(reposted, because my html skillz are weak, and to clarify something)
Back again. :g: It suddenly struck me that there was a whole set of connotations and associations to the word "crackfic" that I learned that a) influence how I see what crackfic is and b) make me resist the idea of tying execution to it, if it's going to connote lesser quality fare.
I mean, before this discussion, I never considered using "cracked" to describe the premises or stories that make up crackfic, maybe because of the possible connotations of "flawed" that the word can carry. Something was either straightforward "crack" - as in (as someone upthread said) "What kind were you smoking when you came up with that?" and hence the idea of absurdity as a defining characteristic - or, if there was an adjective form, it was "cracktastic."
And I think it's telling that the adjective form related to crackfic that I learned is a portmanteau of "crack" and "fantastic," because "crackfic," more often than not, also carried a connotation of fabulousness. Crackfic was something that people looked at and said "That is completely whacked out and should never, ever work - and yet it does."
The thing is, because of my intial experiences with the label of "crackfic" and the quality of the writers who were producing the surrealist and magical realist and absurdist stuff that lends itself to being crackfic ... if quality of execution is going to be tied to the label, I'm going to go into it expecting it to be the good stuff not the badfic.
no subject
Back again. :g: It suddenly struck me that there was a whole set of connotations and associations to the word "crackfic" that I learned that a) influence how I see what crackfic is and b) make me resist the idea of tying execution to it, if it's going to connote lesser quality fare.
I mean, before this discussion, I never considered using "cracked" to describe the premises or stories that make up crackfic, maybe because of the possible connotations of "flawed" that the word can carry. Something was either straightforward "crack" - as in (as someone upthread said) "What kind were you smoking when you came up with that?" and hence the idea of absurdity as a defining characteristic - or, if there was an adjective form, it was "cracktastic."
And I think it's telling that the adjective form related to crackfic that I learned is a portmanteau of "crack" and "fantastic," because "crackfic," more often than not, also carried a connotation of fabulousness. Crackfic was something that people looked at and said "That is completely whacked out and should never, ever work - and yet it does."
The thing is, because of my intial experiences with the label of "crackfic" and the quality of the writers who were producing the surrealist and magical realist and absurdist stuff that lends itself to being crackfic ... if quality of execution is going to be tied to the label, I'm going to go into it expecting it to be the good stuff not the badfic.