Oh, dear.

You see, the discussion has now touched on one of my pet hates, and I just can't resist the opportunity to vent. laugh

The pet hate in question is putting labels on things. Putting things in boxes. Categorising them. I hate it. You see, as soon as you put a label on something, it's a reason for the thing to be avoided. Excluded. And life becomes so predictable and dull, I think, if you only ever sample the things with nice, safe, pre-packaged labels.

Terry did it, quite unintentionally, I'm sure, with nfic. In the pre-packaged, short-hand world of labels, nfic equals soft porn. Terry doesn't want to read soft porn, so Terry doesn't read nfic. And thus misses out on all the nfic stories where there is very little or no sex.

We're all doing it with deathfic. Label a fic deathfic and immediately you'll repel anyone who doesn't want to read about major character death. But what if your definition of deathfic isn't the same as the next person's? Labrat is struggling like crazy just to voice her own thoughts on the subject, let alone put together a definition to which we could all subscribe.

Yes, I know we have to label things. Minors have to be protected from explicit sex and extreme violence. People will nut allergies really do need to know if the chocolate bar they're about to eat contains even a trace of nut.

But I do yearn for fewer labels on works of art (and here I'm including all forms of art, from music and dance to literature and poetry). Let's open our minds and sample whatever comes our way, instead of finding reasons *not* to try stuff.

I now return you to the deathfic debate. laugh

Yvonne

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Let's open our minds and sample whatever comes our way, instead of finding reasons *not* to try stuff.
...which is not to disrespect the reasons Nan and others gave for avoiding deathfic.