Those who do not learn from history are *seriously* fucked in the head.

[tzikeh]

Yes, my children, it's slash fiction set during the Holocaust. You know--THAT Holocaust. The Holocaust that helps two white boys to find true love.

From her warning:

"This piece of fiction is not 100% historically correct, nor did I ever intend it to be. Below is an image of Auchwitz (sic) gates, not because this is set there but because of the words upon those gates. I did not write this to be disrespectful to anyone--"

Ah, intent. How very, very much it does not matter.

"-- nor did I write this just as an excuse for slash."

Of course you didn't, dear.

"I put everything I had in to writing this and wracked my brain for weeks trying to get it perfect."

She worked so *HARD* that we should ignore how vile it is. Why does that sound familiar?

"If you do not wish to read a fiction surrounding this subject, even though there are warnings, then do not scroll down. Do not tell me I am sick and disrespectful. If you feel the need to post about how wrong and twisted and disrespectful I am, please join fuckyou_mcr and stay out of this post. This post is for people to appreciate my writing and I will accept any constructive critisism on my writing (emphasis mine)."

Someone wanna screen-cap this romantic romp through the Shoah Show before she locks it down?

(thanks to nestra for the heads-up)

Comments

[movies-michelle.livejournal.com]

So, she didn't write it just for slash, but she didn't feel the need to make it historically accurate, either. What, pray tell, was the point, then?

Dang it, I no longer have a facepalm icon on LJ!

[misspamela.livejournal.com]

...I've got nothing. And is it weirder/worse that this keeps happening with real people? I can't help imagine that Frank and Gerard would be fucking horrified if they ever saw this.

[bluerosefairy.livejournal.com]

I - WHAT? AGAIN? DID WE NOT LEARN FROM THE J2 HAITI BUSINESS THAT APPROPRIATING CULTURAL TRAGEDIES FOR THE PURPOSE OF WHITE-PERSON PORN IS A BAD PLAN?

BRB, headdesking forever.

[nestra.livejournal.com]

Nope, we learned nothing! Just like we learned nothing from the story set in Cambodia a few years ago.

I have this whole argument worked out in my head with her. It does something like "Domestic abuse and incest are general events. The Holocaust is a specific event. They are not comparable. This is like fictionalizing the story of woman whose husband beat her and then using a picture of her with a black eye to illustrate your story."

But it's not worth the effort. Those who know that already know it, and those who don't won't be willing to understand.

[penwiper26.livejournal.com]

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA what?

That's...special.

[deepbluemermaid.livejournal.com]

Oh, this gem. I didn't read the fic, but I did read the warnings (emphasis added) reposted elsewhere:

Beating, abuse, non important character death, scientific experiments, starvation, physical and emotional damage.

You know...all those non-important people who actually died in concentration camps, in their millions. Camps where captured American soldiers, even gay ones, would NEVER have been incarcerated.

I am offended as a human being, as a queer person, and as a historian!

I actually joined mychemicalslash so I could comment on the (unlocked) mod post where the mod defended the fic. I was appalled that nobody else was taking issue with the mod's defence of the fic (and especially her statement that "The story was properly disclaimed").

I ended up having an unexpected debate with the author, if anyone's interested in hearing more from her in slightly more reasonable tones:

http://community.livejournal.com/mychemicalslash/4850829.html

She knows all about the Holocaust, you guys: her partner studied WWII in high school! And anyway, she is "a very good writer" and any criticism is totally unjustified.

[tzikeh.livejournal.com]

Oh holy FUCK.

Um... can I add the warnings to my main post? Because... "non-important character death" is OBSCENE.

[suaine.livejournal.com]

I can't even. What the fuck is wrong with that person?

[zephiey.livejournal.com]

Got it as a pdf with 22 comments.

Want it?

[tzikeh.livejournal.com]

holy crap. Um, yeah, why not. tzikeh oot thechicagoloop deet net.

Yes, please?

[shezan.livejournal.com]

Indeedy. shezan at gmx dot net.

[lanning.livejournal.com]

Oh, fuck, she put it up again? She'd taken it down the last time I looked. There's a cap here.

This is a new low in the history of fannish fail. Disgusting.

[shezan.livejournal.com]

Okay, it looks like Jorge Semprun she ain't...

[shezan.livejournal.com]

I remember a terrific DS9 Garak/Bashir set in Auschwitz, Gabrielle Lawson's stunning, 300,000-word Oswiecim (http://glawson.stormloader.com/os1.html), which I cannot recommend enough (and perhaps I should state that several members of my family died there.) You can set a fic anywhere - but you have to be seriously talented to make it work. I have not clicked through to this fic, and the warnings seem rather dire, but I rather wish we didn't reproduce the recent pile-up.

[tzikeh.livejournal.com]

You and I just disagree on this. I'm Jewish as well, though I lost no family in the Holocaust. I do not see it as about Judaism but about using a horrific tragedy as nothing more than a vessel that helps the most privileged persons in our society have a romance. I think it's disgusting, and it doesn't matter if it's set in Haiti, or Somalia, or the Holocaust, or anywhere that there has been a nightmarish disaster, a genocide, or anything equally awful.

[surreal-44.livejournal.com]

Honestly, after reading the story, I am not seeing where your anger comes from. I was expecting gratuitous porn, ridiculous sexy times or a downplaying of the Nazi's treatment of prisoners. It was certainly not anything like that horrific Haiti story. So where is the anger over porn coming from? The characters are homosexuals but they are not having sex.

Also...remember that issue I had several weeks ago with underage pornographic fic and remember how I got beaten down for it because I was too judgmental? How is what she wrote any different from what I was upset about, and why is her reasoning (if you don't like it, don't read it) any different?

I am not trying to be argumentative, I am just trying to learn. :-)

[tzikeh.livejournal.com]

Ask yourself why she's set this in the Holocaust. For what reason? Is anything that is happening to these men intrinsically about the Shoah? If not, why are they there?

They are there because she wants to beat them up, harm them, put them in danger. She wants them in agony. She's using THE HOLOCAUST because she wants them in pain, and longing for one another to ease that pain. Invoking the Holocaust is a way to arouse extreme emotions from your audience without having to do any work at all to make the situation feel dire. She's using one of the most vile historical occurrences to serve her desire for torture porn for two real human beings. This is swatting a fly with a nuclear bomb, and it's disgusting.

[usakeh.livejournal.com]

I think it's perfectly possible to respectfully set a piece of fiction in a horrific environment. There are certain things you must do in order to be respectful - for instance, making sure your evil environment isn't just there to facilitate the fornication of two uninvolved individuals - but it is doable, I think. What this chick has done, however, is absolutely offensive. Her excuses for her callousness are even more incriminating. Were I convinced she had half a brain (and something of a heart), I'd tell her as much; as I am not so convinced, though, I'm going to essentially give up on her and just leave her and her horrible story alone. Still, seriously: I didn't know I could feel this disgusted by a fanfic. I thought that I'd seen it all! Evidently not.

[suaine.livejournal.com]

I read the story now and it was possibly worse than I expected. I may be a little sensitive when it comes to this particular issue, but the story was nothing more than torture porn and it didn't even try for accuracy. It might as well have been titled "my WWII h/c fantasy".

[tzikeh.livejournal.com]

it didn't even try for accuracy.

Heh - I felt like two people while reading it; one just agog that it even existed, and one going "Velcro wasn't commercially available until the '50s, you moron!"

[amy_vic.livejournal.com]

This is why we can't have nice things.

And now, I must troll Youtube for videos of baby animals playing and generally being adorable.

No nice things for you

[tzikeh.livejournal.com]

[silveraspen]

I just can't even. I have no words that are not incoherent rage.

[lamardeuse.livejournal.com]

The two interests I have in common with her are "writing" and "history".

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

[devohoneybee.livejournal.com]

*raises hand* not that it's in any way a credential, but perhaps a counterpoint to what shezan is saying: i lost most of the extended family of my parents' and grandparents' generation to the holocaust. i like some fics set in Holocaust settings, IF THERE IS A REASON for them to be there. if well done, if, say, wrestling with the question of evil, or of how to still be a person in a horrific setting, or with what makes one person give up hope and another not, or (as with my parents), one feel confirmed in her belief in God, and another lose his faith... when treated this way, fic can be healing, illuminating, challenging. i remember reading a Methos fic like that, and treasuring what it gave me -- another way to approach some very painful things, with the gift of the right amount of distancing that a fictional approach provides.

it's not that it's the holocaust, in other words, nor that it's slash, or porn, that makes this fic offensive. it's that the non-fictional horror of that setting itself is being used in a pornographic fashion; it's that someone is getting off on the very real suffering of the people i never got to know as my relatives.

[shezan.livejournal.com]

You have a very good point here, but the thing is that it's not for us to forbid people to write anything, however unpleasant, or to pose conditions such as "it must have meaning! there must be a reason!" We're not the thought police. Fail is ALLOWED and all we can do is vote with our feet (or here, mice.)

[kerri]

Huh. It's spread. I could swear that at first this disgusting crap was just confined to DW, but apparently not any longer. The internet seems fairly full of fail, lately. Not just small fail, either.

[rike-tikki-tavi.livejournal.com]

I'm still spitting over the fact that she illustrated that atrocity with a picture of the Auschwitz gates with "Arbeit macht frei" and when she got called on that, she put up a note, saying she used that picture because of those words. And I can't even... How can people be so faily?

[suaine.livejournal.com]

That one still baffles me. I read the story and I'm not sure what she even thinks those words mean. I know not many English-speakers are bound to get the cruel subtlety of the way those phrases were used, but I don't understand what "Arbeit macht frei" has to do with her story, no matter how I try to look at it.

[kita0610.livejournal.com]

I posted about this at the beginning of the week, then she took it down for a few days, now she's put it back.

I have nothing left, seriously. I am so very very done.

[kerri]

I think you were the one who first brought it to my attention... My sense of time is off, it feels like eons ago. It's still as horrible this time around as it was then, though.