MOD With Regards to Same-sex relationships and Fanfic

Hello Fanficcers!

As many of you know, for years same-sex relationships have only been allowed to be written very vaguely and practically non-existent due to a decree by the owners of the site. Mod Squad has contacted the owner of the site recently with a request to resend this and I'm VERY pleased to announce that:

There is no longer a restriction on same-sex relationships in fanfic.

This is not a drill, I repeat, there is no longer a restriction on writing same-sex relationships.


I think it probably goes without saying, but I would be remiss in my duty if I didn't say it: No other rules have changed as far as rating of fics and sexual depiction. Everything will remain family friendly.

That is all. Please return to your regularly scheduled fanfic.

Edit: We know there will be some questions, and we'll get to those soon, but we just wanted to share the good news.

Edit: We can now announce there will be no restrictions on who can be written in a same-sex relationship including, but not limited to Canon, Legends and EU characters.

 

Obligatory celebration gif

 

So...there is no restrictions other than keeping it clean? Does that mean heterosexual canon characters can now be found in same sex relationships? Not that I am going to write a Luke/Han love story, I just want to know if there is any fine print.

 

That's still being discussed in Mod Squad (which is why I said we know there will be questions), we'll have a full set of rules soon, so for now let's stick to OC's until we clarify further.

Mostly we were too excited to contain ourselves and didn't work out all the rules completely first.
Bad mods, bad.

 

Well, it's about time!!!! (and yes, I know I'm preaching to the choir here) Hurray!!

 

We (meaning me, Mav and the entire mod-squad) still have to iron out all the details. I don't want to say anything just yet but we will try to get out a proper set of rules to replace the old ones in the FAQ asap.

 

It is about time. I look forward to reading the details.

I was just curious, organic sentients and human replica droid relationships are still okay right? I am talking about something like Cray Mingla and Nichos Marr. When he got a fatal disease she transferred Nichos consciousness into a human replica droid body using forbidden Ssi-ruuk technology. Or Prince Xizor and the human replica droid Guri? Not that I am writing a droid love story...that you know of.

 

YAY! Now I no longer have to be ambiguous about a certain sequel.

But I still think that the way allosexuals see "sexual tension" in plain arguments of characters who would never experiment is kinda nonsensical, not to mention that sexual attraction as some higher power, stronger than anger, worry etc is kinda offensive. There's a difference between an actual SSR and wish-fullfillment SSR, which results in objectifying LGBTQ people by replacing them with homoeroticism or whatever the female equivalent of that is.

 

Good news!

 

Possibly time to finish last year's diary now...

 

Great to see that this restriction is going away, but I do sincerely hope this isn't a half-way sort of thing. Keeping any vestiges of this old anti-LGBTQ+ ruleset is still problematic, so I hope that there aren't any stipulations beyond "Keep it PG-13."

 

If this is the full deal, this is fantastic news. The old policy made me hesitant of joining the TFN forums for a long time.

 

I don't write same-sex relationship fics, but for those of you who do, I'm very happy the restriction has/is being lifted.

 

I hope that Canon characters with established sexual preferences e.g. Han and Leia, have to remain hetero but for characters like Wedge, for example in the OT had no preference that it showed, could be free game, if you want to ignore Legends Canon, and if you really wanted to open a can of worms Luke.

Even though I like JediMaster_Jen don't write these relationships in my work I think this is something that should be on the table for discussion. What should and shouldn't be allowed where same sex relationships or perhaps bi-sexual people are involved. Family friendly is very high on the list but I personally don't think that there should be fan fics here with Han/Luke since Han is clearly in love with Leia and interested in girls and from the looks of new Canon Luke is into girls as well although a reasonable argument might be made that he was attracted to Leia because of their twin/family bond and I would listen to said argument and that his attraction to whats-her-name in Heir to the Jedi was more of here's-a-girl-that-lived-on-a-desert-planet-like-me-and-can-shoot-and-loves-to-fly-like-I-do!

 

While I personally tend not to read or write outside of established canon relationships, there's no problem that I can see with such fics being posted. It seems unfair to allow for SSR but limit them to OCs or otherwise say H/L for example is sacrosanct.

We allow fics where characters turn to the dark side even though they never would in canon and a million other differences, so why not their relationships/sexuality? (And of course nothing in canon precludes Han being bisexual)

It seems counterproductive and against the spirit of the change to ban canon characters in SSRs.

 

Yay! Definitely about time.

I have to agree with JadeLotus. I personally would not be interested in writing a Han/Luke fic, but that doesn't mean it ought to be banned. Because there really aren't characters with "established sexual preferences" - there are only characters who have shown an interest in the opposite gender, which does not preclude them from also being interested in other genders as well. I certainly don't remember any of the characters explicitly stating their heterosexuality in the movies!

 

mavjade Briannakin ... Do you want to tell them or should I?

 

I was going to wait until all the fanfic mods (including NSWFF) discussed something related to this, but yes, I'll tell them...


There will be no restrictions on who can be written in a same-sex relationship, including but not limited to Canon, Legends and EU characters.

 

This is fantastic news. Thank you.

 

I can live with this.

 

Yes, thank you very much. Great to hear!

 

Seems reasonable to me to have canon/canon pairings included in the new policy when heterosexual crack!ships have been allowed within the rules forever. There are some that won't ever appeal to me personally (mostly the ones that seem too familial or unbalanced for me to wrap my brain around as a pairing) -- but see above.

 

Well done to everyone who helped make this change happen! TFN, perhaps against all odds, is the biggest hub for fan fiction in this fandom. It's huge and absolutely wonderful to see it fully open to LGBTQ+ writers and stories.

 

While I see where you are coming from, the idea of bisexual (it's a single word) people not being "family-friendly" baffles me. On top of it, the idea of incest above bisexuality is scary as hell. There is absolutely nothing wrong with any sexual orientation, as long as involves people above the edge of consent.

I stand by my comment about there now being a loophole allowing for trivialisation of SSR and sex over feelings and I sense there will be a lot of "These two men are so hot, I have to imagine them together!!!11" coming from people who are otherwise very, very heterosexual and are seeing SSR as a form of a fetish; but at the end of the day, I assume that, with the new policy being active, we will be able to openly discuss many things we could not have discussed before.

In other words, if anybody assumes that a gay man would sleep with any person with a penis* just because he is gay, that lesbian kiss each other for the straight men to watch and guess-what-else, that an ace can be "converted" by "true love", if this rule opens the door to concepts such as transmisoginy and so on...well, it's not going to be nice. It could end up looking like one of those FCKH8 for-profit campaigns that trivialise social issues, gender identity and sexual orientation...minus the money.

* Yes, I know that one does not need to be a man to have a penis, but I need a narrow example to illustrate this.