Rant O'Writing and Two Memes

You know the quality of fanfic is rather bad when you're happy to read a rather mediocre one and even encourages the writer somewhat. Sigh. Or maybe my standards are too high. Of course, I used to write crap too, with multiple exclamation marks and all. Shudder. At least I have improved - or so I like to think. It's funny how much writing can reflect who you are and how you grow. I read my old stuff and get a sense of how I was when younger (a whiny brat, yes). I read my own stuff now and look into my own mind. I can sometimes be a stranger to myself. Funny that.

But to get back to fanfics - the thing about mediocre fanfic is that you read it and hope for improvement (whereas badfic you read to see how bad it gets), almost willing the author to improve. At least I do. I feel like I'm cheerleading from the sides, so happy it's not awful, given how much crap I read. (But one's mediocre fic is another's horrid GAFF sometimes, of course.) And mediocre fics are easier to review for me than the brilliant ones - with mediocre I can pick on the areas that need improvement as well as what I liked, but with brilliant stories I feel like a praising idiot. (It's my Norwegian aversion to give compliments, I think. I mean, in Norway, "not bad" can be considered a fairly good compliment. We're such an odd people sometimes.)

But then, we all use reviews for different things, don't we? Sometimes, it seems some just use them to comment on the stories, some just use it to say "I'm here", some to get their own reviews and some seem to manage to use reviews to say nothing at all. I'm always grateful for reviews, yes, but sometimes I do want to hold up a blinking neon sign with "AND YOUR POINT WAS?" It's spam in review form. And Cam does not much care for spam.

Maybe that's why fanfic writers can be such a wanky bunch sometimes and fandom is such a minefield. We all bring such different ideas of what it should be, what reviews should be and what standards it should be held to with us that it is walking on slippery ice. Sooner or later you slip. I guess learning to laugh at yourself when you're on your ass is the way to keep sane in it all.

And now, for your laughing pleasure, Thug!Cam. Check our my patriotic hat (gift from lotus79 - pic was taken in Brisbane by her almost two years ago) and general air of wanting to stomp on Gits. I swear it should come with "I Thug for my Fandom".

One meme 'o writing and one o'icons.

1. Comment and I'll pick one or two of your lj interests and write you a drabble.
2. You have no say as to what I write for you or as to how much it will suck.

Nicked from gehayi
I love looking at people's icons, but I don't always *get* them - I often wonder stuff like, "Who's that guy?" or "Where's that quote from?" but I tend not to ask, for various reasons. So come on, here are my icons. Pick one (or more!) you're curious about, and I'll try to explain it. Or at least explain what I like about it.

The Horrors of Badfic Discovery for Your 'Ship and Cam on Rape in Fanfic

So you're having a fairly good day, writing a bit, reading a bit, chatting a bit, idly ogling if hot men appears. And then you decide to read a little fanfic as you have the time and all, and you've been thinking about leaving some encouraging reviews ever since you posted about reviews just a few hours earlier. As you idly scan ff.net's listing of CSI fic, you are unaware of the doom about to hit you smack in the ass. Then you spot it, a fic speaking of rape in its summary. And though you sense pain even from the uncapitalised title, you click anyway (because clearly, you hate yourself and like pain).

And you find a fic with Catherine being raped by Warrick and scream as the full horror besets you. Someone has in fact mutilated your 'ship and cruelly beaten up grammar and spelling in a fell swoop. Then you hiss. Very loudly. And go on a Viking rampage.

All right. Rape appears in fanfics every so often. I've even been guilty of writing one such thing, when I was younger and wangstier. And there are ways to do it right. But rape, serious rape in serious fics,* should never just be:

Cheap ploy for (w)angst.
Just another way of getting two people together.
Way to demonize potential threat to your particular OTP.
Way to show how "eeeeeeeeeeeeeevil" a "Villain" is.
Shock!Factor.
Redemption for rapist and twu wub at the end.

Rapists sometimes seem like very nice people and quite normal. This is true. But that doesn't mean that any descent and nice guy is a potential rapist. Furthermore, rape is a trauma. No healing sex will cure it. Rape is a violation of body, but bodily scars is not all it leaves. It can take years to get over mentally, if at all.

There is freedom of speech, yes,and you may write about what you like (more or less) but that's also the freedom to sometimes be considerate, for smeg's sake.

Thus ends Cam's Viking Rampage. Return next week to see her beat up Bush with an axe's handle. (Honestly, she should really be used to such horrific discoveries after years in the LotR fandom. But she must have gone soft of late, for it truly did make her mind see giant red cloths and bulls chasing little Spaniards 'round and 'round.)

(* Cam here makes a distinction between those who attempt to write "real" rape and those who write "romanticised" rape as a particular sexual kink in fic where the characters get off on it. Most authors of that genre seem to hold that is about a domination fantasy and not about real rape, which is a horrific abuse and has nothing to do with sex. Whether or not there is such a distinction might be argued, but Cam is willing to see there might be.)