meta rec - Oh My God, I Can See Your Id! by brown_betty

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Read this right now. If you are having a bad day, you will feel better. If you are having a great day, it will make it awesome.

Let's Talk About Books!: Today's topic: Oh My God, I Can See Your Id! by brown_betty - the comments. Are. HilariousJust--you know, run along and giggle hysterically. Though now I do want an argument related to profic id as

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*thinky thoughts that turned out to be not so speedy*

I haven't read the entirety of the link yet (am very excited, though!)--but I do think, on some level, that it is more acceptable to drown your id in fanfic than in profic--at least, it's more acceptable to do it so it's visible. That on some level, many of us regard fandom as an 'escape,' and as such we can indulge in things we don't get to do in other circles of our lives. That many of us are aware of the sometimes-indulgent nature of fic, and we (writers and readers) come into it, to paraphrase what brown_betty said, hoping that our ids will meet convivially. bironic had some excellent thoughts about fandom on LJ as a gift culture--that we each post stories as gifts to the community-at-large, and we recieve gifts in return (in the form of comments and respect, etc)--and I think this gift culture makes id-drowning, indulgence, whatever, more acceptable. Like a fan may say, "Here's my id! Check it out!" and other fans can go, "Shiny! My id likes it, too!" but those who are all, "OH MY ID SAYS NO" can just back away. (Not to say there aren't problems with fan culture, of course. But that's beside my point.)

In profic, I would argue that since it's a much more commercial venture, letting one's id hang out all over one's work is more problematic. Especially if the author doesn't know it--as brown_betty mentioned, it might be an embarrassment squick on my part, too--but I find it troubling to think that someone could sell themselves that way. Like prostituting one's very messy human self for the delectation of the masses.

As for me, as a part of fandom, I find I'm very aware that I'm indulging my id while I'm writing and reading. I am drawn to stories that hit all kinds of deep dark things--I love reading them, I find myself writing them--hell, I've been part of a collaborative of writers that indulged our love of fucked-up hurt-comfort for 100,000 words (and now are writing about vampires in space, so there you go).

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Like a fan may say, "Here's my id! Check it out!" and other fans can go, "Shiny! My id likes it, too!" but those who are all, "OH MY ID SAYS NO" can just back away.

That's like, the best description of fan culture ever. Right there.

*awed*