I've been working on a post for over an hour - like Sheila, I edit and re-edit over and over again - and see that some of what I was going to say has been covered by those who have posted while I was working on the bloomin' thing.

I have no aversion to deathfic, although I don't actively go out of my way looking for it. I can understand and do respect the intense and visceral reactions that people can feel for deathfic, even when I don't have those reactions myself.

If the death in the story seems, to me, to only be serving the plot purpose of having Clark or Lois grieving needlessly, then I will be disappointed by it, and will make a point of not rereading the story.

Has that happened in this fandom? Probably, but hardly often, unless there are a lot more deathfics out there than I am aware of. I've been reading L&C fic for 5 years now, but I still haven't worked my way through every story on the Archive, so there could be others out there that I haven't yet run across.

Ann wrote:
Quote
Well, it seems to me that while the Lois deathfics invite us to grieve for Clark, the Clark deathfics also invite us to grieve for Clark. The Clark deathfics generally make us feel that Clark was important while he was alive, whereas the Lois deathfics don't necessarily care much about Lois. That's why I don't feel that the Clark deathfics hurt and belittle Clark the way the Lois deathfics hurt and belittle Lois.
As I said, I may have missed these, but off the top of my head I can't think of one story where Lois - in life OR in death - was trivialized and deemed unimportant. I don't want a public - or private - list of the stories that you think fit this category, Ann, but how many are we talking about here? 2, 5, 20?

I think the "wham" thread that is stickied to the top of the fanfic forum is a good device for authors to use. Perhaps we could add a subject "for new authors" or something like that in the FAQs. It could point out the wham thread and list any other information that a new author could find useful when posting their first story here. Obviously not everyone will read it, but if it catches at least one person's eye and helps avoid a problem, it would be worth it.

Now I'm not criticizing Catherine for not posting in that thread. And she did use both a wham warning and a permanent "broken-toys" warning at the top of her story. I'm simply saying that perhaps she wasn't aware of the thread's existence or significance, where she could, if she had wanted, have given a more specific warning that Lois would die and the story would not end happily.

Kathy

"Our thoughts form the universe. They always matter." - Babylon 5