Anonymeme: Look into My Id

[snick_backup]

The above title should be read in a suitably faux-German sort of voice.

penny_lane_42 recently wrote an intriguing post on id!fic. Basically, id!fic is fic that may or may not be reasonable, logical, in-character, or in any way good story, but that you eat up with a spoon anyway. So like narrative kink, only more so.

(For another fabulous post on fanfic and The Id (or at least a pop culture bastardization thereof) see ellen_fremedon's classic essay on slash, shamelessness, and the id vortex.)

Now, some writers embrace their id and write it all out there, and that can be a fabulous thing. Self-awareness FTW. But often when I'm reading a fic I find myself wanting to tap the author and say, "Pardon me, did you know your id is showing?"

So, a couple of us got to wondering what our fics revealed about us. Hence this anonymeme. Are our ids showing?

The Rules:
1. Comment as yourself, with your name/LJ-handle in the title of the comment
2. Link others to your link
3. Comment anonymously on others' ids, as revealed in your fic
4. Play nice!

ETA: Or, yanno, not so anonymous. Sign in or no; either is fine.

Comments

Re: Eowyn_315

[snickfic]

Yanno, I got nothing. You definitely have a Spuffy kink a mile wide, but we already knew that. And I'm fairly positive that passionate commitment to canon is not actually a kink.

Hmm...

Re: Eowyn_315

[next_to_normal]

See! Told you my id was broken...

I think it might be that the passionate commitment to canon rules out any kind of kink that might be id!fic, y'know? Because it's all gotta be reasonable, logical, and in-character if I'm going to like it. Even Spuffy - I obviously ship them like woah, but I'm still pretty picky about what I like to read. Id!fic, it would seem, suggests that I'd read it no matter how bad, as long as it hits my kink, which is not the case.

Re: Eowyn_315

[snickfic]

I think it might be that the passionate commitment to canon rules out any kind of kink that might be id!fic, y'know? Because it's all gotta be reasonable, logical, and in-character if I'm going to like it.

I think you might be right. Makes sense to me, anyway. Darn you and your over-civilized tastes!

Re: Eowyn_315

[next_to_normal]

*sigh*

Sorry. I will try to be less of a buzzkill.

Interesting observation, though - my early fic was MUCH more iddy, IMO. This is the stuff that never got posted, mainly because I later thought it was extremely silly. But my initial instincts were much more in line with the collective fandom id (happy endings for Spuffy, fixing all the bad things like DT or "Chosen"). I'm not sure whether that shift is indicative of me becoming more civilized, or just more cynical, lol, but over time I have realized that I don't want those things at all.

Re: Eowyn_315

[snickfic]

I think cynicism might have something to do with it, plus just more exposure to fandom. After a while, a person just gets to be a harder sell for all the same old fannish tropes. (Or at least some people do. Some people don't, it seems, judging from what gets recced by some of the old-timers.)

Re: Eowyn_315

[next_to_normal]

Yeah. I think the general trend is that you gobble up every fic you can find when you first come into fandom. And then once you've satisfied that initial need, and you've realized how much is out there, you start to be more discerning in what you'll read. For some people, the first fics they read are still the best in their minds... but if you've ever gone back and read something you loved five years ago, it often isn't as good as you remembered it.