Gah. Good question, Connie. I'd tend to include both kinds of fic in the definition unless the "bad things happen" fic has so many irrevocably bad things happen that the happy ending could only be seen as bittersweet.

One kind of fic I loathe are ones where a shitload of bad stuff happens and a happy ending is tacked on with no acknowledgement of the fact that the characters have been through hell.

the happy ending could only be seen as bittersweet.

Heh. Where the "happiness" is that our hero/heroine still has defiance on their lips as they lay dying or something.

I'm a sucker for the happy ending, myself, even if happy means that the world has gone to hell but the couple de jour knows they've still got each other to depend on.

Fluff pieces are nice. Not every life is unending angst and pain. Granted, it's hard to maintain fluff without it becoming simple goop. Conflict is generally necessary for there to be a purpose to the story. Wrestling with a stubborn jar of peanut butter might be the extent of it, but there needs to be some sort of conflict. Otherwise we're all living in Teletubbies Land and talking babytalk to each other.

Oooohh, fandom meltdown. Very fun.

Oooohh, fandom meltdown. Very fun.

AGAIN?

Which one?

XF, oddly enough. One of the currently-popular writers (or fans, possibly -- I'm no longer reading in the fandom) is a doctor who was talking publicly about her patients a lot, and even posted a set of X-rays to her LJ. Finally some of the Old Guard (including a number of friends of mine) took her to task publicly for ethical violations.

It spilled over into fanfic_hate, a bunch of different LJ posts, and will probably show up on FW any moment now. The individual in question has suddenly deleted a lot of her threads on boards, and locked her LJ. But the thing's very much out in the open now.

In the interstices I can see all sorts of old resentments getting aired.

ION, I'm a little disappointed that none of YV has been tagged as over-rated and pretentious on the FF_H XF thread. Ah, well, give it time.

I read that "overrated XF fic" thread in fandom_hate and was like to cry with laughter. The best zingers were the ones that are undeniably true, in stories I actually like.

I mean, some of the others were just gimmes, so those one has to rate on how entertainingly bad they are.

Okay, having paged through the XF thread (I hate getting sucked in to fanfic_hate, but I always do), Laurie Haynes *died*?

Just recently, Dana. She'd been sick for a while, so I hear.

There were some memorial posts on the Haven.

I'm very sorry for her family and friends. She was far from my favorite person in the fandom, but she died too young.

Wow.

Oh, dear. I have to share this, because it's just too frightening for words.

Don't say I didn't warn you.