For my first year of Buffy obsession I had very clear rules about what I wouldn't do and reading fanfic was most definitely on the forbidden list, because I could recite quotes from almost every episode (even though I hadn't seen three-quarters of them) off the top of my head, but reading fanfic?--well, that would make me weird.

I dimly recall those times...

Then it became "well, I'd never *WRITE* it" and then I just Gave. Up.

Then it became "well, I'd never *WRITE* it"

Heh. This is where I'm at--I got strongly attacked by a plot-bunny after Lilah's untimely death where her ghost ends up back at her hicks-ville home-town thinking that's she's still alive, believing that she said goodbye to Wes in the sewers and got the hell out of dodge rather than staying, because she can't accept that she actually hung around and got herself killed for Wesley. I wrote half a page and then resisted because a) my Lilah would've been too derivative of JennyO's and b) the hardest part about writing for me is conceiving character and plot, and writing fanfic still seems like I'm wasting creative juices practicing the wrong things. It's probably a good thing I don't have an LJ, even though I read other peoples' like crazy, because If I ever get one, I imagine that b) would go much the same way as my 'fanfic is for other people' manifesto.

Hee. My first effort (still unfinished) was Dru/Giles, set around Forgiving.

Ah, my poor WIP pile. Obviously, the hardest thing about writing for me is not getting distracted by shiny plot bunnies.

(Hey! It's almost foaling season in the SH!)

(Someone wipe my mind NOW please?)

Strangely, the idea of writing fanfiction attracts me more than reading it. Are there any well-known fic authors who notoriously don't read any fanfiction other than their own? (I know that idea kind of goes against the grain of fanfiction, being a "community" thing and all.)

Are there any well-known fic authors who notoriously don't read any fanfiction other than their own?

I've never heard of-- but if you want to try and start a trend, Angus, you're welcome...

That's cool, Emlah...what are you studying btw?

From way back but... Arts, currently doing 4th year Honours English.

I guess I brought it up because the whole nature of intense fandom is a new thing for me -- didn't think it would happen at my age. I aint exactly a teenager anymore ... there's part of me that has trouble accepting that I have an obsession with a TV show and that I'm exploring that obsession by reading things that other similarly interested fans have done to tease out the edges of it.

Oh, I think a lot of people go through the 'but, isn't it kinda, y'know, strange?' and the 'Oh, God. I'm just like a Trekkie. I should be greeting people with the Vulcan hand-thing and learning Klingon' phases. Or that might just have been me--but either way, there's definitely a cultural predjudice about being fannish about something which doesn't involve the movement of a roundish object about a big field, and it can be intimidating.

I used to feel embarrassed about my obsessions (some major, some fleeting). I made up excuses for fannish behaviour. Like, when I was obsessed with The X-Files (before the craptacularity of later seasons killed the love) I used to say I was taping it in case one of my friends missed the episode.

It's not surprising, considering the way fans have traditionally been ridiculed and pathologised, especially fans of pop culture. I'm channeling one of my lecturers here but: fans have often been presented as an 'other' that offsets the respectability and sanity of 'normal' people. 'Normal' people can maintain distance between themselves and the objects of their pleasure, while fans cannot blah blah blah. To some extent that attitude is changing but yeah, as Leigh said: cultural predjudice, man.

By the time I got into Buffy I was all: Screw it. I'm an obsessed fan and proud of it. Anyone who feels the need to ridicule that is saying more about themselves than they are about me.

I read some fan fiction. I mostly like character studies - short, virtually plotless pieces that just capture the characters beautifully. A moment between Willow and Xander while they're researching, Buffy daydreaming in class - whatever. If I was going to analyse that preference I'd say it's because one of the things I value most about Buffy is consistent, 3-dimensional characterisation. Character studies help to make the characters seem 'real' to me, like there's something in the character to grasp onto, explore.

Are there any well-known fic authors who notoriously don't read any fanfiction other than their own?

I know some people of whom this might be said, but they're the scary, megalomaniacal (and, perhaps consequently, tend also the be the not very good) kind of fanfic writer. I for one am picky, but I'm picky because I have to winnow the good from the wheatfields full of bad.

(Sometimes I find fanfic terribly depressing, because so much of it is so bad. And bad in ways so indicative of thoughtlessness or spoon-fed cultural propaganda, that I just despair for the majority of people on this earth. Then I read the newspaper, and remember I didn't need fanfic to get me despairing.)

On the Connor front, I tend to think he did what he did the same way victims of human sacrifice sometimes go smiling under the knife: at last, at last, what I do matters! I am a key data point in a complex system of signification! It all depends on me! That's some heady power, even if it doesn't tend to be a long-term investment.

Ha! Beautifully put, Nutty. I might steal "I am a key data point in a complex system of signification" for my own personal use, if you don't mind.

Go for it, Angus. I actually started out with it as key log is a logjam, but I realized that I was being obscure and should stick entirely to human-sacrifice metaphors made out of logic and computer-systems terminology.

Curse you, Paddle-to-the-Sea!

Well, I read a lot less than most other fic writers, partially for lack of time, partially because I read enough crap for work and school - so unless something gets a lot of recommendations, or the writer is asking for some criticism, I tend to avoid it. It takes like, twenty good fic's to get the taste of bad fic out. The benefit is getting to feel superior to someone within the fandom - sort of like being in rehab and thinking, "Well, at least I've never sold my children for crack."