Oh my god

[jmtorres]

I cannot fix all the badfic and I should tamp down hard on the desire to TRY. Like, that one wasn't even badly written, it just could have been more interesting with a slightly different premise, and it was off a kinkmeme so you fill what you get asked, I get that.

AND I DID NOT NEED SLAVE!TONY IN MY HEAD ASKING FOR A BETTER STORY FML

ETA: Other things that freak me out about fanfiction: horrifying Tony with Steve/Howard. And like, the weird thing is, I'm pretty sure, based on the whole Carter legacy, that if Steve had slept with Howard it would turn him into an obsessed creepface about Tony, but I don't get the sense that fandom is drawing that parallel, I think fandom is just having its own personal id all over everything creepface issues. (I SAY THIS WITH LOVE. I AM NOT JUDGING YOUR CREEPFACE. MUCH.)

On the other hand, I think it would be really hilarious to horrify STEVE with Tony knowing about Steve/Howard. It was just one of those things--Dad bagged Captain America. (I am imagining Tony got told as a teenager when he started sleeping with boys and Howard was like "You think this is a rebellion? Let me tell you about my boyfriends, trust me, you're not rebelling against anything here," and frankly, Steve is HORRIFIED that the tale of their LOVE got used this way. Tony is like, "Whatever, I was pretty horrible as a teenager, I probably deserved it." Ahahaha, oh Tony, as a teenager you were horrible. Yes.)

Comments

Re: the nature of fannish porn

[jmtorres]

Because what's SO HOT unf unf unf is not just the characters, it's what your brain produces about them. As a writer I feel like I'm putting a piece of my id on display when I write porn (and if I don't, I feel like I'm writing IKEA porn).

Re: the nature of fannish porn

[jackandahat]

(All of this comment is about me. When I say "lazy writing" I am talking about my own experience, not accusing anyone else of being lazy)

I'm finding this fascinating because a couple of my fics that are other people's favourites are ones where I went "OK, I really don't do this (kink), but...". Because I had to get into the character's head and find out exactly what *they* found hot about it, whereas if they're doing something I know all about then yeah, it's probably a little lazier writing because it's more on the surface.

For example - I wrote a hand-feeding snippet. I really don't do that, I have issues with food, I'm still a little surprised I kept my brain at arm's length long enough to write it. But for those 20 minutes or whatever, it didn't matter that I didn't like it - I had to get in the boy's head and work out why he liked it, why it was so wonderful from his POV. And that came out on paper, and it's all him. More recently I did a bit involving gloryholes, I Do Not Get It... and yet it got a tonne of appreciative comments, because it worked for the character.

So writing stuff that's not about my ID seems to produce more interesting porn. Again, comes back to "Look how different people's experiences are", which is what's fascinating.

Re: the nature of fannish porn

[krait]

Your experiences seem more parallel to mine -- I get favourable responses when I'm writing something that doesn't appeal to me, and writingwise I mostly regard kinkmemes as a source of challenges in varying levels of difficulty, rather than the satisfaction of a personal desire.

Re: the nature of fannish porn

[jackandahat]

Yeah - I read kinkmemes looking for my kind of thing (not in a "searching porn to turn me on" way, just looking for things I enjoy) but I read the prompts looking for something new.