fuck this shit.

[rockinhamburger]

i'm done.

i've tried to ignore the fuckery over at aianonlovefest. i love writing and reading fic here in the fandom, and i'll continue to do so, but not at the meme. i am so fucking sick of the asshattery and the wank and the misogyny (from a mostly female fanbase; what the fuck!?), and i just can't do it anymore. it makes me feel physically sick when i see the fucked-up, sexist, awful insinuations about one of the only heavily featured women in the fandom.

what does it say about our community that kris' fictive infidelity is celebrated and lauded while katy's written out because she's in the way of kris and adam's kinky sex and true love? what is with this desire to write katy negatively? why can't she be awesome? is it so hard to imagine kris marrying a kick-ass woman? is it so hard to keep her kick-ass while still writing about potential feelings between kris and adam? in effect, she becomes a caricature of a woman, a plot device (if that!), while the men get all the spotlight, as usual. instead of keeping her in-character with the woman who stood by her boyfriend and supported him and encouraged him to go after his dream even when he had given up on it himself, she's often written as a vindictive, jealous, passive-aggressive bitch who only cares about her status as kris allen's wife. which is just fucking STUPID, because THAT'S NOT WHO SHE IS, and don't fucking tell me it is!

i almost wish i didn't care about any of this. it makes me tremble with anger when i see comments inferring or outright stating that katy is a bitch. do we have comments calling adam a 'fag'? fuck no! because that's a horrible, demeaning, homophobic, insulting word that we would never ascribe to someone we respect and care about. so why is 'bitch', a horrible, demeaning, sexist, insulting word, being used to describe katy, someone i respect and care about? FOR FUCK'S SAKE, we're almost exclusively women! when we call each other bitches, we only make it okay for men to call us that. you know, just for being in the way.

sometimes i suspect this attitude is induced by jealousy. katy has a lot going for her, and so people want to bring her down and make her into someone who doesn't deserve all the good in her life. FUCK THAT NOISE! why aren't we building each other up instead of putting each other down? why aren't we supporting and writing about these women? why don't we include katy in our fic as more than a piece of furniture, or a growth that needs to be removed?

fucking hell, WHY can't she join in the fun??

-

so i'm not going to be around the lovefest anymore. you can always find me right here, or by PM, and i'll still participate in challenges and post my fanfiction when i write it. and i'm sorry if you're disappointed that i'm leaving, but this is important to me and i can't just let it go. i'm not sorry if this post angered or offended you. i mean every word.

Comments

[iamsupernova.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty sure this is present in all RPF. In bandom, there is a FUCKLOAD of wife/girlfriend-bashing just because, like you said, they get in the way of Dude 1 and Dude 2's (sometimes more) ~*ONE TRUE MANLOVE*~. People can't seem to understand that this AWESOME GUY who we like enough to write fic about isn't awesome enough to fall in love with a woman. There's a lot of heterophobia in slash fandom from people who are silly enough to consider GUY LOVE more "real" than het. (Also: "het" is often labeled as a kink. And sometimes a warning! WHAT.) I mean, understandably, if you're writing/reading slash, you really like male/male pairings, but since the overwhelming majority of fandom are female, usually heterosexual (although there is a huge number of lesbians in bandom, a primarily slash fandom, which I think is awesome and hilarious). And there's a lot of internalized misogyny and sexism, which is pretty fucking upsetting. But luckily there are a lot of really amazing, smart, non gender-faily writers in bandom and it's not only total wankbrains. In my opinion, these awesome guys are clearly into these ladies because these ladies are also awesome! And it's great when we can get to "know" the wives and write/read fic about them, because hey, guess what? They are awesome!

[thecomfychair.livejournal.com]

this is basically why I got out of the fannish portion of Kris/Adam. I still read it every now and then, but the constant Katy-demeaning from certain sections of the fandom just drove me nuts.


Though like the comment above me, this is really a problem inherent in most slash-based fandoms. It just pings me in AIRPS, maybe because it is RPS and its a real person, I don't know.

[iamashamed.livejournal.com]

Hmmm, I don't agree that it happens in all RPF fandoms, like the person above said, because in FNFF I haven't seen any spouse bashing (luckily) but maybe it depends on how big the fandoms are, the more misogyny? Idk.

[chosenfire28.livejournal.com]

OMFG TEARS IN MY EYES I LOVE YOU SO MUCH RIGHT NOW!!!!

This entire post is made of so much awesomeness. This is one of my issues~ in the AI fandom, I have read basically Katy bashing fics and enjoyed them but when Katy is written in character I think that's when I go from enjoying to downright ADORING.

This is Kris Allen, he is amazing, so it stands to reason he made an equal amazing person. This is the woman that worked while her husband stayed at home and played in bars, even when he went on Idol she was still working because if it didn't pan out they still needed support. He has grown up with her, she's like his best friend, so the bitch characterzation makes no sense at all.

So prompts you say, I really don't think there are enough Katy/Kris/Adam fics in fandom, maybe something along the lines of Kris being sick and stubborn, and Katy and Adam working together to take care of him :D

I can think of more, I really can if you need any.

[constancedobler.livejournal.com]

I think that you're right about the misogyny--and misogyny is so ingrained in our society. Somehow, it is still acceptable to use words like "bitch," where racially or religiously-based slurs are not. It is still ok on some level to hate women, gays and overweight people (that last one's a whole other rant) and unfortunately, women are just as guilty as men about this. I think it is a competition thing for certain women (and middle school girls :) ). Why this plays out in fandom, I don't know, since the pairings are primarily slash. Maybe it is a threat to the slash--after all, I think that gay men are attractive to straight women partly because they are nonthreatening. (There's nothing more comforting--or more of a guilty pleasure-- than attention from someone you think is attractive who has no interest in you).

I am really all right with Katy just being sort of written out--the Allen's real life relationship puts a monkey wrench in the machine of those who like their slash simple--and I think that's ok--it is escapism, after all, and RPF is FICTION.

By the time I saw this, I think the most offensive of the posts must have been deleted--I saw a few screened posts--but where it crosses the line for me is when it starts speculating on the REAL motivations and actions of REAL people--especially in a fiction meme.

Relationships are hard, they're messy, and no one is perfect. I do not envy either Kris or Katy being put under the microscope in their first year of marriage. I am in the ninth year of a successful relationship, but I certainly wouldn't want to be followed around by cameras to have my photo taken and analyzed by strangers on the Internet. I am sure that anyone could find "evidence" of either myself or my beloved being, well, a *bitch* to the other. ;)

Anyway, so I hear ya, and I see it, too. Missing thoughtful fic lately, anyway. Got any good recs?

[untamedfilly.livejournal.com]

I understand everything you say bb. I hope you don't stop writing in the fandom though. Your stories are made of glittery awesome and I would miss you so much. <3

[rawkenr0ll.livejournal.com]

lol welcome to bandom, pretty much. the wives/girlfriends in our fandom are like that, only sometimes they get hate mail sent to their houses in addition to just being written off in fic as whiny, selfish, temper-tantrum bitches.

fml.

here via some link collection, I'm pretty sure

[pensnest]

Sing it. I haven't been following that particular community, but when I'm looking for AI stories I look for the not-Kradam stories first, and prefer AUs to canon-compliant, simply because I get so tired of "after the divorce". Of that relentless meme that the Evil Bitch Woman has to be got out of the way so that our One True Pairing Of Pure, Wonderful Boys can be together. Even the alternate version, that She's Nice, but Not Right For Him, gets tedious.

I do understand the impulse to slash Kris with Adam. I do. (It doesn't altogether work for me for a variety of reasons, of which Kris being married is just one.) But they're also adorable as *friends*, so why aren't there more stories writing them that way? And there are *so* many options for Adam that don't involve dissing the woman in the other guy's life. Gah.

I think it's possible that when the excitement has died down and this isn't a hot new happening fandom any more, a more grown-up attitude will come along. I've seen it in popslash—the "Ew, girlfriend!" thing has matured into "Kelly is hot", and instead of being a bitch who walks away from husband and child, or is divorced, or Dies Horribly, she's a real partner (and, ahem, actually involved in the slash). I think it's a lot healthier.

[littlepunkryo.livejournal.com]

This is soo incredibly late, and you don't know me, but I was rereading old fic and came to see if you'd written any more lately and stumbled upon this. And I completely understand your feelings. It's why I've pretty much removed myself from the Kradam portion of fandom - because so much of loving Kradam now goes hand-in-hand with hating on Katy, and I just can't do it. She's never done anything to deserve getting hated on except marry someone they think belongs with Adam (even if a lot of people seem to have convinced themselves that she's this terrible, horrible person). This attitude actually almost ruined Kradam for me, sadly :( I'm glad that you're still writing though, and I hope you are happier now :D

[blue-icy-rose.livejournal.com]

Okay, so I actually ended up here from (oh the irony) aianonlovefest - specifically Monster By Association and noticed you had said to feel free to friend you so I figured, why not, I'll check it out.

I'm so glad I did. Because the Brad and Neil love (and okay, the mention of a Kradamaty fic because that's one of my weak spots but I just can't seem to write it) was enough to make me want to friend you but I thought I'd still look at a few posts just to make sure fic wasn't the only reason I was here and this post? This post seals it for me because yes. I think that Katy's got to be pretty damn awesome because, well, look at Kris. He's this amazing guy that we've become fans of so why is it so hard to believe that he married someone that's an honest to goodness nice person?

I have fun including Katy in fics - whether it's a future fic or an AU or whatever and I can't tell you how annoyed I get when someone comments to tell me that they don't like Katy's involvement but otherwise it was a good story. Just...grrrrr, don't read then. So, I just felt like commenting here and letting you know that I'm so right there with you and that I really enjoy the way you handle Katy in fics (one that popped in my head was Soaked - can you tell I've been checking out old fics at that meme? - and I just grinned when I read how you handled that).

So, I hope you don't mind, but definitely friending you. :)