Meta: on "guilty pleasure" fanfic

[sholio]

month_of_meta is in its final week, and I've been wanting to write something else for it ... so this is a topic I was pondering today, and I figured I'd write something up. :D

I recently asked my flist for help brainstorming on the "sexual extortion" square of my h/c bingo card. All the input was quite helpful, but as I pondered the answers I got and the possible scenarios that people suggested, I realized that one of the problems I was having with writing any of them was that they simply felt too self-indulgent. Too much id, not enough story.

And this got me thinking about my fanfic reading and writing habits in general.

Do any of the rest of you have guilty-pleasure fanfic? The sort of thing you'll avidly read, but have trouble bringing yourself to comment on, because it's so self-indulgent that there's a part of you that just doesn't want to admit that you're actually reading it? Or where there are HUGE problems with it, and you KNOW it (ways in which it deviates terribly from your preferred characterization; plot holes you could drive a truck through; grammar and spelling issues galore) but you're reading it anyway just because of that one scene that hits your narrative kinks so hard? But you aren't quite willing to admit that you're reading it even to yourself, let alone the rest of fandom?

I'm positive that not everyone does this. I know some of you own your kinks better than I do (no "guilty" pleasures! It's all just pleasure!), and I'm fairly sure that there are those among you who just don't read fic that you don't consider good - that a narrative kink is not enough to get you to read a story that doesn't meet your standards otherwise. But I have a longstanding habit of lurking on guilty-pleasure fic; I'm aware that on some level this isn't fair to the authors (especially since certain kinks tend to get the silent treatment more than others, and not commenting on it is just going to result in less of it; I know this), and I swear this isn't meant to be a commentary on objective quality, but on some really deep level I just. can't. bring. myself. to admit that I'm reading some of this stuff. *g*

And when it comes to writing fic, there's a similar reluctance to write the deeply self-indulgent stuff. I've done a little of that, but not very often; mostly, even when I write id-satisfying h/c, I'm still making an effort to wrap it up in a neat package of plot and characterization, and make it function as a story as well as a fantasy. And I tend to pull back from going all the way where I'd go if it were only a fantasy, rather than something meant to be shared with others. I just don't feel comfortable if I push right to the edge of my fictive kinks. And the way it makes me feel is a similar kind of deep-down squirmy embarrassment as the feeling I get when I think about commenting on certain fics. It feels like I'm letting just a little too much of myself show.

It's not so much that I have difficulty admitting my kinks exist -- I think anyone who's been reading my fic for very long has picked up on some of the recurring themes *g* -- but I don't want to go ahead and write them if they're going to be more self-indulgence than actual story. There are a lot of fanfic scenarios that I spin out in my head, to pass the time when I'm falling asleep or on long car drives or whatever, that I'm never, ever going to write. I just don't want to. They're not really in character, or they don't really have a good plot surrounding them, or I don't want to do the research or I'm not really interested in figuring out how the characters ended up handcuffed in a dungeon of tortures or whatnot. They're just for my own fun. (I'm not talking specifically about sexual kinks -- actually, with me, they generally aren't. Though I think the boundaries are blurry.)

And the not-commenting-on-other-people's-fic thing ... it's not just "Ohgod, people are going to know that I enjoy this stuff", but also, possibly even MORE so: "Ohgod, people are going to think that I endorse this particular characterization", or "If I comment positively on this, am I tacitly admitting that I don't care about plot or spelling?" or problems of that nature. I mean, while it does come down to a sort of shallow social anxiety, it's a lot more complicated than just "I don't want people to know I'm into drowning as an h/c kink!" because, uh, I think it's pretty obvious from reading my fic what my kinks actually are. Well, most of them.

But the sexual-extortion prompt is basically putting me squarely into that territory. It's not that there aren't scenarios that appeal to me; it's that most of the scenarios that I want to write, I can't figure out how to write without stepping into places I'm not comfortable going outside the privacy of my own head.

I wonder if the anonymous kink memes might be a way of reducing this performance anxiety, shame, I'm not sure what you'd call it. I've never really been able to participate in them, though. I tried, back in SGA fandom, but I always ended up anon!failing -- I couldn't bring myself to post stories without admitting to them, which entirely defeated the purpose of the anonymousness as a mask to reduce anxiety. *g* But I expect this is the main reason why they exist. (Since I'm not a regular participant, I'd be interested to hear from people who do participate in them - what do you get out of it? Does it make you less inhibited? Do you 'fess up to your stories later?)

I might be more tempted to participate in kinkmemes in my current fandom (White Collar) except that there doesn't seem to be much overlap between the general fandom's kinks and my own kinks; generally speaking, there aren't any prompts I want to write. What lured me into the anon kinkmemes in SGA fandom is that there were a lot of prompts that I wanted to write - lots of gen kinks, h/c petting and the like. The White Collar kinkmeme seems to go more for power-dynamic stuff and evil!character kinks that simply are not interesting to me. (I'm not judging! Heaven knows I have no ground to stand on in judging others' kinks, and no desire to do so, either. It's just that, as a general rule, SGA fandom tended to play to my kinks and White Collar fandom doesn't.) Which is an interesting example, I guess, of how fandomwide kinks and personal kinks play off each other, influencing what people write, or don't write. I'm sure that some fandoms are much more supportive of certain kinks than others. I still vividly remember having one of my anime fics, an Inu-Yasha one, yanked from ff.net after someone complained about it for a very mild torture scene that I don't think would have raised any eyebrows at all in SGA fandom...

Anyway, I'd be interested in hearing from others! How do you navigate the gray areas between pleasure and shame and kink, narrative or otherwise? Or do you even have those boundaries?

Comments

[sahiya]

This is a fascinating topic! I do totally have those boundaries, more in what I write than in what I read. I can't deal with really bad prose, but beyond a certain level of grammar/spelling, I will read just about anything that involves one character being ill and another character snuggling them. Just about anything. And the fantasies I make up for myself are even more shameless. Sometimes I figure out a way to commit things to paper for other people (The Mercy of the Fallen came out of a story I was telling myself as I fell asleep at night that I finally figured out how to pretty up and make postable), but a lot of the time the stuff stays in my head. Which is, I think, where it belongs.

That having been said, I have noticed that sometimes the fics people love best are not the ones that I think are objectively my best, but the ones where I didn't edit my id. I remember many years ago I wrote a fic for a prompt and was shocked when it was suddenly nominated for all sorts of awards. I had never even had it beta'd! It had terrible tense problems! It just wasn't that good! But because I hadn't had it beta'd, because I'd just written it quickly and then posted it, I hadn't had time to wrangle my id. And I think that was precisely what people liked about it. Sometimes what feels really self-indulgent to the writer really hits the reader right where she lives. As a writer, sometimes I find that a bit frustrating - I would like to think that people are drawn to my stuff for the quality of the writing and not just the h/c - but as a consumer of other people's fic, I understand that we read fic for many reasons, and a lot of them have to do with our id.

In any case, as I've gotten older, I've gotten both more and less shameless about writing close to my id. For years, I avoided writing sickfic, even though I adore it, because it felt so self-indulgent. I've gotten over that - for one thing, I know now that there are lots of people out there who share my kink! For another, I've realized that as with porn, h/c can be used to say interesting things about characters. But I've also learned a bit more about when the id should be wrangled for the sake of the larger story. The id has a very important place in fiction, perhaps even more so in fanfiction than in profiction, but I think a good writer also knows when to fade to black, so to speak.

[sholio]

And the fantasies I make up for myself are even more shameless. Sometimes I figure out a way to commit things to paper for other people (The Mercy of the Fallen came out of a story I was telling myself as I fell asleep at night that I finally figured out how to pretty up and make postable), but a lot of the time the stuff stays in my head.

*nods a lot* Yes, I think this is exactly how it works for me, and "pretty up and make postable" is a perfect way to describe those fantasies that made the leap to actual posted fic. The fantasies don't have to explain how the situation happened and they can be the biggest angst-pits in the world. If it becomes an actual story, though, I feel like I need to make it make sense ...

However, I've also noticed the thing you've noticed, about people responding really well to my more idful fics. *g* I think part of it is that they're enjoying the fantasy, but probably part of it, too, is that the fun I had writing it shows, somehow. I've noticed that the prose flows more easily when I'm really into the swing of a story.

I've gotten less inhibited about writing idfic as I've been in fandom longer, too. (Clearly I'm still somewhat inhibited, but much less than I used to be!). But I think I've also gotten smarter about it, knowing when and how to deploy those scenes. So, yeah, I think I agree with this whole comment. *g*

[elspethdixon]

I have noticed that sometimes the fics people love best are not the ones that I think are objectively my best, but the ones where I didn't edit my id.

I've noticed the same thing - I doubt it's a coincidence that the two fics of mine that I get the most kudos and people saying it was their favorite for are 1) the fic with onscreen torture where three different characters almost die in gory, bloody ways and an entire chapter is devoted to people sitting beside their hospital beds, and 2) the fic where the entire plot consists of "character X gets really sick and almost dies."

I don't find it frustrating, though, because those fics are often also the ones I had the easiest time writing. I have to struggle harder and slog more and do more "force myself to get X many hundred words written tonight" type writing in order to write fic where the Id-content is dialed back, and I suspect it comes across in the fic itself.

(Also, I have Mercy of the Fallen copied onto my nook to re-read whenever I need a short h/c fix - I'm glad that one didn't just stay inside your head)

[scrollgirl]

This will be (kinda) brief because I need to sleep, but I've been wrestling with a particular "guilty pleasure" narrative that I wish I could read and wish I could *write* but probably never will because it feels too self-indulgent, and that's suicide-fic. Specifically, a post-Civil War Tony Stark that's so beaten down by life that he finds the least reputation-damaging way of offing himself and tries to go out like a hero, without ever resolving things with his former teammates. It's *incredibly* self-indulgent, and it's not even that I want to woobify him, exactly, or have all his friends feel bad for being meeeean to him or whatever. I'm just fascinated--*emotionally* fascinated--by the notion of Tony finding himself boxed in by the choices he's made, cut off from all emotional resources, in such despair and desperation that he can't think of a better way to move forward than to make it stop. And I worry that I'm appropriating or making light of other people's experiences with depression or suicide and I really don't want to do that.

I wish I had the talent to do justice to a fic like this, but I worry it would turn out ridiculously gratuitous. But I'll admit, ever since I started obsessing about this narrative, I've felt a LOT more sympathy for all those Rodney post-Trinity "eating lemon chicken" fics... *facepalm*

Excuse the emotive outpouring ...

[icarus_chained]

... I've been staring at this comment for the past hour, trying to figure out how to respond to it, trying to figure out if I should, if I have a right to. *shrugs* Accept that my feelings on this matter don't make much sense, yes? I should probably shut up and not say anything, but. *sighs*

I've suffered for the past ten years or so with recurring bouts of crippling depression, and yeah, suicidal ideation/intent. I'm not about to yell at you! It's just a thing, it doesn't mean much. I'm just trying to explain. *scrunches up* I just ... It's part of why I couldn't figure out how to respond.

Thing is, I recently watched the two Iron Man films, having never met Tony Stark before that. And the thing is ... I find him a ridiculously evocative character. He just flips so many emotional (and occasionally unpleasant) buttons in me all at once. There are ... so many things that I can't bear to read in other stories, with characters that are just being put into those situations to see what would happen to them, because they feel ... cheap or ugly or something, for some reason, but in a story about Tony Stark, I want to see them. Because he has kinda been there.

I want to see the story where he fights every goddamn day to figure out how to look normal, and smile at Pepper, and be cheesy and expansive and himself, when there are times that all he can think about is being back in that cave, where at least things were simple, and he didn't have to act like it wasn't happening or hadn't happened, where he didn't have to pretend that the miracle in his chest wasn't cut into him without his leave. Where he at least didn't have to pretend to be normal. I want to see the story where he tries to come to grips with the idea that literally the only reason he's alive is because he's a genius, whether because it lets him physically save himself, or because it's the only reason enemies let him live long enough to be useful. I want to see the story with those black moments in the middle of the night where he hates Yinsen, suddenly and with a blind passion, for saving him, for dying on him, for being safe in that cave with his family where he doesn't have to get up and live every fucking day, for thinking Tony's life is worth fuck, for telling Tony to make this goddamn empty aching fuck-up of a life worth something when it isn't, Jesus god, it isn't, and then sick guilt swamps him and he has to get up and build something, do something, fight something, be a hero for five fucking seconds so he can avoid thinking about that again.

And that's just the movies. I've never read the comics, but from what I've read about them ... If ever there was a man I could see running through the cycles of thought that used to run in my head, it would be Tony Stark. Hell, I wouldn't have lasted close to how long he did/has. Reading about him, I can actually feel it in my head, that moment in battle when he sees death coming, and he doesn't have to do anything, and it's just this moment of trepidation, and terror, and guilt, and utterly blinding relief, and oh, thank fuck, it'll be quiet now. It'll stop now.

And I ... don't really know what to do with that. *shrugs wonkily* And I'm trying to think what was my point, if there was more point to this than just to let you know that even your comment ... well, confused me, and baffled me, and bounced me into the middle of something I'm having real trouble articulating.

It's just ... Huh. In your comment, you said it's not about woobifying him, for you. It's not about all his friends being mean to him. You don't want to make light of other people's experiences. So ... I'm not sure why you'd feel guilty. I'm probably the wrong person to ask, of course, because aside from anything else I'm an Aspie and utterly shite at predicting how other people will react, but ...

I've been there. And Tony Stark pushes almost exactly those same buttons, for me. He's just ridiculously, stupidly evocative of ... of that. (Hotch, from Criminal Minds, does something similar to me). And sometimes I don't know how to deal with that, and sometimes I'm not sure if I could read that, or bear that, but ... He does push those buttons. And there are times I'd like to read it, to have it acknowledged, maybe.

I don't know if that's appropriating, or making light, or what. *shrugs sheepishly* And I'm fairly sure you actually totally didn't need this entire outpouring of fairly ridiculous emotion at you. Just ... like I said, I've been staring at your comment for over an hour, so ... obviously it pushed some buttons -_-; Um. I think that "some characters just do that to you, even if you've been there (maybe especially if you've been there)" might have been my point, or something? *shrugs sheepishly* Yeah. Just ... possibly just ignore this?

[sholio]

*nods* I can relate; I think that's very much the sort of fantasy that I absolutely love indulging myself in, but have trouble coming out and writing as an actual story. I balk at writing a lot of my more angstmongery ideas because I feel like they'd require a ton of research and sensitivity to the subject matter, and I don't feel competent to write them properly (or maybe I'm just reluctant to put in the work when they can stay indulgently angstful fantasies in my head).

(Your conversation with icarus_chained is fascinating, by the way!)

[ratcreature]

I used to have this issue, that I didn't want to admit to liking some fic. Way back in TS fandom the only time I created a sockpuppet was to post a fanart (actually my first fanart ever) for a story I did not want to admit to liking. Also the art wasn't all that good (never got any fb on it either, not even by the author), but that was secondary. Thankfully the posting was only in the file section of the author's mailing list, so with the list defunct, I think it actually vanished from the internet by now.

By now I've mostly gotten over it, because over time, and several fandoms, I've realized that none of my fictional kinks are that unusual in fandom, and I've also mostly come to terms with liking things that I find unsupportable ideologically (I mean the whole complex of that I do think that fiction helps underpin oppression systems, so for example fiction glorifying violence or warrior societies or whatever are problematic, and harder for me to compartmentalize even than troublesome sexual kinks, like enjoying rapefic). I've never been much of a "quality snob" in that I have trouble admitting to like "low quality" fic, probably because as a lifelong "out" genre and comic fan I've been used to standing by pulp stuff many other people think is trash, and also become familiar with accepting less that the best possible quality in exchange for the particular pleasure jolts I enjoy. I mean, the commercial constraints of production are quite apparent in much genre work even by authors and artists that could do "better" if they didn't have to produce enough art or fiction to make a living on it, and in the end result that is not fundamentally different from amateur artists electing not to edit rigorously (or at the extreme end, not to bother with spellcheck) because that is not the fun part of their hobby for them or whatever.

[sholio]

Yeah, I think the "ideologically unsupportable" aspect is where I often run headlong into the conflict between my fantasies and my unwillingness to go ahead and write them; the stuff I balk at writing is very often fic that plays with those boundaries -- fic that I feel like I would have to research very carefully, and just don't feel like putting in the effort; it takes the fun out of fantasy. *g*

And yet I don't actually think it's a problem (at all!) to have those fantasies, or to enjoy writing and reading fic for them. I just feel a little awkward about it myself. And I think you have a really good point that it is a hobby, and some people are going to invest more in it than others, and that's okay. (I sometimes get raised eyebrows from other fanfic writers when I tell them that I usually don't use betas; it's just not worth it to me to go through the extra effort, or put someone else to the extra effort, when I'm happy enough with the story as it is.)

Basically I seem to still be on the mostly-repressed end of owning my kinks. *g*

[china_shop]

People always talk about guilty pleasures and kinks and id!fic, and it makes me feel terribly repressed because either I don't have those things or I'm just not in touch enough with myself to recognise them. It's like I fail at some integral part of fandom. /dork

(Sorry, that was kind of off-topic. *blames the late hour*)

(Even more off-topic, thank you so much for running month_of_meta! It's been fascinating, and I've enjoyed many of the discussions.)

[sholio]

Off-topic first: thank you! :) I'm glad you're enjoying it - I still haven't had time to read all of the meta, let alone comment on most of it, but I'm so delighted at the response we've gotten. :D

On-topic, I don't think you have anything to feel weird about; perhaps it's everybody else who's repressed, not you. Or something. *g* I know there are people on my flist who've mentioned that they just don't do idfic; it doesn't appeal to them at all. So it's definitely not just you.

[anotherslashfan]

And the not-commenting-on-other-people's-fic thing ... it's not just "Ohgod, people are going to know that I enjoy this stuff", but also, possibly even MORE so: "Ohgod, people are going to think that I endorse this particular characterization", or "If I comment positively on this, am I tacitly admitting that I don't care about plot or spelling?" or problems of that nature.

That's why I love the AO3 kudos feature. Because they simply say: I enjoyed myself while reading this. And that's the crux of this conundrum, right? Enjoying yourself but feeling you shouldn't because the thing you enjoy also violates some standard you have set for yourself.

But I have to admit that I too have some "guilty pleasure" fics that I don't have the guts to comment on.

[sholio]

Heh, that is sometimes how I use kudos as well -- as a way of leaving feedback on something I can't figure out how to comment on, or have problems with but want to show appreciation anyway. But then I feel guilty about it, because it feels like a backhanded compliment, like I'm saying "Well, it was okay, but not great." (Which isn't precisely the case, but it also makes me look a little oddly at kudos on my own fic; sometimes it feels like getting a kudos is like getting a "C" on the fic -- the person liked it enough to give it a passing grade, but didn't consider it that good, or something. Possibly this is just me being neurotic. *g*)

ETA: I realized rereading this comment that it makes it sound like I don't like getting kudos, and that isn't true at all! I'm just a little neurotic about them. /o\ Actually, I wish AO3 had kudos as one of the options you can sort by, because some of my stories get lots of kudos but not many comments and it would be interesting to see if there are any patterns there.

[kimboo_york]

Fascinating post! Great food for thought. It's made me really look at what pushes my buttons - it's not really a kink, for instance, but I'll put up with some pretty lousy writing for a pet!fic story, especially if it involves some form of human/animal psychic and emotional bonding. I won't even ADMIT to reading those stories, but I *do* read them, and that's kind of the point here, eh? LOL!

Building up on this, though, it made me think of the whole mary-sue issue. I know it's a thorny one and the definition of "mary-sue fic" is up in the air in so many ways, but the fact is that I talk to a lot of writers who admit their slash or gen stories start out as mary-sue fic in their heads, but they self edit to change it to something more fannishly acceptable. Hell, I've done that myself; and sometimes it's because I really enjoy writing my OTP and that's that, but sometimes I feel that an OFC put into an heroic role would just get ripped to shreds. Not to mention the self-conscious admission that yeah, this is my head!fantasy, here, let me share it with you. *cringes*

Not to mention, I suspect there IS a reading audience for fanic starring OFC's in heroic and romantic roles (mary-sues or not) but that it is so maligned in our culture that it is a rare fan who will admit to reading it and enjoying it. They would NEVER leave comments or even kudos. Hmmmm...I wonder if there are any such fic on AO3 I could look at the numbers of hits for? *ponders* Well, for fact such stories appear regularly on ff.net, yes?

[ratcreature]

I don't know if you read X-Men, but I enjoyed this Mary Sue story (it's still a WIP):
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7254003/1/Empowerment

It has a female original mutant with awesome powers, liked by the main characters, with a major role in the adventure, ends up in a romance with Magneto, etc. and it's a lot of fun to read, IMO.

[astridv]

Ha, yeah, that sort of thinking is the reason I never even got started on my bloody h/c bingo card. *kicks card* It wasn't for lack of inspiration. I coulda sketched a Bingo's worth in one day. But I always feel I can't just draw the kink/cliche, I need to wrap it in a story to justify drawing it. And, like you say, not giving away too much of myself. Which is kind of ridiculous considering it's fandom but that's the feeling. But also, it's genuinely a matter of taste - I myself prefer the kink when it comes with a story.

Like, when reading fic. h/c being my kink of choice I really prefer the kind you tend to write, where it's embedded in plot and character development. I mean, I'll read h/c for my favorite character if it's PWP, especially if there's little to go around (whyyy, current fandom?) But I don't have a bulletproof kink: wonky grammar or characterization will make me backbutton like whoa. (Sometimes I miss the days my English was worse and I didn't know about proper punctuation.*g* Okay, no, kidding.)

Anyway, I don't even think this is a bad thing. Though it certainly makes finding and creating stuff less simple.

Hm. This is a fun meta topic to mull over. Might come back later, read the comments and mull more, after work.

[sholio]

But I always feel I can't just draw the kink/cliche, I need to wrap it in a story to justify drawing it. And, like you say, not giving away too much of myself.

*grins* Yeah, exactly. I'm reluctant to really let myself go and write something that doesn't have a story wrapped around it. Like I was saying in a comment over on LJ, it feels like I've built up a certain reputation as a writer and I'm shy of posting stories that I feel would make people think less of me, somehow? Even though I certainly don't think I'd think less of someone for posting something similar. I guess it's the same kind of thing as admitting to people that you respect, whose opinion you value, that you're a sci-fi fan or read fanfic or whatever - there really is nothing wrong with it, but it's awkward and potentially embarrassing.

Like, when reading fic. h/c being my kink of choice I really prefer the kind you tend to write, where it's embedded in plot and character development. I mean, I'll read h/c for my favorite character if it's PWP, especially if there's little to go around (whyyy, current fandom?) But I don't have a bulletproof kink: wonky grammar or characterization will make me backbutton like whoa.

*nods* I think I'm similar up to a point - I prefer the plotty kind by far, where the h/c (or whatever kink - h/c is my big one, though) grows naturally out of the plot and characters. And yet ... I'll sometimes read the most indulgent, embarrassing stories if they're doing it for me in some way. I tend to oscillate between enjoyment, embarrassment and annoyance when I'm doing this - the story is bugging me so bad! But then this next bit is so good! And sometimes I'm only reading out of morbid curiosity to see where it's going to go ...

[carodee]

I started out as an idfic writer and completely embrace it. It's one of the things I love most about fanfic fandom. I equate claiming my id kinks as equivalent to claiming my sexuality. Being shameless and sharing it with other women feels incredibly joyful and freeing. Of course, it helps that I started writing when I was in my mid-forties and had read some very positive porn meta.

I'd read fanfic for several years before I hit The Sentinel and, Right Time Right Place, Jim Ellison with all his internal conflicts and his heightened senses became my OTC - my id character. It was my frustration that only a handful of stories dealt with heightened senses during sex (A Sentinel! Having well-written but ordinary sex! Does not compute!) that made me write some drawer fic that I eventually posted. And I will admit to a panic attack right after posting. OMG NAKED!!! in all my sexual fantasy with psychological character analysis possible for anyone that cares to look hard enough. *choke gasp* But a ton of positive LoCs helped a lot to put it in perspective. If it hit my kinks it also hit a lot of other people's as well. We were all exposed together in a big puppy pile of id kinks. *g*

It is interesting to re-read one of my stories from back then because it was a kink I wasn't comfortable writing at all. I wrote a bestiality fic (for plot/character development purposes. Yes, really. *g* Still not quite owning it even now.) and the writing tone is different. I hedged the story framework around it with humor just this side of ridicule in order to distance myself from it but when it came time to write the sex I had a conflict around 'what if someone who has this kink reads it? I don't to shame them for it.' and I made an effort to write the hottest sex I could but it was half-hearted. If I were to write that story today rather than eight years ago I would really go for it because fandom acceptance around kink is so much greater. The fact that my bestiality story has the highest hit count on AO3 of any story in that series is a source of vindictive pleasure for me after the sneers I got at the time it was posted.

I have a blast writing idfic where I know what buttons I'm pressing and where the money shot is and I am going for it as hard as I can. I'm not the greatest writer around and it doesn't matter. I'm painting a word picture and so long as it hits the reader where it counts I've succeeded. Plot is boring to me when I'm writing; I just want to write the good stuff -- the one perfect button scene -- and any suggestion of plot is just part of building the tension around the button. So idfic is my niche and I love it.

As a reader, when I find an idfic that clicks it can hypnotize me for days. I'll reread it and rewrite it and do character analysis around it and daydream sequels and, well yes, let's be honest, porny scenes. It just sets off a ton of fannish sparks for me. How can I not love idfic for what it gives me?

An example of one of my favorites wasn't really well-written at all, either a very young writer or someone whose first language wasn't English. Also I was never sure if she was consciously telling the story I reading. But, oh, the implications! A sixteen-year-old Xander gets put in charge of an AU Angel who was broken by vamped Xander back in his universe. The tension comes from a confused Angel (later Angelus) wanting his master and can an unaware Xander dominate and control him enough that Angel/Angelus chooses not to turn him into a vampire. What hits me so hard in this story is that Angel is surreptitiously training Xander into becoming a Dom and Xander just wants to control Angel enough so his friends don't dust him. And again I can't tell if she knows that's what she's writing because there's an innocent tone to it. It's compelling stuff. A Puppyverse series by Adalisa if you're curious.

So I think there's a huge amount of juice and power and pleasure in idfics and I'm really, really happy to play in that sandbox. Someone calling me a guilty pleasure or an idfic writer feels like an awesome compliment.

[sholio]

*grins* I'm not in Sentinel fandom (though I've seen the show), but from all I've heard about the fandom, it sounds like a good place to get a good grounding in unapologetic idfic enjoyment!

And I think this makes lots of sense! Frankly I'm glad that we're not all writing the same thing. :D I tend to write on the less idficcy end of the spectrum, but I have read some absolutely lovely idfic that I'm very glad someone took the trouble and risk to write and post, and I have also learned a lot about being less inhibited and reluctant to let my id hang out from reading fic and reading people's posts about writing fic. I think my writing is stronger and more emotional because of the things I've learned from fandom, about getting to the heart of my own kinks and then writing to that.

This is something that original-fic writing advice just doesn't focus on. Actually, everyone always tells you the opposite (to pull back, not to put in the indulgent stuff), and I think that my writing, fannish and original, used to be very dry because of it. I really can't overstate how much I've learned from fanfic about getting to my own heart in my writing, and through that, to my readers' hearts.

[jo_lasalle]

This was a really interesting post to come down the month of meta pipeline! And a lot of this stuff resonated with me, from the reaction to other people's fic and the question of writing stuff down and flashing my id to the world, but in some ways it was familiar from what I used to do two or three years ago, and in the meantime I ended up with a whole less guilty in the pleasure. *g*

The first question I found interesting was, would I comment on people writing not very good fic that hits my kinks? I could totally empathize with what you said about 'Does that look like I'm supporting bad grammar?' *g* And yet once I thought about it... my current fandom actually doesn't write to my kinks a lot. Or, at all. In short, in the kind of OTT emofic that I think you're talking about, my fandom nearly always whumps the wrong guy for me. *g* So, I'm not actually sure if I wouldn't enjoy a bit of OTT emowhumping with bad spelling enough to want to encourage people to write me moar of it plz... I might!

As for the shame about actually writing the things that hits my buttons, I've observed that it's... become much less pronounced the longer I've been at this, and there's stuff that used to make me hugely uncomfortable that I just don't give a fuck about now. *g* It also helps that I'm in a fandom that is very good for getting rid of your shame because it's so sparkly and silly a lot of the time, but that's beside the point.

I do still get self-conscious about the more hardcore versions of these buttons, and on reflection, I've run three different strategies with this.

1) Dress up the idfic bits in so many words and so much other stuff that nobody will even know. (Both the sexual and the emotional kinks.) This has turned out the most satisfying in some ways, but it has led to a 450,000 word story that I and my writing partner write-and-edited on for about three and a half years. In other words, not really feasible as a repeat experience.

2) Plot, just don't write. This is to me like the middle stage between 'fantasizing on my commute/in the car/while otherwise zoned out' and actual writing, and here it's really a factor that I have a long-term collaborator; it means that in plotting things out the 'story' can get a bit more 'concrete' without me being embarrassed and starting to pull my punches for an actual audience.

3) Get a sock. I never thought I would do this, but at some point as I was plotting out another version of the slave trope, I just went, oh, fuck it, I wanna write it so I can read it, and at first it really was just for my drawer, but then I decided I was going to share, but I was going to do it under a different name, so I don't start pulling my punches. I still occasionally do, in that as soon as I start to put it down in words it has to make a little more sense than in random daydreaming, but that's something I'm okay with, because it also gives me a bigger thrill if there is my kink in the story and it makes sense (of a sort; slavekinksense) to boot.

And interestingly, 3) has kind of led to me revisiting 2), and these days I could see myself potentially writing down some of those Lord King Bad Fic things we've plotted over the years. So in that, I found the sock thing and how much fun I had with that almost therapeutic on the shame level.

/my three eurocents

I really liked reading this; I like reading about how stuff like this works for other people and this was fun and thoughtful. And funny. :-)

[sholio]

Thanks! I'm glad you enjoyed the post; I'm really having fun reading other people's responses. :D

As for the shame about actually writing the things that hits my buttons, I've observed that it's... become much less pronounced the longer I've been at this, and there's stuff that used to make me hugely uncomfortable that I just don't give a fuck about now. *g*

Hee! There is a lot of this with me, too. I'm a lot less inhibited about posting things that would have made me look at myself and go D: in horror five years ago. *g* I still lean heavily towards the plotty/less-idficcy end of the spectrum, but quite a bit less so than I used to.

Dress up the idfic bits in so many words and so much other stuff that nobody will even know.

hahaha ... yeah. I think this is what I do most of the time, actually. There are definitely idficcy bits in most of my long stories (and a lot of my short ones), but they're so heavily wrapped in plot that I don't think they really stand out. (It is worth noting, though, that when people mention favorite bits, it's almost always the idficcy bits that they bring up. Well, that and the funny parts.)

3) Get a sock.

Awww man. I have seriously thought about this. There is a part of me that just wants to throw caution to the winds, create a sock and write all the hideously self-indulgent, silly, nonsensical, squirmingly idtastic ideas that I would never want to post under my real pseud. I think what's made me balk is that I just can't imagine pretending to be a different person, especially in my regular fandoms. I think the only way that I could bring myself to do it was if it was really obviously a sock, and sort of tongue-in-cheek about it, even if I never quite admitted who I was a sock of. I doubt if I'll ever do it, but it's fun to fantasize about being able to post anything at all without feeling inhibited in a "but what would my friends think?" kind of way.

[princessofgeeks]

thanks for the topic!

I guess I have to put the "omg it's badfic and I'm reading it" in a separate category entirely from "This is an unacceptable or weird kink for me to like" or "I'm writing way too close to my id."

Those two things feel totally different to me.

But regarding id!fic or kinkfic, just reading comms like kink_finders has been fun, because it shows you so clearly that everyone has things they want, and fandom allows us to be pretty open about that.

Fandom has every range of behavior -- from this kind of shameless enjoyment of stuff, to the Fandom Police who think certain behavior is wrong wrong wrong and will tell you so.

But while I totally get what you're saying, I guess the things that ping me in terms of making me feel embarrassed or ashamed or that I'm "lowering my standards" somehow, are quite different from yours?

But one thing really resonated -- yes, yes, it is so much fun when an overall fandom's interests seem to dovetail with mine. When it feels like everyone is writing the stuff I love to read -- like happened to you in SGA. That's so much fun!

[sholio]

I'm glad people are enjoying it! I'm getting a lot of fun from the discussion. :D

I guess I have to put the "omg it's badfic and I'm reading it" in a separate category entirely from "This is an unacceptable or weird kink for me to like" or "I'm writing way too close to my id."

hmmm! It's interesting because for me, these overlap heavily - I think maybe because with the badfic, I'm only reading for the kink, whereas with goodfic, even if it's idtastic, it's also ... good? I guess that's what feels like the difference to me. For example, I just read a White Collar Neal/Peter teen hooker AU, and it's not my normal kink AT ALL, but I absolutely loved it and commented on it and put it on my list of fics to rec. I'm not embarrassed about having read it at all, because it's a damn good fic. Whereas, if I'd encountered that particular kink in a fic that was kind of mediocre, I'm pretty sure that I would be all OH GOD I CANNOT BELIEVE I AM READING A RENTBOY AU, and do the equivalent of hiding it under the covers and sneaking peeks with a flashlight just to get to the sweet/angsty bits. *g*

But while I totally get what you're saying, I guess the things that ping me in terms of making me feel embarrassed or ashamed or that I'm "lowering my standards" somehow, are quite different from yours?

*nods* Well, there is nothing at all wrong with that! :D Everybody is different, after all, and like I said in one of the comments above, I'm glad we're all reading and writing in different ways. It would be awfully dull if we were all doing exactly the same thing in the same way. (Though probably with fewer flame wars. *g*)

LOOOOONG!

[terajk]

MAN, do I relate to: "But writing my own kinks is scary/would take so much WOOOOORK!" On the one hand, I love characters with disabilities and tend to fall in love with them for any reason at all; on the other hand, holy potential for fail, Batman Plus, I'll put characters with disabilities together just to see what would happen. And I'm actually kind of embarrassed about this: people are more than their disabilities, of course! But being embarrassed may be internalized ableism on my part: I mean, I'm not embarrassed of putting two women together to see what would happen. (The "putting people together" doesn't imply they'd automatically like each other: I prefer it if they don't, but are stuck with each other/can't kill each other.)

My guiltiest characters-with-disabilities-related pleasure right now is that I keep wanting to put Death the Kid and Tamaki Suoh together, partly because their personalities are so different! And so are their disabilities! But, well...





The potential for FAIL! is high--not least of all because I can't think of what they would do together in the first place.

Relatedly, I would LOVE stories where multiple disabled characters had to work together to accomplish something and had to accommodate each other/be interdependent. But I've never *written* such a story, because WOOOOOORK!

But when I try to write things that ARE id-tastic/self-indulgent that I have personal experience with, it's even WORSE. (Ryoga is both one of the easiest and one of the hardest characters for me to write, for this reason.) For instance: I've never been sexually attracted to anyone, I'm not interested in sex, and I don't understand porn very well. (Not: "WHY would someone like this?" but "Wait--what just happened?")

But I love cuddles! And holding hands! And sleeping together without sleeping together! And kissing on the cheek! AND characters who are like: "We don't know if we're friends or lovers or what--maybe it doesn't matter and STOP LABELING US." But I feel like the stuff I like is so *childish* and that I'm a "bad" asexual for being so stereotypical. (No one ever told me this; it's all in my head.) And I'm quick to go: "But there are asexuals who are interested in sex and *have* sex, no really!"

ANYWAY, the point of this is: one of the prompts for queer_fest is "an asexual love story" and I totally snagged it, because, eee! But I'm...afraid of writing the kind of love story I'd want, because MY ID IS WRONG AND WILL MAKE ASEXUALS LOOK BAD. But a lot of it is...I feel exposed when I write things I really, really want? But I end up liking those things most of all.

Re: LOOOOONG!

[sholio]

On the one hand, I love characters with disabilities and tend to fall in love with them for any reason at all; on the other hand, holy potential for fail, Batman

*nodnod* This is one of the big things that stops me from writing a lot of the ideas that appeal to me! It would take a lot of research and work to do it right, and the potential for fail is huge. Sometimes I just want to enjoy an angsty, id-indulgent fantasy about, oh, I don't know, a character dying of cancer, without having to delve into all the issues surrounding it, and the fact that a not-inconsiderable percentage of my readers may have lost someone to cancer or experienced it themselves.


I feel exposed when I write things I really, really want? But I end up liking those things most of all.

YES, THIS, EXACTLY. I've found that I really shy away from material that approaches too closely to the things that matter most to me, the things that I would absolutely love to read if someone else wrote them. And it gets even more complicated and uncertain when issues of identity get involved. I'm working on an original project with a really screwy, messed-up romance between two girls, and I'm totally pushing my own buttons because I absolutely love messy, casual, "we're not really sure how to define this thing, we just know it works for us" relationships (and never can find nearly enough of them in fiction!), but there's a part of me that's really worried it'll end up looking like they're dysfunctional because they're gay, rather than being dysfunctional because they're them.

[lunabee34]

This is such an interesting question and one that I've thought a lot about before.

I read a lot of fic that does not live up to my standards of good writing in terms of mechanics, characterization, or craft.

I posted about it HERE, but the general gist of my post is that I read these stories because


1. I find the story amusing in its badficcyness, or
2. I want to cry and be sad and melodramatic crescendos do it for me everytime, or
3. Something about the story is awesome and catches my attention (could be plot, could be character insight, etc), or
4. It hits a bullet proof narrative kink for me (like mpreg or everybody-misunderstands-everyone-else-and-cries-about-it), or
5. It's such a rare pairing that I have to take what I can get, or
6. Just because.


It's the "Just because" that throws me. Sometimes it beats me why I'm continuing to slog through this story where Sheppard barely seems to be a facsimile of a human being much less our much beloved Lt. Colonel and Rodney is rapidly (but seeekritly) losing weight because Teyla hurt his feelings when she told him maybe he should escape from the cannibal Wraith worshipers just a little faster please and the Marines are running around raping everyone and Ronon turns out to be a poet with magical powers, but I JUST CAN'T STOP.

IDK.

[sholio]

Oh, interesting post! :)

LOL, I love your list of reasons, and I think I have read mediocre-to-awful fics for all of these reasons that you list! I think the "just because" for me is usually a sort of trainwreck fascination to see what awful, idiotic thing the writer is going to do next. *g* Which might come under the heading of your #1, except it's not usually all that funny, it's just bad. And yet I'm morbidly curious what the writer has in store for them next! *giggles at your example*

thoughts on "guilty pleasure" reading

[brightknightie]

I stop reading in disgust when a story is too poorly written. I can't help it. (I couldn't get all the way through a friend's first pro novel when she gifted me a copy, because the dialogue punctuation was all wrong.) I used to be viciously precise about it, back in the day, giving fanfic just three egregious errors before I closed the file -- many writers used them all up in their prefaces -- but these days...

I live in such tiny fandoms. I'm grateful when people write anything for them, even when it is (as it often is) something I'm not going to read for troubling content or incompetent execution. It's just... not a very relevant question, when your fandom has been canceled for two decades and you don't like NC-17 in the first place? ~grin~ Besides, plot and theme and characterization and canonicity are my "kinks." ~grin~

However, some years back, I suppose that reading stories starring John and Rodney counted as a "guilty pleasure," because I didn't even watch SGA. What on earth was I doing reading fanfic for a show I didn't even watch? And usually AUS, when I don't like AUs? It was bizarre! I left comments anonymously or under another identity, at first. Now? I... don't read very much fanfic, total.

Library copies of Georgette Heyer are my "guilty pleasure" reading of the moment: "guilty" because she's a flipping bigot (not just imperialist and classist, but racist and anti-Semitic! I've read less than ten of her novels so far, spanning her whole career, but I keep running into examples), but "pleasure" because her historicity is so right...

Re: thoughts on "guilty pleasure" reading

[sholio]

*nods* This makes sense to me! I'm certainly a lot less picky in small fandoms, because there is so much less to choose from. (Although it seems to me that the overall quality of fic is often higher in small fandoms ... well, in some small fandoms, anyway! There's a lot less to select from, but the ratio of decent fic to lousy fic seems to be much higher in many of the small fandoms I've been in.)

However, some years back, I suppose that reading stories starring John and Rodney counted as a "guilty pleasure," because I didn't even watch SGA. What on earth was I doing reading fanfic for a show I didn't even watch? And usually AUS, when I don't like AUs? It was bizarre! I left comments anonymously or under another identity, at first.

I think this is roughly equivalent to what I do, quite often. I sometimes feel like I'm sneaking into other fandoms to peek at their fic, and I am reluctant to comment, because ... well, I don't know why! But what you say about reading AUs yet not liking AUs hits it on the head, in a way. I sometimes feel like I have a "reputation" of sorts to maintain -- if I've been very clear in my journal that I don't like jealousy fic, for example, then what am I doing reading and enjoying this fic in which the characters are terribly jealous? Surely I can't comment on it, because then I'd have to caveat every time I talk about it and admit that I liked it this one time! It's embarrassing to be inconsistent ... and over the years, I've finally started admitting that there is an exception to almost every one of my like and dislike "rules" ...

[meridian_rose]

This meta and the comments are interesting and have made me think a bit about things I do sometimes ponder.

I do love the kudos on AO3 and I'll usually leave both reviews and kudos on fics while logged in. There have been a couple of occasions I've left a guest kudos though, and there are occasional anon reviews – positive ones! - I've left at ff.net.
(I've been given to understand that this is why oneshots will sometimes get added to fic in lieu of a favorite – the latter are seen publicly and the former are not, so it's a way of flagging it for future reference without everyone knowing you love a particular fic)

I admit to a major h/c kink. Sometimes I'll just go to a fic archive, hit the fandom I want and filter by h/c or angst and favoured character. I don't always find what I want, though sometimes I do. And I'll read 'lesser quality' fic – eg full of grammar/spelling mistakes – when I'm desperate, than when I'm generally surfing for fic.

When it comes to writing it however, I worry over it a little. This worry translates into my needing excuses to write h/c, like signing up for a bingo card. I'm trying to get over this, and write what I want to, whatever the kink or issue I want to address is. Then again, I complete more things when I have deadlines and prompts to fill, and it can be a struggle to write anything without some sort of push. That said, I prefer to have some plot in both my reading and writing; a particular kink isn't always enough to satisfy me.

Finally, there are fandoms I've thought about dipping into but haven't because of the embarrassment factor. Teen shows and children's tv – not stuff like The Vampire Diaries which I'll happily own up to, but things like iCarly and Young Dracula which have a younger intended audience. It's occurred to me to develop a separate account to write such things but I'm pretty proud of my online identity and the body of work I've built up. It feels like cheating to post under another name.
I also feel that if it's good enough to post publicly then it's good enough to put my usual pseud on. I've never written anonymously for a comment ficathon for that reason – if I write something, I want to own it and share it further afield.

[sholio]

I never even had thought of leaving reviews or kudos anonymously! Several people have mentioned that they use that as a workaround for the embarrassment issue. It hadn't occurred to me as a possibility. Anyway, yes, I'm enjoying the discussion immensely, so thank you for joining in! :D


(I've been given to understand that this is why oneshots will sometimes get added to fic in lieu of a favorite – the latter are seen publicly and the former are not, so it's a way of flagging it for future reference without everyone knowing you love a particular fic)

I'm a little confused by this - what do you mean by adding oneshots?


That said, I prefer to have some plot in both my reading and writing; a particular kink isn't always enough to satisfy me.

This is generally true of me, too. Well, not for just straight-up fantasies, where anything goes. :D But when it comes to writing and posting fic, I usually want at least some story wrapped around it. And I definitely prefer plottier stories as a reader, too, though I will at least try just about anything (often leading to precisely the guilty-pleasure situations discussed in this post ...).


I also feel that if it's good enough to post publicly then it's good enough to put my usual pseud on. I've never written anonymously for a comment ficathon for that reason – if I write something, I want to own it and share it further afield.

Yeah; the only times I've tried to post anon, I've ended up almost immediately 'fessing up and reposting at my journal. My pseud is "me", and it's how most of my friends know me. Also, it helps that my flist is into such a wide range of stuff -- everything from My Little Pony to '80s cartoons to RPF -- that I don't think there is really a lot I could post that would seriously shock them.

[droodlebug]

You’ve touched on a number of issues that I wrestle with regarding fanfiction and my personal kinks. I will read a story even if it is poorly written if the content pushes my buttons, although there have been a few that I could not finish because of weird formatting or total lack of punctuation. In that case it is simply too much effort to read but, in general, if it is at all readable I will slog through for the mental image value. I have to admit, though, that sometimes if certain errors are repeated ad nauseam I will paste the story into Word and run it through the spell checker or use the edit/replace function before reading the whole thing. I feel a little guilty about doing that since it changes the author’s work somewhat but there are only so many times I can stomach the use of “loose” instead of “lose” or “wonder” instead of “wander” and that sort of thing.

I have several unfinished stories languishing on my hard drive and I’m sure they will never be posted. It’s not so much because I would be embarrassed to reveal or admit to my kinks but I tend to get bogged down by details and explanations and let them take me off on wild tangents. Before long I’m feeling exasperated and the story is out of control and headed toward places I never intended.

But if I’m being honest, I would be somewhat uncomfortable being open about my kinks online if I had to put my real name to them. I don’t especially want some random person from work reading my fantasies and telling everyone else about them. I’m paranoid enough that I prefer commenting on the kink meme anonymously, and even then it niggles in the back of my mind that someone could connect me with my user id and then the cat would be out of the bag.

While I believe that everyone has fantasies that would be considered kinky in someone else’s view, I also believe that in the "real world" people are quick to judge and quick to gossip and like to pretend to others that they are pure vanilla in thought. In real life I would never participate in most of the things that I enjoy reading or writing about. In my head I can whip up some pretty dark stuff and find it erotic, but when I read in the news about something similar happening to a real person it elicits horror or turns my stomach. Many people don’t make the distinction; if you like to read/write about it you must be playing at it.

All of that taken together concerns me to a point. We no longer have any real privacy in our society. We live in a world where employers google their employees to find out what they are getting up to on the internet and fire them if they don’t like what they find. We see on the news where sometimes people are arrested, their hard drives confiscated and their ISP records examined, and everything they’ve posted or looked at online is reported as an indication of guilt. One can easily imagine what small, judgmental minds would make of an incidental discovery of some of the darker fanfiction or visits to kink memes. I’m not so paranoid that I think anyone gives a rat’s ass what I’m reading, writing, or looking at on the internet, I’m just saying that if for some bizarre reason someone did take an interest, it would likely be construed in the worst possible light.

So, for practical reasons I'm a little bit restrained in what I post. I don’t want everyone I know in the real world to think they know everything that goes on in my private thoughts because most of them would not admit that they get it or that they also have thinky thoughts. As much as I would like to say I don’t care what other people say or think of me, I do care because what others think can have an impact on the quality of my life. That makes it more about self-preservation than shame.

[sholio]

Heh, I've done the find-replace thing too -- or fixed typos in stories when I've downloaded them. *g* Not to mention, er, that one time I came across an interesting-looking AU for a pairing I was avoiding at the time, so I did a find-replace on all the names, swapping them out for original characters' names. That one, I must admit I did feel a bit guilty about. (Not that the author would ever know.)

We no longer have any real privacy in our society. We live in a world where employers google their employees to find out what they are getting up to on the internet and fire them if they don’t like what they find. We see on the news where sometimes people are arrested, their hard drives confiscated and their ISP records examined, and everything they’ve posted or looked at online is reported as an indication of guilt.

AGREE SO MUCH. And this is why I'm so utterly boggled by G+, Facebook, etc. trying to get the whole world doing everything under their legal names (and, in Google's case, bundling everything you do under the same name). We all wear different hats in our different social groups - at work, with our families, going out to a bar with friends, participating in political causes. You don't talk the same way to your friends that you do to your boss, and it's none of your boss's business if you get drunk on the weekends, or what church you go to, or whether you volunteer with PFLAG, or whether you go home to read X-rated fanfic or be whipped by your lover or all of the many things people do. Normally, we're separated by distance - it's easy to see if your boss is hanging out on the next bar stool or peeking through your curtains (and you can call the police if they stalk you).

But the Internet breaks down those barriers, unless we're really careful! I don't know if the people pushing for "everything under your real name!" have fewer barriers between their professional and private lives than the rest of us, or simply haven't thought things through (I'm leaning towards "haven't thought things through"). Because, yeah, there are plenty of people who judge others at the smallest provocation, and many of these people are neighbors and bosses and teachers and mothers and other people who could really make someone's life difficult! I can certainly see being careful for fear of who the information might get back to.

[krait]

I'm pretty much in the "admit everything, deny nothing, add extra exclamation points if queried" subset. :D I've got "xenokink" and "chan" in my interests list, there's very little I won't admit to reading, especially in the context of commenting and reccing, where I already know that at least one other person (the author) is into whatever it is. Arguably my narrative, not-necessarily-sexual kinks are a stronger driving force regarding what I love to read than traditional "kinky" things; but as they rarely have convenient labels (see: believable nonhumans; first contact from nonhuman POV; complex political intrigue; situations that require partners to demonstrate extreme amounts of trust; really beautiful lyric prose; xenobiology; misunderstandings of the type where one side believes she/they are being threatened; relationships that involve significant compromises...) it is a lot harder to pin these down for tallying, or even defining the common theme of several outwardly-unrelated fics.

The shamelessness is, no doubt, somewhat easier because "I" am a fannish entity/journal; I certainly pick and choose very, very carefully when it comes to what I acknowledge reading to, say, family members (nothing!) or RL friends (depends on a balance of factors including how far our fanfic tastes overlap in general, how sexual the kink is, and how common it is).

I'm also, maybe, 'lucky' not to have any of the most commonly reviled kinks? (That fandomsecret from an emetophilia fan sort of broke my heart, and the responding supportive secrets patched it up again!) I think it would be harder to be shameless if that were my thing, or necro, or something. On the other hand, that may be partly my own squick talking -- if I liked it, I might be less embarrassed by it. Maybe someone out there cannot understand how I could possibly admit to reading tentacle!fic and is certain they could never do it if that was their kink instead of watersports? :D

The last time the topic of "guilty pleasure" fanfic came up, I elaborated a bit on the closest thing I have to a guilty pleasure, which is, yes, pretty much id-fic: I sometimes have this urge to go wallow in some character's tormented angst, cheerfully disregarding the excessive nature.

Beyond that... I dunno. I can think of a few borderline or tangentially related sorts of fic and reading, but most of them warp the common definition of "guilty pleasure" near the breaking point, or else are venturing into the realm of profic rather than fanfic.

[sholio]

*grins* Yeah ... I guess it's hard for me to figure out where the line is, actually, between narrative kinks that I'm not ashamed to admit to (which range from "good writing" to "romantic rivals becoming friends" to "h/c") and the ones that are guilty-pleasure kinks for me. I really think that, for me, it comes down largely to the perceived balance between self-indulgence and plot, if that makes any sense? The fics that I have trouble admitting I'm reading are the ones that are total angstwallows, where the story defies all common sense and rationality just to get two characters to snuggle after an avalanche, or whatever. (Call the ski patrol, you idiots! Don't just huddle there in your cave until you freeze! *g*)

[elspethdixon]

Add me to the "telling yourself h/c stories in your head before you go to sleep" crowd. Most of which will never make it into anything I write, because then I'd have to come up with a coherent explanation for why this character is bleeding out in that character's arms, or actually write the epic-length plot that would have to surround the h/c scene in order to explain how the characters got there instead of just sketching it out vaguely in my head and then jumping directly to the good parts. And not just because those things would be necessary in order to make the resulting fic classy rather than pure, self-indulgent semi-badfic, but because without them it wouldn't make sense to anyone but me.

I tend to pull back from going all the way where I'd go if it were only a fantasy, rather than something meant to be shared with others

I do this as well, though it probably doesn't seem like it looking at the finished product, since I've gotten criticisms for writing too much predictable h/c and for having various plot twists clearly occur just for the sake of having a particular character be injured or sick even when I tone things down (and they're probably accurate criticisms, because said plot twist generally is for the sole purpose of making Tony Stark suffer and angst somehow). It helps to have a co-writer who's a bit more squeamish than I am about how much Id content is too much and who's also got a lower tolerance for "I will read complete trash as long as it has this particular narrative kink in it."

[sholio]

Most of which will never make it into anything I write, because then I'd have to come up with a coherent explanation for why this character is bleeding out in that character's arms, or actually write the epic-length plot that would have to surround the h/c scene in order to explain how the characters got there instead of just sketching it out vaguely in my head and then jumping directly to the good parts.

Ha, yeah, this is EXACTLY the problem! When you're writing an actual fic to be posted for other people to read, it's not enough just to think, "What if X and Y were being held in a Central American prison and beaten regularly?" You have to figure out how they got there and what they're doing there and who is holding them and how they get out, and for that matter, research where they are and whether there would actually be prisons of the sort you're imagining. Which, um, sounds like work. *g*

Still, it's very affirming to hear from other people that I'm not the only one who tells myself stories like this to fall asleep!

My own self-indulgence to plot meter is usually dialed heavily towards "plot". I do have my moments, though, when I just want to write something very idficcish and not worry about it. :D

[amalthia]

Oh man, there are a ton of fics I've re-read but almost don't want to admit how often I've reread the story because either the kink is on the edge or the writing has obvious flaws but I still find myself re-reading the story. I tend to leave feedback regardless though with the stories that have obvious flaws (grammar, typos, and maybe some bad characterizations) I have a harder time recommending.

Though, I know for this last year my end of the year recs had a few DCU fics that I've re-read a million times and while I recognize the writing isn't great I still loved the stories and since it was my rec list I went ahead and recced them anyways. I don't want to fall into the mindset of being unwilling to recommend a story I've read over five times because I'm afraid people will think I have bad taste to enjoy a story that has some problems. The interesting thing to me is how can a story with typos and a few other grammar errors still be compelling???

I came to the conclusion that there is more to a story than perfect grammar and 0 typos.

Now as for kinks...I tend to leave feedback if I enjoy the story regardless of how others may view the kink in the story.

[sholio]

It's really good to know it's not just me. :D

I've also noticed that I'm way less picky when I first get into a fandom -- I'm reading everything, and saving tons of stuff to my hard drive. Then I'll go back and look at some of it and wonder why in the world I ever saved that ...

But I think you're right, too, that there's a lot more to a story than perfect grammar. Most compelling stories are a little bit flawed in some way, but still have appealing character voices, a strong emotional arc, an interesting plot or whatever else it was that drew you to them in the first place. (Most profic too, for that matter.)

[fourteen_pavanes]

-found this after some belated browsing on the month of meta comm-

Thank you for this. This is fascinating- both because what you bring up hits home, yet at the same time raises so many questions.

In my case I do have a kink, and I know that a lot of other people share it (a whole community, in fact), but for personal and professional reasons I continue to lurk in the shadows.

What I find so unsatisfying in fandom, sometimes, is how a specific kink is used as a substitute for a plot (kind of like pwp, which can occasionally work). But there is a difference between using the kink as a plot and a plot device to explain something deeper. It also depends on what the kink is, too. I think that if you are going to go about writing a completely self-indulgent fic, go ahead, but keep this in mind. :) my favorite "kink-fics," if you will, have something other than the kink or use the kink in a creative way.

[fourteen_pavanes]

Oh, and I'm not emphasizing anything with those italics- I accidentally forgot to de-italicize and I can't find the edit button.