Fandom is wacky

[ratherastory]

Dear Fan,

It's very nice of you to review my stories. From the looks of it, you might even be a BNF, although it's kind of hard to tell. Certainly you're prolific, and I've seen your name bandied about fandom since I joined. It's great that you took the time to review my story on fanfiction.net, really and truly.

That being said, telling me basically that "h/c: ur doin it wrong" is a little silly, given that my story is very clearly labeled as horror, and not h/c.

I get that you're primarily a h/c writer, and hey, I've totally enjoyed your stories too. If h/c is what you're looking for, then please, by all means, read the stories I've written that are labeled as such. If you want h/c, then reading the "horror" story is not going to work out for you.

Love,

Me

Comments

[pkwench.livejournal.com]

Nothing says a good time like someone completely missing the point of what you're writing. Sometimes, I think that fans think fic in almost any fandom is either fluffy fic, smutfic, crackfic, casefic/dayinthelife, or h/c. Which, sure, probably makes up the bulk of fic in any fandom, but there's more and, most importantly, there's a blend.

I sometimes think that labeling/warning in fanfic is just over the top. I know most people don't think like I do and I just play along because, well, I don't want people peevish with me (it's happened, oh yes). But, you know, I think there's too much. I especially hate character death warnings or this expectation that some people have that you warn them if an ending is sad or otherwise not happy. I don't know, I see the point of genres, tags, labels, and warnings - I'd surely want to know if I was about to start reading an Mpreg or a gender swap fic, but ... I think it's really just too much and that people expect to be led by the hand. One of the most glorious things I've seen in ages was the option on the sharp_teeth meme to NOT warn people. I like that. None of the books on my shelves feel the need to warn me about character deaths or horror content or romantic elements.

Well, that was a thought aside. And big fandom deal or no, doesn't mean that the review person in question was paying attention or expecting something unreasonable. Don't go killing a chicken and getting pissed when it doesn't taste like steak, you know?

[ratherastory.livejournal.com]

Don't go killing a chicken and getting pissed when it doesn't taste like steak, you know?

I love your metaphor. :)

And yes. I go along with the warning system, but I'd never heard of that before entering fandom. I mean, seriously? Warning for character death? Doesn't that constitute a major plot spoiler? Bah.

[pkwench.livejournal.com]

Wow, that was some Hong Kong subtitling on my part. :o Still a decent metaphor though, yes. LOL

Yeah, I'll do the warning, genre, tagging, rating, and general hand holding - especially when I post in a comm. But, it doesn't mean that it doesn't strike me as a little ... something. Major spoiler, yeah.