primeideal (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
primeideal) wrote2024-01-31 08:03 pm
primeideal) wrote2024-01-31 08:03 pm
Entry tags:
Extremely on-brand behavior
I tend not to enjoy writing smut very often. Your Kink Is Not My Kink And That's Okay, etc. etc., it's just very infrequent that I'm interested in sexy times for its own sake. Most of the time my "brand" is dialogue or worldbuilding stuff and I'm happy with that.
Buuuuut that being said, I do have certain tropes that I enjoy that are very much NSFW/iddy/deserving of the "this is fiction not reality, please do not emulate" sticker. [I do not actually apply the sticker because those kinds of authors' notes tend to kill the mood for me, I'm going to assume my readers are adults who can distinguish between fiction and reality also.] And looking back over my output, it's like...one self-indulgent idfic in the middle of several other all-ages works is fine. Looking at them all back-to-back? I definitely have Types.
So, naturally, the other day I was browsing prompts and came across a delicious prompt that I read too fast and interpreted as something else adjacent that seemed even iddier to me. Obviously I'm not going to make that version a giftfic to a specific person, but I probably will write it all the same. And then...sock up? I go through this weird cycle of "I'm posting this fic anon/under a sock because it's too graphic for my main" -> "actually I've gotten better at handling some of the kinkier stuff, I'm going to post this one on main" -> "oh no this is Too Much of the same thing, better go anon again." And like, I'm sure lots and lots of other people do this too, when it comes to smut! But for me it's darkfic, and that just feels...different somehow, even if it's almost certainly the same neuroses.
Part of the problem is that I've been doing this for years/decades, and I know my own tastes a lot better than anyone else knows me. I can look back on my older writing and be like, "I wrote this same self-indulgent nonsense many years ago and it was overwrought and terrible then, it's going to be just as regurgitative and tropey now." Even though I recognize in many ways my writing has probably gotten better over the years. People who read my new fics aren't necessarily the same people who read my old fics that handled the same tropes in equally-or-more melodramatic ways. It's the same IRL with "oh no everybody is judging me and thinking about that terrible thing I said three years ago"/"no they're not they don't even know what you said last week, chill."
I was thinking about this and it occurred to me: if I see a prompt I like for actual fanfiction, no matter where it falls between the extremes of "highbrow worldbuilding" and "self-indulgent kinky id," it's going to Ao3. Because it's fanfic, transformative works, I don't have copyright, yada yada. But if I see an Original Works prompt that's RTMI, well...if it's something that could lend itself to being plotty or mainstream, I'm less likely to write several thousand words of it for a fanworks exchange, because part of me thinks, "if I'm putting in that much effort I might as well try to sell it to a short story market." That's not at all to say that it's likely or I'd manage it, just that it's less likely. On the other hand, if I see an OW prompt that is mostly "self-indulgent idfic," then I figure, the only place it's going to be read is by pseudonymous fanfic appreciators, so sure, why not. This means that my OW posted to Ao3 skews darker/iddier/kinkier than my overall fic output, and that's...probably okay!
Also, even though the vast majority of this story will indeed be over-the-top kinky nonsense for its own sake, I am nevertheless going down silly rabbit holes and throwing in silly worldbuilding for its own sake. Because I'm me. And also thinking up increasingly nonsensical tags.
Wikipedia is, as always, an inexhaustible bounty of knowledge, let's just leave it at that.
Buuuuut that being said, I do have certain tropes that I enjoy that are very much NSFW/iddy/deserving of the "this is fiction not reality, please do not emulate" sticker. [I do not actually apply the sticker because those kinds of authors' notes tend to kill the mood for me, I'm going to assume my readers are adults who can distinguish between fiction and reality also.] And looking back over my output, it's like...one self-indulgent idfic in the middle of several other all-ages works is fine. Looking at them all back-to-back? I definitely have Types.
So, naturally, the other day I was browsing prompts and came across a delicious prompt that I read too fast and interpreted as something else adjacent that seemed even iddier to me. Obviously I'm not going to make that version a giftfic to a specific person, but I probably will write it all the same. And then...sock up? I go through this weird cycle of "I'm posting this fic anon/under a sock because it's too graphic for my main" -> "actually I've gotten better at handling some of the kinkier stuff, I'm going to post this one on main" -> "oh no this is Too Much of the same thing, better go anon again." And like, I'm sure lots and lots of other people do this too, when it comes to smut! But for me it's darkfic, and that just feels...different somehow, even if it's almost certainly the same neuroses.
Part of the problem is that I've been doing this for years/decades, and I know my own tastes a lot better than anyone else knows me. I can look back on my older writing and be like, "I wrote this same self-indulgent nonsense many years ago and it was overwrought and terrible then, it's going to be just as regurgitative and tropey now." Even though I recognize in many ways my writing has probably gotten better over the years. People who read my new fics aren't necessarily the same people who read my old fics that handled the same tropes in equally-or-more melodramatic ways. It's the same IRL with "oh no everybody is judging me and thinking about that terrible thing I said three years ago"/"no they're not they don't even know what you said last week, chill."
I was thinking about this and it occurred to me: if I see a prompt I like for actual fanfiction, no matter where it falls between the extremes of "highbrow worldbuilding" and "self-indulgent kinky id," it's going to Ao3. Because it's fanfic, transformative works, I don't have copyright, yada yada. But if I see an Original Works prompt that's RTMI, well...if it's something that could lend itself to being plotty or mainstream, I'm less likely to write several thousand words of it for a fanworks exchange, because part of me thinks, "if I'm putting in that much effort I might as well try to sell it to a short story market." That's not at all to say that it's likely or I'd manage it, just that it's less likely. On the other hand, if I see an OW prompt that is mostly "self-indulgent idfic," then I figure, the only place it's going to be read is by pseudonymous fanfic appreciators, so sure, why not. This means that my OW posted to Ao3 skews darker/iddier/kinkier than my overall fic output, and that's...probably okay!
Also, even though the vast majority of this story will indeed be over-the-top kinky nonsense for its own sake, I am nevertheless going down silly rabbit holes and throwing in silly worldbuilding for its own sake. Because I'm me. And also thinking up increasingly nonsensical tags.
Wikipedia is, as always, an inexhaustible bounty of knowledge, let's just leave it at that.