Because I haven't polled in a while, and I may be going into withdrawal

[bauble]

I think it should not come as a surprise to anyone that I find fandom endlessly fascinating. Like most things I love in life, I engage both directly with said thing and indirectly with it on a meta level. Another thing that I've learned is that the way I engage with fandom, personally, is quite different than the way many other fans do. These

Comments

[ex_gunning31]

Hurt/comfort is a very borderline squick for me, so generally if the hurt isn't completely gratuitous and the comfort isn't completely ott schmoop I will enjoy the story, but it's got to be pretty carefully balanced before I'll like it :)!

ETA: This is actually emerald_embers, one of my mates invited me to mess around in her account and I forgot to log out XD. Sorry hon.

[bauble]

Interesting! What exactly is it about H/C that makes it squicky to you?

[jibrailis]

I rarely identify with characters, at least beyond a superficial level. I don't feel the need to -- people are interesting enough without needing to be like me. When I write fic, I have a writer's empathy in that I feel what my characters feel. But this rings true for every single character I write. I tend not to identify with one character more than others. I don't single them out.

The one exception is Dean Winchester. Dean reminds me a lot of myself in that he's an overprotective sibling who's had to shoulder the burden of being there for his younger siblings in the absence of stable parents. That he tries to play it casual but it affects him deeply, this sense that he's the one holding the family together. That's my life, every day.

And for that reason, I actually don't like writing much Supernatural fic. I like to write to get into other people's skin; in doing so, I expect to leave my own, if that makes any sense.

[bauble]

I rarely identify with characters, at least beyond a superficial level. I don't feel the need to -- people are interesting enough without needing to be like me. When I write fic, I have a writer's empathy in that I feel what my characters feel. But this rings true for every single character I write. I tend not to identify with one character more than others. I don't single them out.I agree with this whole heartedly :) I rarely identify with my characters nowadays beyond writer's empathy (and when I go all Method when writing, though that's rather different), though I will admit the line is much more difficult for me in my forays in original writing with a female protagonist. Thankfully, that stuff has never seen the light of the internet

[anansigirltoo]

I can't say that I expect to see anything specific in fic content, that's up to the author. But I do expect a fic to come with accurate warnings and contents labels, and a descriptive/intriguing summary is always more enticing than something vague or a quote from the story itself (unless said quote is really well-chosen).

[bauble]

Fair enough! Although, I should give fair warning if you read my stories that I will not list warnings/pairings other than the primary one in my actual fic entries, but they will be listed in the headers to any communities I post to. I do post to communities about the same time I post to my lj, so if you are interested in reading the warnings you should probably check the community posts before jumping in :)

[anansigirltoo]

*facepalm* That was rather imprecise of me! What I meant (and failed) to say was more along the lines of I expect accurate warnings/contents labels when an author posts outside hir f-list where people who aren't familiar with hir work might see it. I really wasn't thinking about how you might react to my comment as an author, so I'm sorry if I came across as aiming at you specifically - it really wasn't my intent.

[bauble]

Ah, no problem. I have had other people complain about my warning policy (though I do lay it out explicitly in the writing policies section of my masterlist) so I just like to clarify that before there's any confusion.

[copperiisulfate]

I too find fandom quite fascinating and I'd love to hear about how you engage with fandom. I honestly don't know what the 'mainstream' view is these days but I'd be interested to hear how your approach differs

[bauble]

I think I'm unusual in that my wants/likes for fanfic and original fiction and art are more or less the same: I want art that makes me feel, and makes me think. That is also my writing goal: to create works that inspire readers to think and to feel. I'm aware that most fans draw a clear distinction between what they want/expect/will accept in fanfiction versus what they want/expect/will accept in original fiction. For example, I have some friends who won't read my fiction if it is too sad or ends unhappily or etc

[copperiisulfate]

I think our mental approach to fandom (or at least wrt fanfic) is very similar then. I generally read fanfic like I would read an original piece of fiction and more or less look for the same things in both. I also find that pretty much all of the stories I have enjoyed and remembered from every fandom have been ones that have made me feel and make me think, happy ending or not. It's what I try to aim for in my own writing of longer plotty pieces, putting the storytelling first, often in favour of wish-fulfillment and I can understand the feeling of it not meeting people's expectations in terms of what they set out to read. I think the happy-ending phenomemon is an interesting one and it says a lot about fandom mentality and fanfic as a medium, how people write it and read it and use it. To be honest, I like some semblance of a happy ending and they are especially nice to have when canon treats my favourite character(s) badly so I cannot say that I am completely detached, but I guess I am a bigger fan of believable endings, those that

[bauble]

Yeah, I can totally understand why people feel very strongly about happy endings and having good things happen to a beloved character (or pairing)--much like it's hard to have our loved ones in real life suffer, it's hard to watch a character we've come to care about suffer as well. So I understand totally why a reader wouldn't want to put themselves through that, but you know, I can only write what I want to write.

I am still trying to work away at writing for myself and not worrying about where I'm going to post it and who is going to read it, which is, admittedly, much more difficult because it's a playground that a lot of people are invested in and have opinions about. It's a good reminder for me to keep writing the kind of things I would like to read.It really depends on your goals and priorities for writing and participating in fandom, I think. There's nothing wrong with wanting lots of feedback, or writing stories that will reach a lot of people and make them happy and entertain them

[zelda_zee]

I'll read fic that has elements of h/c in it, but I don't really read h/c fic, per se. It just doesn't give me the emotional payoff that it does a lot of people.

I have one OTP in one very obscure fandom, but in general I'm not very shippy. I tend to read multiple pairings in the fandoms I'm interested in.

[bauble]

Yes, I've found that H/C does cater to a very specific emotional kink and that the payoff really only works for people who have that emotional kink (which I do not have, either).

I tend to be fairly OTPish myself, though I will read and occasionally write secondary pairings as a writing exercise for myself.