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...you bring up an interesting point, Terry, on who exactly merits the label deathfic. I thought I had an easy answer to it, but then I started typing and it got more complicated as I went along. goofy
Just a thought, but is it possible that this is all a case of missing the forest for the trees? I'm not sure I can explain this but seems to me that this is a case of looking at something, i.e. labeling a story as deathfic, as being about content when it's actually truly about intent, usually intent on the author's part. (Not saying labeling is never about content, just that some labels aren't and I suspect deathfic is one of them.)

Why would most not get upset over the villain in a story dying? Probably because the intent of the story most likely wouldn't be directed towards exploring anyone's grief over it happening.

OTOH, why would so many get truly upset by Lois dying in a story? Probably because the intent is to explore Clark's grief in most cases. This is why I hesitated to post those first tentative parts of Atonement. My brain said it wasn't a deathfic because Lois was already dead. My heart, however, was telling me that my honest intention was most likely to explore Clark having to face the choice of going back in time in an attempt to save her. That is very much directly related to her death and his grief over it. How can it not be? Will it ultimately be considered a deathfic by anyone else? Heck if I know. The only thing I do know is that my own intent gave me pause. Still does if you want the truth.

And isn't the same true of the nfic label to some extent? We can say it's about content and I'll not deny it is related to a content threshold at the very least but in order to cross that threshold the author has to willingly choose to explore certain themes in the first place. Or they can choose not to and that is the crucial turning point to me.

I've only written one nfic. It's probably one of the least graphic stories in the archive but I've know it's nfic because all along my intent was to explore the sexual side of L&C's relationship. That is not PG material no matter how much actually sex is in the story.

I guess what I'm trying to do is make an observation that there seems to be an assumption that a deathfic label is only about giving away the ending to a story, i.e. it's content. Seems to me that's only true if the author's sole intent is to kill someone and only that. Is that truly the only intent of every fanfic where someone dies?

Because if it isn't . . .

BevBB :-)
"B. B. Medos"