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From: LadyCyrrh@aol.com
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Subject: {ASSM} {REVIEW} The Annex Reviews, 4/14/02
Date: Sun, 14 Apr 2002 22:10:05 -0400
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Hi everyone.

Here's my review of Fanfiction.net to announce my return to 
reviewing. It's already on the main website; I'm reposting it here as a 
courtesy, and as a way to show everyone what I've been up to. Which 
you can see is pretty obscure and deviant stuff, when you finish the 
review. But. I confess I used to write the stuff myself, so it strikes a 
certain chord in me.

I did this for my inner 14-year-old.

________________________________________________________________


FANFIC NATION I

I Was a Teenage Bandslasher

As everyone who has read me in the past knows, I have a fascination 
with X-rated fanfic, and a fascination with slash.(NOTE: Slash is a type of 
fan fiction where two or more two media characters (TV, movies, books, 
etc.) are involved in a same-sex relationship. The stories are often rated 
G to R-17, with G being fairly innocuous and NC-17 pulling out all the 
stops, e.g. a steamy BDSM relationship... but to describe a story as 
"slashy" means it contains an angsty, explicit M/M relationship written, 
mostly, from the viewpoint of a straight woman.) I am continually 
astounded by slash's audacity, diversity, and constantly changing 
nature... and continually frustrated by its repetitiveness, naivete, and 
lack of imagination. Try as I can, I can't stay away. That is why, after a 
hiatus of nearly two years from reviewing, I am drawn to it yet again to 
write a review of one of the largest archives in which it may be found, 
Fanfiction.net. 

In the twenty months I've been away from the scene I've noticed a 
change of guard is occurring. There's a shift away from TV-based SF and 
fantasy fandoms (Star Trek, Xena/Herc, X-files) towards ones based on 
books and movies (Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings) and celebrities (RPS, 
or real person slash.) While this may be the affect of certain shows 
being canceled and certain media blockbusters being born -- as well as 
the pulping of modern celebrities between red-hot rollers into two-
dimensional cartoons -- I also think it's due to the infusion of many, 
many computer-savvy tweens, teens, and young college-adult adults 
into the genre who have the time, energy, and bandwidth access to post 
their slashy and 'shippy (short for "relationship" -- fanfic where 
where two opposite-sex characters share a sexual relationship) 
fantasies to the net, fantasies that in other decades might have gone 
unwritten or languished in locked drawers. How many stories in the 
pre-net years were awkwardly and hesitantly shared, their authors 
aflame with the passionate rush of putting deep thoughts and emotions 
to paper? How many more stories were put to been put to the shameful 
torch by disposable lighters and flushed down toilet bowls? 

These days, however, the secret writing life of teens is more visible, for 
we have Fanfiction.net, an excellent window into their dreams, wishes, 
and fantasies.

Given the growing rise of the genre on the net someone had to do it, I 
suppose. The site is a huge, tightly programmed, post-it-yourself 
archive that is remarkably bug-free, a place where anyone can post 
(with membership) or read (without membership) fanfic in sixteen 
different genres rated G to NC-17, and a pretty porny/slashy NC-17 at 
that. Access is free, though donations are requested by PayPal; all you 
need to post is a password, and to read, nothing at all. 

Looking for information about the site's creators, I came up with: 


Founder/Master Chef Xing Li xing@fanfiction.net 
est. 1998  
Shameless resume plug : the master chef of the site, xing li, is fresh off 
college and is currently seeking a creative design/lead position 
involving transformation of real-world and human applications to the 
digital platform. bringing more than 4 years of in-field experience in 
internet application design with an eye for blending technology and 
human usability. for more information please email 
xing@fanfiction.net. non-tech firms are welcomed.

Well, I suppose by the success of the site Miss or Mr. Xing has gone on to 
bigger and better things, or corporate sponsorship, going by the 
number of pop-up ads for fright wigs and credit cards. If Fanfiction.net 
was an experiment, it was a damned successful one. There must be about 
at least a million stories on here, and it's growing daily. No mere after-
hours consortium of fanfic writers, this. 

The stories here are organized by Anime, Books, Cartoons, Comics, 
Crossovers, Games, Movies, Musical groups, Originals (Note: how can 
original creations be considered fanfic?), Poetry, TV shows, and 
Miscellaneous; the site also includes reposted news articles (of media 
developments and 'digital buzz') and columns solicited from site 
regulars, whose only  stipulation is to be "writers of sufficient length 
and quality." In addition to English stories are accepted in Spanish, 
French, German, Portugese, Chinese, Japanese, and Dutch. The design is 
clean and businesslike, the interface easy and intuitive to use. Not 
surprisingly, its very accessibility has led to it being taken over by 
Generation-Y, who have hijacked the terms, storytelling conventions, 
and manifestos of the established fanfic community and made them 
their own. 

Just for fun I clicked randomly on writers' bios. Some were blank or 
purposefully obscure, but about half contained personal information, 
with ages that ranged from 13 to 22; of those that volunteered their 
gender, most were female. The pseudonyms ranged from quirky (Faded 
Chapstick, Chewable Morphine) to related to their chosen fandom (for 
Beatles fanfic, monikers such as Marmalade Skye, Flaming Pie, Lady 
Madonna); many more were fanciful in an anime or She-Ra Masters of 
the Universe Way (many, many Saber--s, Princess--s, etc.). But before 
anyone can accuse me of blasting the site as teenybopper pap I will say 
I was truly impressed by several stories I found on there, teen-written 
or not; I also came across older writers with more polished material to 
their credit, including several who had posted in the past to ASS 
newsgroups. However there is a bias toward younger female writers... 
which is interesting because they are producing the most explicit slash 
and fanfic. 

Unfortunately, from the stories I skimmed, they are also producing a lot 
of dreck. Unlike years past, when a fanfic writer had to gain the 
attention of a 'zine editor to showcase his or her work, or go through 
the learning curve to design a personal website and finding a place to 
host it, Fanfiction.net has no filters for quality. You submit, and you're 
automatically accepted; it's like a newsgroup in that respect, but faster, 
with better formatting. Stories are at once both posted and archived in 
seconds in an attractive and readable form, and someone's barely 
readable fifth-period scrawl receives the same treatment as someone 
else's slash version of War and Peace. (There are reader-submitted 
reviews, but these are more of a means for writers to communicate with 
each other than to engender constructive feedback.) In sum, you want a 
good read, you hafta wade.

The archive was too large for even a representational sample, so I 
decided to narrow my story reviews to one genre: musical group fanfic, 
and to narrow it further, bandslash. 

Bandslash has been a longtime interest of mine, but for many years 
stories have been hard to find on the net. I've come across no more than 
two dozen sites that had featured it prominently, and those were of 
specialized fandoms (Duran Duran, Trent Reznor, The Cure.) After the 
release of the movie Velvet Goldmine in 1998 glamslash story sites and 
archives began to appear, then sites devoted to Beatle and Monkee 
stories; it's been accelerating ever since then, with most of the growth 
occurring in the boyband genre (though other artists like Eminem 
have developed slashy fandoms as well.) However, no other site I've 
seen boasts as much bandfic as Fanfiction. net. The Musical Groups 
section contained 140 different singers and bands, from oldies (Beatles) 
to rap-metal (Korn, System of a Down) to rap (Li'l Bow Wow, Sisquo) and 
pop (Britney, N'Sync, Aaron Carter) with many more uncategorized 
artists listed under Miscellaneous. It serves as a fascinating index of a 
particular artist's popularity. 

It also raises some interesting questions. Why, for example, have young 
people written eighteen stories about Tori Amos, and none about Bjork? 
Both artists are around the same age and appeal to the same generation. 
Both have strong, distinctive personalities, and quirky, engaging 
musical styles. But there you have it. Tori gets the (key)strokes, and 
Bjork doesn't. And in the field of nu-metal, why do Blink182 (765) and 
Sum41(596) have such large fanfic fandoms, and not Creed (14) or 
Godsmack (95)? Is it because Blink182 and Sum41 are currently at the 
crest of their Gen-Y popularity, while the latter two missed the boat and 
are headed downwards? 

And speaking strictly of slash, why hasn't Ricky Martin (4) been 
written more? He's young, attractive, sexually ambiguous, and has a 
rich history of past press that's available for research, Not only that, he 
has a longstanding relationship with fellow ex-Menudoite Chayanne. 
David Bowie (9) also looks pretty lonely, and I found no stories at all 
about Mick Jagger or cockrockers Led Zeppelin. On the other hand, 
there were almost 40 explicit fanfics about the Beatles. 

Even more puzzling, fandoms present in the other bandslash sites I've 
seen are not comparatively well represented here. NiN has a mere 14 sex 
stories and the Spice Girls, once the queens of mindless celebrity sex, 
only 25. Other artists I'd think would be well represented are not on the 
site at all. Where are the X-rated fics about Shakira? The Dave Matthews 
Band? Kurt Cobain? Why does the sexually charged, porn star-loving 
Kid Rock rate only two stories? Why does Linkin Park (976) have four 
times more than Limp Bizkit (163) ? Who knows. I can only assume some 
artists have an aura of respectability, 'don't mess with me,' or even 
boringness that does not lend itself well to the freeform play that 
fanfic, especially sexual fanfic, involves. I also imagine the real-life 
sexual shenanigans of some leave no more to be said.

Taking the plunge, I found the archive was very fast and worked 
smoothly. Searches could be narrowed by date posted, author, story type 
(general, action/adventure, romance, humor, drama, poetry, mystery, 
parody, angst) and rating (G to NC-17.) The archive has a keyword 
function as well, but it does not do strings. For example, 'slave" brings 
back summaries containing that word and most likely that story 
element, but type in "Jimmy Page" and you get lots of stories about, or 
written by, Jimmy, or Page, and lots of summaries about 'turning the 
page' but no Jimmy Page, and certainly no stories about Jimmy Page 
being enslaved, which is something I would have had great interest in 
reading. But, on with the review.

Each story had a one-sentence summary that was literate but not too 
helpful, containing in some cases admonitions like "it's my first try, so 
pleaz be gentle" and "LOL, you'll just have to read it" and "I wrote this 
back in 10th, I was really bored in History." (Yes, I am being cruel.) 
Some stories were short, under 500 words; others, multichapter epics 
that approached novel size. Off the bat I realized that most were not of 
high quality. A few were execrable; most were more or less readable, 
and probably entertaining if you're not too demanding. But there was 
little attempt to come up with believable plots or characterizations, or 
believable anything, in fact. Most read like shared visualizations rather 
than stories (some authors even called them 'visuals.') A common fault 
in fanfic, but one that, by sheer investiture of research and 
imagination in the material, writers can overcome. But many of the 
stories here read like they've been scribbled between math and soc 
studies class. Not a lot thought or logic seems to have gone into them, 
which, given the demographic, is understandable. 

I also found several indications the site's creators are a little asleep at 
the wheel. For example, without too much searching I found a child 
pornography story which had nothing to do with fanfic and shouldn't 
have been there, and many of the explicit NC-17 stories which should 
have had ADULT WARNING popup windows, didn't. Then there's all that 
RPS (real person slash) which is currently at the center of a heated 
controversy in the fanfic world, not the least because it can engender 
lawsuits. Author Anne Rice chased a lot of her fanfic-writing fans off 
the net with that very threat. But, I guess a site as corporate as this one 
has deep pockets, or has the advice of some good lawyers, or something. 
(Shortly after this review was posted, the site's creators announced they 
would no longer accept real person stories.)

To  narrow down the field I chose seven groups that I had some 
familiarity with (but was not necessarily a fan of) that were 
representational of different styles and eras. I picked two stories each 
from the Beatles and Britney Spears fandoms, and one each from Queen, 
U2, the Gorillaz, the Smashing Pumpkins, and Motley Crue. My choices 
were semi-random, meaning I picked those that looked interesting but 
seemed typical of their genre. In addition to the groups and stories listed 
I skimmed many more.

The amount of physical and emotional abuse some stories contained 
surprised me. It seems to be a growing trend in the fanfic world. Rape, 
brother-brother incest, child molestation, BDSM, snuff, you name it... 
pretty severe stuff that's come to be known as darkfic. (I'll wait until 
Fanfic Nation II to tell you about the Hanson disembowelment story I 
found.) Now anyone who's a teenager or is the parent of a teenager 
knows they like violent, emotionally wrenching stuff; I remember S.E. 
Hinton's Outsider series of books being very popular when I was 14, and 
Mercedes Lackey's Valdemar series, which features all manners of child 
abuse, torture, rape, and suicide, remain perennial high school faves, as 
does the graphic novel "The Crow." But even I was unprepared for what 
George Harrison does to John Lennon in Kavie's "Alpha and Omega" --  
he dominates, slaps, humiliates, duct-tapes, and rapes his bandmate, 
inciting in John flashbacks of past sexual abuse at the hands of his 
mother, and, to his horror, the realization that he enjoys being sexually 
abused. I consider myself squickproof as regards porn, but even I found 
it very hard to read... but to be honest, because I felt I knew these 
characters intimately from their media portrayals, there was a sick 
fascination in reading them act the way they did, even though it was out 
of character. It took me back to being 14 again and scribbling my own 
abusive bandfic in secret journals, and I suspect the defiance and sheer 
glee many bandslash authors take in their work comes from the 
knowledge they're doing something very, very bad and naughty on a 
number of levels (one writer's comment: "I find something deliciously 
subversive in slashing baby boomer idols.") This story was also one of 
the pieces of fanfic that could only work as fanfic; change the two main 
characters into imaginary ones, and most of the shocking impact is lost.

I could analyze this story more, but I really don't want to read it again. 

More sexual cruelty took place in the Gorillaz story, "2D: The Enigma" by 
Duo Maxwell the Shinigami. The Gorillaz are an imaginary hiphop 
group depicted in videos by four stylized cartoon characters; in the 
story little 2D, a punky, nihilistic 14-year-old boy, is the subject of a 
semi-brutal fuck by Murdoc, an angry vampire-hunter, or something. I 
can guess the animated characters' charm and simplicity might lead 
some teens to project their fantasies onto them, but I couldn't help 
visualizing the toonie slash with some distaste; in another life I was an 
artist and so am a very visual person. (Lest you think I was deliberately 
picking sexually sadistic stories, neither this one or the Queen or Motley 
Crue stories below said anything about it in the summary.) That the 
story had one of the weirdest attempts at kewlspeak I've seen ("Yoo 
know, Stu-pot, we could go wi'wot th'music's sayin'. Lust's th'mother 'f 
life.")  did not count in its favor either. 

The U2 and Smashing Pumpkins stories ("A Picture Book With Colour 
Photographs" by Edgette, and "Thank You" by JonesStarr) had more 
loving sex, typifying the 'encounter' fic where one band member 
approaches another as he's alone in the recording studio/hotel 
room/tour bus to declare, awkwardly, his long-buried feelings of love, 
followed by a physical consummation between the two. Well, I guess 
bandslashers probably *wish* sex was this sincere and easy; but there 
was little differentiating the sexual encounter between Bono and The 
Edge, and Billy Corgan and James Iha, save for the characters' names 
and the throwaway mention of 'blue eyes' or 'chestnut hair.' (Iha was 
not even mentioned as being Japanese.) The same problem occurred in 
Lil Mad's "I Want You to Need Me" where we never find out the narrator 
is Paul McCartney until three paragraphs from the end of the story. We 
know John Lennon climbed into bed with someone, but don't know if it's 
a man or woman, not even from the sex, and certainly not from the 
sappy Celine Dion lyrics at the beginning of the story. These stories 
have been written, and re-written, tens of thousands of times over by 
slashers all over the net, and unless someone actually injects the 
musician's personality into them, or some plot and interesting settings, 
they're boring. 

Aries' Queen story, "Hair" was more entertaining, revealing an 
interesting hair and makeup fetish. While getting ready for a show 
John Deacon, the least attractive member of the group, announces he's 
going to chop off his long, flowing locks, and the other two members (I 
guess Freddy Mercury was taking a cooler) joke about it. Lots of 
goodnatured banter and physical teasing ensues, which descends, again, 
into sexual predation, leading up to a group fuck featuring cigarette 
burns, blood, and bondage. Okay, I did get a naughty thrill out of this 
one. It exemplifies what good bandslash should be: light, frothy, yet 
fraught with sexual danger and tension, and the band members acting 
in character with themselves -- or rather in character with the public 
or historical image of themselves -- which, in Queen's case, means 
clever, campy, and prone to primping in front of mirrors. 

I was also pleasantly surprised by Ang Griffen's Motley Crue story "Run 
with the Pack." I had considered Motley Crue unslashable, as they are so 
surfeited with deviant sex there's little more one can add. But the author 
makes the most of an almost-threeway between Nikki Sixx, Tommy Lee, 
and a drunk groupie in a closet -- as Tommy pumps away Nikki rubs his 
dick on his bare butt, with more than a hint of attraction towards 
Tommy himself. Though brief it was very well handled, both because of 
the believability quotient (it was something the band might have really 
done) and because the terse, fuck-it-all quality of the prose matched 
Motley's Crue's outlaw attitude. I don't know what it says about me that I 
found the two glam rocker stories the most appealing. I will note I hate 
Motley Crue with a passion in real life, thought I admit Tommy Lee is a 
good-looking guy. But I thought James Iha was cute, too, and so was pre-
cue ball Billy.

We are back in familiar territory with Britney Spears; being young and 
female, she is more amenable to traditional porn treatment. In 
sumyunguy's "Hot Wet Summer" she decides she doesn't want to be a 
virgin anymore and so dumps Justin and nabs a real he-boy while on 
vacation. This was the most poorly written of the bunch (it was authored 
by a male) and, frankly, rather refreshing after all the slashy angst 
and torture that went before. "WOW OMG that was sooooo amazingly good! 
I loved your story. I hope you write alot more because this one was so 
good. I was so into reading it. Thanks alot for the great story," was a 
typical review. 

Britney is written from a female perspective in "Lake Placid" by 
timberlakespears; Britney and Justin consummate their relationship in 
a hotel room, complete with black nightie, roses, and thong. Romantic 
utterances are exchanged, like "We don't have much time" and "I'm 
going to miss you so much." Though nothing spectacular happened, I 
admit it was tasteful and wholesome, and if my teenager was going to 
have sex, I'd rather it be like this, or in anticipation of this. (Justin 
even 
uses a condom.) It was kind of insipid to an adult, but in keeping with 
the plastic nature of Justin and Britney themselves, I suppose. 

(Side note: it's almost canon that male bandfic characters wear boxers -- 
not tighty-whities, not Y-fronts, not briefs -- boxers. *Every*  *Damn*  
*One*  of these stories had boxers in them. Female protagonists, on the 
hand, seem to wear thongs.) 

I was going to review a Rolling Stones fanfic novel from the same site, 
but after so much reading and skimming these past ten days, I couldn't. 
Burnt out on bandfics, sorry. 

Why teens and YAs write these things? Well, for some it may be 
imitative; they've seen the work of established fanfic writers and want 
to try it for themselves. Certainly the sex scenes seem derived  from the 
older fics. Other teens may like the sense of community that comes from 
posting their work and reading that of their friends. Almost all of the 
writers asked for feedback or reviews, which I realized was a touching 
plea to legitimize rather than critique. I can guess they just want to find 
someone who shares the same thoughts that they do. Writers of the more 
brutal fanfic may like the transgression, pushing the limits of what's 
acceptable in both writing and in one's fantasy life. Others, I suspect, 
use the artists they love and admire as proxies to endure their own pain 
(one writer noted her System of a Down kidnap/rape story enabled her 
to work out her feelings involving her own rape.) Most writers 
probably write for all of these reasons; fanfic, after all, offers a safe, 
distanced way for teens and YAs to acknowledge each others' sexual 
natures and become comfortable with them.

So is this site worth your time, as a source of either sex stories or fanfic, 
or a combination of the two? It depends. I found it interesting, 
shocking, and amusing, but I also spent a lot of time looking, about eight 
hours total, I'll judge. You might not be so motivated. It is an excellent 
source, however, of stories you might never find anywhere else, and for 
that I encourage a look.

Interface: A
Content: A/C-
Will I visit again: Yes.

--- Lady Cyrrh

--->http://members.aol.com/ladycyrrh

-- 
Pursuant to the Berne Convention, this work is copyright with all rights
reserved by its author unless explicitly indicated.
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