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brightknightie) wrote2020-12-28 02:49 pm
brightknightie) wrote2020-12-28 02:49 pm
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"id-fic" versus "crack-fic"?
How do you define "id-fic" for yourself, and how do you see it differing from "crack-fic"?
I hadn't encountered the term "id-fic" at all before seeing posts for the Iddy-iddy-bang-bang fest. And I didn't think much about it, until recently I was going back in my mind through some fanfic sketches I've started this year but not taken further, even though I liked them, because they can't possibly have an audience beyond myself. (For example, I wrote an AU Nick completing an RCIA program at Father Rouchefort's parish and attending Easter Vigil mass.) This epitomizes "straight from the author's id," but the practice seems to correlate almost exclusively with established absurd and/or disturbing tropes far over the edges of their canons, not with excesses of real-world normality, however self-indulgent.
If "id-fic" and "crack-fic" share an expectation of absurdity, is the difference that "id-fic" is usually more disturbing and "crack-fic" more amusing? Or is one expected to be less well written than the other? Or is there a third sub-genre that completes the picture?
Just curious!
I hadn't encountered the term "id-fic" at all before seeing posts for the Iddy-iddy-bang-bang fest. And I didn't think much about it, until recently I was going back in my mind through some fanfic sketches I've started this year but not taken further, even though I liked them, because they can't possibly have an audience beyond myself. (For example, I wrote an AU Nick completing an RCIA program at Father Rouchefort's parish and attending Easter Vigil mass.) This epitomizes "straight from the author's id," but the practice seems to correlate almost exclusively with established absurd and/or disturbing tropes far over the edges of their canons, not with excesses of real-world normality, however self-indulgent.
If "id-fic" and "crack-fic" share an expectation of absurdity, is the difference that "id-fic" is usually more disturbing and "crack-fic" more amusing? Or is one expected to be less well written than the other? Or is there a third sub-genre that completes the picture?
Just curious!
no subject
Not necessarily. It could be perfectly canon compliant, inasmuch as any fanfic is perfectly canon compliant. What differentiates id-fic is the motive of the writer in producing it. If it's a story written just because it feeds the writer's baser desires (in whatever form they take), it's likely id-fic. Some id-fic may not be distinguishable as such from an outside perspective, and some may be so obvious that the only explanation for its existence is the id.
"I want these two characters who never met in canon to go on a road trip and have adventures" could be id-fic if the reason for it is little more than "because that's what I like and it makes me happy. "
no subject
Does that make this the kind of term that would likely be taken as insulting if applied to a work whose author hasn't publicly applied that term herself?
no subject
That is my understanding.
Does that make this the kind of term that would likely be taken as insulting...
I'd be cautious about applying the term externally. While there are likely many fic writers who could look at their own stories and agree retroactively that something they wrote is id-fic (and might even be thrilled to recognize that), I suspect many writers would take some offense at the idea that what they like in a story (and chose to write) doesn't have universal appeal.
Looking at my own body of works, I can identify two stories that are id-fic. Neither are labeled as such, but I wouldn't have a problem if someone else suggested they were.