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reenkaIt's funny how the perceptions & definitions of quite separate concepts get mixed up so often. Like: 'fluff'.
Like. Okay, what with most people mean by 'fluff', I guess I'd have to say don't like it, y'know (even though that's not true)? I feel like a liar when I say 'okay, fine, I'm an angst-whore' because I'm not, but it's like in the binary world of that definition, I would have to be, or something, because by a rather prevalent (implied) definition, fluff = OOC, careless, overly-saccharine & largely humorless. Like crackfic except more staid and less out there & imaginative (as opposed to my definition, where fluff is basically 'feel-good fic where it's more slice-of-life warmth than serious drama' or perhaps just 'optimistic!fic' should cover it-- and WHY oh WHY should optimistic = implausible/saccharine/over-the-top??).
It's as if the usual, widespread usage of 'liking fluff' (not to mention 'liking smutty romantic fluff') implies consciously turning away from realism. As if you cannot have... I dunno... fluff-smutty realism (which... you can, it's just, y'know, harder to write, esp. with a canonically rivalslash/angsty pairing). You can so totally have perfectly IC fluff-smutty fic, cute & sexy & IC... well, mostly with friendslash, but also as lighter episodes late in a long-running rivalslash. I've seen it! I've loved it! IT EXISTS. You don't have to be like 'well, I like an angsty pairing but I can't take angst all the time so let's just throw plausibility & common sense out the window 'cause it feels good & it's easy'. You could be-- no one's stopping you; you just don't -have- to.
In other words, optimism & denial? NOT THE SAME THING.
Also, when people make these strident, eloquent posts about how no sexual kink or fantasy expressed in fanfic is morally questionable-- yeay, sexual freedom, right? So far, so good. And then 'sexual fantasy' becomes writing, which... is a craft, unlike sexual fantasizing, so. Um.
Somehow, this 'moral' definition easily migrates into aesthetics, so that suddenly not being 'morally questionable' becomes equivalent to not being 'aesthetically questionable'. So then you could write or read or fantasize about whatever-- and of course that's your right, but it's not the same as talking about your 'right' to write shameless OOC fluff/kinkfic/etc where absolutely anything goes in any direction.
Perhaps I should say (defensively) 'but I like good fluff! I've written quite a bit of it-- questionable quality-- myself!', but that does sound too defensive-- I still feel I mean something else if I say 'I like fluff' than if your average fangirl says she likes feeling warm-and-fuzzy about her OTP or whatever. I mean, I like to feel warm-and-fuzzy too... only I like it if it's good. Y'know, halfway believable. And it just so happens most inexperienced writers go much further overboard with questionable characterization for the purpose of sweetness-- like, if you're writing a short fic, it somehow doesn't seem to take as much subtle backstory and a carefully balanced character dynamic to write things pessimistically. Though I've mostly seen this with H/D, 'cause if you're reading an 'easier', friend-slash pairing, imagining a cozy future isn't so difficult.
What I mean is, it's not like one can claim 'guilty pleasure' type writing or reading as some sort of moral cause; it's not even an aesthetic cause. There's that line between not having to be embarrassed about what you like & realizing that what you like may very well be... well, bad as a story. That doesn't make it bad to like it-- it's just... still... kind of... not so good. Y'know, the way Danielle Steel, Harlequins, Piers Anthony & I dunno, Mercedes Lackey are 'not so good'; in terms of ideas/cliches, we have mpreg & rentboy fic, say. Perfectly fine to like-- there's even some good stuff out there sometimes, but this doesn't make most of this stuff good stories or good ideas just because they -are- liked. Gah. Like, yeah, there have been good mpregs, for instance-- I've enjoyed some-- and Piers Anthony sometimes doesn't suck. But. The exception proves the rule. And also? When you stand back a bit, you remember, OH WAIT, DRACO IS PREGNANT FOR NO GOOD REASON. Which... just kind of severely limits the aesthetic heights we're talkin' about, no matter how I myself may even enjoy it. >.>
...I'm mostly thinking of people talking about rape-without-consequence fics, how they're not only morally okay to like (obviously), but also therefore aesthetically okay as fiction (...not-so-much, outside crackfic/kinkfic). No one's convening the Fic Police or anything... it's just so obvious to me that when you reach a certain level of WTFuckery in what I'd consider plausible human behavior-- forget ICness-- that's when goodfic goes out the window. People get all mixed up & bring up general subjects [like incest-fic] that some folks get unduly uptight about in writing, and then equate them to specific treatments of said specific subjects and make sweeping generalizations to justify all possible permutations just to cover their asses whatever they feel like doing.
Like, well, clearly there's a place in the world for fluffy-oblivious incestfic, sure. But that's not the same thing as setting out to write a 'serious' incestfic & then dropping the ball midway afterwards just 'cause you don't wanna deal with the repercussions anymore. No, that would be sucky writing, right there. There's a limited number of ways human beings will act under certain (traumatic) circumstances; people aren't infinitely unpredictable, especially established characters you don't actually own/create. This does curtail one's artistic freedom, but, y'know, uhhh... if that's a problem, why not write original fic? About say, iguana-men? *facepalm*
Like. Okay, what with most people mean by 'fluff', I guess I'd have to say don't like it, y'know (even though that's not true)? I feel like a liar when I say 'okay, fine, I'm an angst-whore' because I'm not, but it's like in the binary world of that definition, I would have to be, or something, because by a rather prevalent (implied) definition, fluff = OOC, careless, overly-saccharine & largely humorless. Like crackfic except more staid and less out there & imaginative (as opposed to my definition, where fluff is basically 'feel-good fic where it's more slice-of-life warmth than serious drama' or perhaps just 'optimistic!fic' should cover it-- and WHY oh WHY should optimistic = implausible/saccharine/over-the-top??).
It's as if the usual, widespread usage of 'liking fluff' (not to mention 'liking smutty romantic fluff') implies consciously turning away from realism. As if you cannot have... I dunno... fluff-smutty realism (which... you can, it's just, y'know, harder to write, esp. with a canonically rivalslash/angsty pairing). You can so totally have perfectly IC fluff-smutty fic, cute & sexy & IC... well, mostly with friendslash, but also as lighter episodes late in a long-running rivalslash. I've seen it! I've loved it! IT EXISTS. You don't have to be like 'well, I like an angsty pairing but I can't take angst all the time so let's just throw plausibility & common sense out the window 'cause it feels good & it's easy'. You could be-- no one's stopping you; you just don't -have- to.
In other words, optimism & denial? NOT THE SAME THING.
Also, when people make these strident, eloquent posts about how no sexual kink or fantasy expressed in fanfic is morally questionable-- yeay, sexual freedom, right? So far, so good. And then 'sexual fantasy' becomes writing, which... is a craft, unlike sexual fantasizing, so. Um.
Somehow, this 'moral' definition easily migrates into aesthetics, so that suddenly not being 'morally questionable' becomes equivalent to not being 'aesthetically questionable'. So then you could write or read or fantasize about whatever-- and of course that's your right, but it's not the same as talking about your 'right' to write shameless OOC fluff/kinkfic/etc where absolutely anything goes in any direction.
Perhaps I should say (defensively) 'but I like good fluff! I've written quite a bit of it-- questionable quality-- myself!', but that does sound too defensive-- I still feel I mean something else if I say 'I like fluff' than if your average fangirl says she likes feeling warm-and-fuzzy about her OTP or whatever. I mean, I like to feel warm-and-fuzzy too... only I like it if it's good. Y'know, halfway believable. And it just so happens most inexperienced writers go much further overboard with questionable characterization for the purpose of sweetness-- like, if you're writing a short fic, it somehow doesn't seem to take as much subtle backstory and a carefully balanced character dynamic to write things pessimistically. Though I've mostly seen this with H/D, 'cause if you're reading an 'easier', friend-slash pairing, imagining a cozy future isn't so difficult.
What I mean is, it's not like one can claim 'guilty pleasure' type writing or reading as some sort of moral cause; it's not even an aesthetic cause. There's that line between not having to be embarrassed about what you like & realizing that what you like may very well be... well, bad as a story. That doesn't make it bad to like it-- it's just... still... kind of... not so good. Y'know, the way Danielle Steel, Harlequins, Piers Anthony & I dunno, Mercedes Lackey are 'not so good'; in terms of ideas/cliches, we have mpreg & rentboy fic, say. Perfectly fine to like-- there's even some good stuff out there sometimes, but this doesn't make most of this stuff good stories or good ideas just because they -are- liked. Gah. Like, yeah, there have been good mpregs, for instance-- I've enjoyed some-- and Piers Anthony sometimes doesn't suck. But. The exception proves the rule. And also? When you stand back a bit, you remember, OH WAIT, DRACO IS PREGNANT FOR NO GOOD REASON. Which... just kind of severely limits the aesthetic heights we're talkin' about, no matter how I myself may even enjoy it. >.>
...I'm mostly thinking of people talking about rape-without-consequence fics, how they're not only morally okay to like (obviously), but also therefore aesthetically okay as fiction (...not-so-much, outside crackfic/kinkfic). No one's convening the Fic Police or anything... it's just so obvious to me that when you reach a certain level of WTFuckery in what I'd consider plausible human behavior-- forget ICness-- that's when goodfic goes out the window. People get all mixed up & bring up general subjects [like incest-fic] that some folks get unduly uptight about in writing, and then equate them to specific treatments of said specific subjects and make sweeping generalizations to justify all possible permutations just to cover their asses whatever they feel like doing.
Like, well, clearly there's a place in the world for fluffy-oblivious incestfic, sure. But that's not the same thing as setting out to write a 'serious' incestfic & then dropping the ball midway afterwards just 'cause you don't wanna deal with the repercussions anymore. No, that would be sucky writing, right there. There's a limited number of ways human beings will act under certain (traumatic) circumstances; people aren't infinitely unpredictable, especially established characters you don't actually own/create. This does curtail one's artistic freedom, but, y'know, uhhh... if that's a problem, why not write original fic? About say, iguana-men? *facepalm*
