LynxGriffin (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
lynxgriffin) wrote2007-04-07 10:39 pm
lynxgriffin) wrote2007-04-07 10:39 pm
Entry tags:
Lynx's Thoughts on Yaoi
Or, Why I Am Unable to Ship Sora/Riku. (This is crossposted to ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
khfanficrants; just felt like posting it here, too.)
Another fandom post?! For serious! I should probably actually talk about starting school at GNOMON and all my first impressions (most of them good!), but eh, I think I'll go with this instead. Two of my classes, including one I'm really interested in, are getting pushed forward a week anyway because tomorrow is Easter Sunday. Although I will say that I spent about three hours today just working on perspective exercises for homework. I suck at two-point. This needs to be remedied! D:
Oh, and because I never mentioned it earlier, here's a link to the latest Lunargyros page!
Okay, and now to the actual rant/thoughts/speculation:
After reading both very old and very recent rants here, I think I've come to a bit of a realization on why it is that I just can't ship Sora/Riku. It has to do a lot with also why I really have so few slash pairings (although I still retain a few, mostly in other fandoms).
That reason? In a nutshell, it's because of the seemingly constant need for seme/uke labels. I have come to hate these labels. Not exactly helpful for liking slash pairings, since they're practically the basis for which a bunch of the yaoi fandom is based upon. "Seme" and "uke" seem to rely on very specific roles: The seme is the strong, knowledgeable one, the experienced and often unattainable sex god. They're the agressor, the proactive hunter looking for someone to exert their will upon. Oftentimes, they don't even need to look, because there's so much "prey" around to begin with. The uke is the weak and innocent one, often wibbling or clumsy, but likeable because they're just so innocent and sincere. They're almost always a virgin *coughLovelesscough* because the second they get any "experience," they lose some of what makes them uke.
And that relationship is inherently unequal. It implies that the uke needs protection from the evils of the world by the seme; that the uke needs to be "taught" the pleasures of romance/sex/BDSM by the experienced seme; that the uke looks up to the seme as someone they wish they could be, but can't because they're too clumsy/naive/inexperienced. Ironically enough, (at least the way it's portrayed most often by fangirls) it's an extremely heteronormative outlook, and comes much closer to a Harlequin romance than, say, Brokeback Mountain. Hell, seme/uke yaoi stories are often so close to heterosexual relationships that it's often a running joke how feminine the uke looks, to the point where they might as well be a chick with a dick. Some artists even make the uke look more feminine that any of the female cast.
Call me crazy, but if I'm going to be looking at/reading about two pretty guys screwing, I'd like it to be about two guys screwing, not a guy and a girl masquerading as a guy. And it's extremely aggravating hearing fans talk about how yaoi is so "edgy" and "more interesting" because it's a Love That Transcends Gender...when it's really not. In fact, sometimes yaoi is even worse than het in that regard because the stereotypes of submissive/dominant are played so heavily. You can somehow get away with that in yaoi, because if you tried to make a female that submissive and desperate, you'd get slapped with the "sexist" sticker faster than you can say "I'm topping tonight."
Now, in some manga/anime the characters are already written into these stereotypes: Gravitation comes to mind first, and probably Yami no Matsuei. I haven't seen most of FAKE, but from what I hear, it does a better job of avoiding concrete seme/uke roles. I would imagine Loveless follows that trend too, but I may be wrong; I didn't get farther than halfway through the first book before being bored to tears. Either way, there are series out there where the pairings has characters that are inherently unequal.
And that is EXACTLY why applying seme/uke roles to Sora and Riku automatically makes them OOC. Because Sora and Riku are equals. Hell, the famously subtext-y scene at the end of KH2 all but spells it out for us!
Maybe what warps the brains of fanthings is because that equality is not surface-deep. Because technically, Riku is stronger. He's physically stronger, and probably smarter, too. He's the kid that will beat everyone at sword-fighting and gets the top grades. However, his main flaw is that he is emotionally weak. He is jealous of Sora seemingly abandoning him for new friends in KH1, and desperate to assert his power, so much that he turns to darkness. This does fit, as darkness emphasizes the power of knowledge and the power of the self; all attractive things to Riku. But ultimately Riku abandoned true darkness because the cost was too high: his personal relationships. Then in CoM, Riku was ridden with guilt and insecurity about the things he'd done. Riku was able to defeat physical-strength-user Lexaeus, but was almost done in by Zexion because Zexion played upon those exact weaknesses. It took Mickey's vote of confidence to really pull Riku out of that sense of hopelessness and push him in the right direction. And then, in KH2, Riku was still plagued by insecurity and embarassment of his form changing, and really would have never seen Sora again had Kairi not taken the initiative to make him stay. Even when Riku gets his real form back and they defeat Xemnas, he's still not confident enough in himself to believe they'll survive. Heck, KH2 basically ends with Riku just now learning to overcome his emotional weaknesses.
In that sense, Sora massively succeeds where Riku fails. While Sora may not physically be the strongest, or the smartest (Hollow Bastion's computer, anyone?) he has great emotional strength. He is confident in himself and his decisions, he is empathetic, he trusts others more than he distrusts, and he is good at rallying people around a cause. Sora says it himself: "My friends are my power!" And it's true. Sora's emotional strength enables him to gain physical strength through his friendships, and it more than makes up for his physical failings. In that sense, Sora and Riku compliment each other in a way that makes a really dynamic but constant equality. They learn from each other, both admire the other, and both gain something unique from the other's company. It's absolutely terrific.
And 99% of the time in fanfic and fanart, instead of seeing that, I see Seme Riku and Uke Sora. Instead of seeing the dynamic of two friends and equals, I see one agressor and one recepient, one sex god and one naive virgin. In both AU and "canon" fics, Riku is the experienced and unattainable seducer, inexplicably drawn to Sora's clumsy but cute innocence. Riku is the one claiming he'll be gentle, he knows what he's doing; while Sora blushes and trembles in anticipation.
This is not Sora and Riku. This is stereotyping and pidgeonholing based solely on the character's looks and surface habits. Riku is taller, more muscular and physically stronger, therefore he must be the suave hotshot who's memorized the Kama Sutra. Sora is shorter, a bit more wiry and a tad naive, therefore he must but a clumsy idiot who goes red at the mere thought of sex and has never masturbated once in his life.
And in this fandom, I see it EV-ERY-WHERE. It's in the fanarts, and it's in the fanfics: from your run-of-the-mill high school AU to post-KH2 fics to guro and vore. It's like fans are so trapped in the seme and uke roles that it's impossible to imagine the characters outside of them. It's boring. It's unoriginal. It's lazy. It's sometimes emotionally disturbing. It's a horrible disservice to the characters and their wonderful dynamic. And it's why I've come to dislike the Sora/Riku pairing, perhaps unfairly.
I do still like the OT3, and after thinking about this, I think it's for a few reasons: 1) It includes Kairi, and I think she's too important to both Sora and Riku for them to shut her out, even if she would be emotionally supportive of them being gay. 2) Having a third person in the mix tends to knock out the seme/uke stereotypes that rely heavily on there being an agressor/receiver, and gets them closer to what they really are: equals with differing strengths.
This is definitely not meant to be a bashing on the contingent of fans out there who ship the characters for their dynamic, because such fans have more than every right to enjoy that, and I say more power to them. But the act of shoving Sora and Riku into such restrictive uke and seme roles is such a horrible turn-off for me that I absolutely cannot enjoy it in the fandom.
Drawing: Ugh, a bunch! I'm finally starting to catch up. Slightly! I need to, as school will only get tougher...
Writing: Also a ton, mostly fic stuff!
khfanficrants; just felt like posting it here, too.)Another fandom post?! For serious! I should probably actually talk about starting school at GNOMON and all my first impressions (most of them good!), but eh, I think I'll go with this instead. Two of my classes, including one I'm really interested in, are getting pushed forward a week anyway because tomorrow is Easter Sunday. Although I will say that I spent about three hours today just working on perspective exercises for homework. I suck at two-point. This needs to be remedied! D:
Oh, and because I never mentioned it earlier, here's a link to the latest Lunargyros page!
Okay, and now to the actual rant/thoughts/speculation:
After reading both very old and very recent rants here, I think I've come to a bit of a realization on why it is that I just can't ship Sora/Riku. It has to do a lot with also why I really have so few slash pairings (although I still retain a few, mostly in other fandoms).
That reason? In a nutshell, it's because of the seemingly constant need for seme/uke labels. I have come to hate these labels. Not exactly helpful for liking slash pairings, since they're practically the basis for which a bunch of the yaoi fandom is based upon. "Seme" and "uke" seem to rely on very specific roles: The seme is the strong, knowledgeable one, the experienced and often unattainable sex god. They're the agressor, the proactive hunter looking for someone to exert their will upon. Oftentimes, they don't even need to look, because there's so much "prey" around to begin with. The uke is the weak and innocent one, often wibbling or clumsy, but likeable because they're just so innocent and sincere. They're almost always a virgin *coughLovelesscough* because the second they get any "experience," they lose some of what makes them uke.
And that relationship is inherently unequal. It implies that the uke needs protection from the evils of the world by the seme; that the uke needs to be "taught" the pleasures of romance/sex/BDSM by the experienced seme; that the uke looks up to the seme as someone they wish they could be, but can't because they're too clumsy/naive/inexperienced. Ironically enough, (at least the way it's portrayed most often by fangirls) it's an extremely heteronormative outlook, and comes much closer to a Harlequin romance than, say, Brokeback Mountain. Hell, seme/uke yaoi stories are often so close to heterosexual relationships that it's often a running joke how feminine the uke looks, to the point where they might as well be a chick with a dick. Some artists even make the uke look more feminine that any of the female cast.
Call me crazy, but if I'm going to be looking at/reading about two pretty guys screwing, I'd like it to be about two guys screwing, not a guy and a girl masquerading as a guy. And it's extremely aggravating hearing fans talk about how yaoi is so "edgy" and "more interesting" because it's a Love That Transcends Gender...when it's really not. In fact, sometimes yaoi is even worse than het in that regard because the stereotypes of submissive/dominant are played so heavily. You can somehow get away with that in yaoi, because if you tried to make a female that submissive and desperate, you'd get slapped with the "sexist" sticker faster than you can say "I'm topping tonight."
Now, in some manga/anime the characters are already written into these stereotypes: Gravitation comes to mind first, and probably Yami no Matsuei. I haven't seen most of FAKE, but from what I hear, it does a better job of avoiding concrete seme/uke roles. I would imagine Loveless follows that trend too, but I may be wrong; I didn't get farther than halfway through the first book before being bored to tears. Either way, there are series out there where the pairings has characters that are inherently unequal.
And that is EXACTLY why applying seme/uke roles to Sora and Riku automatically makes them OOC. Because Sora and Riku are equals. Hell, the famously subtext-y scene at the end of KH2 all but spells it out for us!
Maybe what warps the brains of fanthings is because that equality is not surface-deep. Because technically, Riku is stronger. He's physically stronger, and probably smarter, too. He's the kid that will beat everyone at sword-fighting and gets the top grades. However, his main flaw is that he is emotionally weak. He is jealous of Sora seemingly abandoning him for new friends in KH1, and desperate to assert his power, so much that he turns to darkness. This does fit, as darkness emphasizes the power of knowledge and the power of the self; all attractive things to Riku. But ultimately Riku abandoned true darkness because the cost was too high: his personal relationships. Then in CoM, Riku was ridden with guilt and insecurity about the things he'd done. Riku was able to defeat physical-strength-user Lexaeus, but was almost done in by Zexion because Zexion played upon those exact weaknesses. It took Mickey's vote of confidence to really pull Riku out of that sense of hopelessness and push him in the right direction. And then, in KH2, Riku was still plagued by insecurity and embarassment of his form changing, and really would have never seen Sora again had Kairi not taken the initiative to make him stay. Even when Riku gets his real form back and they defeat Xemnas, he's still not confident enough in himself to believe they'll survive. Heck, KH2 basically ends with Riku just now learning to overcome his emotional weaknesses.
In that sense, Sora massively succeeds where Riku fails. While Sora may not physically be the strongest, or the smartest (Hollow Bastion's computer, anyone?) he has great emotional strength. He is confident in himself and his decisions, he is empathetic, he trusts others more than he distrusts, and he is good at rallying people around a cause. Sora says it himself: "My friends are my power!" And it's true. Sora's emotional strength enables him to gain physical strength through his friendships, and it more than makes up for his physical failings. In that sense, Sora and Riku compliment each other in a way that makes a really dynamic but constant equality. They learn from each other, both admire the other, and both gain something unique from the other's company. It's absolutely terrific.
And 99% of the time in fanfic and fanart, instead of seeing that, I see Seme Riku and Uke Sora. Instead of seeing the dynamic of two friends and equals, I see one agressor and one recepient, one sex god and one naive virgin. In both AU and "canon" fics, Riku is the experienced and unattainable seducer, inexplicably drawn to Sora's clumsy but cute innocence. Riku is the one claiming he'll be gentle, he knows what he's doing; while Sora blushes and trembles in anticipation.
This is not Sora and Riku. This is stereotyping and pidgeonholing based solely on the character's looks and surface habits. Riku is taller, more muscular and physically stronger, therefore he must be the suave hotshot who's memorized the Kama Sutra. Sora is shorter, a bit more wiry and a tad naive, therefore he must but a clumsy idiot who goes red at the mere thought of sex and has never masturbated once in his life.
And in this fandom, I see it EV-ERY-WHERE. It's in the fanarts, and it's in the fanfics: from your run-of-the-mill high school AU to post-KH2 fics to guro and vore. It's like fans are so trapped in the seme and uke roles that it's impossible to imagine the characters outside of them. It's boring. It's unoriginal. It's lazy. It's sometimes emotionally disturbing. It's a horrible disservice to the characters and their wonderful dynamic. And it's why I've come to dislike the Sora/Riku pairing, perhaps unfairly.
I do still like the OT3, and after thinking about this, I think it's for a few reasons: 1) It includes Kairi, and I think she's too important to both Sora and Riku for them to shut her out, even if she would be emotionally supportive of them being gay. 2) Having a third person in the mix tends to knock out the seme/uke stereotypes that rely heavily on there being an agressor/receiver, and gets them closer to what they really are: equals with differing strengths.
This is definitely not meant to be a bashing on the contingent of fans out there who ship the characters for their dynamic, because such fans have more than every right to enjoy that, and I say more power to them. But the act of shoving Sora and Riku into such restrictive uke and seme roles is such a horrible turn-off for me that I absolutely cannot enjoy it in the fandom.
Drawing: Ugh, a bunch! I'm finally starting to catch up. Slightly! I need to, as school will only get tougher...
Writing: Also a ton, mostly fic stuff!
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And huh, that Yami no Matsuei fic sounds interesting! I'll admit that I haven't read the manga; I just saw the anime waaay back when (I think before it was even licensed) and it had potential for interesting relationships since both Hisoka and Tsuzuki had different kinds of angst and different ways of dealing with it.
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As you said, Sora and Riku have an equal relationship. I wish I could find more Riku/Sora fics with that element (as well as Kairi being portrayed in a positive light without her being a rabid yaoi fangirl).
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And I don't think Sora could sexually harass someone if his life depended on it. The boy got weirded out by being hugged by Tron, for crissakes! /
cutest scene evarno subject
I know. D: And I certainly agree about Riku covering up his weaknesses by using methods that you said (I tried to say that earlier but you said it better than me!).
Sora sexually harassing somebody kills my brain.
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(And yeah, FAKE doesn't really have that seme/uke stereotype. The main pairing? They are equals, bitches. FAKE is definitely one of the more "realistic" slash pairings to me. "YnM" isn't too bad, either.)
I liked the idea of Sora/Riku after I played the game. Two minutes online and dealing with fandom, I quickly started to hate it. Man, I was even like that with Axel/Roxas. I was okay with it after KH2, then two minutes with fandom, I just can't take it.
Mostly, the things WRONG with almost any pairing is that it's always so badly written. Chances are, I'm going to read an Aerith/Goofy fic before I'm going to read about Sora/Riku or Axel/Roxas. Chances are, I'm going to enjoy taking a look at Rai/Kairi before I want to go hunting for Cloud/Leon. The more unusual the pairing, more likely it's going to be well written.
Though this is not always the case~It seems like the more popular the pairing, the more badly it's going to be written -- and yet, the more bad writing, the way more popular it is and it only gets... MORE BAD WRITING.no subject
Yeah, it sucks how all the badness in the fandom completely turns off any interest I'd have in the pairing, and if anything makes it turn into resentment. D: (Although I think fandom even ruined Axel/Roxas for me before I played the game...) I don't even read that much Sora/Kairi fic, because I know if I did I'd probably go into a rage and swear off everything but genfic.
Aerith/Goofy, however, always pwns. XD
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Aerith/Goofy? Are you referring to that "Knight of Flowers" fic? Man, that one was good...
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And yes, that was for "Knight of Flowers." XD I got to beta that fic, and I was just kind of sitting there stunned for a bit, because I was being extremely pick and could still find nothing wrong with it. It was much love. ♥
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I may be biased, but usually I like any fic that centers around the major Disney characters (Mickey, Donald, Goofy, etc.) How these characters are ignored by fandom is still baffling to me, because personally, Sora's relationship with Donald and Goofy is my favorite one, even higher above his relationship with Riku and Kairi! o_o
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I seriously love Sora's friendship with Donald and Goofy. ♥ *points to layout!* It's highly underrated, and I think it's a lot more at the core of what the game's about. And that reminds me, I really need to plunge back in and just finish 'The Mouse Who Would Be King'... XO
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Did you know that the FIRST drawing Nomura ever did for KH was a Sora, Donald, and Goofy one? I quote from Thorf of Gamefaqs:
"The first drawing made and released for Kingdom Hearts, this shows Goofy with Sora on his shoulders, with Donald standing on top of Sora. Goofy and Donald are pointing left and right while Sora looks ahead. Since it was drawn so early on, Goofy and Donald are in their standard costumes. Nomura commented that he likes this drawing because it shows the relationship between the three characters."
And here's the drawing itself:
http://www.kh2.co.uk/image.php?view=kh/artwork/010.jpg
Just thought that would be interesting...*Goes off to read this "Mouse Who Would Be King"...
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Proving that everything you said is correct.
(Excuse the random comment, I've been stalking you for a while but never commented...*sneaks off into the shadows*)
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Oh noes, a stalker?! :O *watches the shadows carefully*
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This is absolute truth. I can't get into a yaoi for these *exact* same reasons, and I actually wrote a rant very like this myself ^^;.
I hate it. I hate seme/uke stereotyping. I cannot stand it. Whenever I think about it, I boil up into a great big...furnace of rage, or something. It's just so ridiculous and sexist and disrespectful to the characters, and for goodness' sake do they even pay attention to the games/whatever canon they're stomping all over? It makes me mad and dislike most yaoi. D<
Actually, I can't recall reading any good yaoi, except for maybe...one Yu Gi Oh GX fic. I haven't even seen YGO GX. What.
I wanted to like Axel/Roxas, because one of my friends really loved it, so I tried. I couldn't do it. When I tried to write a fic, it ended up not actually being Axel/Roxas, and I can't really ignore the age difference. I gave up and now I just ship OT3s of everything.
By the way, love your sporkings. :3
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I wish I knew why it was so popular, because it still drives me nuts, too. I'm guessing people really don't pay attention.
I've seen some good yaoi...at some point...somewhere. I forget where. 8| I don't go looking that hard, so yeah. And I've never been able to get into Axel/Roxas either mostly because that age difference bugged me too much.
Oh thanks!