fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #2895 ]

[ SECRET POST #2895 ]

⌈ Secret Post #2895 ⌋

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

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 03 pages, 062 secrets from Secret Submission Post #414.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I made this secret because of a debate over the importance of kinks in fic exchange letters. The subtext of some of the arguments was that the letters should leave as much room as possible for the writers to include their personal kinks in the fics--sexual kinks, not narrative ones. Of course, many people disagreed with that, but no one seemed to bring up the possibility that a letter might specify that the recipient wanted gen *and no shipping or smutty fic whatsoever.* In other words, a fic exchange letter that said "I don't like slash/het/femslash/threesomes" would receive warmer reception that one that said "I don't want fic that involves any sexual situations whatsoever." I even asked the primary inspiration for this secret what to say if we didn't want anyone to write sexually explicit fanfic for us, and they didn't answer my question. They addressed my other queries but not that one. So, while I never perceived a stigma against requesting gen per se, I got the impression that most people who participated in Yuletide did not want to be told that their recipients would be unhappy with shipping and/or smut.

The problem isn't that the source materials I'm most interested in lack gen fic; there's plenty of that, and I certainly don't feel oppressed, heavens no. But I do feel outnumbered by people whose main interests in fanfic are pairings, kinks, and bedroom power dynamics.

It is almost always the case. People's default mindset is often "fanfiction is for shipping". But it doesn't mean that the particular writer you'll be assigned to would hate to write gen.

Besides, I really don't think you should care. The whole point of Yuletide is for you to get fic that you want (and to endeavour to write a quality work for your recipient). If everyone involved started thinking as to what would be "the good thing to request", we'd have so much less Yule fic diversity.

The subtext of some of the arguments was that the letters should leave as much room as possible for the writers to include their personal kinks in the fics--sexual kinks, not narrative ones.

That...makes me feel very uneasy. People have as much right to dislike or be squicked by kinks as they do to have those kinks, and it shouldn't be anathema for them to request that certain things not be included in a story.

Anyway, I'm gonna echo what others have said a little bit here and say you should go for it and request gen, anyway. It's what you want, and it's your request to make.

(Also, I totally have that wallpaper...)

AYRT

Sorry, I was really rude in my comment. I just have this friend who keeps hating on shipping and how nobody writes gen and she doesn't get that and all those shippers are stupid and as someone who likes both gen and shipping, it's pretty jarring to hear that all the time. I'm also super tired. So... yeah, I'm sorry. I understand that it's frustrating and I shouldn't have assumed what was going on in that Yuletide.

Thanks you! I wasn't offended by what you said, but I appreciate that you apologized.

*Thank you, that is.

I sympathize. The one year I did Yuletide I was pretty active in the chat, and while it was a welcoming and fun place virtually the only thing anyone would ever talk about regarding their writing was "This is gonna be so hot and kinky!"

Really?

I got the impression that Yuletide had a higher than usual amount of gen compared to the rest of fandom, but then I mostly live on kink memes.

Perhaps it's just the kinky writers that were in the chats. Gen writers might be a more reserved bunch and prefer to talk more on their own journals.

AYRT

Perhaps it's just the kinky writers that were in the chats.

This is what I figured after the fact when the vast majority of the fics that came out were gen or non-porny romance, but at the time it was, as someone else phrased it, off-putting.

I could see why that would be really off-putting.

I would find that off-putting even if I were writing hot kinky fics myself, actually.

It's for other people to judge the hotness of my fics. It's a bit like people who like to remind others that they're really good looking when it's entirely subjective and something each person can really judge for themselves.

AYRT

That part I didn't mind, since a big part of the Yulechat was cheerleading yourself and others and keeping your spirits up so you actually write the damn thing and have fun with it. It was a situation where informing others of your greatness was part of the atmosphere.

If you like Supernatural fandom, every summer there is a 'spnsummer_gen' challenge, all gen only gen. It's one of my favorite challenges.

I got the impression that most people who participated in Yuletide did not want to be told that their recipients would be unhappy with shipping and/or smut.

But it was just an impression of yours. Actually, several people on this thread have said that in the past they've been advised to make their shippy Yuletide prompts more gen-friendly (have a "gen-out").

Most of the talk in fic exchanges will be about shippy fics because that's the majority of fics in fandom. I don't think it's any more complicated than that.

Of course some of your gen queries are likely to go unanswered, if you ask several of them at once, as you say you did. It's easy to miss something.

Having said that, I understand that it never feels nice to be outnumbered and have to raise your voice just to get your basic questions answered, especially when they aren't relevant to most of the other participants and it feels awkward asking in the first place.

"letters should leave as much room as possible for the writers to include their personal kinks in the fics letters should leave as much room as possible for the writers to include their personal kinks in the fics"

Wow, do I disagree with whoever is making that argument: I hope I'm not in the minority?

To me, when you write a story FOR someone, your primary touchstone should be what the recipient wants, not what you want. Granted, Yuletide has always stressed that "optional details are optional," and recipients sometimes don't give much to go on (in which case the writer can do as they prefer), but when a clear preference is stated that the writer can't/doesn't want to fulfill, then they need to back out as soon as possible and let someone else take over.

Edited 2014-12-07 01:37 (UTC)

But there's a difference between "no sexual situations" and gen, which is generally defined as "not about romantic relationships." You can have romantic relationships that never progress beyond gazing into each other's eyes, or situations where there is sexual activity but no relationship (Merry Month of Masturbation, I'm looking at you.)

(There is the further debate of whether that means not even a casual mention of secondary characters dating, or just that the main focus of the fic is on something that's not a romantic and/or sexual relationship.)

Eh. Maybe it's because I'm a fandom old-timer, but this idea that "gen" can have sex in it is a fairly new one. At least in my experience. And I suspect a lot of gen fans would agree (there was a fairly lively discussion over this a couple of years ago in the sga_genficathon). I doubt many gen fans would consider any MMOM fics gen, just by definition.

My experience (in Stargate fandom) was that the definition of gen evolved kind of like this. It used to mean "for general audiences", i.e. nothing explicit. But it could include romantic relationships as long as there was nothing explicit. And then along the way, because there was a lot of people who objected to Jack/Sam in particular and didn't want that in their fic even without the smut, gen sort of evolved into no romantic relationships at all, but also kept the original "no explicit scenes" meaning. Over the last couple of years (that ficathon was the first time I'd run into it) I've seen this idea that "gen" is just about the relationships and not about the explicitness of the fic, but I'm wondering how widespread it's become. Because I suspect that if you wrote a porny fic for a gen request and then said it was "gen" because there were no relationships in it, I think you'd still be side-eyed by a fair number of gen fans. But I don't know. Fandom evolves quickly - maybe things have changed.

What if it's a gen hurt/comfort fic in which one character gets explicitly raped, and the focus is on the victim's (platonic) friend helping him to recover from it? I would call that gen, even if it has a "sex" scene.

And how about brief sex scenes between a main character and a canon established spouse/girlfriend/boyfriend in fics that focus on an ensemble, or the friendship between two characters. Or where there's a sex scene between two characters who aren't part of any popular ship, or who are a background couple, or one of them is a one-off character, that are important to the story for characterization, but the relationship between the characters having the sex is really not important to the fic? I would call that gen in most cases -- though I would label it with the pairing too.

But yeah, it's a little iffy. For example, if there was a BtVS season 5 story that's mostly about the changes in Buffy, Xander and Willow's friendship, but also includes a Xander/Anya sex scene or a Willow/Tara sex scene sex scene as part of the author's way of showing that they have these romantic relationships that take time away from their friendship with each other, but the whole point of the story is about showing that even with changes, their friendship is still strong -- I would say that would be gen, not het or femslash, because those are canon ships that are just kind of part of the characters' lives.

But a season 6 fic with the exact same plot that also has a Buffy/Spike sex scene might be better labeled het, just because Buffy/Spike is a Big Deal that's all in flux and controversial and has rival ships, rather than a stable and established part of the canon.

I would not call a fic that had any kind of explicit sex scene "gen". But then, as I said, I'm old school. Gen to me means no sex. Now the level of romantic relationships that may be included is up for debate (background, canon pairings, non-canon pairings), but the sex is not. But that's me.

And in the BtVS scenario, why does there have to be sex scenes to establish that the pairing is together? There can be scenes that establish that without showing the sex. I would not call a White Collar fic that was primarily about Peter and Neal's friendship but had a sex scene between Peter and El a "gen" fic. You don't need a sex scene to establish that background relationship.

I guess I see the rating of a fic (which can be about whether or not it has sex, but should also reflect things like violence level, profanity, and adult concepts) as completely unrelated to whether or not the fic itself is about pairings.

Which can get confusing in some fandom spaces because the term Gen can mean "General Audiences" which is a ratings term as, well as being a descriptive term for a fic which does not focus on romantic relationships.

I mean (taking sex out of the picture for the moment) a fic about a character being gruesomely tortured to death in great on-screen detail wouldn't be Gen in the "General Audiences" sense, but as long as the victim's significant other isn't the one racing to their rescue (or doing the torturing) it would be Gen in the "not a shipfic" sense.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ SECRET POST #2895 ]

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