it or are hip enough to know not to. The fact is, tasteful is tasteful. Offensive is offensive. I have seen a lot of offensive things with all the correct warnings on them. I have seen a few tasteful ones without. This is not to say anyone should forego all the right warnings, God no, but rather that it is not enough. Checking off all the fashionable fandom ticky boxes does not a respectful story about trauma make.
Why I'm not doing something else:
schmoop_bingo actually just isn't my thing, I don't have any quarrels with it, I just dunno what I'd write for it. kink_bingo is also not my thing, but I also find it sort of pretentious and unacknowledged-that-it-takes-more-than-just-a-wiki-and-the-'proper research'-to-not-fail essentially; it's designed for the sectors of fandom who want to write about formalized, 20th century, Western BDSM and fetish culture, basically, and if your experience with kink runs otherwise... well, too bad. I find the whole thing kind of ragingly AO3, and as with something like Yuletide, it's very telling that the sector of fandom who's largely into this has no idea what "ragingly AO3" even means and might assume it's a passive-aggressive shot at "political correctness" or social justice rather than a poke at how out-of-touch the fandom language and trends of LJ media fandom are with the rest of internet fandom.I think writing about trauma and tragedy is risky and often exploitative no matter what label you slap on it -- and when I try to fill out my card, I'll try and abide by the usual rules of taste and respectfulness that I do when I write anything, including trying not to touch subjects I don't actually know fuck-all about. Whether I'm doing so from a bingo card openly touting itself as H/C or not doesn't change my obligation to act as a thinking individual here, I'm pretty sure. Ultimately, I don't think the self-questioning of Am I Appropriating Someone Else's Pain To Get My Emotional Jollies is limited to people who admit they find tragic fic emotionally fulfilling -- people who write it at all should be doing it, period, and God I wish fandom did it more.
I dunno. This was never going to be an essay-worthy essay. I guess what I'm saying is: I'm a person, one to whom the occasional bad thing has happened like pretty much all people, and I find prompts about bad situations to be good writing fodder sometimes. I hate SVU. I loathe the culture of white-knight narratives about abuse. I don't like the vast majority of darkfic. I still write things where bad things happen, and if I mess up and disrespect people's experiences while I do so, I'm still accountable for any pain I've caused them -- no matter what my intentions were. Or what tag I do or don't put on it in AO3.