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]

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.)