51stcenturyfox (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
51stcenturyfox) wrote2009-04-13 07:51 pm
51stcenturyfox) wrote2009-04-13 07:51 pm
What's your fic poison? + a poll
Hey, Gareth David-Lloyd i[Poll #1383064][Poll #1383064]
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FOR. REALS.
I think one of the main problems I have with so much Jack/Ianto is that, like a lot of slash pairings, many authors have decided that one of them has to be more "feminine" and one more "masculine." Usually the feminine one is Ianto, and usually that means he cries and pouts a lot. I even saw one fic where Ianto became anorexic for reasons unknown to anyone with the capability of rational thought.
I think one of the main problems I have with so much Jack/Ianto is that, like a lot of slash pairings, many authors have decided that one of them has to be more "feminine" and one more "masculine." Usually the feminine one is Ianto, and usually that means he cries and pouts a lot. I even saw one fic where Ianto became anorexic for reasons unknown to anyone with the capability of rational thought.
We shall see if I'm even remotely awesome at making it work because I am writing this for TardisBigBang.
NOT Spunky Young OC Joins the Team, though because...just NO.
NOT Spunky Young OC Joins the Team, though because...just NO.
Thank you, but O ho ho, that was my first TW fic. I sort of took that down to rewrite it. Hee.
Love threesomes though, so will have to put it back up sometime. (With more hot.)
The only thing I really liked about it was the Ianto striptease. :D
Love threesomes though, so will have to put it back up sometime. (With more hot.)
The only thing I really liked about it was the Ianto striptease. :D
Read the replies re: het warning, and am actually fascinated by the idea that people in a slash fandom feel they need to warn for het? Is this some kind of pseudo-liberal slashy stance? I mean, guys, het is not evil or bad or anything...
Funny enough, it reminds me of the x-tube choice buttons where you click one button for male or female and click the ticky box for like: male, female, or both. It's like predefining a category.
Same in fanfic, and I get it for porn, possibly, when you want to read porn to get off you'd like to read what gets you off thank you very much, but there are stories where there is no sex ... would I still warn for het, like it's some kind of outrageous thing? Look at me calling heterophobia here. Frankly, if people call for 'no warning for slash' then there should also be a 'no warning for het' call. It's the same bloody thing.
Funny enough, it reminds me of the x-tube choice buttons where you click one button for male or female and click the ticky box for like: male, female, or both. It's like predefining a category.
Same in fanfic, and I get it for porn, possibly, when you want to read porn to get off you'd like to read what gets you off thank you very much, but there are stories where there is no sex ... would I still warn for het, like it's some kind of outrageous thing? Look at me calling heterophobia here. Frankly, if people call for 'no warning for slash' then there should also be a 'no warning for het' call. It's the same bloody thing.
Ha! Bet you didn't know that I read off-line, and save *everything* I read, did you? (I thought I had saved a bad link, though.)
And I would *love* to see this revised with more hot!
And I would *love* to see this revised with more hot!
Thanks! And Tosh/Suzie was hot!
It really depends on the author, for me. I love paperclipbitch's Ianto/Owen stuff: http://paperclipbitch.livejournal.com/tag/owen/ianto
Very in-character, with double snark! :)
It really depends on the author, for me. I love paperclipbitch's Ianto/Owen stuff: http://paperclipbitch.livejournal.com/tag/owen/ianto
Very in-character, with double snark! :)
...if people call for 'no warning for slash' then there should also be a 'no warning for het' call
Yeah, I think "warning" would be listing a warning, as you might for a kink or something like non-con. Informing people that there will be sexing involving x pairing in the fic is just basic info, like story length.
So if I see Jack/Rose/Nine and and adult rating, I'm assuming I'm getting het and slash action (Probably. Or it could be a tossup in that case.)
Yeah, I think "warning" would be listing a warning, as you might for a kink or something like non-con. Informing people that there will be sexing involving x pairing in the fic is just basic info, like story length.
So if I see Jack/Rose/Nine and and adult rating, I'm assuming I'm getting het and slash action (Probably. Or it could be a tossup in that case.)
I have to disagree. A lot of people absolutely refuse to read het (like I presume people refuse to read slash, but I don't they are in the TW fandom).
If 90% of the fic in a fandom is slash, then people might be shocked by a het story. Personally, I prefer slash, but I am not squicked by the evil het. If people are going to be offended by het, then I would want to warn them to pass on by.
However, the names should be enough, usually, so there should be no need of a het warning when you have pairing: Jack/Ianto/Gwen, for example.
I am re-thinking my stance on all of this, though.
If 90% of the fic in a fandom is slash, then people might be shocked by a het story. Personally, I prefer slash, but I am not squicked by the evil het. If people are going to be offended by het, then I would want to warn them to pass on by.
However, the names should be enough, usually, so there should be no need of a het warning when you have pairing: Jack/Ianto/Gwen, for example.
I am re-thinking my stance on all of this, though.
Hee!
Okay, will heat that bad boy up when I have the opportunity. ;)
Okay, will heat that bad boy up when I have the opportunity. ;)
There are a few authors who give Ianto all kinds of issues - anorexia, cutting, severe depression, etc. I think it's an excuse for H/C.
(BTW, love your icon there.)
(BTW, love your icon there.)
Mmmmmmmmmmmm.....I love your icon, too....maybe a little too much. XD
But seriously. Ianto acting like severely troubled teen girl=no.
But seriously. Ianto acting like severely troubled teen girl=no.
Well I've not ever read your writing, but just the fact that you are against Spunky Young OC Joins Team makes me have a lot of hope. :D
I thought that's where "slash" got it's moniker: character "/" character. If it's two males, voilá, you've got your warning. I'm relatively new (less than two years) to online fanfic, but there are some generally accepted formats that I've noticed. Comma gets you no pairing, slash gets you smut (or at least romance). Although as new people come into it, I guess formatting is bound to pushed around a bit.
And I checked "I'll read anything at least once" but what I really meant was "depends on the author". Damn trigger happy clicky-finger!
And I checked "I'll read anything at least once" but what I really meant was "depends on the author". Damn trigger happy clicky-finger!
But if you can see that it's Jack/Ianto/Gwen, would it be just as easy to see that a fic has "Ianto/Gwen" as a pairing, and would assume that the story would contain het, just as seeing "Jack/Ianto" as a pairing would lead you to assume the story has slash?
I've never liked the idea of warning people to "pass on by". Maybe I'm crazy in thinking that people can make up their own minds in what they want to read. There was a trend of fic containing non-J/I pairings telling J/I fans not to read it, and that bothered me. I love J/I, but I like other things too, and I'm willing to read them, but the author was telling me not to. Luckily, that trend seems to have passed. I think anyone is going to look at the pairings (and warnings in the case of kinkfic or fic containing excessive violence, for example) listed on a story and be able to determine for themselves if it's something they want to read.
I know it was defensive mechanism against receiving flames, but anyone who isn't just going to pass on a story with pairings they don't like and stop and flame is clearly not worth the minuscule time and effort it takes to type "if you don't like my pairing, don't read it".
I've never liked the idea of warning people to "pass on by". Maybe I'm crazy in thinking that people can make up their own minds in what they want to read. There was a trend of fic containing non-J/I pairings telling J/I fans not to read it, and that bothered me. I love J/I, but I like other things too, and I'm willing to read them, but the author was telling me not to. Luckily, that trend seems to have passed. I think anyone is going to look at the pairings (and warnings in the case of kinkfic or fic containing excessive violence, for example) listed on a story and be able to determine for themselves if it's something they want to read.
I know it was defensive mechanism against receiving flames, but anyone who isn't just going to pass on a story with pairings they don't like and stop and flame is clearly not worth the minuscule time and effort it takes to type "if you don't like my pairing, don't read it".
I love paperclipbitch! I don't like Ianto/Owen at all. It's the only pairing I don't like Ianto in, but if I'm wanting to read some new fic and I can't find anything good, I'll go read some of her Ianto/Owen stuff because I know at least it's going to be well written and believable.
No no no! Sorry, I expressed myself poorly there. I didn't mean to tell people "pass on by" - I meant that I would generally put the warning there AS A WAY to let people know what it was, so they could make the decision to skip the fic if it wasn't to their taste.
As you can see, I do think the pairing should be enough warning, too.
As you can see, I do think the pairing should be enough warning, too.
Oh, and if I see Jack/Rose/Nine and an adult rating...I am so reading that.
I actually started writing that once, but the team member was going to be surprise!young River Song.
I couldn't make it work. D:
I couldn't make it work. D:
Yup, / = pairing, char, char = they're in it, but they're not getting into it. :)
Ok, point taken on the poll!
Ok, point taken on the poll!
I was thinking about this a couple of weeks ago, and I was surprised that a couple of people on my flist agreed with the warnings. I think warning for het or slash is kind of creepy. Like it gives the impression that sexuality is something to be warned about, not right, and I just don't feel comfortable with that at all.
And I used to be limited to reading Jack/Ianto but lately I'm such a multishipper (but a strange one, there are still some pairings I will not touch with a barge pole) and I've started writing other pairings. I like to think I'm making it my mission to make people more open minded when it comes to ships. But yeah, can't change what other people think. I feel bad that it sometimes frustrates me that het is considered unnatural in this fandom. Like, why is het so bad? I don't get it. I don't care about the genders of the characters, it's the personalities I love.
And don't get me started on Gwen bashing fic. It's all massively OOC.
Anyway, yeah...doesn't matter to me if it's het/slash/femslash. And I'll give any pairing a try at least once.
And I used to be limited to reading Jack/Ianto but lately I'm such a multishipper (but a strange one, there are still some pairings I will not touch with a barge pole) and I've started writing other pairings. I like to think I'm making it my mission to make people more open minded when it comes to ships. But yeah, can't change what other people think. I feel bad that it sometimes frustrates me that het is considered unnatural in this fandom. Like, why is het so bad? I don't get it. I don't care about the genders of the characters, it's the personalities I love.
And don't get me started on Gwen bashing fic. It's all massively OOC.
Anyway, yeah...doesn't matter to me if it's het/slash/femslash. And I'll give any pairing a try at least once.
Is this some kind of pseudo-liberal slashy stance? I mean, guys, het is not evil or bad or anything...
This! I hate warnings for het and slash alike.
This! I hate warnings for het and slash alike.
I feel like one of these film makers that, god, Swedish guy's name, because ideally to rate my own stories I'd give you a list of the characters and would not indicate if they are / or , simply because the boundary between the two is so thin sometimes, when does the , grow into a /? I think it's easy to classify PWPs but as soon as you have something ther than a PWP I feel the / is whittling it down to a over-simplified description that doesn't do a story justice. If Jack and Ianto interact on the background of their relationship without interacting in terms of a relationship is that /?
I understand what you are saying, because from a preferences standpoint I see why a note for het may be helpful to people. But from a meta standpoint, I pretty much refuse to give that kind of statement. Treating all sexual orientations equally in fandom means treating the notes/warnings equally for me, and that means there is no het note (just like in "straight" fandoms I wouldn't leave a slash-note). This inches the discussion into, 'who is the header for?' And quite possibly in fandom technically the header is for the reader as a source of information about the story. For me as a writer, the header is the space (like the blurb on a book) where I'm willing to give a certain amount of information to a) entice but b) leave it open enough. I will likely always err on the side of way too little information in headers because I don't believe in giving away that much about a story. As I said above, I'm not even a fan of having a / in there to denote ... something. A relationship? How is that defined? I'm not a fan of having gen be separate from pairing fic because it limits both. I'm anti-categorizations in short and I think it shows in my stance on het-warnings, among other things. I believe that there are stories that can be easily categorized (PWPs, for the most part). But anything that isn't a PWP... dude, murky waters there if you try to slap a header tgether that actually represents the story.
Again, I think part of it depends on targeting an audience and if you want to target a specific audience with your story and therefore have a header that suits their tastes (eg. a note abut het if they possibly don't like het). I get why, for example, someone writing a shit load of J/I would end up having a note and a more extensive header when suddenly Gwen pops up in a /-setting. But for people that write to broad tastes, in a variety of settings with different plot twists anyway in their stories, I then don't expect much of anything in terms of notes and warnings and just let the story sweep me up.
I know there is meta somewhere about the parallels and non-parallels between book blurbs and Fic headers (mostly in terms of consume and the internet being a faster medium and you wanting to know what you spend your 10 min reading rather than just starting a story and then realizing you hate it), and I probably prefer the blurbs to the headers.
Is this a pseudo-elitist-artsy "I want people to see my stories for themselves etc etc" stance? Quite possibly. I'm just speaking from experience that I find stries hard to categorize when they are not clear /-PWPs, and I feel the / descriptor limits a story.
That said, I drew this fairly OT from your comment, apologies.
Again, I think part of it depends on targeting an audience and if you want to target a specific audience with your story and therefore have a header that suits their tastes (eg. a note abut het if they possibly don't like het). I get why, for example, someone writing a shit load of J/I would end up having a note and a more extensive header when suddenly Gwen pops up in a /-setting. But for people that write to broad tastes, in a variety of settings with different plot twists anyway in their stories, I then don't expect much of anything in terms of notes and warnings and just let the story sweep me up.
I know there is meta somewhere about the parallels and non-parallels between book blurbs and Fic headers (mostly in terms of consume and the internet being a faster medium and you wanting to know what you spend your 10 min reading rather than just starting a story and then realizing you hate it), and I probably prefer the blurbs to the headers.
Is this a pseudo-elitist-artsy "I want people to see my stories for themselves etc etc" stance? Quite possibly. I'm just speaking from experience that I find stries hard to categorize when they are not clear /-PWPs, and I feel the / descriptor limits a story.
That said, I drew this fairly OT from your comment, apologies.
You know, I am seeing these type of stories discussed a lot. Admittedly I don't read everything that is posted but I can't help but feel that it's discussed a lot more than it's actually WRITTEN.
There IS incredible J/I out there, that has none of these characterization issues, and while I very much don't consider myself a shipper of any kind, I always feel the need to jump up and say that there IS great J/I. Of course there is crap but whenever people discuss J/I fics it's about the THEY ARE DOING IT WRONG and not everyone is. Is just all I want to say. Granted, there is going to be more if it in J/I in absolute terms just because there is more J/I but I don't think that in relative ter,s J/I writers fuck up more often than others.
And I have to admit, I have yet to read a fic where Ianto is anorexic and/or cuts himself even if people talk about it all the time... (Not that I would want to read it, I'm just saying that I believe it exists in fewer numbers than it's being discussed)
There IS incredible J/I out there, that has none of these characterization issues, and while I very much don't consider myself a shipper of any kind, I always feel the need to jump up and say that there IS great J/I. Of course there is crap but whenever people discuss J/I fics it's about the THEY ARE DOING IT WRONG and not everyone is. Is just all I want to say. Granted, there is going to be more if it in J/I in absolute terms just because there is more J/I but I don't think that in relative ter,s J/I writers fuck up more often than others.
And I have to admit, I have yet to read a fic where Ianto is anorexic and/or cuts himself even if people talk about it all the time... (Not that I would want to read it, I'm just saying that I believe it exists in fewer numbers than it's being discussed)
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