Crowd-sourcing HD fan-fair: Progress Report #3 - Take a Poll

[snowgall]

A poll to see how best to label fics: top, bottom, or switching?

We are so close to having completed our hd_fan_fair spreadsheet with all of the information on who tops in each fic! As of today, we are only missing information on 12 fics rated R or NC-17.

Thanks again to cabinetcaligari, cagnurit, eidheann_writes, and khalulu who have all added lots more information in just the last few days. If I missed anyone who contributed, please let me know!

(For anyone who hasn't followed the "Who Tops More" project, you can get caught up here, here, and here. Only the first post with the spreadsheet link is f-locked. If you want the link, just PM me.)

Once the last of the data is entered, I can run the numbers. However, there are several cases where the question of "who tops" could be debatable. I'll be honest: my personal opinion is that what matters for the top/bottom designation is only the sex that occurs on screen between Harry and Draco during the course of the story. However, this is a group project, and I want input from the group as to how to best make these decisions. Therefore, I am conducting a poll!

As I see it, there are 5 types of cases to consider. Each case listed below is followed by several examples from the hd-fan-fair fics to help illustrate the point.


Case 1: Sex does not occur during the story, but the implication is that one of them will bottom in the future:
Examples:

• A Lesson in Love and Ice Cream (NC-17) protegonox
  implied future bottom!Harry: no penetration, but Harry mentions a fantasy of Draco fucking him. Sex on screen is blowjob, handjob, frottage.


• A Working Title (NC-17) by mindabbles
  implied future bottom!Draco: sex on screen is blowjob D>H; handjob H>D

[Poll #2006146]



Case 2: Sex occurs during the course of the story, but is non-explicit:
Examples:

• Dream A Little Dream (R) by auntpurl
  implied bottom!Draco: "Malfoy beneath him, open and vulnerable while Harry lost control and finally succumbed to an orgasm"


• A Future Unknown (NC-17) by omi_ohmy
  implied bottom!Draco: Harry says "not til I'm inside you" and summons lube; Draco can't walk afterwards because his legs are shaky


• Girls Aloud is Hazardous to your Health (R) azicrow
  implied bottom!Draco: pressure of Draco's heels on Harry's back during sex


• Safety First (R) charmed310
  implied bottom!Draco: riding Harry, sore arse, though not explicitly shown

[Poll #2006147]



Case 3: The sex that occurs during the story is explicitly bottom-so-and-so, but there is the implication that switching will occur in the future.
Examples:

• Hogwarts State of Mind (NC-17) by leo_draconis
  bottom!Draco: switching implied in future


• Beekeeping (NC-17) by khalulu
  bottom!Draco: switching implied in future


• The List (NC-17) by tari_sue
  bottom!Harry: switching implied in future

[Poll #2006148]



Case 4: The sex that occurs during the story is explicitly bottom-so-and-so, but there is implication (non-explicit) that switching also occurs during the course of the story.
Examples:

• ASSassSINSs (NC-17) by hogwartsvixxxen
  bottom!Harry: switching implied offscreen


• Heavenly Bodies (NC-17) by leo_draconis
  bottom!Draco: switching implied


• Look Back, Move Forward (NC-17) by blithelybonny
  bottom!Draco: switching implied

[Poll #2006149]



Case 5: Explicit sex occurs with another character during the course of the story
Example:

• Torn Are the Soft Ties (NC-17) sashaminx
  bottom!Draco with someone other than Harry; there is no sex between Harry and Draco

[Poll #2006150]


Thanks again to everyone who has helped on this project so far, and also to eidheann_writes, who helped me with thinking about these poll questions.

And it seems awfully fitting that today is the first day of the dracotops_harry fest, don't you think? :)

More in this series:
Crowd-sourcing Fan-fair Proposal - Spreadsheet link (f-locked)
Progress Report #1
Progress Report #2 - My f-list rocks!
Progress Report #3 - Take a Poll
Progress Report #4 - Poll Results and Spreadsheet Complete!
Who Tops More in HD-fan-fair: Final Results

Comments

[birdsofshore]

Gosh, i tried to answer but mostly i just didn't know. I suspect it's because i don't much care who tops. If it mattered a lot to me, i imagine I'd have all kinds of rules and guidelines for when it was topping and when switching, etc. It was interesting to think about, but what I mostly thought was not v helpful, sorry!

[snowgall]

:)

I expect that this will be the case in general. For people who care, they will likely have Opinions (TM). If you don't care so much about who tops, then you probably don't have very strong opinions on which is which either :)

Although (as I discovered while discussing this with eidheann_writes) even though I don't care who tops, I do have some opinions on the matter of which is which (quelle surprise!). For me, it's because I actually don't like switching all that much, so I care about which fics get called switching. If I were just doing this for me, I would probably make some weird judgment calls on some fics. Like, I tend to think of "IDK by BFF Hermione" by lettered as a bottom!Draco fic, even though it's really switching. But don't worry, eidheann and vaysh set me straight on that one!

But thanks so much for filling out the poll anyway. More data is good data ♥

[this-bloody-cat.livejournal.com]

What, seriously? I also thought about that one as bottom!Draco! :'D

[snowgall]

Oh good, I'm so glad it's not just me! ♥

But yeah, the bottom!Harry scene, while graphic and important, was part of Harry making a point to himself and Draco about acceptance, and not really about their preferences. And it's the character's preferences that matter to me when I think about how to classify a fic. But after talking about this with others, I figured that was a minority view (and also harder to be objective about in the end) and so I concede that this fic is switching :)

[vaysh]

Fascinating poll. I filled it out as I would classify fic for the draco-tops!lists for dracotops_harry and how fic for the DTH Fest is warned for.

[vaysh]

After some thoughts - I do think for the purpose of this study, the actual on-screen sex should count. There are many fics that are bottom!Draco (or bottom!Harry) who simply tag some mention of switching on at the end. But those are still bottom!Draco (bottom!Harry fics, respectively) in my book.

[lauren3210.livejournal.com]

That's a really interesting thought, and one that I've been struggling with a little bit tbh. Do you mind if I ask you a question? For example, I've written a fic where Harry wakes up marked and sore, and Draco talks to him about the things he did to him the night before. Then later in the fic there is explicit bottom!Draco. So, would you classify this example as bottom!Draco, or as switching? I guess I'm struggling with working out how explicit both sides have to be for a fic to be seen as switching?

[vaysh]

Um. I get a bit weirded out if people are now starting to write their fic to fit these guidelines. Really, you should write the story how it makes sense to you. What Snowgall is trying to do is not give some Rules about how to write bottom, top or switching fic. She is trying to come up with objective classification systems for fic THAT HAS ALREADY BEEN WRITTEN.

And I don't usually classify fic as switching or anything, I just read and enjoy the story. So please, be as explicit or non-explicit as you want to be for your story.

[lauren3210.livejournal.com]

God, sorry, I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable, I just thought I'd ask you because your comment about stories that are tagged with 'mention of switching' seemed to fit with the question I'd been mulling over for a while. And I didn't really mean it as specific to me and my writing, because, and without meaning to cause offense, as willing and eager as I am to try new things, in the end any stories I write will be written how I wish them to be. It was more a general sort of question, for my own peace of mind, that I probably wasn't very clear on, which was: At what point does implied switching become plain switching? Does the explicit material have to be equal on both sides, or does it just depend on how often it's mentioned? The question interests me, mainly because I can't come up with a definitive answer myself, and I wondered what your opinion would be, considering your opinion that the fics that tag for some mention of switching are still predominantly either one or the other. I'm sorry I made you uncomfortable, that wasn't my intention :)

[vaysh]

Sorry, sweet, if it felt I am overreacting. i get really weirded out if people take all of Snowgall's study as prescriptive, and not just descriptive as it is supposed to be.

I personally like to see some psychology behind the initial topping and bottoming. And I like the switching to be a conscious choice. This is wholly based on my sexual experiences as a lesbian. In my experience with same-gender sex, you just don't switch "naturally" if you've grown comfortable topping or bottoming. There is some talking involved, and usually some expression of curiosity. And I - personally - like to have both scenarios given equal space. For a full sex scene to be written, there needs to be a good plot reason anyway, as well as for the switching, so it seems the story needs both scenarios fully fleshed out. A story like Lettered's "Another Mask Behind You" is a perfect example of what I mean.

Um. Does this all make sense?

[lauren3210.livejournal.com]

Thank you, that makes a lot of sense, yes. And I agree that there should be a good plot reason for sex to be written, so it follows that there should also be a good reason for any switching to occur. My own personal experience with same-gender sex occurred when we were both very young, so experimenting and figuring out what we both preferred was the main component of that for me, which I think might skew my perspective of the concept of switching slightly. And actually, now that you've spelt it out, I realise that I have written most of my stories within these parameters - I've either written bottom!Whoever with vague mentions of switching possibly happening in the future, or I've written switching with the reasons behind it. So thank you, you've helped me work out my own opinion that I didn't know I already had, haha! :D

[vaysh]

♥

[snowgall]

Since I'm pretty much in agreement with Vaysh here, I'll just let her tackle this question :)

And my scientific linguistic heart is just all aflutter at the use of 'prescriptive' vs. 'descriptive' in talking about these issues. Yay for descriptivism. I may just swoon!

[snowgall]

Yeah, that's pretty much how I have come to think of it too. I think my opinions on this (to the extent that I have them :) have been clarified a lot by the discussions on these recent posts. So I've really enjoyed the intellectual debate, actually ♥

[lauren3210.livejournal.com]

I kinda went with what I remembered from the DTH rules to answer these, because I figured that if the fest catered to those who preferred top!Draco, then the reverse could be applied for those who prefer top!Harry. From what I remember, switching isn't allowed even as implied, and it only applies to actual penetration, so I voted in line with those parameters.

As for case 5, I think that fics of that kind should be filed as Not Applicable or something similar, because I think that what someone does with one person does not necessarily denote what they would do with another, imo.

[snowgall]

It was case 5 that actually prompted the discussion between eidheann_writes and me that led to this poll, so I expect that there will be some disagreement on that one. So far the first three cases seem less controversial. Thanks so much for your contribution and the fascinating discussion with Vaysh above!

[iwao.livejournal.com]

Who tops or bottoms doesn't influence me on whether or not I read a fic. Although I tend towards bottom!Draco, I'm just as happy with bottom!Harry (unless it's an Mpreg fic, cos for some reason I really dislike it when Harry is the one carrying. And now I feel I need to qualify this, cos I dislike Harry carrying except in the Gains arch by enchanted_jae. LOL!)) or switching, but for the sake of avoiding trolls and disappointed readers I'm all for labelling fics in an accurate manner.

Hence, when one of them tops (or bottoms) with another character but takes the opposite position when sex is between the boys, I'm not sure it'd be accurate to label it bottom! whoever or top whoever, cos I feel the possibility of switching in the future is pretty high. At the most top!/bottom! whoever in this fic. In the case of one of them topping or bottoming wit another character and then being not sex on screen between D and H, I'd label it as no explicit sex (between H/D)

Erm, now that I see all I've written, it all looks terribly complicated. So unless there is clear-cut explicit sex between the boys, I wouldn't label top/bottom at all! D:

Not very helpful, am I? LOL!

[snowgall]

Oh, I think all opinions are helpful here, if only to clarify which cases are the controversial ones which will need careful thought. And so far, that seems to be #4 and #5, as you suggest.

My own opinion is to do the classification based solely on the in this fic metric you mentioned. But this is only an opinion, not some edict from on high :) And at the end of the day, the number of fics falling into the #4 or #5 sets isn't going to be that large, so hopefully the choices won't make a huge difference either way.

Thanks so much for taking the poll and leaving helpful comments ♥

And P.S. I get you about qualifying my likes and dislikes! I feel I have to be super careful now when explaining what I like since many people have strong opinions and I don't want to offend anyone. Mostly these likes and dislikes are just mild preferences for me and don't stop me from liking an otherwise great fic. But I always want to make that clear now! :)

[capitu]

I swear I tried but I'm not sure I did right, the thing is, I'm really not very concerned about who bottoms and who tops in the grand scheme of things. I have a preference but it's definitely not what I think about when I start reading a story, my expectations and enjoyment of a fic don't depend on this, you know? And it's a debate that gets kind of old for me pretty quickly. Like, I don't like to spend a lot of time thinking about this, you know? XD Sorry!

For me it's bottom!whoever if the sex happened in the story.

I make a note if a story is explicitly bottom!whoever and the switching occurs one time (or more, sometimes a fic is 100K and there are only 2 times switching in a otherwise mainly top!whoever, I make a note because some people who do have a strong preference see both tags, but will know that bottom!whoever is minimal and would still read it).

If the story isn't explicit about who tops or something, I don't tag it because, reading is, well, reading is interpreting, too. If Harry says, 'oh, I'm going to fuck you.' But in the fic there's no penetration, that 'I'm going to fuck you' can mean, say; I'm going to rim you, I'm going to suck you, I'm going to alsdkfalskd whatever, you know?

At least, I think that's how I do it. I don't have a set of rules that as I read I go, 'nope, this went too far, now it's something else.' As I read I make decisions on how to tag, story by story.

Not terribly helpful about these discussions at all, sorry!

[snowgall]

So funny about the debate getting old! It's crazy how much time I have voluntarily given up to discuss these issues when if you had asked me at the start I would have said that I didn't have strong preferences and didn't care all that much! But it seems like maybe I do actually care a bit more than I thought :)

And I totally get the rationalization behind how you have decided to tag your recs, and for the most part those reasons are how I've chosen to do it too. It's just that when you open up a project to group input (and that has been AWESOME) then you start seeing different opinions about how to tag things and so I wanted to see if we could get a consensus about how to tag in order to run the numbers.

And a lot of time these decisions come down to a gut instinct which can be hard to qualify. I'd like to have a metric that is as objective as possible, but I don't know if that's 100% possible, in the end ♥

[capitu]

Hahahaha. I just sent you a message! lol

No, I'd never dare to ask anyone to give up on a topic at all. I didn't mean that. I just meant that I personally don't think about this too much, don't put much thought in this topic, so I don't have a lot of ground to say 'this is what I think' because I usually don't think about it at great length. :)

And how funny that you realise you do care more than you initially thought. ^^ I do have a preference myself, as I've said before, but for the most part, I'm happy to read bottom!whoever, but I've realised, and mentioned to eidheann_writes and vaysh, I do miss bottom!whoever when there's a ~flood of the other. :D

Yes, gut is mostly how I get by. *lol* Like I said, for me as I rec individually, it's easier to make a note on a specific story in the rec, and tag accordingly, but I get that when it's a group project, or you're talking about tagging several stories, the little things balance it one way or the other. nods. Specially if people feel strongly about this or that, yeah?

<33

[snowgall]

♥♥♥

(response necessarily short as I'm about to be out of communication for the next several hours. Will reply to more comments later this evening. Love to all!)

[dicta-contrion.livejournal.com]

Adding a poll to your stats? I'm all a-flutter. Nerdily.

On 3 and 4: in practice, I think it depends on how explicit the implication is. I'd differentiate between something really vague ("Harry can't wait for next time; there are so many more things he wants to try") and something that makes it abundantly clear what has happened ("I'm on top this time, Potter, you can't have all the turns") or will happen ("Just wait until you're balls-deep in my arse").

On 5, I just have no idea. Suspect sticklers for the distinction, the people who say "I won't/can only read bottom-whoever," would want it to be bottom-whoever-bottoms-on-screen, b/c I think that's where the preference tends to overlap most heavily with characterization preferences, but can't be sure.

[snowgall]

Absolutely agree on vagueness, which is why it's a) very hard to be objective about these things and b) so wonderful when people add extra information in the top/bottom spreadsheet field about what actually happens in the fic.

And I think that cases #4 and #5 are going to be where the biggest controversy will be. So having people explain in the comments what their opinions are and why is going to be very helpful.

Thanks so much for your help! ♥

[gracerene]

OMG I love that you are doing this, it's so interesting! I definitely have a preference when reading, but that preference doesn't prevent me from reading/enjoying all the sexy times! :D

That last one was particularly hard, but I'd say a good rule is to label for the on-screen sex. I'm not a super stickler about top/bottom roles, but I know there are readers out there who are, so I usually try to tag for that in my recs. If there is any switching at all, I always mention that, though if there is only one instance of a switch, I usually indicate which is more prevalent in the fic. I also tend to indicate when switching it implied/mentioned off-screen because some people don't like reading even the vague mention of the other character topping...Which makes Case 4 hard for me, because I'd probably tag as implied switching for potential readers, but personally, I'd see it as really only bottom whoever we see explicitly penetrated.

Not sure that is at all helpful!

[snowgall]

All of this is helpful ♥

The more I read these comments, the more I think that there is a difference between how to tag a fic for purposes of helping readers find/avoid what they want to read (which is what you and capitu have to think the most about) and how to tag a fic for purposes of counting top/bottom fics for statistical reasons.

For readers, the more info you can give them about even small scenes or implications will help them make informed choices, if that's their issue. But for the question of what the trends are in fanfiction, it may be more useful to focus on what's actually on screen in the course of the fic. But I'm still interested in finding out if people agree with me on that :)

And yeah, #4 and #5 are going to be the trickiest ♥

[gracerene]

Yes, I think that's exactly it! You managed to say it much more eloquently than I did! But I do agree that for trends purposes, it's probably more helpful/relevant to focus on the on-screen activities, rather than the off-screen implications.

[nia_kantorka]

Case 5 would depend. First example I would declare as not explicit at all. Second would depend on the narrating. Do we 'see' both sex scenes? Then I would say it's switching. If we only see the sex with Harry, I would say it's top!Draco.

Good luck with those last 12 fics.
The question is very intersting from a statistical viewpoint, in RL (or as in a reading experience) I so not care. On the contrary, it annoys the hell out of me when people want to force others to see X always as the top/bottom, no Y...see what I mean? Though each to their own.

[snowgall]

Oh yes, I know what you mean. No one should try to impose their view of who *should* top on anyone else. But the question of how best to label a fic after it's been written is academically interesting to me.

And as I mentioned to gracerene, the answer of how to tag a fic could be different for different goals. I appreciate all the feedback, even from people who don't normally care. <3 it's nice that people are trying for my sake :)

Typing on my phone while riding in a car. Please excuse typos!

[khalulu]

I don't have strong opinions - I'm not good at categorizing fuzzy situations, and I also don't care, myself, who tops, or how often they switch, or even if they have that type of sex. But it was fun to read or skim through a bunch of old fan fair fics and be able to say it was for research!

[snowgall]

I'm so glad that there are people other than me who find that sort of thing fun :) And I'm really just so thrilled that the idea of crowd-sourcing worked as well as it did - I honestly was worried that I'd put up the spreadsheet and no one would add anything to it!

Thank you so much for all of your help, and for being detailed when you added info to the top/bottom field. ♥

[kitty_fic]

I voted other on cases three and four: Is there a way to label those as bottom!whoever (with implied switching)?

[snowgall]

Thanks for voting! So in the spreadsheet itself these fics are currently listed that way (bottom-whoever with implied switching) and that won't change. I always like to have as much information as I can about a fic.

But when I run the numbers for top/bottom, there are already 4 categories: bottom!Harry, bottom!Draco, switching, and no penetration. I feel like if I split the categories into further pieces that the analysis would be messier and less easy to follow. In this scenario we'd add two more: bottom!Harry w/ implied switching and bottom!Draco w/ implied witching giving us six.

And maybe six categories isn't such a big deal. However for each of the new categories we'd only be talking about a handful of fics that would be labeled that way, so it seems like mostly what would happen is that the stats would say that oh 4% of fics do this or that. And I'm not sure that makes the picture any clearer.

But I do understand why you feel that they don't fit so well into either category. That's why I thought I needed a poll :) I hope that if I end up putting these few fics into one category or another that it won't really skew the stats very much.

The nice thing is, if it really affects the stats we still have all the data and could easily re-label them and run the numbers again. That's why I'm so happy that the data will be public. And as I mentioned to gracerene, different labels are good for different purposes. The purpose of deciding which fic to read is different from the purpose of seeing what the trends are in fanfic.

Anyway, that's how I think about it. Does that work OK for you? I really appreciate that you took the time to vote and leave a comment, and I hope you don't feel like I'm just sweeping your concerns under the rug ♥

[kitty_fic]

Oh, yeah that makes total sense :)
I'm totally impressed by your organization! :D