DPP: You Give Fic A Bad Name

[kl-shipper1.livejournal.com]

Hello, fellow pilots shippers! I'm kl_shipper1 and I'll be driving the DPP bus this week. This is my first time leading this thing, so bear with me.

I've been around fandoms long enough to see that there are certain genres of fic that have a reputation for being badfic-- for example, babyfic and songfic. So, my question for you all today is:

Why do these types of fic automatically get such a bad reputation? Is this the case in the BSG fandom? With pilots fic?

(Also, feel free to rec some fics that you feel are examples of these genres done well.)

Comments

[deborah-judge.livejournal.com]

I think babyfics get a bad reputation because there's a stereotype that they go something like: relationship problem + baby = problem solved. Which is a silly and also somewhat dangerous way of thinking about having children. Having said that, while I believe people when they say fics like that exist, I've never actually read any in this part of fandom. embolalia and kag523 have written babyfics that go more like: relationship problems + baby = MORE PROBLEMS! Which I like.

I think songfics get a bad reputation because music is so personal, and a song that feels deep to one person can feel WTF to another, or they might not recognize the song at all, so referencing a particular song might not have the desired effect on most readers. Having said that, I do fairly frequently write fics inspired by songs, and it seems to work fine if I pick the right song. But I find actual song lyrics in the story or as dialogue difficult to pull off well, unless you're very subtle about it. Or, y'know, writing the end of season 3.

[kl-shipper1.livejournal.com]

I think babyfics get a bad reputation because there's a stereotype that they go something like: relationship problem + baby = problem solved.

Definitely this. It's almost backwards in a way, because pilots (with all their baggage and problems) would = even more problems. It doesn't work often because so many people just use this as a magical handwave to make all the issues they don't want to solve go away.

I see what you mean about songfics. I think people try to use the lyrics as a crutch or to make their story seem longer and more substantial than it actually is. Often, my fics are also inspired by songs/song lyrics, but I think you're better off with inspiration rather than having them physically there.

[callmeonetrack.livejournal.com]

My problem with babyfic for Kara and Lee is that there are only really two ways to write it: 1) AU/far future and fairly sweet/fluffy or 2) in-canon-times and really angsty.

Within canon, it's very difficult to write anything but the standard recipe: Kara accidentally gets preggers, is horrified at the thought of having a bb, can't kill it because it's Lee's, has the kid and feels great love but fear that she'll hurt it because of her mom, pushes Lee away in the midst of it all, then eventually she comes around for a happy ending with both baby and Lee. Almost all in-canon babyfic for them follows a variation of this, so it kind of bores me/is not my favorite.

Plus, even after Kacey, Kara in mom mode is not my preferred format.

I haven't seen very much songfic in BSG fandom at all, at least not the kind where someone writes a few lyrics of song, then a paragraph of fic, then more lyrics, etc. etc. And we have a lot of great writers so when there is a song inspiring a fic, it's usually pretty good.

[kl-shipper1.livejournal.com]

Almost all in-canon babyfic for them follows a variation of this, so it kind of bores me/is not my favorite.

Yeah, after a while that very formulaic approach gets tiring and seems to lessen the story because it's not original anymore.

I've also seen some people try to combine 1 & 2 to get sweet/fluffy, in-canon-times babyfic, which is what I think triggers a lot of the aversion to BSG babyfic. When authors try to do that, Kara and Lee stop coming off like them themselves (because when would it ever be that easy between the two of them), and the stories end up very OOC and become examples of babyfic = badfic. But of course that's not always the case-- there are many excellent fics that are babyfics as well as the not-so-good fics.

[kl-shipper1.livejournal.com]

Very true. I think that's why when I read a lot of those stories, pilots seem very OOC, Kara in particular. All I can think about is how something like this never would have happened in the show because Kara had always made her thoughts concerning children very clear, and she wouldn't have such a complete change of mind that quickly.

I have seen good babyfic, but every one I can think of involved a long, angsty road where Kara and Lee had to deal with their own individual and joint issues (kag523's Si Vis Amari comes to mind). I get irrated when authors try to jump over the hard work and get to the happy ending, which ends up separating their characters from the ones I love. It's a slippery slope, but it can be done.

[n-e-star.livejournal.com]

The thing with baby fic - in any fandom - is the danger that the story becomes all about the baby and not about the character that people are interested in.

[kl-shipper1.livejournal.com]

Good point. Like I've said before, it also irks me when people change the characters in order to make it seem like a situation these characters would actually find themselves in, instead of a situation the author wants them to be in, but is not true to the characters at all. Often, these two things come hand in hand, and it's usually a recipe for disaster.

[rayruz.livejournal.com]

I completely get that... it was an issue I tried to tackle when I wrote my babyfic... which was more of a psychological fix-it on how Kara's NewCap trauma was never dealt with.

[callmeonetrack.livejournal.com]

Oddly, in BSG fic, I find that the baby is not really that important ever. They're just a place holder for K/L to work out whatever issues they usually have.

And, well I guess that's not that common, because babies don't really have any personality yet or anything when they're babies. Unless they are Hera, THE GREAT HYBRID HOPE, etc. etc.

[apodixis.livejournal.com]

Oh baby!fic... I have a love/hate relationship with them, but I will reiterate some earlier sentiments by other people that most of what I've seen in the BSG universe handles it pretty well. I think in some other fandoms you get much younger writers and their fics get painted in the light they see it.

I have my own baby!fic in the works but honestly I've been completely holding back because I know how people usually receive it, and I don't want it to just be "ugh another crappy baby!fic with the same ideas." Whether I'll ever actually post it or not...I don't know.

[rachelmack.livejournal.com]

I don't know about everyone else, but I hate babyfic in general because, at the sociological level, it caters to (and reinforces) that saccharine patriarchal assumption of having babies/family as the ultimate life-goal and/or the only source of TRUE happiness. Pilots are in love, sure, but they're not going to be TRULY HAPPY until they have Little Pilots (with her hair and his eyes and his brains and her bravery), no matter how out of character it is. I particularly resent the implication that Kara needs to "soften" herself, with being a mommy (gag) to become "whole" and/or "healed." The general impulse to de-badass Starbuck - Viper Jock and defender of humanity extraordinaire - and shove her barefoot and pregnant into the kitchen (proverbially) against her oft-stated will gives me hives.

Women are individuals, and not all aspire to motherhood, and forcing characters into that kind of box against their almost necessarily leads to bad fic.

[wicked-sassy.livejournal.com]

THIS. You are fabulous, rachelmack!

[rayruz.livejournal.com]

....what about women who have all sorts of life aspirations but STILL WANT BABIES.

Seriously. I have gotten weird looks from telling women I want to be a mom. Babyfic caters to this interest in my life. So yes, it's like a little wish fulfillment.

ETA: Your argument about babyfic is like saying writing hetfic in general reinforces the homophobic assumption of a heteronormative society.

[anamarya.livejournal.com]

The general impulse to de-badass Starbuck - Viper Jock and defender of humanity extraordinaire - and shove her barefoot and pregnant into the kitchen (proverbially) against her oft-stated will

I'm sorry but this image just made me laugh because is so absurdly not Starbuck.

[requialexa.livejournal.com]

Babyfic in the hands of these talented authors tends to be a lot more interesting than elsewhere. I think most of you, as evidenced above, are not fond of it, so when the babyfic muse comes calling, I can trust that something interesting may ensue :)

I think pregancy scares are common to a lot of fans and it is interesting to toy withhow Kara would handle it. I also believe that some writers may have felt changed in majors ways themselves...also at times by an unplanned or unwanted pregnancy, and again may be intrigued with exploring how Pilots might handle these basic biological issues. Y'all are some talented folk & with very few exceptions, I've been pleased when I've muscled past the gag reflex & read some babyfics :)

A thought that just occured to me whilst read this discussion may trigger violence, but I'd never had this thought before I read so many of you saying that "Kara doesn't want kids!" Is it possible that she protests too much? Or maybe otoh, she knows herself well enough to know things like wanting to be loved or wanting to fix your own childhood are not valid reasons to have kids? In other words, perhaps a young, less abused Kara did want to bear children, but now she knows the stats & it's the end of the world so of course she abhors the idea. In my experience it is rarely a black & white issue. Just wondering if maybe that's why the various muses may cling to this trope...

[rayruz.livejournal.com]

"Kara doesn't want kids!" Is it possible that she protests too much?

...she also says she doesn't have any feelings for Lee, guys. :P Kara likes to push away. She also talks to Lee about kids right before trying to bang him in Scar.

[callmeonetrack.livejournal.com]

Just wanted to say how awesome I think you all are for rationally, respectfully and thoughtfully carrying on this potentially flame-worthy discussion.

Carry on, badasses and nurturers and badass nurturers!

[rayruz.livejournal.com]

We're a lovely shipper nation.

[scifishipper.livejournal.com]

I'm reading this post and feeling pretty bad for the writers of baby!fic and the readers who love it. Wanting to see Kara have a child is not about denying Kara her right to her free will. By writing ANYTHING AT ALL non-canon about her (dialogue, feelings, situations, etc.) a writer already taking her over in her work. Once that is done, a writer can do anything she choose. Will it be OOC according to some? Maybe. Does it mean that the writer is denying the free will of a fictional character? I doubt it. Unless one stays strictly canon, we are always taking over her voice/actions/feelings for our own purposes.

Writers write the things they love, the things they want to see in their heart of hearts. I'm certainly not going to judge them or call them anti-feminist - that in and of itself defies the modern definition of feminism. Women can want and express themselves in any damn way they choose.

If they love baby!fic and want to see Kara Thrace with fifteen children, so frakking be it. Why do we care? They're not forcing anyone to do the same, nor are they insisting the every woman should have children. They are portraying THEIR version of a favorite character in a different way that fulfills their writing purpose.

Kudos to the baby!fic and marriage!fic and infidelity!fic and Karaneverdies!fic writers. It's all interpretation and fiction.

Write what you want people. Haters to the left.

[rayruz.livejournal.com]

I love you but your sentence about 15 kids makes my uterus hurt.

[pennyante.livejournal.com]

My question is: what might make babyfic palatable for those of us for whom it's not our usual cup of tea?

For me, some things are crucial:
--Lee doesn't want children, either, Kara's or otherwise. Any story where he does, and readily, it takes me some time to buy it.
--There's no story in which Kara meekly acquiesces to anti-abortion laws that I can buy into. Even if she wanted children, she'd be half-inclined to get an abortion if they told her she "couldn't".
--I think babyfic is interesting *because* it's a biological possibility that's all but impossible to reconcile with Kara's whole being. That irreconcilability is also what's frustrating about reading it.

This is the thing: BSG's image of motherhood is really frakked up. The paragons Socrata and Carolanne aside, Six's compulsive need for baby-making as a signal of being loved, and both Sharon and Cally's obsessive clutchiness with their babies... Let's not even talk about how Gianne is presented to us as an ethereal entity utterly defined as a baby-conceiver, or what Laura Roslin does to all women alive with her Whiteboard of Female Subjugation (in which unavoidable childbirth is a cause of celebration). Why was maternity so orthodox and patriarchal, when other things were so egalitarian? Well: because they lifted their ideal of motherhood from *our* culture, right?

So then I think, maybe an indication of a different system of raising children would make babyfic better? There's nothing grimmer than Helo/Sharon/Hera trapped in a tiny room, a cozy one-family household (to say nothing of Cally/Chief/Nicholas, which was the saddest spectre in the whole show and a great advertisement for feminist education and liberal abortion laws). Motherhood that doesn't steal your sense of self might go a long way to changing how I'd greet a baby in babyfic. Because what is Kara afraid of, if not that she can't handle the particularly taxing kind of responsibility that mothers in her world are believed to owe their children (and which her mother very definitely couldn't handle, either)?

What if a babyfic changed/lowered how much we expected of mothers?

[scifishipper.livejournal.com]

There's a lot here to tackle, so I'll just pull out a few:

1) Sharon and Cally's obsessive clutchiness with their babies
I find this portrayal to be quite accurate given the intensely traumatic nature of Cally and Sharon's experiences in the show. Sharon had her child forcibly taken from her by people she trusted. That would make even the most reasonable parent clutchy and possessive. And Cally's entire family, like everyone else's, had been annihilated by the cylons, and people, her friends, died nearly every single day, not to mention the child prostitution ring on the Prometheus, and the other forms of abuse that undoubtedly existed in the Fleet under these horrific conditions. I would certainly expect any parent to hold their child obsessively close. That seems very true to human nature.

If anything, I'd say that BSG shied away from the true horror of what they cylon devastation did to children in the Fleet, particularly children old enough to understand but not rational enough to cope. Adults themselves, let alone children were undoubtedly traumatized in a way that would engender such clutchiness. They would likely do anything to keep their children safe and that would include necessary over-protectiveness.

2) ideal of motherhood
I'm not exactly sure what this means, but I saw no ideal parenting at all. No one was really functioning in healthy ways - their cultural trauma had forever changed them. Do I agree that there are hints of "ideals" based on what we didn't see? Sure. And yes, they were pulled from our society, but I don't get the sense that any female/woman/feminist issues were well-handled in the show. It was primarily written by men and by the fourth season, there were no women in the writer's room. I would expect their characterizations to be off.

3) What if a babyfic changed/lowered how much we expected of mothers?
I think this is an excellent topic to explore in baby!fic. Why does Kara have to lament about having a child? Why can't she embrace it. On the flip-side, why does she have to become a good parent? What if she were a decent parent who made normal mistakes and struggled with her mistakes by overcompensating or making more? What if she did carry on the abuse? Not physically, but emotionally? What if she was a parent who drank too much or made serious mistakes. What if she wasn't eventually patient or sweet, but was still cranky and temperamental and her best looked a lot less like June Cleaver? Those are all super-realistic themes of parenting that ordinary baby!fluff fic does not generally explore. Those are themes I'd like to see.

ETA: I would also add that there is a deleted scene from Scar where Lee does say he thinks about having children. I disagree that he doesn't want them. I think it's something we're never quite sure about from strictly canon sources.

[anamarya.livejournal.com]

Well, after all that's been said there isn't really that much to add. But, I'll say (probably not for the first time) that I read some good fics with babies in them. IDK if it's right to call them baby!fics since not the whole plot revolved around the baby and all but they had a kid - Lee's or Kara's or you know - their kid and they were good.

There are some bad fics out there but like somebody else already said they are bad because they're bad not necesarly because they're baby!fics. it's the same story like with OC's. There are very-very good ones and some that are just making me scream in horror.

So, a big NO fro me. Baby!fic is not bad!fic. badly written (especially plot wise) fic is bad!fic. and on this subject one thing that I don't like in this type of fics is when they are just randomly sleep together ONCE, while they are still active pilots (and theoretically protected by shots and all) and the miracle happens and Kara get's pregnant. btw, she is so out of touch with her own body that she doesn't realize this until she is like 5 months along and faints (very soap-opera style) in the middle of the hangar or something. and then she tries to convince Cottle not to say anything to anybody and to let her still fly. But after she is giving birth she has no need to fly or fight or anything, she just wants to stay with the kid and cook or something. REALLY?

[angelicalangie.livejournal.com]

1) Why does bad fic automatically wind up being solely about kid/baby!fic?

I am near certain there are other types of fic that are bad, bad porn for instance - I mean I could really do with pointers on what people couldn't stand reading and what to avoid.

But to be honest I have seen nearly 110 comments on the patriarchal subjugation of women into the barefoot and pregnant paradigm.

2) Why have we, as writers, focused solely on something that is rarely written, when there are so many places where fic goes bad? (Man, "when fic goes bad" It needs to be its own TV show!)

[kl-shipper1.livejournal.com]

I am near certain there are other types of fic that are bad

There are, and I think that got lost as the discussion turned away from fic. Originally those two genres were only given as examples for the question. They were the first two that came to mind, but I wasn't intending to limit the discussion to those two just because I mentioned them. But what's done is done...

[deborah-judge.livejournal.com]

Weighing in belatedly with a few thoughts, since I've been thinking about this thread all night:

1. I've written babyfic - which I won't link here, because it's not Kara/Lee - but the purpose was definitely not to make Kara happy, it was to put her in a really untenable emotional situation and see how she handles it. Like I keep saying, making characters happy is really not a high priority for me when I write.

Having said that, when I try to think about what *would* make Kara happy, I'm struck by how very far away she is in canon from anything that would remotely look like a happy ending. I think that leaves a lot of room for creativity in how to get her there.

2. I think if we avoided genres that can lead to patriarchal tropes there would be precious few genres left to write. Like Rachel said upthread, patriarchy is in the air we breathe. But I actually don't know if particular genres are more prone to patriarchy-supporting narratives than others. It might be more that if it's a genre we like we're more inclined to cut it slack, or to focus on the things we like about it, or to see its potential for subversion. My genre of choice, creepy dubcon, certainly can seem patriarchy-supporting to people who aren't into it, but because I love it like chocolate it's really easy for me to see how it is just the perfect genre for me to write in a feminist way. But I do really think that if you're aware and thinking about how gender works in your stories there are opportunities to bring that awareness into really any genre. (And yeah, like rayruz said above, something still might still get in because writers are human and you can't control for every way that anyone might possibly read anything you write and please let's not be too hard on each other.)

[shinyfab.livejournal.com]

First off, I want to say how much I loved reading through everyone's comments about babyfic, society, etc. I found it wonderful that this comm can argue without becoming an internet bloodbath. Also, I agree with some of the latest comments - badfic is badfic. I've read bad porn, angst, kid/baby, marriage, comfort, hurt, blah, blah, blah. Since I don't feel like I can expand much more on some of these things, I'm just going to give why I read it.

I will say that I have read and enjoyed good babyfic, even some of the fluffy kid stuff. Why? Because sometimes I enjoy reading smut (I define this broadly: fluff kidfic, People magazine) I know are highly unlikely to happen in real life (yours, mine, the characters). And sometimes I like to read it because some good authors have dealt with some of the difficulties of reconciling Kara's abusive past and the possible future with a child. That kind of fic - I read that somewhat for therapy. I can relate to Kara's dilemma in those. The deal is, we all read fic for a reason. Whether it's one certain kind or a broad swathe. We all enjoy working situations over as writers and readers.