september's coming soon

I'm really really really not religious, but a post-grad degree in literature teaches you things.

Writing a fic full of of Biblical allusions isn't particularly pretentious. That Hetalia fic that was just Finland and Norway hanging around and making commentary on pieces of history that probably most people even in the countries wouldn't catch? That was pretentious. The only reader I trust to have understood what it was about was the kudos left by a Scandinavia word who turned out to be Swedish when I checked the profile. The rest, presumably lacking the background knowledge the fic was discussing between the lines, would probably just read a kinda weird and kinda sinister NorFin friendship fic.

But mythological allegories in a fandom where canon is not particularly subtle about the mythological allusions?

Not pretentious, unless allegory is per definition pretentious.

But fandom isn't as deep as you all think and when I see allusions discussed at all, it's mostly just to point them out, much rarer in attempts to read them as narrative devices. We love fairy-tale crossovers or maybe artsy fic citing fairy-tales as blunt metaphors, but I yet to find fic where the meaning relies on allegory.

So of course that was what I went and did.

Said fic curently has three different reviews explaining that it left the reader crying in the middle of the night, which I guess says something about its length as a one-shot, but also that I really didn't need to worry about my clusmy use of litterary devices. Because even as I EXPLICITLY POINTED AT THEM IN THE NOTES, at least the audience that liked it enough to bother leaving comments was completely blind to the fact that a fic open to be read as a Christ allegory miiiiiiiight just also suggest a return from symbolic death. (alternatively: my writing simply isn't that great and the readers clever enough to have picked up on that had long since noped out or didn't think I needed encouragement to write more)

I don't fancy being the judge of my own writing, but I've sat through enough lectures to know that what I wrote would be blatantly obvious to any literary scholar worth their salt. I quoted the scripture verbatim twice and the Notre Dame was damn near omnipresent, and that put together with the canon connection to Mary and Joan of Arc would make it clear that yeah no, the references to Christianity in this fic are not incidental.

So I don't know which it is. In an age where faith is strictly personal, is it that people just don't expect to see a living religion used for purposes other than proselytising? Is it truly that foreign to see Christianity treated just like any other mythology? I mean, based on real, honest to god Christians I know, it's just very likely that even believers reading the fic completely missed out on the part where I turned Adrien into John the Baptist because god only knows I've had to discuss the Bible with enough people who believe a lot in a text that my atheist-raised-on-an-illustrated-children's-bible ass knows better than them.

Or just as likely: Fanfic Is Trash And That's Why You Should Read Novels That Aren't Genre Fiction. Yes there is really good fanfic out there no genre fiction isn't per definition bad but if you fancy yourself a writer then you should read good books too and I say this as a person who unabashedly read fic and loves fantasy most of all. I still won't shut up about the fact that almost all fanfic and most genre fiction I read do not aspire for subtlety.

Or allegory is just per definition pretentious, I guess.