Sorry, you misunderstood, Valentine. That was my fault for not quoting the post I was replying to, which was Valentine's. Her complaint was, similarly, about those that in lieu of a plot have the characters saying "I love you" and kissing every five minutes, making for a soporific mess that is more embarrassing to read than the diary of the Loneliest Kid.
Actually, I understood perfectly. I was saying to the both of you that these kinds of situations only happen in a fraction of all shipping fics and that when they
do happen, it's not necessarily because the author wants to live vicariously through their character. If they wanted to do that, you'd be seeing a crappily-written Mary Sue fic instead. If we're talking about canon/canon fics, then that's a different story. The crappier ones usually follow that kind of formula because of a combination of what I'd mentioned earlier (i.e., liking the idea of two characters being together) and liking extremely trite, mushy romance plots for the same reason someone else might like trite comedy plots or trite action plots -- because, well, they just
like them. It doesn't really help that the fandom tends to have a bandwagon mentality, so if a person sees, for example, a high school AU do really well, they'll be compelled to copy it
just because they want the reviews. It has nothing to do with whether or not they want to act out a romantic situation usually. (Like I said: if they did, they'd do it with a Mary Sue.)
Romance in fanfic (or, indeed, in general) I do not like because there is only so far you can go with it without doing something fabulously original (a la Lolita, Frankenstein or Wuthering Heights, for example). Inevitably, it will fall into a pattern of blank meets blank, they fall in love slowly through a series of trials, usually with one loving the other first, leading to chagrin, then they adventure together until finishing in their life-affirming touching moment bluh bluh or their horrible tragedy when one dies or is turned into a newt or something.
...And to that, I'd like to tell you to go read more fanfic. :| Sure, there is a type of plot in which this happens, but not all romance fics work like this. Moreover, not all fics (or literature in general) with romance subtext in them work this way, either. I mean, if you want a good example, there's always Trillian and Arthur Dent. The first Hitchhiker's Guide book sets them up to be lovers (what with the whole "last two people from Earth" thing and all), but it never really pans out purely because the characters are incompatible. Douglas Adams then proceeds to play with the idea of setting up romantic subtext (or in the case of Fenchurch, text), only to do something else at the last possible moment. Fans still take it as romantic subtext (because it
is), but it's handled differently than a lot of other romance. Then, on the fanfic front, there's... pretty much everything ever written by Windsong and the other LJ fan authors. *motions to
the kink meme* In fact, with those last examples, I think it's safe to say I still don't recall ever seeing a formula like that one in explicitly shippy fics.
Besides, if you refuse to read romance, how exactly can you make a generalization concerning it? I mean, you're basically saying the equivalent of "I don't like dogs because all dogs do nothing but bark all day and pee everywhere." Sure, there's
some dogs that do that, but there's a lot of dogs that don't. The only way you'll be able to find out whether or not what you're saying is true is by dealing with a lot of dogs. Here, all you're doing is writing off an entire genre
and a genre-within-a-genre because you're generalizing the entire concept based on stereotypes. And yes,
now you're referring to romance as a whole, so I still understand what you're saying.
that from what I see here you do seem a tad quick to look for reasons to take offense.
Welp. I told Asty I was trying to resist not using this, but it's pretty much my favorite macro in my collection. So...!
There's a distinct difference between taking offense and being horribly amused, Putin.
This is me when I'm offended. What you've seen so far in this thread is me having fun pointing out the holes in other people's logic.
I just like being
blunt. And I tend to be blunt towards people who I think are making rather silly comments that are easy to debase. Besides, given the nature of this thread to begin with, it's pretty much a given that there's going to be people who will want to have a word or few about your opinions. If you wanted me to jump to Happy Fuzzy Totally In Agreement With You Land, you'd probably be better off going to the
sister thread. Or, you know, making a sister thread that wouldn't break the thread necromancy rule.
Don't get me wrong. I'm all for people who have different opinions from me, and if romance just doesn't float your boat, that's fine. However, if you come into a thread generalizing an entire genre (which, yes, your second post still does because you don't make it clear if you don't like romance because of the tiny percentage Gothitelle was referring to or because you think the portions that she
isn't referring to aren't much better... although neither assumption, really, is a safe one to make), you can't really be too surprised if someone else replies with, "Uh, yeah, what kind of cannabis are you smoking right now, and where can I get some?"
There are also a thousand different things I could say about the age portion and how irrelevant age is to fanfiction. Or the subject of beauty and the lovely scholars who seem to be taking pages from Romanticist philosophers. Or a thousand of other things from the can o' worms that you seem to have left beside the electric can opener in the break room. But because you seem to be fresh meat around here, I won't pull the usual welcoming banter I tend to give the newbies that amuse me.
I mean, really? *claps a hand on your shoulder* Welcome to the FF&W. Regulars here should've given you a heads up about yours truly already, but it looks like we've been slow on the uptake lately.
