sholio | Fandom-related tl;dr

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Fandom-related tl;dr

I have a really bad feeling that I'm not going to get much sleep tonight, because it's 12:30 and I'm still wide awake. Possibly the tea had something to do with it. Or the fact that it's not dark yet. (Ah, life in the Arctic.)

So I'm sitting here thinking about fandom, as one does.

I'm mildly boggled at how much I've learned about myself and my fannish tastes since I got into SGA fandom. I'm not sure if they've really changed all that much, but I've become much more aware of myself, and aware that some of the things I'd generally believed true of myself (that I'm a gen fan, for example, or that I'm an h/c fan) are either not as true as I'd thought, or not true in quite the same way that I'd thought.

I think it was around 1998 when I became aware of fanfic for the first time, mostly in anime fandoms. (Ranma 1/2 is the first fandom in which I remember reading fairly extensively.) SG1 fandom was the big fandom that made me aware that fanfic had genres that regular fiction didn't -- slash and gen (I don't recall being specifically aware of het as a separate category), h/c, and so forth. And then I got into Trigun fandom and got to know more anime fandom terms (like yaoi).

xparrot introduced me to more of the Western fannish terminology later on, like smarm and "fen". ^^

But I think I was much more of a fandom of one than I realized. I interacted with other fans; I ran a Trigun mailing list and over the years I was on a number of different mailing lists for shows ranging from All My Children to Invisible Man. Looking back on it now, though, I think it's interesting how I didn't really form relationships. I didn't make friends. This is not to say that I didn't have friends, because I did, or even that I didn't make friends online -- I did! Just not in fandom. I'm really not sure why, but if I had to venture a guess I'd say it's probably that you can't really juggle too many main areas of online interaction at once, and I already had my online "social center", so to speak. When I was in college, it was a sci-fi writers' mailing list; and during the time I was particularly active on the small press comics scene, it was the Sequential Tart message boards. I've been spending a lot of time engaged in online social interaction since 1995, when I signed up for my first mailing lists and tumbled head over heels into it, but those were really the main ones, the places where I spent the vast majority of my time and built up my primary social networks. Around 2004/2005, the Tart message boards started to fragment and drift apart, and I got an LJ. I never expect this to become my new social hub, but that's exactly what's happened, and just like I stumbled into a new world in 1995 (writers) and 2000 (indy comics and zine-makers), so I stumbled into a new fannish world in 2006 when I dipped my toe into SGA waters and started building up a slow fannish circle and engaging with mainstream media fandom for the first time.

Each one of those different online experiences was heady and exciting in a different way. I could probably do a whole long post on each of them, and the way it challenged me and changed me and pointed my life in a slightly different direction than it had been going before. From a fannish point of view, the interesting thing about SGA fandom is how I began to really refine and quantify my tastes as a fan, and also became a much more aware and reflective fanfic writer (and thus, a better writer in general -- I'm really astounded at the change in my writing between pre-2006 and now, much bigger, to my eyes at least, than any comparable period before). Pre-SGA fandom, I'd pretty much been wandering from fandom to fandom as the whim struck me, writing fanfic when I was inspired and dropping it when I wasn't. I never participated in ficathons and the like; I remember having a general awareness of the existence of fanfic challenges but never being tempted to play. I read what I liked, and liked what I read, and left a fandom when my initial flush of fannish love began to fade. I think the longest I stayed active in a fandom prior to SGA was probably Trigun, which was at least a year, and that was mostly because I was engaged in a big fanfic project (Sand and Light, my epic fanfic turned multimedia extravaganza).

SGA's been different, though. For one thing, it's the first fandom in which there's been so much fic that I actually got to be choosy about what I read. I think the last time that happened was SG1 fandom in the late '90s. Most of my other fandoms had been mini fandoms, or anime fandoms that really didn't cater to my gen-ish tastes. In SGA, there was not just a ton of fic, but a ton of fic that happened to hit my particular fic kinks ... which meant I finally began to nail down what my kinks actually are. I had always thought, in a vague way, that I must be a hurt/comfort fan, ever since I found out what hurt/comfort was -- I'd known in a vague sort of way that I liked that sort of thing from a very young age, and I discovered that I wasn't the only one through (ha) the letters pages of the Elfquest comics when I was a kid, though I didn't know the accepted fannish term for it 'til much later. And while I certainly do still think that's true, it's only in SGA fandom that I've realized I'm not actually enough of a hurt/comfort fan to really be comfortable in h/c fannish subculture. I'm sure it goes both ways; I know I make some of you h/c people nervous with my tendency to wander around in other parts of the fandom, too. :D But ... it's not that I don't like h/c; it's just that I feel way less hardcore about it than most of the people I talk to about it. I like writing (and reading) a variety of characters in a variety of situations, and that's always been true of me; my most favorite stories, the ones that "ping!" me on a very deep and satisfying level, are h/c, but generally I like my h/c as part of a longer story. I think I'm less specifically id-driven than a lot of fandom.

... which leads into one of the other big things that's changed about me since I've been in SGA fandom, which ties into the above and basically has to do with getting more in touch with my reptilian hindbrain.

cupidsbow had a discussion about this just recently, and like I wrote over there, I used to flinch away from hitting those moments of emotional resonance. It felt too indulgent, too exposing, too un-literary. The more fanfic I read, though, and the more that I see people around me being unconcerned (or seemingly unconcerned) about writing self-indulgent stories with no redeeming literary value whatsoever, the more I'm engaging with the idea of writing just to poke at the happy buttons in my brain -- and, paradoxically, the better I seem to write.

For some reason I always thought I was doing this in fanfic, but I don't really think so, because I remember very clearly how utterly embarrassed I was when I wrote Candle in the Dark -- squirmingly embarrassed, uncomfortably on display for the world to see. I wrote the story for a prompt at

sheppard_hc and I had never written a story whose sole purpose was h/c before ... a story that was basically an excuse to tickle the pleasure buttons in my brain. My previous fanfic, I guess, was more along the lines of exploring a cool idea or trying to develop the characters; it wasn't that it didn't have elements that made me melt and squee, or I wouldn't have written it, but that wasn't really its reason for existing. But I wasn't very analytical about it in those days. I would have an idea that I liked, and then I'd write it, but I wasn't really trying to achieve a conscious effect, except maybe "figure out what makes this character tick".

I'm currently working on taking this new awareness of my own squee-points, and how to trigger them, and rolling it back into my original fiction. I've realized that one of the main reasons why I've tended to put down my original works before I finish them is because they don't really engage me emotionally. I adore world-building and playing with ideas and characters, but generally speaking I haven't written original stories that pushed my happy buttons since I was a teenager (when I wrote a ton of self-indulgent and ridiculously emo h/c with my original characters -- there was one story in which I think the main character tried to commit suicide and had to be rescued by the others at least three times; I am so glad I did not have the Internet back then). I think my teenage self might have been smarter than my older self who tried to write Srs Literary Fiction and ended up with dry and dull epics that never really said anything. Ever since I first started writing fanfic, I've found it awfully easy to be distracted from my original novels onto my novel-length fanfic, and I think a big part of that is because I haven't learned to love my original characters properly, and to use them to make my id stand up and beg for more.

That's the current plan, and I am happy to report that my id is enjoying the present novel-in-progress quite a bit. :D

So ... there's that. There's also been the realizing that my writing isn't as gen as I thought it was, either. Like I said earlier, the initial and probably-erroneous view of fanfic that I received (unless definitions have changed) is that there was slash and gen, but not much else. I wasn't writing slash, so I must be writing gen, and I continued to believe that I was writing gen despite the fact that it sometimes turned out to be oh, say, future!kidfic (which I did in at least two different fandoms). Admittedly, different fandoms have different definitions of gen, and SGA has a pretty strict one -- which is what made me, eventually, look back on my early fanfic and go "Oh, hey, so that's why people got so bent out of shape when I wrote that Cowboy Bebop fic where Faye had Spike's baby and was married to Jet and I called it gen ..." (Actual story. I was quite baffled at the reaction to that story. Not so much anymore.)

Like my LJ name (and my fanfic) implies, I've always been primarily interested in writing about platonic relationships -- friendships, family relationships, comrades-in-arms and such. It's partly burnout on romance because there's just so much of it, but mainly, it's simply what pushes my buttons. But that's not the only thing I want to write about. And, actually, three years in SGA fandom, writing a ton of fic that conforms to the pretty strict SGA definition of gen, left me feeling a bit stifled and yearning to write about different kinds of relationships -- lovers and married people and people who occupy the weird and complicated borderlines between friendship and romance. This is something that pinged me in another of Cupidsbow's recent posts in which she talks about getting tired of writing first time stories and wanting to play with the dynamics of an established relationship. That's more or less what's happened to me, except I skipped the first-time because it's never been that interesting to me. Of all the stories one can tell about human sexuality, I think the tale of "boy/girl meets girl/boy and falls in love" is one of the ones that interests me least -- not that it can't draw me in (and SGA fandom itself is full of counter-example first-time stories that really made me quiver) but it's just so overdone, so ubiquitous, and it doesn't speak to me strongly as a writer. But I really like writing about families, and weird complicated lovers who defy easy categorization (which was why I loved Bulma and Vegeta so much on DBZ; they're probably the couple that I wrote about most, aside from those in my original work), and I really feel the absence in SGA of a couple who draws me strongly.

But this dovetails nicely into yet another change that's come about through my time in SGA fandom -- I'm much more open to fanficcish what-ifs, and much more inclined to explore them myself. I used to be a total canon snob. In some ways, I still am, especially when I first get into a fandom, but it's a lot less pronounced than it used to be. I never used to be interested in AUs; I never used to think "What if she went with her instead of him?" I guess that for me, canon used to be written in stone, and I'd spin fanfic off of that, but never take it too far away.

... or so I thought.

[OH DEAR GOD IT'S 1:30 A.M. WHAT AM I DOING TO MYSELF]

In reality, I think there were two things I failed to realize.

#1 is that I had no idea how subjective my impressions of canon, and what I believed was canon, really were. This, I guess, is one of the major side effects of fanning in a social vacuum -- you have no idea if what you believe to be canon actually is accepted by the fandom or not. That was the biggest problem with the Cowboy Bebop story mentioned above -- in my head, the Spike/Faye and Faye/Jet subtext was totally canon, and I didn't realize that this was my subjective interpretation of the show. Some things are clearly canon, of course. John's last name is Sheppard. Ronon was a Runner for seven years. But when it gets to the fuzzier stuff -- this probably sounds completely obvious, but I don't think I ever realized, until I started discussing canon with a wide group of people rather than just interpreting it happily in my own head, that what I had seen as stone-solid boundaries of canon are actually very fuzzy and shifting, and that it's possible to slot a lot of not-exactly-canon possibilities into canon as it stands.

#2 is that I was already doing far more canon-shifting and sidestepping than I realized. I had always thought of myself as writing in perfect adherence to canon -- which is completely ridiculous and illogical considering some of the stories I've written (like Sand & Light, my primary Trigun story, which bends canon into a pretzel trying to justify the bizarre and complicated backstory I cooked up for the main characters). The weird thing is how thoroughly I used to believe that there was some line in the sand between canon and not-canon, and that I hadn't stepped across it.

I still tend to adhere pretty firmly to canon in most fandoms as I see it; I don't think that canon is nearly as fluid in my head as it is for some writers. But I think the increased awareness of the fuzziness and subjectiveness of canon has made me more consciously aware of where I'm stepping outside it, more deliberate about those choices, less likely to condemn or try to pigeonhole other writers for their -- and more likely to be interested in a what-if to see what happens if, say, Rodney's a border guard in Texas, or Ronon has wings ...

Okay, it's almost 2 a.m. now, and this is getting very, very ridiculously long and I'm not sure if it makes sense anymore, so I think I'm going to wrap it up now and stagger off to bed. If you made it through all of that, I'm very impressed. :D Comments and reciprocal rambling is welcome, should you have anything to say!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I don't have anything substantial to say (I've decided not to engage my brain significantly more than is necessary to keep breathing today), but I wanted to share that, all the while reading this, I was all "But, the first time I really noticed one of your stories as being one of your stories was the one where John had a farm and Teyla was an illegal immigrant, so how can you say you're a stickler for canon? Does not compute! *flailing arms*", so the second-to-last paragraph was kind of a relief. ;)

*heehee* Yeah, by that point I had already given up on adhering to canon, I think. :D It didn't take all that long in SGA fandom for that to happen!

Thankfully! I might have missed out on a glorious weekend going through your fic index otherwise. <3

awwwww~! ♥

Very interesting! I think your idea of canon is much like my idea of canon for SGA--but then again, I've read some of your AUs (most notably "Light of a Fading Sun"). I'm also really interested in friendship and established relationships--and never really realized the latter until I read what you wrote here. I tend to resist ship and slash when it starts on shows (Delenn and John on B5, Jack and Ianto on TW) but often get into it once it's established, which is the point where I think it becomes interesting. (Aeryn and John on Farscape would require a whole separate discussion.)

One of the things that bothered me for a while about SGA, from a writing perspective, was the lack of established relationships. It basically has that now (Rodney/Jennifer and, one assumes, Teyla/Kanaan); it's too bad that I'm not particularly into writing long SGA at the moment, because the last couple of seasons have provided a ton of fic fodder -- I'm just not that inspired to explore it right now.

Sadly, I don't get much of a sense of Kanaan at all! I wouldn't know what to do with the character! That's a shame, because I like Teyla so much. I also like Rodney and Jennifer a lot without liking some of what the show did with them.

I'll be very glad if you can give me more than the show did! (I hope that's not damning with faint praise.)

*nods* I really like Teyla and love the idea of her as a working mom, but the show never really gave us much to work with as far as who Kanaan is or what their living arrangements are, with regards to each other, the baby or the rest of the Athosians! Rodney/Jennifer is exactly the opposite problem; there was so much of them on the show (and I don't find the particular dynamic easy to work with) that there wasn't a whole lot left to explore -- a problem I was also starting to have with John and Rodney's character dynamic towards the end (or, well, Rodney in general, actually).

Now that I'm thinking about it, though, I'm having ideas. :D

Yay for a thinky post from you!

Nothing to add, though, except that I also find that, while I may be active in a number of forums online, I only form relationships in one or two at a time. I may be quite active somewhere w/o actually connecting to the people involved as opposed to the ideas being tossed around, if that makes any sense.

No, it does make sense. I had always wondered about my general lack of tendency to form lasting relationships in fandom 'til I realized that I was already doing it elsewhere, and maybe it's just the difficulty of juggling more than one active social group at once. Since getting into LJ in a major way, I've tried to get involved with other online venues (including some where I used to be active) and just can't get into it like I used to. This is where everything is for me right now.

I think it's a lot harder to properly identify oneself as an h/c fan in anime fandom, where it's not a popular genre. I got my ficcing start in X-files and then gen Sentinel, which was hardcore h/c and smarm, so I had a wide range of fic catering to my general tastes, and was able to get more specifically choosy - so I always was aware that while I loved h/c, I had particular interests. I've always preferred psychological/emotional hurt to purely physical, and I don't go for the individual character torture of whump, since for me h/c is all about relationship exploration. As far as strictly h/c goes, I tend to be on the softer side, but I'll go for pretty hardcore angst.

And I early on learned about delving into the heart of the id - I remember well that "embarrassed" reaction, writing something too, hmm, purely what I wanted?* I don't have it much anymore...to be honest, though, I'm not sure how much of that is that is that I've just become used to fanfic being about kinks, and how much is that my id is not as, hmm, accessible? as it was before. Maybe some of my buttons have been pressed too hard - what I used to wriggle with pleasure at now is old hat; it needs a twist to interest me. Or maybe it's just that I've gotten pickier about what I like...

And that's not looking at how sometimes what I like to write is not what I like to read, which kind of puzzles me. For the most part, my best stories (in my own opinion, and in reader reaction) are those which I really wanted to read myself - but there's been a few I really was driven to write, that are not the sort I'd usually like to read. (I like to read them when I've written them myself, but that's because I engage differently with my own writing...)

*ETA: "writing self-indulgent stories with no redeeming literary value whatsoever"

I remember when I was in high school, telling someone that I loved Dragonriders of Pern, but that I wanted to be a "real" writer - writing something of literary value, basically. And they asked me, but if you write something that's liked as much as you like Pern, what's wrong with that? Since then I've been trying to work out what is the literary value of self-indulgence. Because I'm convinced there is one, that a story that strikes a chord, tickles the id, does have merit in that very act of inspiring feeling. Why should emotional stimulation be of any less value than intellectual stimulation?
--Not challenging you here, it's just a question I've been wrestling with!

Edited 2009-05-21 13:11 (UTC)

(oh god, morning sucks just as much as I was afraid it was going to *wails* ... today is going to last FOREVER)

I remember when I was in high school, telling someone that I loved Dragonriders of Pern, but that I wanted to be a "real" writer - writing something of literary value, basically. And they asked me, but if you write something that's liked as much as you like Pern, what's wrong with that?

*nods* This, yes; it's something I've been thinking about, too, and asking myself why it's more worthy to write something like (sticking within the SFF genre to compare apples to apples) Left Hand of Darkness than, say, Pern or Death Gate. Or, heck, the literary version of SGA, even. Terrible TV though it is, SGA probably brought more actual pleasure to more people (not just through the show, but through the fandom and fanfic and friendships that were spawned) than your average not-very-well-known literary novel. Isn't it just as worthy, or maybe even more so, to have my epitaph say "Her books made people happy" than "She wrote great novels that won awards and were taught in schools"? (Especially since the first goal is way easier to achieve and probably a lot more fun than the second. XD)

Pretty much every fangirl I know in our general age group (the ones from an English-speaking background anyway) recognizes some subset of Anne McCaffrey and Mercedes Lackey and Marion Zimmer Bradley, and has fond memories of curling up with the books as a kid, or discovering "slash" for the first time in Valdemar, or whatever -- the books are never gonna make a splash as great literature and are rife with their own problems (Pern + forced sex + me going DDDDDDD: OH ANNE MCCAFFREY NO as an adult), but they gave a lot of wee fangirls a lot of pleasure and were probably hella fun for the authors to write, so why not aspire to a legacy like that?

It's just surprising that it took me so long to start thinking along those lines. I guess it has a lot to do with having set my sights on being a Pro Author as a really young kid (... you'd think I'd be farther along by now ...) and reading every book and article on Writing For Publication that I could get my hands on as a kid, so along with all the advice about "killing your darlings" and cutting extraneous scenes, I absorbed the general idea that what I now think of as id-fic is an impediment to writing well rather than, possibly, a useful component of it.

I think it's a lot harder to properly identify oneself as an h/c fan in anime fandom, where it's not a popular genre. I got my ficcing start in X-files and then gen Sentinel, which was hardcore h/c and smarm, so I had a wide range of fic catering to my general tastes, and was able to get more specifically choosy...

*nods* Makes sense. Most of my formative fannish experiences were in various anime fandoms, and you and I used to mutually gripe about the lack of good h/c and good gen in those. :D I think it's interesting that SG1 never really gave me the same experience, but I think there were a lot of factors -- I wasn't really monofannish about SG1, and I wasn't involved in the social aspects of the fandom at all; I just read everything I wanted to read and then left the fandom when I ran out of stuff I wanted to read. (I actually did read my way through the gen SG1 fic that was available at the time, but I think that was less of a big deal in 1999 than it would be now ...!) Anyway, it's only in SGA that I've really started nailing down my own preferences -- possibly I was just less interested in analyzing it before, too.

Maybe some of my buttons have been pressed too hard - what I used to wriggle with pleasure at now is old hat; it needs a twist to interest me. Or maybe it's just that I've gotten pickier about what I like...

Interesting! My tastes definitely evolve and change as I move through a fandom; I'd never thought about just completely burning out on something that used to be a strong button-pushing thing, however. (I do remember being so tired of h/c-type stories when I left SG1 fandom that it took me years to get back into them, though -- maybe that's similar! Or maybe it's just that SG1 h/c didn't really give me what I wanted; it's been so long that it's hard to say now ...)

Ahahah...I never read much "Writing for Publication" stuff, and one of the reasons why was because a lot of what I did read, just seemed *wrong* to me. Like "killing your darlings" - I heard that, and was like, "but, that's not what I want to read?"

My tastes definitely evolve and change as I move through a fandom; I'd never thought about just completely burning out on something that used to be a strong button-pushing thing, however.

Oh, I've never completely burned out - the same basic scenarios that got me excited when I first started reading fic still stir me now. But I'm a *lot* pickier than I was (a lot of the fic I loved when I first got into fanfic I can barely read now, because of issues with the writing and such...) But more than that, I think my buttons are harder to push...and I think it's not burnout so much as familiarity. Some scenarios are cookie-cutter, I've read enough to know how they'll go, so while once it was only the scenario that got to me, now its execution is as important...

--and completely OT here, but just was thinking about this:
(Pern + forced sex + me going DDDDDDD: OH ANNE MCCAFFREY NO as an adult)

which I'd kind of forgotten about, since I haven't read Pern for years...(and I don't know how much it would bother me anyway, since mutual dubcon for the most part doesn't bother me as much as it probably should...) But I wonder if one of the reasons Pern appeals to teenagers is because of that very aspect - does that kind of drug/telepathic-forced sex resonate better with teens? Considering teenagers (well. er. most teenagers ^^;) are struggling with their own developing sexualities, which probably feel pretty forced in themselves - all these strange emotions and desires coming from nowhere and hard to understand...to have an *excuse* for overpowering crazy lust, like telepathic dragons - in some ways it's maybe more comforting than just dealing with one's own hormones?

In conclusion: everyone should read Pern when they're 14, but no later. Because it is a marvelous fantasy if you're the right age for it...

Isn't it just as worthy, or maybe even more so, to have my epitaph say "Her books made people happy" than "She wrote great novels that won awards and were taught in schools"?

Confession: What I've always wanted my authorial epitaph to read, is "She created X". I want to make a Sherlock Holmes, a Jane Eyre, a Bilbo Baggins, a Harry Potter - a character who will be remembered, better than my own name. Screw literary tradition, I want fame! XP

But then I've always been somewhat populist in my taste for art...when I was majoring in art history I used to get into debates about this, because I'm of the opinion that these days, movies and advertising are more important artistic mediums than painting and sculpture... ^^;

And that's not looking at how sometimes what I like to write is not what I like to read, which kind of puzzles me. For the most part, my best stories (in my own opinion, and in reader reaction) are those which I really wanted to read myself - but there's been a few I really was driven to write, that are not the sort I'd usually like to read. (I like to read them when I've written them myself, but that's because I engage differently with my own writing...)

The divide is not that great for me, because I read as widely as I write. (I actually don't relate very well to the idea of only reading or writing one kind of story -- I can definitely see having a favorite kind, because I do, but ficcers who only write stories that cater to their kinks and only really seem to have one kink ... I recognize it as an equally valid form of fanning, because we're all in this to make ourselves happy, but I don't understand it very well.) It doesn't surprise me that I'd sometimes want to write a bleak death fic, or a bit of porn, because even if it's not always what I want to read, it's sometimes what I want to read. (I am rather glad that I never finished and posted anything during my Very Bleak Porn period last spring/summer, though. People might have fled my journal in droves!)

But I do relate to writing a bit differently than reading, and I find some things easier to take when I write about them than when I read them. Being in SGA fandom almost exclusively for so long has skewed my head a bit, too, I think, because it's a fandom that's so monoculturish about certain things -- this is not a fandom that supports much dark fic, for example, unlike somewhere like SPN or (from my outsider perspective) SV, where it's practically a genre unto itself. And I think the absence of darker/bleaker fic in the fandom makes me want to write it, as opposed to a fandom with a lot of dark fic where I can indulge that urge at any time by just going out and finding myself a nice bitter deathfic.

(I actually don't relate very well to the idea of only reading or writing one kind of story -- I can definitely see having a favorite kind, because I do, but ficcers who only write stories that cater to their kinks and only really seem to have one kink ... I recognize it as an equally valid form of fanning, because we're all in this to make ourselves happy, but I don't understand it very well.)

I get this somewhat, because my tastes tend to be compartmentalized - I often will like only one type of fic (or at least one strict view of characters/relationships, e.g. my OTP streak) in a particular fandom. But I'll tire of it quickly - and more onto a new fandom when I do. Obviously I circle back to particular sorts of relationships, but my tastes vary from fandom to fandom (e.g. in anime I tended to read a lot darker fic than I go for in most Western stuff...)

(I am rather glad that I never finished and posted anything during my Very Bleak Porn period last spring/summer, though. People might have fled my journal in droves!)

Ahh, but you would've gotten some new people joining in, probably very excitedly! Whether you would've had things in common with those folks, beyond dark!porn, that's the question...

--That's the weird thing about fanfic, the way it's tied into the fanning community. Especially on lj - your audience aren't just readers, they're also your friends. So a bunch of people into SGA aren't really into darkfic, and the minority who are into it tend not to indulge in it as much because their friends don't like it, and they want to get along with their friends...while as fandoms like SPN or SV, where the canon already has a darkside aspect, are more likely to have fans who like darkfic, and bond and make friends based on that preference from the start.

Heh... the conflict between writing for "literary" merit vs. pushing one's own buttons definitely strikes a chord for me. I've always thought one of the reasons I've never been able to write fanfic is that I can't seem to convince my inner-wannabe-writer that the gratuitous little daydreams with which I've entertained myself privately for my *entire life* could actually qualify as "real" fiction. Even after years of reading fic from others that is *exactly* the sort of thing I like to read/write for myself, there's still that wall there in my own head. It's frustrating.

I'm not actually enough of a hurt/comfort fan to really be comfortable in h/c fannish subculture.

I'm not majorly familiar with h/c in Stargate universes, but I've always found the idea of an h/c subculture to be hard to wrap my head around because there's so much variety in tastes and tolerance levels. (I heavily resisted labeling my preferences as "hurt/comfort" when I first discovered the term because I equated "comfort" with smarmy behaviors that I saw a lot of in Sentinel-fic, and that seemed completely unrelated to my more angst-centric tastes at the time.)

I've always been intrigued by the different kinks that get rolled into h/c... I wish there was more cross-fandom h/c chatter around. For such a major fannish concept, I've seen surprisingly little meta for it. It'd be interesting to compare notes.

I've always thought one of the reasons I've never been able to write fanfic is that I can't seem to convince my inner-wannabe-writer that the gratuitous little daydreams with which I've entertained myself privately for my *entire life* could actually qualify as "real" fiction. Even after years of reading fic from others that is *exactly* the sort of thing I like to read/write for myself, there's still that wall there in my own head. It's frustrating.

*nods* It's surprisingly difficult to get past that mental block. I am a very strong proponent of storytelling for the love of it, in part because I've had to struggle through that myself ...

I'm not majorly familiar with h/c in Stargate universes, but I've always found the idea of an h/c subculture to be hard to wrap my head around because there's so much variety in tastes and tolerance levels.

... that's a really good point, actually! Though I wonder if h/c is really any more diverse than anything else that gets rolled together into one genre (like slash ... or sci-fi!). People are drawn to it for all sorts of reasons, and one person's kink-stroking h/c is another person's squick. There really *should* be more discussion of it ... perhaps I should start some! I did ask my f'list for their thoughts on h/c a little while back (and, hmm, glancing at that thread, it's interesting how some of the same ideas that I'm rambling about above are involved in that thread, too!).

This is very thinky and awesome, but alas--I can't comment right now! I just wanted to drop in and let you know that I'm letting this percolate a bit and I'd like to come back and join the conversation in a day or two when I have the chance...

Well, I'm just now getting around to answering some comments, heh. Edited to add: Uh, that came out sounding awfully dismissive! Sorry! I just meant that I've been busy too. *runs off*

Edited 2009-05-25 05:23 (UTC)

I know I make some of you h/c people nervous with my tendency to wander around in other parts of the fandom, too. :D But ... it's not that I don't like h/c; it's just that I feel way less hardcore about it than most of the people I talk to about it. I like writing (and reading) a variety of characters in a variety of situations, and that's always been true of me; my most favorite stories, the ones that "ping!" me on a very deep and satisfying level, are h/c, but generally I like my h/c as part of a longer story

*squishes you*

I thought it was just me. While I do have a tremendous love for h/c, I don't care for whump just for whump's sake. I need a plot, somebody to learn something, to really enjoy it. (I have been known to write a whump story just for whump, but I'd really rather not, if I can avoid it.) I like playing with the other characters, seeing what makes them tick.

I do prefer gen (meaning no focus on relationships) stories. I don't mind canon pairings mentioned, but my interest lies more in seeing the team explore the galaxy and the happenings on Atlantis. I do venture out of that on occasion (and on extremely rare occasions I've been known to dabble in het), but 98% of what I'll read and write will be gen stories that stick extremely close to canon. When I stray too far from canon, I lose the ability to see it in my head, and if I can't do that then there's no point in me reading/writing.

I do love how plot-focused your stories are. And I also really love that you write the whole cast, not just one or two of them, and you write them in unusual combinations; you're very fair to them, I think! And I like to see that, especially in a fandom like this which tends to be dominated by a couple of characters (though less so now than it used to be when I first got into it, I think).

While I do occasionally like to indulge in a "pure" h/c story, I think the aspect that draws me most is watching the characters grow and change, and that can really only happen in a longer, plot-focused story.

I hardly ever seem to have time to read my flist anymore. But here I am tonight, listening to a Torchwood podbook (this is something new for me), and I find I can't quite just sit here and listen... so I'm poking around and look where I ended up. :)

What I love about your post is the way it tells the story of your own love affair with storytelling. Now there's a story I don't think I'll ever get tired of.

One of the things that stood out about your work for me, right from the start, was the way you wrote friendship. To me it read as friendship romance (which I love), and hit a lot of those buttons you're talking about.

Errr... I think I'm the one wandering now, so I'll stop. I really just popped in to let you know I'd been reading and enjoying what you had to say.

I think you're the first person I ever heard use the term "friendship romance", and I love it because it is just such a perfect way to sum up what it is that I like (in both reading and writing), and I'd never really had a good term for it before! Because that's it exactly, really.

And thank you very much :) -- for the comment on my stories, and for the meta posts that got my brain thinking along these lines! I'm glad you dropped by. :)

This post made me smile this morning. I love reading about people talking about their own writing.

And thank you for the meta-y links! They provided some nice reading over coffee this morning, and I've already passed one on to another friend of mine that's been struggling with his writing as well.

I've realized that one of the main reasons why I've tended to put down my original works before I finish them is because they don't really engage me emotionally. ... I think a big part of that is because I haven't learned to love my original characters properly, and to use them to make my id stand up and beg for more.

THIS¹⁰⁰⁰.

I have a lot of started, then abandoned, original writing projects that I really liked the story I was telling, but the characters in it were intellectually stimulating for me -- but they did absolutely nothing for pushing my buttons. Actually, I think a lot of my failed stories are because of that lack of love, that fun feeling of watching the words appear on the page. In my mind there always has been this divide between "original" and "fanfic" writing, and that things you can get away with fanfic (humor! action! h/c!) you can't do in original fiction... actually, it took me a long time to loosen up on those "cant's" in the fanfic world too. Like you, I can see a really marked difference between the way I'm writing now, and the way I was writing even as little as two years ago.

I've been doing some prep work over the past week and I'm almost ready to dive in for my first foray into original fic in a long time, with the full intent of just having fun with the characters, plot, and world -- and to not try so hard to make it a literary masterpiece. The things that I want to write that would be "literary" are never nearly as fun, and for that reason I don't think they ever get completed.

Although your comment above to

xparrot about having an epithath read "Her books made people happy" hits it on the head. Books and storytelling make me happy, and giving that to someone else seems like the highest praise.

That's the current plan, and I am happy to report that my id is enjoying the present novel-in-progress quite a bit. :D

\o/

and more likely to be interested in a what-if to see what happens if, say, Rodney's a border guard in Texas

I for one am glad that you wrote that one. I think I may have mentioned it before, but it's in the competition for my "Favorite SGA story EVAH".

Hee! You and Wildcat are using very nearly the same icon. At first I thought, "Didn't I already respond to this comment ...?" *g*

In my mind there always has been this divide between "original" and "fanfic" writing, and that things you can get away with fanfic (humor! action! h/c!) you can't do in original fiction... actually, it took me a long time to loosen up on those "cant's" in the fanfic world too.

Yes! That! I am loving some of the original fiction I've been writing lately, and a very big part of that is because I've been writing much as I do when I write fanfic ... and it's working! I spent a lot of time not even considering that I could do some of this stuff in original fiction, even though when I look at some of my favorite, read-and-read-again books, it's the h/c and friendship bits that get me every time.

If I can write a book that is somebody's favorite, or a book that gives someone a personal touchstone, I think that'll be a much greater success than writing something with great literary merit. (And, of course, having people writing fanfic about my characters would send me into paroxysms of squee ... ^_^)

I think I may have mentioned it before, but it's in the competition for my "Favorite SGA story EVAH".

d'awwwww! ♥ ♥ ♥ Well, "See No Evil" is one of mine, so it all balances ...

p.s. Good luck with your original story! :D

I read through all of it!! *Brain burn out* But seriously, It's interesting to see how fandom affected someone so deeply :-D You are not alone in this.

*g* Thanks! It's nice to not be alone, and I do think it's cool how fandom is a formative influence on so many of us.

I tend to be a H/C writer and reader; however I really require a plot unless I’m in the mood for those quick and easy h/c fics to satisfy my most basic needs. Normally though, I like it to be an element of the story with a plot and character exploration. There’s nothing wrong with good old fashioned action adventure since I enjoy those quite a bit, but nowadays if a story is under 10k words I wonder how many layers could really be there? (I’m talking the H/C genre and there are exceptions) there are plenty of one-shots otherwise that carry quite the punch in the rest of fandom.

I think I’m at a cross roads right now. I love H/C…always have, but I get bored easily if that is the entire focus of the plot. I need more and want more. I like sticking to canon, though I’m starting to wonder if there are any fics out there post EATG that are worth looking into that has nothing to do with the declassification of the stargate program.

I have been more opened minded of AUs of late since those fics almost require a foundation of the world, characters, and plot to make it believable. At the same time there are some AUs I’m left wondering if the author should have just written something original-- if they took kind of the easy way out by using a set of established character/actors they liked and fit them into something that should have been created from scratch to begin with.

(Says the person who’s doing a historical Team AU at the end of the summer)

I don’t mind pairings as long as they are not the focus of the story…yet I sometimes find myself looking for a well-written story that is plot focused but with an established relationship. I’ve read some nice McKay/Keller stories and yet, I’m left floundering at any kind of Sheppard/Original female character that isn’t a Mary Sue or something so badly written I want to poke my eyes out.

In fact I’ve often wondered if there were any stories out there that dealt with for the lack of a better word a ‘study’ or examination of the relationships of those in the city. I mean there are 300 people there of less. How do they handle dating, relationships, and more interestingly those in command?

Weir? Sheppard? Woolsey? And whom could these people have been allowed to or felt comfortable seeing?

Did Teyla or Ronon date those in the city ever? (Before the developments of season 4).

Did Rodney see anyone between Katie and Keller?

I think I’m babbling now. Sorry for taking up a lot of space.

Oh, by all means, babble away! :D

I do see what you're saying about some AUs being basically one step removed from original fiction. Actually, I used to wonder that about all AUs, until SGA fandom introduced me to the fun of exploring really wild what-ifs. But I've abandoned some AU ideas because I'd really rather do them as original stories, and I've read some AUs that made me wish they were original stories, so that I could pick them up off the bookshelf and lend them out to my friends.

Those are some interesting what-ifs ... I always did wish that the show had spent more time dealing with the interrelationships of the people in the city, and their dealings with other peoples in the galaxy, and less time on the war with the Wraith and the Replicators. I would happily have traded a couple of those eps for some good ones dealing with the behind-the-scenes of the Atlantis expedition. But I guess that's what fanfic is for ... and I think that one of the reasons why I've been finding gen a little bit limiting lately is because I want to explore a wider range of relationships in the city -- they've been there for five years, and surely they've all been dating and so forth, in that time. (Though "Sunday" did imply that Elizabeth has tried to avoid entanglements with the people under her command ... but what about the other people they've met? Has she never had a crush on some handsome farmer?) One of the things that I particularly enjoy, I think in part because it's so rare, is fic that explores the way that dating affects the non-sexual relationships in a person's life -- basically friendship stories with a peripheral side of romance. But there are not very many stories like that. (Which is why I was so ensquee'd by

argosy's story for me in the

sticksandsnark ficathon -- it is totally that!)

Oh my gosh I'm going to cry. I wrote a response, was happy with it, then hit post comment right when LJ decided to be a butt! So I had no idea if you got my reply or not. apparently, you didn't. Now I'm sad :(

Anyway, most of the gist of it was that you'd think that Fandom was an unimportant tid-bit of life to be capable to creating any experiences. And, yet, the fascinating thing is that fandom does create experiences. It may not be physically getting up, going to new places and meeting new people, but it is mentally going places and meeting people. There's the good, there's the bad and there's a lot of coming to realize a ton about the self.

I never even knew, never considered, that there were others out there as into H/C/whump as I am, nor that there were even terms for it. I never thought that I would ever touch AUS or crossovers with a ten foot pole, and lately the majority of my fic ideas have been nothing but AUs, and I've been pondering crossover ideas. I never realized until writing for SGA that it wasn't so much hurt I was a fan of, but comfort, and that H/C is only appealing when it's a plot device, not the plot.

And yes to fanfiction building writing skills! It's so interesting to compare older fic with newer and see what has changed.

"The more fanfic I read, though, and the more that I see people around me being unconcerned (or seemingly unconcerned) about writing self-indulgent stories with no redeeming literary value whatsoever, the more I'm engaging with the idea of writing just to poke at the happy buttons in my brain -- and, paradoxically, the better I seem to write."

Oh, gosh, how I wish I could get back to that! Fanfiction did the opposite to me. I became less intent on writing for myself and more intent on writing deep, thinky fic that I thought others would like. I let what others thought and my own self-conscious nature dictate what I write, and it's a habit I'm having a hard time getting out of. It's made writing less enjoyable and it's driving me nuts.

On the other hand, it's not necessarily a bad thing. I could, and have gone, nuts with indulgence fic and wrote things that today make me cringe (mostly because I whumped Sheppard so bad that he really shouldn't be alive ;)) I was psycho when it came to whumping and needed to learn to put a few restrictions of myself (in other words, realize when I wasn't being realistic) and writing fanfic has helped with that.

The good and the bad :D

Oh, no! I'm sorry about your comment! I know how frustrating that is ...

I never even knew, never considered, that there were others out there as into H/C/whump as I am, nor that there were even terms for it. I never thought that I would ever touch AUS or crossovers with a ten foot pole, and lately the majority of my fic ideas have been nothing but AUs, and I've been pondering crossover ideas. I never realized until writing for SGA that it wasn't so much hurt I was a fan of, but comfort, and that H/C is only appealing when it's a plot device, not the plot.

Yeah, totally; I think that's basically a shorter version of what I spent so many words writing above! Just finding out that other people are into the same sort of things is marvelously self-affirming, and finding stories that really hit your kinks (for lack of a better term for it) really helps figure out what your kinks are -- where your buttons are, what pushes them, which boundaries you are willing to explore and which ones you aren't. And I find that it's really done wonderful things for my own creativity to be in a community of other creative people who are making shiny things -- it's made me explore possibilities that would not even have occurred to me five years ago.

I let what others thought and my own self-conscious nature dictate what I write, and it's a habit I'm having a hard time getting out of. It's made writing less enjoyable and it's driving me nuts.

That's frustrating, and I know you've mentioned on your journal feeling that way. I really do hope you're able to get back to connecting with what you really enjoy (and that reminds me, I owe you feedback on your last fic!).

ITA that writing fanfiction is a brilliant way of figuring out what interests you as a writer. It's been through writing fic that I slowly came to realise what kinds of characters I find interesting to write about, and also what themes pop up again and again in my stories. (Identity is a big one -- what makes me, me, and you, you? I love writing amnesia fic and bodyswaps and telepathy and all of those tropes because they're terrific dramatic devices for exploring who a character really IS.)

When it comes to writing original fiction, I've had the same issue as you in that I've found it difficult to find a fictional world of my own which I find as much fun to play as fanfic worlds. (And it's a problem I haven't cracked for myself, yet. But I live in hope.) One of the best things I've gotten from writing fic has been to learn to see writing as *play* -- and fanfiction, at its best, is always a form of playing with canon, stretching it, re-interpreting it, or just saying, "hey, wouldn't it be neat if...?" and going from there -- and that's something I've loved especially about SGA fandom, because prior to SGA, I'd never been in a fandom which was so willing to embrace any and all kinds of AU.

When I started writing, I had ideas that it had to be deep and meaningful and serious, whereas I've found that the only way to motivate myself to get through a long project is if I'm having fun with it -- if there are elements of it I just can't wait to write. And figuring out what those elements are may feel like pandering to one's self-indulgent impulses, but I don't think it is -- it's basically tapping into one's own emotional core and figuring out how to exploit that to create something that other people are going to empathise with.

One of the best things I've gotten from writing fic has been to learn to see writing as *play* -- and fanfiction, at its best, is always a form of playing with canon, stretching it, re-interpreting it, or just saying, "hey, wouldn't it be neat if...?" and going from there -- and that's something I've loved especially about SGA fandom, because prior to SGA, I'd never been in a fandom which was so willing to embrace any and all kinds of AU.

Yes, this! I'm actually very glad that a lot of my formative experiences were in SGA fandom, because it's such an experimental fandom (in some ways), and I'm glad that I got to experience that; it really went a long way towards shaping me as a more mature writer, more willing to push my own boundaries, and more aware of which directions I want to take my own stories.

I read somewhere that most writers have one meta-story that they tell over and over again. I'm still figuring out what mine is, though I suspect that it's probably something along the lines of what

cupidsbow calls the friendship romance. The experimental nature of fanfic, and the way that it's basically a series of riffs on the same theme, is really awesome for finding that story, though! I have learned so much over the last few years about my likes as a reader and my needs as a writer.

When I started writing, I had ideas that it had to be deep and meaningful and serious, whereas I've found that the only way to motivate myself to get through a long project is if I'm having fun with it -- if there are elements of it I just can't wait to write.

Absolutely! And I'm starting to realize that the best stuff I write seems to come out accidentally, when I'm telling a story that really speaks to me and find myself exploring what basically amounts to "deeper meaning of life" stuff -- but it wouldn't have any meaning at all (for me or anyone else) if it wasn't interpreted through characters that I've spent a lot of time developing on the page.

I love this post (and posts of this kind)--thinking about our fannish trajectories and the kinds of stories that appeal to us, that we want to tell. I read voraciously for quite awhile without recognizing consciously what worked for me and what didn't and the shift in it. But SGA fandom in particular has made me think about this more and fandom as a whole has made me less shy about admitting the kinds of stories I like to read (at least to myself and somewhat to others; I actually made a private list of fic kinks after I saw someone else (synecdochic I believe) do the same).

Isn't it cool! :D (And I did see Synecdochic's list of fic kinks ... some of which really ping with me too, and some which make me think, "Ooh, I want to write this!")

I love thinking about this stuff! It's interesting, as much of a total bibliophile as I am, that it was really fandom that got me to take a conscious look at what draws me to what I read, and to start breaking it down into specific tropes and types of story. If you think about it, it's kind of amazing that English and creative writing courses don't do this already, especially since most writers are also people in love with reading -- and figuring out what you love to read is (for me, anyway) a vital step in figuring out what you want to write ... not to mention finding more stuff to read! But they just don't approach it from that angle. Every single writing or critical-reading book or course that I've taken has been focused on breaking down texts into parts and analyzing how they work -- but never from the perspective of what makes them appealing to you the reader, personally. It wasn't until getting into fandom that I began to realize it's a big paradigm shift from how these things are conventionally taught. And why? Since we are all readers first, shouldn't it be more natural to approach it as a reader?

You've really made me think about my own fannish trajectory. It's funny how I trucked along for years, until I suddenly got hit between the eyes by one realization that made everything else fall into place *g*

Isn't it interesting how sometimes you just have these *click!* moments?

I like thinking about my time in fandom ... it's interesting to consider how much it's changed me!

I know that SGA fandom changed me in similar ways. It's not the first fandom in which I formed relationships, but it was the first really HUGE fandom online. The preponderance of crack, AU's of all shapes and varieties by some truly fantastic writers opened my eyes, and really let me stretch out those wings, and--I hope--to become a better writer.

But there's an odd side effect. I used to be such an experimental writer (e.g. CRACK), and in SGA I found myself setting boundaries and engaging the text in a far more, I don't know--pedantic? fashion. Far more strict story telling, rather than pouring out the emotional h/c. Kinda the exact opposite of you! That shift was fairly thought out, too--I wanted to write stories that my 75 year old aunt could read. I'm not sure why i set that bar, because she loved my almost original AU slash stories Blue Moon and Red Skies. I have no accounting for my brain.

But it's cool, fandom, and I'm direly missing the flush. ST:XI is getting there, but I'm waiting for that epic AU where the crew of the Enterprise is set in Africa in 1929... oh hell. I have to write, it, don't I?

Oh, that's interesting -- for me, it was much the opposite, with the explosion of possibilities in this fandom taking me out of my very canon-centric rut to explore some of the other options that were in front of me.

It's funny how the brain works, isn't it?

It's been awhile since I've fallen head-over-heels into a new fandom. "Being Human" and "Wiseguy" both came close, but neither one seemed to really have what it takes to swallow me whole. I'm liking the new Star Trek, but more in a warm, fuzzy, memories of old TOS kind of way than a whole new fandom.

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