Lois & Clark Forums Forums Fan Fiction Fanfic Related Deathfic Debate- love 'em, loathe 'em, and everywhere in between...

I've been trying to keep out of this debate, but apparently I'm failing because here I am posting. Oh, well...

First of all, I have never written a deathfic. Not because of any particular dislike for them; I just haven't been inspired to do so. I will read them if they are well-done, but like many in this thread sometimes they hit a little too close to home to really be enjoyable. Cancer stories, the loss of a parent, etc bring up too many painful memories for me; we all have our own personal vulnerabilities. I appreciate warnings that let me decide whether or not the story might be too much for me. And I completely understand why people would not want to read them.

That, however, does not diminish a writer's right to write them. Writers write what they want. They don't always write what their readers ask for; they don't always write what will be popular and well-liked. They write what their muse wants to write. They are not bound by the wishes of their readers.

Heck, there are plenty of people out there writing fic I'd rather not read. There's slash for some rather horrifying pairings out there, just for one example . But just because I don't like it doesn't mean I have the right to prevent it from being written. If you don't like it, don't read it. Period. But you can't expect to dictate to an entire fandom what stories are allowed to be written.

Judgment on what? Whether or not her writing is acceptable? What gives any of us the right to pass judgment on the premises she decides to explore in her writing?

The problem I have with this statement is that it implies someone would write a deathfic only because s/he wasn't "up to" writing something "better." Deathfic is no less a challenge than any other kind of writing. Admittedly there will be people out there who kill characters for shock value, etc, but for the most part people write deathfic because they are inspired to do so. Not because they can't manage to write a story where the characters stay alive. In most cases, at least in this fandom, death (of Lois or Clark) isn't used a quick-fix ending when the writer has painted him/herself into a corner.

I very much doubt that anyone has come to this fandom to kill Lois. Writers aren't hitmen; they don't travel from fandom to fandom killing characters and moving on. Writers come to a fandom to explore new characters and situations. Sometimes those situations are tragic or even fatal for our characters. Sometimes they're not. Different stories call for different endings. But I don't know anyone in any fandom who writes deathfic exclusively. Everyone I'm familiar with sees that premise as one in a handful of ideas, and the majority of them, especially in FoLCdom, probably end up with the main characters safe and sound.

And, lastly:
I'm sorry, but this is ridiculous. Writing about something is not the same as doing it, endorsing it, or even sympathizing with it. If I write a story where the bad guy abuses his dog, does that mean I'm pro-animal-abuse? That I turn my head away from animals who are abused in the street? No. It means I wrote a story. Bad people do bad things, even when they're only fictional bad people. With this line of logic, none of us could write about anything but happiness and rainbows and I promise you, it'd get boring really quickly

Besides which, you seem to be diluting your argument. If you dislike deathfic, wouldn't it be equally upsetting for us to kill Clark in a story?

If you feel that strongly about this holocaust of women being killed (and I don't mean to imply that I don't. but you brought it up), your time might be better spent with an activist or lobbyist group instead of trying to convince a message board full of mostly nonviolent fanfic writers not to kill fictional characters. I don't see how arguing against deathfic can do anything to change what's happening to women in the real world.

It's like the fallacy parents tell kids who won't eat their dinner. (As a child this argument made me crazy , although fortunately my parents didn't use it much.) "You should eat your dinner because children in insert-some-country-here are starving." If we don't eat it, we're not going to ship the food to the starving children. They're still going to be starving regardless of whether we eat or not.

I've taken from Ann's comments that she sees fanfic (and Pop Culture) in a larger socio-cultural context. So while it may be "just fanfic" it's also symbolic of the wider values and beliefs which a group holds. (people do PH.D. theses on such things, would you believe - "Amercian religious beliefs as reflected in the world of the Simpsons" , etc - I kid you not. )

Given that perspective, nothing is insignificant - everything is symbolic - even Seinfeld.

And Lois Lane. Oh yeah, Superman (Nietzche, anyone? or Sherlock Holmes?)

Even when *we* don't consciously thnk it's symbolic, it's still subconsciously symbolic. Not possible to escape it. You can run, but you can't escape

Hope I've not put words in Ann's mouth here.

You... mean ... fanfic... is not the ... Real World?
Who knew? Wait a minute, I've just posited that it is - at least a reflection, okay, a very dim reflection of the real world.

Of course, it could just be that a fic is a fic is a fic.

unless it's a deathfic.

c.

Kaylle, I've posted so many comments on this thread, it's ridiculous.

My hatred of deathfic is intense. As for my hatred of Lois deathfic, "intense" is just its middle name.

As I've tried to explain and justify that hatred on this thread (and also on the thread specifically commenting Catherine's story), I've gone overboard many times and said hurtful and unfair things.

I'm sorry about that. The truth is, my regrets about some of the things I have said don't make my hatred of Lois deathfics any less intense.

I wasn't going to post this comment at all. Not until I realized who "Kaylle" was. Kaylle, you are the one who wrote that absolutely beautiful story, In Dreams. One of my absolute favorites. One of those stories that make this fandom, and its stories, so beautiful.

Therefore, this fandom is a more beautiful place thanks to you. Your story has made my life a little more beautiful than it would otherwise have been. I consider your story a gift to this fandom, and certainly to me, and I want to thank you for it.

Ann

I can see why you say so, Carol, and it's true that many times authors put a little of themselves in their stories, but not to that extent. I don't suppose, for example, that when you wrote Recognition and (spoilers) let the bad guy get away without punishment (for killing a young female, by the way), it means you believe in injustice and in promoting female gendercide?

I think what started as an interesting discussion has gone a it too far, and I think you'll agree, since I believe you wrote your story that way for other reasons, just like every other author in the fandom.

Julie

Fair enough, Julie:) So true confessions. Although I didn't realise it at the time I was writing that story, I understand now that I was writing about my younger sister. And I wrote the guy as getting away with it because in RL that's sometimes how it is.

I'd hoped I was making a bit of a point about discrimination against women and abuse in that fic, but if I've left you feeling that I "believed in gendercide" then I failed (big time, in fact.)

Btw, in the sequel to Recognition, Rec: Justice, the bad guy did get caught, although for a different crime.

c

edit: Julie's edited her post since I posted - given her current wording, I know now she didn't really mean to suggest I was advocating "gendercide" . I can't speak for other authors, of course, with respect to their motives in writing 'Lois' or 'Clark' deathfic. I do understand that for some, such fics have been a working through ot their own personal experience, but I have no way of knowing if that's true for all.

It's been a while since I was in this thread, and what a path it has taken!

Rather than do real work, I wanted to add some comments to the thought provoking points I've read.

I happen to be in firm agreement with you regarding societal attitudes for women, Ann. However, I do feel the need to add that not only is Lois easier to kill in a story (no need for Kryptonite and so forth), but, having SEEN Clark die on TOGOM, I tend to think more in terms of Lois dying than Clark because his death was played out in front of my eyes. The effect of that one visual takes many written stories of Lois's death to counter.

Also, I guess I'm a little confused about the idea that the death of a female character (from any story) is somehow a trivialisation of her being. Romeo and Juliet weren't trivialised by the fact that they died. Their deaths made a huge statement, and while I'm sure the persons themselves, were they real, wouldn't have wished to die like that, as a reader, if I choose to identify myself with a character, I can't blame the author for doing something I might not appreciate having happen to me as a real live person myself.

All of us affect those around us so I don't know if it's fair to say that people who kill Lois are implying that Clark's grief is all that matters. I think they are saying that Lois DOES matter. She matters so much that her loss profoundly affects Clark. Now, not wanting to read that loss is one thing, but painting all deathfic writers with the same brush is another. And to imply that someone who writes a deathfic wherein Lois dies is somehow contributing to society's disregard for women as a whole seems rather broad and somewhat unjust.

Also at issue here is, indeed, the fact that many of us are female. Isn't it possible that they would write reactions by Clark to Lois's death because these female writers feel the man of THEIR dreams would be that devastated at their loss? Or, could it be that they find it harder to imagine how they, as females, would react to the death of someone they loved that much because it hits too close to home?

While it's interesting to delve into the nuances of the stories, and however ironic it may be that I am the one writing this, in the end, we can't lose sight of the fact that these ARE still stories. They should not always be read as a treatise. Killing Clark or killing Lois does not necessarily mean that an author does not respect that character. It depends on the manner in which it is done, and the intent.

The most important thing is that everyone has a viewpoint and has a right to it (and a right to be spoken to respectfully about it). I don't like nextgen stories very much, but I certainly don't wish to prohibit others from writing them. And I most definitely would never say nextgen stories were "lousy", because many of them are very well written.

As with almost everything else in this world, taste in reading is subjective. And there are bound to be people who don't like the same things we do. I respect Nan and Sheila as authors very much, and I respect their dislike of deathfics. I also respect those who do like deathfics. And those who like nextgens

Julie wrote:
I'm not sure why you were asking that question specifically of *me*, Julie. I didn't think I'd posted anything in this thread that had gone "too far", so am curious.

c

Carol, I don't think Julie was saying that you'd said anything that went "too far." I think she was just pointing out that people were getting more and more polarized. The discussion about whether or not everything was symbolic could be used to infer that you wrote Recognition because you supported female abuse. Since that is obviously not the case, Julie was just saying that the discussion itself maybe isn't really applicable to real life anymore <g>. At least, that's how I took it.

I'm going to bow out of this thread now, but I did want to thank Ann for her kind words on In Dreams. I'm glad you enjoyed it , and I'm flattered you recognize my name . I appreciate hearing your feelings on the story!

And I'm sorry if you've felt people were attacking you or your position in this thread; that was never my intention and I don't think anyone else intended to do so either. We're all just defending our own positions, perhaps overzealously

Kaylle

Kaylle, I appreciate your explaining what you thought Julie might have meant. But *how* could it be used to infer that?

I'm honestly not sure how anyone could make that inference about Alice Cardinal's death in Recognition, given that the story was partly about the abuse and discrimination that led to her death. So her death was symbolic of that situaton, and I guess I'd hoped the context of her death would make that obvious.

It was written awhile ago now, and I do admit to its having more than one A plot in it. It's disheartening to realise that a story I wrote partly to highlight how some women are abused has been remembered as one which symbolizes "gendercide".

c.

Carol, I think that Julie meant to say the exact opposite of what you perceived her to be saying: that your story doesn't symbolize gendercide - which would go to show that, when a writer writes about something, doesn't always mean they agree with it.

At least, that's how I took it.

See ya,
AnnaBtG.

Thanks, Anna, for explaining your take on it. So, Julie, just being provacative then?

lol - well, actually in that story, I was writing about how wrong Alice's abuse was, and I do (and will always) agree with that postion. My head is now spinning, and I'm quite preapared to admit I have no idea what Julie was getting at. Maybe she was confusing Recognition with a different story altogther? Oh well.

edit: Just checked out what Julie had orginally posted (which I quoted in my post which followed that) and what now is in Julies's post. Julie had edited her orginal post to include "don't" before 'suppose" which I hadn't noticed when I posted earlier today. Now, my head is really spinning. I give up!

c

Are you Lois-killers capable of doing that?

For some reason I thought that was extremely funny. Sorry.

Anyway I just wanted too point out that in the DC universe Lois dies a little now and then. But it's not so much a celebration of gendercide, as Superman's cue to get seriously worked up. If you recall, in the classical movie he spins the earth backwards and reverse time itself to get her back.

Carol, Anna and Kaylle got my point. What I meant to say was that your story obviously does not symbolise gendercide or promote violence against women. By which I meant, when a writer writes deathfic, don't automatically assume they subconciously encourage murder/death/gendercide - sometimes (in fact, I daresay most of the time) a story is a story, and a sometimes it's not for everyone.

Julie

Thanks, for the clarification, Julie.

c.