fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #2707 ]

⌈ Secret Post #2707 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

01.

__________________________________________________

02.

__________________________________________________

03.

__________________________________________________

04.

__________________________________________________

05.

__________________________________________________

06.

__________________________________________________

07.

__________________________________________________

08.

__________________________________________________

09.

__________________________________________________

10.

__________________________________________________

11.

__________________________________________________

12.

Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 03 pages, 066 secrets from Secret Submission Post #387.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 1 (also a repeat x 3) - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Well, here's my two pence worth (since I'm English):

I still think it's too simplistic to talk about tropes that appeal to 'older people', or to dismiss a trope as 'outdated' (though it may currently be out of fashion).

People who write mediocre fanfic do so because they're mediocre writers. Mediocrity is not about age or about 'outdated tropes', it's ultimately about lack of vision. A good writer can take an unfashionable trope and make it fresh and relevant. Popular culture is constantly mining the past, adapting it, and making the present out of it.

When you get to your fifties, you are pretty much the same person you were when you were [insert whatever age you are now]. Your body is older, yes, and you've experienced things that your younger self hadn't -- and some of those experiences may have changed your beliefs in important ways -- but you're still the same person and your tastes are still evolving and fluctuating and being influenced by other people in exactly the same way that they always have been. If you're participating in fandom, you're fully aware of fandom's current values and preoccupations, its current dos and don'ts (though your longer term perspective may mean you find yourself less inclined to conform to certain trends).

I've noticed people criticising Dark-and-Edginess on F!S, and I'm not sure I know what they're referring to. To me, the defining quality of popular fanfic is its 'cosiness'. This is something I've spent a lot of time analysing and attempting to pin down, and it's elusive, but it has something to do with the describing of events (good or bad) in a level of detail and using language that makes them seem 'safe', and I'm convinced it's the instinctive ability to write like this that makes a BNF a BNF...

tweed, you? :)

Tbf I was talking about people's enjoying certain types of media, not about their writing mediocre fanfiction (they may be writing great things for all I know). Mine was a pretty specific theory pertaining to various demographics' relationships with wish-fulfillment fantasies.

But it was idle theorizing more than anything else, since I've not enough knowledge to make a satisfactory conclusion either way, and this

>but you're still the same person and your tastes are still evolving and fluctuating and being influenced by other people in exactly the same way that they always have been.

IS a strong argument. So I certainly am not about to insist my interpretation's correct.

>I've noticed people criticising Dark-and-Edginess on F!S, and I'm not sure I know what they're referring to.

Well, again, I was not talking fanfiction and I do think that the Darker and Edgier trope is not a popular fanfiction technique; it is much more common in original media. Twilight being a notable example. BBC Sherlock, too, to a certain extent.

As to your ideas in regards to the BNF status, I'm not sure I know what you mean, but if it is 'safe' as in 'non-threatening to the reader because [the events] seem right and natural the expected narrative development-wise', then I agree? I mean, fans do so like it when fanfiction takes them in the direction they anticipate - not in terms of plot, mind, people like it when plots are surprising - but in terms of mood, characterizations, and in part, style.

It does sound like a complex concept, anyway, and one it'd be interesting to explore.

[ SECRET POST #2707 ]

Re: Twilight's not really my fandom, but...

Re: Twilight's not really my fandom, but...