On terminology and assumptions, yet again (not serious ones, though)

[snorkackcatcher]

"Genfic" to me sort of implies "any shippiness is secondary to the main plot, hence teh sexxin' usually won't be a major feature and detailed kink is highly unlikely to appear".

That being the case, I do wonder when looking at the signups for springtime_gen (I suppose I'd better mention here that the cutoff date is the 21st?) why people are bothering to say they don't want to see (for example): Smut, scat, mpreg, watersports, sexual healing, rose petals on the bed, BDSM, graphic coupling ... and all points west.

*headdesk*

That's kind of a given, guys?

Or is it just that people think non-shipfic is so uncommon and kinkfic so common that it actually does need to be said even in a genfic exchange, perhaps because they don't trust all those other signupees to Get It? The only reason that using a term like "gen" to mean not "anywhere in the space of possible stories" but "everywhere outside one particular area of the space of possible stories" makes any sense at all is because that area is so heavily populated.

(For the record, while I think a fic can have shippy subplots that get quite a lot of screentime, and still be basically gen at heart -- hell, I've done that myself -- I think the more detailed and outré the shippiness gets, the less likely it is to stay a mere subplot. Especially in a short fic. I'm sure you could in theory include any of the things mentioned above in a genfic, but you'd have to be good.)

Comments

[lareinenoire.livejournal.com]

I assumed it was a given, but listed 'smut' on my comment after seeing other people do it. You are right, though; it is really very silly in a genfic exchange.

Edited to add: I think it's a reflexive thing for me, since I've started writing primarily non-HP fiction in larger exchanges such as yuletide, where you need to specify these things.

[snorkackcatcher]

That's fair enough. I think the only multifandom things I've done are Femgenficathon and Remix, and they're special cases.

[quietliban.livejournal.com]

See, I've been thinking about how we use these labels: gen, slash, het, ship to describe fic, since in one instance that may mean a certain genre and then in another instance they can mean what the fic actually contains (ie. some people associate a slash fic with explicit sex scenes whereas it doesn't actually equal that in practice but it entirely depends on your fandom experience).

That said, I found some of the things in the sprintime_gen signups quite bemusing, especially since the mods had defined what genfic for the purposes of the fest was. It means that people aren't reading things, unfortunately.

And I agree, gen fic can contain ships, but the key difference is that the ship is not the sole point of the fic.

[snorkackcatcher]

Mm. I suppose it shows that people are thinking inside the shippy box to an extent, which may or may not show up in the results.

[magnetic-pole.livejournal.com]

No insights on this one, but thanks for reminding me to add springtime gen to my current fests list. M.

[snorkackcatcher]

Well, it won't be posting for a while. :)

[kyuuketsukirui.livejournal.com]

I would say a couple of those could be gen (BDSM can be a lifestyle, not just what you do in bed, and I can imagine a gen mpreg fic), but...yeah. I already think it's pretty silly that people are so "zomg no scat and watersports!!!" on every single signup, as if that's what everyone's dying to write if they didn't specify that they didn't want it, but in a gen exchange it seems even more ridiculous.

[snorkackcatcher]

Well yes. I mean, a lot of this stuff is ... a specialised taste anyway. I suppose you could have a gen mpreg in theory, and I don't know enough about BDSM to be sure what exactly might be covered, but I wouldn't bet on people actually writing them that way.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

Frankly, I would expect that in most ficathons, unless it's the HPBDSM ficathon, authors might generally not go in all guns blazing with their list of 20 different X-rated activities unless actually invited to by the prompt. But maybe I'm just naive, or have been too long away from Potterfandom.

[snorkackcatcher]

I suppose it depends what they're used to writing. If you normally write kink, you probably don't think of it as anything unusual.