Monday, May 23, 2011

PSA: The Possible Dangers of Internet Searching



I've been around fanfic for almost as long as I've been around the internet. That means that I've read a lot of stuff from a lot of web sites, and obviously a lot of the same stuff over the years. I'm sure we all have stories that we like to go back to from time to time. But it's also nice to dicover new stuff, and not just the new stories that pop up on ff.net, but stuff that may be on some web site somewhere hiding that you hadn't even realized was there but could've been reading for years. So, on occasion, I get my Google on and search around to see if I can find any new stuff. I usually never have a problem I can't Google my way out of.


Well, sometimes I have some luck and do find some story somewhere that I hadn't read before that I really liked. Often these are found on live journals because I just never think to look there and have no idea how to sift through that stuff. Almost seems a shame that they're so well hidden. I know there are some good stories at theforce.net but again, I just don't have the patience to sift through hundreds of pages of stories in the hopes that I might find a good Han and Leia one in there somewhere. I feel like if someone writes a really good one, it should exist somewhere else even though I know that is not always the case. I've definitely found a few gems over there that I'd never seen anywhere else.


Then, well, sometimes these searches don't go as well. Now, I don't want to personally insult anyone if you happen to be into, I'll say, different kinds of Star Wars stories. But if you're here on this site reading this blog then I feel as though chances are you're probably going to agree with me when I say that one thing I'm looking for in a Han and Leia story is for the characters to actually act like Han and Leia. And this goes for the other characters in the movies, too.


Recently I've stumbled across a few web sites that I'd never heard of before. To be fair, some of them actually have some quality stories that are posted elsewhere. But they also seem to have an overwhelming number of stories with some content I really wish I'd never read. Now, I'm sure all of us (who are of "legal" age - you young teenagers stop reading this stuff!) enjoy reading some Han and Leia sexy time on occasion, especially if it makes sense within the context of the story and is done tastefully and doesn't just seem to come off as pornographic. I honestly struggle with finding the right line there myself in my own writing which is why in the future I may just choose to leave the sex out all together, but anyway...


Okay, that makes sense to me. But it seems that there are quite a few people who feel differently on the subject. They'd rather take these characters, pretty much in name only because the ones they're writing about don't seem to have any other resemblance to those we see on screen, and write them in some scenarios I personally just don't want to be reading about. Just ask Push how often I e-mail her and tell her about some horrible story I just found after having gotten all excited to have found a new fanfic site. Luke and Leia stories, Luke and Han stories, even Leia and Chewie stories! I don't understand the appeal and yet somehow I always seem to wind up in the middle of some story that starts out innocently enough and suddenly out of nowhere clothes start coming off and my curiosity makes me at least scroll down and catch a few important words here and there that let me know that yes, they're actually doing what I think they're doing and I just have to get out of there as fast as I can. This sort of thing can also occur with an innocent Google image search except those get you when you're least expecting it and certain images are forever trapped in my mind.


So, please, be careful in your internet searches that you don't wind up reading something you probably don't want to be reading. Or maybe you are interested in that sort of thing and I guess that's your business, but for a lot of us we just don't want to read about the explicit tortures Leia endured while a slave at Jabba's.


As a side note, will someone explain to me what the fascination is people have with slash? Let me just say that it is not the same-sex nature of the relationship that bothers me. There are homosexual couples out there and I get that. That's fine. What I don't get is taking heterosexual characters from the movies and placing them in same-sex relationships. Again, to me this just goes along with my desire to have the characters in my stories as much like the characters in the movies that I see. And at no point in time do I see Han and Luke eyeing each other and waiting to sneak off for a secret tryst. And come on, let's face it, even if they were gay Han could do a whole lot better ;)


Anyway, beware your internet searches! If you come across a site that you've never seen before or have never been referred to, there's probably a reason for that. That said, these stories can certainly sneak up on you almost anywhere, but they are more prominent on some sites than others. I mean, on some it makes up almost the entire content. Be careful out there, kids.


21 comments:

  1. I like slash... *hides*
    And one of my very favorite fics is Luke/Leia (they got together before they knew, and THEN found out they were twins, and broke up...it's more angst than romance. I'm not so big on "Who cares if we're related, let's go for it!" incest fics... can't think of a single one I read all the way to the end, actually)

    I guess I see it as a kind of AU, and with characters like Han and Luke who ARE good friends and have good onscreen chemistry with each other, I don't find it too hard to take something like sexual orientation as the divergence point for what is, essentially, an AU fic.

    Plus, as someone who finds both of them extremely attractive... Han/Leia fics are wonderful so I can get my Han fix without slash, but I hate Mara, and I hate the way Luke tends to act around her. I've read a couple of decent Luke/OC het fics, but other than that... Han, Biggs, and Wedge are preferable to Mara in my eyes. I do draw the line at Luke/Vader though (or Leia/Vader), and I'm not talking about the father/son relationship...

    Everyone has their own thing, though, and I do agree that it's very dangerous to Google...whatever it is that you really DON'T want to read, chances are that someone out there has written it!

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  2. I appreciate you coming forward. Obviously there must be quite a few people out there who like it because there's a LOT of it. I just personally don't understand the appeal and I am interested to get some insight. I really don't think anyone will ever change my mind on reading it, but it might at least help me get why people might like it. But to be fair, I don't like stories where Han and Leia are with anyone but each other, so slash or not, if it's not a Han/Leia story, I'm probably not going to like it!

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  3. It's too late for me...heh.

    Well, I haven't fallen into the trap of some of THOSE stories too many times. You can catch the signs fairly early on. But man, those image searches will just slap you in the face and stain your brain forever.

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  4. Sorry to be late for you! I should probably have put up some of the easiest warning signs of a story you're probably not going to want to read.

    -Easiest and most obvious is anything claiming to depict what happened to Leia during her imprisonment at Jabba's. Just don't. EVER. Second to that would be details of her interrogation on the Death Star. Maybe there's one of those out there that talks about the psychological tortures she's endured, but I haven't seen it.

    There are less obvious ones out there, and fortunately there are others that clearly state that if you click on the story Leia will be getting it on with Luke so you can easily avoid it. Poor Leia. There are way too many stories out there of her getting terribly abused. Sadly, probably more of those than there are GOOD fanfics about her and Han!

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  5. I just cant get over that there are other people in the world like me. Other people who scourge the internet for good fanfics and I too can not for the life of me figure out live journal and I certainly don't have the patience for force.net stuff. And I most definitely know what it feels like to be reading a fairly harmless fanfic until you get to the part where Leia and Chewie are doing it and then I have to pretty much bleach my eye balls to get that image to go away. I cant really get into fanfic that doesn't involve Han and Leia acting like they would normally in the movies, much less anything of that nature.

    Now I am not hating on the people who do like that stuff because there seems to be a lot of people that do, but I just don't understand it either. I mean as far and Han and Luke go, me and my friends do joke around about the long exchanges in glances between them on Echo Base but anything farther than that may ruin our childhood heros.

    I agree; poor Leia and there are TOO many of those stories.

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  6. Yes, I hope people understand I'm not trying to call you out and say you're a terrible Star Wars fan if you enjoy and/or write those kinds of stories, I'm just genuinely curious what the appeal is. My interest in what I read and write is to take those characters that I see in my favorite movies and put them in different situations to see how they'd react. Not to take those characters I see in the movies and bend them to fit some alternative fantasy. For me then it stops being the characters I have grown up with and it might as well be completely different people.

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  7. Oddly enough, even though I like slash and other slightly unconventional things, I pretty much agree with "take those characters that I see in my favorite movies and put them in different situations to see how they'd react." Some of the stories I've read are just so painfully out of character that it seems that the author did just want to imagine a character with the same general physical description in a particular situation. But sometimes I think it's a legitimate difference of opinion, and in that author's mind, the character WOULD act that way.

    I can see Luke jumping at the chance to be with Leia in ANH or ESB, for example, but I can't see either of them feeling anything but weird about their past kisses once they know they're related. On the other hand, I can't see Han and Leia handing their kids over to be raised with a single career option from infancy, and I can't see Luke being with someone as brash and abrasive as Mara... I certainly don't think Leia would name a child after Darth Vader, however it was explained, and that's "canon."

    Obviously not everyone agrees with that appraisal of the situation, and that's fine. I think it's much more common to be interested in a single character or pairing in most fandoms, and the way I'll read just about anything is a lot more unusual if you go by shear numbers. :)

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    1. I agree with you very much.

      Well, I don't like to read slash. I'm DEFINITELY not against gays, the stories are just not my twisted thing. :D My twisted thing is those Leia abused or something stuff. I don't know why, I'm very peacefull person and anti-violence and stuff... I don't know where that comes from! But it should be written on-character and like it would really have happened in the movies, I'm not so into AU. Maybe I'm just so curious what would have happened in the Death Star cell or Jabba's palace? The way I'm interested about Han/Leia moments and her traumas and dealing Vader being her father, because it doesn't appear in the movies. I like those on-character not-so-nice-to-Leia-stories more than I like the classic Han/Leia stories that are off-character. It's like the author's been playing with paper dolls! :D

      I haven't crossed so many abusive ff stories so I wasn't carefull when I ended up in the middle of a story Vader and some officer were mutilating her. I was like: o_Q I almost got traumatized, it was awfull...

      If I red more Luke stories, I would definitely read Luke/Leia before they found out they are twins, rather than Luke/Mara. :P If the story is good enough to make me believe they aren't virgings the day they found out their relation etc... Luke would definitely have jumped at the chance to be with Leia before ROTJ. And I agree with what you wrote about Leia's children etc. I'm one of those who are interested only in a single character so that's one more reason why I would prefer Leia/Luke than Mara/Luke -> there's nothing to read for me.

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  8. Hikari, you posted something else on here because I got an e-mail notification. Did you delete it or did it somehow get lost? I can re-post if it was just a glitch, just a copy/paste from my notification e-mail.

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  9. I didn't intentionally delete it. I thought it may have been deleted for... I don't know, Mara bashing or something? ;)
    If you've still got it, can you copy/paste? I don't know why it disappeared.

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  10. Ok, so once again I got an e-mail alert that you did not intend to have your comment deleted and once again it's not here when I check the blog. Hmmm.... Anyway, here is what Hikari said:

    Oddly enough, even though I like slash and other slightly unconventional things, I pretty much agree with "take those characters that I see in my favorite movies and put them in different situations to see how they'd react." Some of the stories I've read are just so painfully out of character that it seems that the author did just want to imagine a character with the same general physical description in a particular situation. But sometimes I think it's a legitimate difference of opinion, and in that author's mind, the character WOULD act that way.

    I can see Luke jumping at the chance to be with Leia in ANH or ESB, for example, but I can't see either of them feeling anything but weird about their past kisses once they know they're related. On the other hand, I can't see Han and Leia handing their kids over to be raised with a single career option from infancy, and I can't see Luke being with someone as brash and abrasive as Mara... I certainly don't think Leia would name a child after Darth Vader, however it was explained, and that's "canon."

    Obviously not everyone agrees with that appraisal of the situation, and that's fine. I think it's much more common to be interested in a single character or pairing in most fandoms, and the way I'll read just about anything is a lot more unusual if you go by shear numbers. :)

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  11. And now I have to respond to it!

    I do agree that there is room for a difference of opinion as far as how the characters might act in certain situations, at least to some degree. While I have my own ideas about how their relationship progressed and what I think happened along the way, I have certainly read stories that have offered compelling arguments that completely contradict my own ideas but still make the characters believable to me. There are certain things I would be less willing to believe in spite of some good writing, but there is certainly room for interpretation.

    You are right in that there is really a possibility that Luke and Leia could've had something going on before they knew they were brother and sister. Heck, there are stories in real life of siblings who had been separated all their lives who somehow met each other and got married before they discovered the truth! So I just choose to think that there wasn't an opportunity for such a thing so as to avoid the ickiness factor. (that is a technnical term) But the thing is, I'd say almost every single Luke/Leia story I've come across is after they are well aware that they are siblings. Some exceptions, yes, but mostly, no, they know they are twins.

    As for out of character in the EU, I couldn't agree more. I guess I had never given a whole lot of thought to the Anakin naming when I first started reading the books, but as an adult, it makes zero sense. Let's say even that for some reason Leia was twisted enough to want to name him that, I don't see Han going along for a second with her wanting to name him after that guy that tortured the both of them, whether he was redeemed in the end or not. And I also agree about sending the kids away. These are two people who have survived a whole heck of a lot and I'd like to think that if they decided to have kids they'd want to spend as much time with them as possible, and Han especially would want to experience being an actual family and not just sending them away. Why did they even reproduce in taht case?

    I would never delete a post for Mara bashing ;) I honestly hadn't given their relationship much thought aside from the annoyance at how they speak to each other. "My love" and whatever other ridiculousness they call each other. As to whether or not Luke would be interested in someone like her, I guess I'd never really given it a whole lot of thought since I just don't care about them.

    And yes, you are probably right that one's obsession with a fandom is probably more centered on one character or pairing with little exception. So perhaps it is just my disinterest that is blinding me from opening my mind a bit more.

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  12. Well, just to be clear, I didn't delete any posts either, so I don't know what happened there.

    I'll just state this fact: Leia would have never named her son Anakin. Okay, there it is.

    Would Luke have married a Mara Jade? Like Zyra, I really haven't given it much thought. Better question, maybe: Would Mara Jade have married Luke?

    I have nothing against slash, but I don't read it.

    I think I have a pretty high tolerance on Han and Leia stories. Of course, I know what I think they would do or how I see them but I wouldn't want to be stuck only reading my stuff or my own versions of them - that would get pretty boring. So, I'm glad there are others like me that can see them a little differently and write stories that I can enjoy.

    Have I ran across stories that I wish I hadn't? Absolutely. Sometimes they are like train wrecks and I just can't walk away until I read the entire thing. Maybe it's because I think it might get better or straighten itself out somehow, or maybe reading bad Han and Leia is better than reading none at all. Or maybe it's just really interesting how other people can see these two characters so insanely different than I do. Who knows?

    I can't remember if I've addressed everything. But I think that's all I have.

    I would like to shout out another offer for anyone who would like to contribute a guest blog post...the offer is still out there!

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  13. Very good question on Mara marrying Luke. The way they write her early on it seems odd that she'd even want to get married at all, but anyway...

    Well, of course it would get boring reading your own "version" of them. And while I know in my own head I have my idea of how things played out after the movies, of course other stories are still quite enjoyable (mostly) when they take things in a different direction. But again, for me, this really only works if you are keeping them in character. A good writer can create a scenario where they might act in a different way that I wouldn't have expected, but the way they've set it up, it works. I don't know if I'm adequately explaining that but hopefully you know what I mean.

    And yes, sometimes I might get sucked into a story and think that maybe the author will dig themselves out of a hole, and then they just don't. I've read many stories where either one of them says something or does something I just don't think makes sense to me. I hate when that happens, especially when the writing is actually good, but it just doesn't FEEL like Han and Leia in what they're writing.

    So basically what I'm saying is that I think there is room for interpretation, but don't get too carried away! ;)

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  14. I think for me it's all about this one question: are the characters still the ones we know from the movies? I'm willing to give most stories a chance IF I can buy the premise. You know, IF theyd gone in different dirrections, or had different things happen to them than the "canon" says they did, would they have acted the way they do in this story. So, sorry, folks, while I can see Leia Organa falling for Luke if she didn't know he was her brother , I can't see any series of events that would cause her to jump Boaba Fett's bones.

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  15. Oh, and yes there are some images I will never EVER get out of my head. I am just not into torture.

    And I agree that IF Han ever decided to switch teams, he would SO do better than Luke :-)

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  16. Thank you, that is the perfect way to put it! And so simple. Change the circumstances and obviously they're going to act "different" but still at least make that different seem plausible based on how they act in the movies. And no, no way would she go for Boba Fett! Push may have something to say about that...

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  17. LOL sorry Push, I just nver thought old Boba Fett was that much of a stud. strong and silent isn't my type I guess.

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  18. Oh, she is not going to be happy with me for saying that! And no, it's not because she actually thinks that Leia would go for Boba Fett! Or that Push herself would. So don't be worried about that! I'm just digging myself deeper and her internet at home is broken so we can really do anything we want for a while ;)

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  19. What a night for my internet to be out!

    No, I don't think Leia would go for Boba Fett, I was confused by Zyra's comment! Was it because I cried when Boba Fett found out his daughter died and found his granddaughter?? You know I cry over everything!

    Anyway, welcome jzhanfan! I'll try to catch up on all the comments...

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  20. "we just don't want to read about the explicit tortures Leia endured while a slave at Jabba's."

    I came across a kind of story like that! I'd rather not give away the title. Although it was well-written, the scenarios are pretty hard to erase in my mind. Like mind rape.

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