MUCH later, I was speaking to someone online who linked to her hobbit fanfics. With some trepidation, I read the story she linked to and found it…pleasant. It explored the relationships of the younger Frodo, Merry and Sam, and really set up what we see in LotR well. I was ‘oh, fanfic can be really cool and well-written!’ So I began reading fanfic on ‘West of the Moon’ – I liked that all their stories were clearly labeled. They had separate archives for gen, slash, and poetry, and used a G,PG,R rating for all stories. *Every* story had a summary, and authors generally would take the time to warn about the level of ‘darkness’ in the fic. Of course, to post a story, it had to be approved, so there were some standards in place. Most of the stuff seemed decently written and really helped expand on Tolkien’s world by exploring various aspects of hobbits that he didn’t quite get to. Reading stuff there inspired all three of my first (hobbity) fanfics.

The next archive I visited was Stories of Arda, which includes all of Tolkien’s work, but limits itself to no explicit stories and no slash. I also found the summaries helpful here, so I could choose stories that might be of interest to me.

From there, I ended up on Sycophant Hex, a Harry Potter fanfic archive. Rude awakening – their rating system uses random letters like B, W, and L. One of those means X-rated. But, you have to register with the site to read the higher-rated stories anyway. Once you read all the info, you can navigate well, and authors generally did mention if the story was a PWP about Hermione and the Weasley twins engaging in BDSM….so it was your own fault if you clicked on that at work. Again, stories submitted to this site had to pass a grammar check. Before recommending this site to adults, I would always say ‘heed the warnings,’ because while anything and everything is there…it’s marked. I did not recommend it to a high school student, because I did not think it would have been appropriate (not coming from a teacher, anyway).

After this, I found HASA and SWG and finally decided to brave ff.net less than a year ago. I think that allowing a reader to navigate a site is helpful. Hints about what type of story it is – what characters, what time period, what pairing and yes…an indication of rating.

This can all be given in a summary. If someone can’t figure out that “An exploration of the steamy romance between Fingon and Maedhros” is going to be explicit slash, shame on them But likewise, if I want to find stories about Glorfindel, it’s nice to have a searchable function that allows me to do that.

Spoilers don’t really bother me. I think that most stories can’t be spoiled by giving the pairing, unless the plot is ‘who ends up with whom?’ – and then you just list all the pairings, so no one knows what the final one is till they get to that part of the story anyway.

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with wanting to know if you’re clicking on porn or not. It’s worse with fanart than fanfic, but still important to label things. That being said, I don’t think that rating your own stuff is all that accurate. I have found that I lose the ‘impact’ of my own writing after checking over it the umpteenth time for errors. So, I could write a really squicky torture scene and not even realize that the violence is beyond PG. Oops. But I would be smart enough to label it as containing torture, I’d hope. I find the ‘M’ rating on ff.net only so useful – some people use it ‘just to be safe’ when there is nothing in the story to justify it, and others include explicit scenes while forgetting all about it. I have learned not to read stories that don’t use summaries there. If the author doesn’t know what the story is about, why should I read it?

I don’t have to like everything I click on. If I don’t like the author’s ‘take’ on the story, I don’t have to read more stuff by that author. The stuff that I like and dislike probably isn’t going to show up in a label, because it’s nuance that matters to me. I can come up with a story on HASA that (in content) is not much different from that first story I stumbled across, but which I would consider well-written. While the first story was (in my mind) a character assasination of Aragorn (and Legolas) and had no ultimate connection to the ‘real’ story (despite the minor insight that Legolas disliked Moria)….writing the same thing about Morgoth and Maedhros actually can be very, very meaningful and in character – I don’t even mind the lack of the canon detail of Morgoth losing his ability to transform prior to that time.

As for strong female characters: I hear you! Coming from BtVS, I had never heard the term Mary Sue until I digged deeper into LOTR fandom. BtVS is probably the poster child for strong female characters, even for femslash. LOTR comes with such “weak” female characters (except for Eowyn, but even she ends up being a housewife), which seems to result in authors not being interested in writing them. They stick to the guys and the female characters are left to the 13-year old romantic writing a self-insert.

I know, even for me, it was hard to break myself of using labels so watered down as to lose all meaning. For example, I used to label my Feanor/Erestor novella By the Light of Roses as “AU.” It’s not AU. No, Feanor and Erestor aren’t lovers in the book. But neither is it canonically impossible either, and I worked with canon facts to make it logical in my story. Called BtLoR “AU” makes the term largely meaningless.

But I would stick the AU label on it because it seemed easier than explaining myself to those who couldn’t stand the idea of slash or Feanor/Erestor and who used that as an excuse for nastiness.

I can’t speak as to what’s available to read in LotR since I read 99% Silmarillion-based. However, I can say that in Silmfic, there is very little bad slash and MS. I do believe that some people use the tendency of a particular type of story to be low quality as an excuse to stereotype all stories of that genre. For example, I agree–as you pointed out–that any story with a female character runs the risk of being mislabeled as “Mary Sue.” I also agree that the Tolkien fandom as a whole needs more in the way of strong female characters and femslash, something we’ve tried to remedy at the SWG with mixed success, but we are only a small group in a very big fandom.

As for canon. It might have something to do with book and movie – but I wasn’t around during book!canon times (due to the fact that I was rarely as bored by a book as while reading LOTR – and I’m not ashamed to admit it *g*). But it might be a reason. It’s a problem with all books turned into movies. You have to change things – with LOTR especially or you would end up with a ten-season mini series or something. For me all the “Peter Jackson is an idiot, because he didn’t do a) and b)” is moot, partly because I think his movies are one of the best book adaptations I’ve seen. He turned a tediously slow, self-centered book into a fast and gripping movie. So, and now you can all rip me to shreds:)

Anyway. I’ve read fanfic during my BtVS and AtS times, but I wasn’t so active with the writers’ crowd. There was a lot of slash around, but also a lot of het. Things were balanced. The slash problem in LOTR might also be due to the fact that there is no balance between het and slash (at least not in my opinion). There is either slash or terrible MS. There so little good women characters to begin with (and if you write a original female character, people will still bash her as MS). I’ve seen a bit femmeslash around, but nothing in comparison to what you can find in BtVS.

You might be a good person to ask, since you’ve been involved in other fandoms: Do you think there are more people “mortally offended” by slash and smut in Tolkiendom than elsewhere? I get that impression, but since my exposure to other fandoms comes through venues like Metafandom–that tend to represent liberal fans with a strong concern for civil rights–then it might be an unbalanced portrayal.

Oshun: I remember being upset by a Tom and Jerry cartoon too as a kid! Tom was holding Jerry at knifepoint. It probably reflected the first stages of my blood-injury phobia more than anything else; even now, the only violence in movies that upsets me involves cutting. I am proud that I haven’t had to look away when physicians are bleeding people in The Tudors!

Rhapsody: You bring up an interesting and relevant point with the culture of warnings in general. I remember when Hrymfaxe came to visit from Denmark this summer and was amused by the fact that all American takeaway coffee cups read, “CAUTION: CONTENTS ARE HOT.” Well, duh! We Americans make fun of that too, but this country has developed such a litigious culture where everyone is always afraid of being sued that I buy a bag of walnuts for making ice cream, and it contains the warning on the side, “WARNING: CONTAINS NUTS.”

Actually, I think the connection between fandom and food prep to be rather interesting because, as you know, I make homemade candy and ice cream and, on occasion, have sold what I make. At the least, I give it as gifts all the time. And I am obsessively careful about labeling stuff that might contain allergens when I’m giving it to someone whose allergies I don’t know.

But, to me, this is different than warning that coffee may be hot. A person with a severe nut allergy that tastes my strawberry ice cream without realizing that I made maple walnut the same day and on the same equipment could die from my failure to warn properly.

In fiction, it is the same way for me: I warn for things like rape and suicide when I have reason to believe that the content might trigger a severe reaction in a victim. I don’t warn for slash (on my website; I warn on archives according to their rules) because no one had a breakdown because of two men kissing.

I have no objection to warning as a courtesy; it is all the angsting and handwringing in some corners of fandom as though stumbling on a story with slash might actually damage the stumbler. And, as I told Michelle way up the thread, a good summary should usually reveal much of the content that’s being contained in a warning. If your story is about the Nirnaeth Arnoediad, for example, do you need to warn for violence and character death? As a general rule, fanfic writers write terrible summaries, in my opinion; warnings are a way to circumvent having to come up with something more profound than, “Feanor at the kinslaying, plz r&r.”

On spoilers, I feel much the same way: I think that warning for spoilers as a courtesy is just fine–quite a nice gesture, actually–but the way that people wring their hands and moan and groan about how a story is absolutely ruined if they catch an iota of what it’s about in a MEFA review should not always be accorded the influence that they currently have, imho. People who feel that strongly about their ability to enjoy a story if aspects of it are revealed ahead of time should avoid reading reviews before the story. I agree with you that “review” has multiple meanings in fandom, but I don’t think one has to be around for long to realize that reviewers do discuss details that they like or dislike in their reviews, and this may reveal things about the story; if that is terribly troubling to a person, I think it becomes his or her imperative to avoid reviews before reading a story.

I could have likewise kept my reply simple by nodding heartily to your last paragraph. I suppose my whole point in bringing this up is that I worry when I see fandom indulging either extreme and giving in to some fans’ desire to constantly make mountains out of the proverbial molehills.

I think these days in our lives everything comes with labels: food, tv shows (books not so much) so it kinda snuck into our lives because we all demand to be informed as much as possible about the ingredients of what a product might contain. The interwebs with its netnanny’s and adult sites being forced to put up warnings, I think this also became a major influence on the fandom world. Liabilities and avoiding that what you worked so hard for (be it a product or site) being reported or flamed by a hockey mom pitbull with lipstick type.

Are we adults and can do damn fine on our own to filter out what we need and do we as adults get fed up by lines of: think of the childrun? Sure. You know I hardly read horror because it truly freaks me out and I really do value my sleep at night. However only a few authors I know and have a great take on this genre: I do read. Still I also know that sometimes I do read your horror stories and sometimes not. I appreciate what you do, because it helps me a bit to filter.

Now as for MEFA spoilers and spoilers in general… for the mefa’s I sometimes think that we all have different expectations of mefa reviews. I am not reading mefa reviews before I hit a story, I read first, then review and I might read what others think of it. Therefore this whole spoiler thing has no use for me, because I might read the reviews afterwards. But folks are different and some do want to get an inkling of what the story is about and especially why the nominator wanted to nominate the piece… You know what I mean? Some reviews are written as a general omg check this out now with less spoilers as specific. SWG reviews serve a different purpose and some folks do not mind a spoiler and others do: each to their own. But I don’t think anyone can write NY Times book reviews and such, so reviews come in different sizes and forms. Also there can be a difference in what someone sees as a spoiler and what not. We are all different in how we take in information, some really do not wanna know plot twists or plot devices in reviews. I read this great entry to which I fully agree, especially when it comes down to the influence of reviews on readers/viewers expectations and how it can ruin an experience.

Perhaps I should have kept this comment simple by saying that we’re all different in how we deal with information intake, it makes sense to me. Some need or demand all the blows and whistles and others are carefree. I think somewhere in between we can find a way to keep everyone happy, but foremost yourself as a writer!

Apart from the fact that some people really get the creeps from reading slash, there are also those who are mortally offended by certain concepts – slash, because Tolkien would turn in his grave. AU – because, hell, learn your facts. And they want to be warned about those concepts. This fandom especially is very canon-centered. Probably just *because* there is so much canon to consider:)

It’s hard for me to comment on choosing o-fic versus fanfic in terms of unwillingness to read certain things because I have no squicks or compunctions about reading anything! If the author can make it work, I’ll try it. What will make me click out of a story, put down a novel, and avoid an author in the future (whether o-fic or fanfic) is poor writing. Beyond that, I don’t mind whatever the author wants to throw at me. I suppose this is a major reason why I find it so hard to understand the rating/warning mindset that pervades fandom because a story’s content is not something that influences me in the least bit. I find it hard to imagine any content that would make me abandon a well-written story.

It also occurs to me that what is published in mainstream fiction is more likely guaranteed “safe” to someone who wants to avoid explicit content–whether sex or violence–than fanfic, where there are fewer controls in place as to what gets “published.” If I truly wanted to avoid explicitness, I would be much more cautious in choosing fanfic than o-fic. What constitutes mid-level explicitness in fanfic is probably the most explicit content one’s likely to find on the shelves at Borders, at least in the US.

As for summaries. Of course that’s a valid point. But on the one hand, a typical fanfic summary is a lot shorter that the blurb on the back of a book. If I’m not totally mistaken, most archives only allow only for a certain number of characters after which the summary is cut off. Which leaves you with rather limited possibilities (I’m assuming that you’re willing and able to write a summary – in contrast to the usual “Look inside for better summary” usually employed by large parts of ff.net users).

On the other hand, you “consume” a book differently – at least I do. I choose a book because someone recommended it or because I read a review somewhere. Of course that happens with fanfic as well, but most often then not I decide to read a fanfic because a) it has pairing I like, b) it has a setting I like, c) I like the author. These criteria are a lot more obscure in my opinion. When I buy a book, I have a general idea of what I will find inside. With fanfic, it’s usually a surprise.