Smoke a Cigarette and Lie Some More

[lunabee34]

thelastgoodname posted HERE about deal breakers in fic which led to a discussion of non-canonical smokers smoking in fanfiction which prompted me to say that I believe most people have smoked at least one cigarette in their lives. That prompted hermionesviolin to make a poll about people's smoking habits. Results viewable to none, so feel free to pop over and take the poll even if you don't want your smoking past or present known. :)

Her poll and TLGN's post got me to thinking about smoking in fanfic and how I feel about it. Before I begin, let me disclaim. I am an ex-smoker. When I smoked, I did so like London at the height of the Industrial Revolution. I was a chain smoker. I smoked because I was alive. And I enjoyed the hell out of it until it made me, as it is wont to do, horribly and violently ill. I now think smoking is gross and horrible and expensive and deadly and I still want to do it really badly sometimes even though I usually don't. I am deluding myself into believing that smoking twice a year on vacation (at New Years and the Fourth) will not hurt me. I still think smoking looks sexy as all get out, even though it's so bad for you and the smell really turns my stomach now. (Isn't it great how you can't smell people on the TV? LOL)

That being said, I know very few people who have never ever smoked. I know lots of people who tried it once or twice and were thoroughly repulsed or who smoked casually now and again and gave it up, but very few people who just never smoked at all. This is probably more a reflection of where and when I grew up and the people I've chosen as friends and acquaintances over the years than anything else, but smoking is one of those things I'm never surprised when people admit they've done before. It seems like a part of adolescence to me--high school or college--that hopefully you grow out of before your lungs are fried.

So I don't get thrown out of a story when non-canonical smokers light up in fanfic. Let's take Sam and Dean Winchester, for example. They are not canonical smokers. They never ever light up onscreen. In fact, Sam says point blank that Dean doesn't smoke in "Fulsom Prison Blues." However, in "Born Under a Bad Sign," Dean's dialogue about Meg!possessed Sam smoking indicates (as least to me! MMV) that Dean was a smoker in the past. Couple that with the fact that the Winchesters practically grew up in bars and other seedy shindigs, the hard life of a hunter, and Dean's predilection for every vice glorified in a Hank Williams song and I can totally believe that one or both of them has smoked in the past and might pick it up again under the right conditions. I can pretty much believe anything of any character under the right conditions. I am coming to realize that I have very, very few ironclad deal breakers in fic.

I want to you know what you all think about smoking in fic. So poll!

[Poll #1561178]

Comments

[chibi-kachi.livejournal.com]

My sometime is due to the whole 'it depends on why they are lighting up in the fanfic' for me to find it implausible to have a non-smoking canon character smoke in fanfic.

For example - I read a fanfic once where Xander smoked one of Spike's cigs and the setting of that particular story was during the struggle against the First Evil and the author had Xander smoke for the whole 'what the hell of it I'm going to die so let's smoke once'. That reasoning I can get behind.

[callmesandy.livejournal.com]

When it comes to television shows, even the basic cable variety, smoking is a lot like swearing to me. Obviously, unlike what we see on TV, these characters say fuck and shit. Barring them saying it as in SPN which, as you point out, really? I don't think it's a leap to think some of them smoke/have smoked, etc.

[havocthecat]

I swear, I feel like the only person who's never smoked, thinks it's disgusting, and hates being around even the faintest whiff of a lingering scent of cigarette or cigar smoke. (Or even cloves.)

[wisdomeagle]

'Nother non-smoker, not ever (but then, I've also never had a drink -- a healthy sip of champagne is the most alcohol I've drunk in my life) so I am both an outlier and a puritan.

I took the poll with (mostly) Tara in mind. I can't imagine Tara smoking.

I did, however, made both Buffy and Nina smokers in a futurefic.

I think Daniel definitely smoked, Jack probably, and Sam, not.

(I probably have personal fanon on every character I can think of! You probably don't want to hear it.)

[thelastgoodname.livejournal.com]

I find it implausible when characters who do not smoke in canon smoke in fanfic.

I find it implausible when friends who do not usually smoke around my light up. It's happened many times and it always gives me this horrible sense of dissonance. If I could backbutton out of the moment and never have known about it I would.

Also, my mom smoked my whole life until she decided she wanted to see my graduate from grad school (not undergrad, mind, grad school), so to me, smoking is the antithesis is sexy. That's just a bad image.

[tabaqui]

I have to have a good reason for a character to smoke in fanfic if they don't in canon. Because people who really *don't smoke* don't, as a rule, just light up randomly for 'cool plot purposes', you know?

Spike smoking, of course, kicks ass and takes names and i love it. But i would fucking *hate* to kiss him. Yucko.

[altyronsmaker.livejournal.com]

Well. Maybe most people have smoked, but I'm 34 and have NEVER picked up a cigarette. My brother, mother, and father all smoke, but I am the lone hold out. It's gross. No matter how ya slice it. It stinks, the ashtrays are aesthetically unpleasant, and it makes your house grimy.. No thank you. >.

driveby comment on my way to bed

[hermionesviolin.livejournal.com]

Yay for continuing the discussion, complete with links to all the relevant threads!

There's an extraneous " at the end of the link to my post. Though a whole bunch of people successfully made their way over to my journal anyway \o/

[shannon730.livejournal.com]

For me it really depends on how much of the person you see in canon...does canon really say they don't smoke. There's a lot of Torchwood fic with Ianto smoking for instance. Technically he doesn't in canon. But at the same time you never see him outside of work in canon so it's possible it's just something you don't know about him. If hte show centers on someone's personal life though then it'd be harder to buy...

[emella.livejournal.com]

Hey hey,

Okay so for me it really depends on the character, setting, and the fic.

If Dean were smoking in an AU or in some sort of traumatic post-apoca fic, or after Sam left at a bar or something, I can buy that.

It really depends on a case by case basis for me.

I can completely understand people who say that non-canon smoking is a turn off, because chances are it's completely OOC (which is pretty much like any other story with OOCness, and in a way the smoking topic is sort of like a situational metaphor for all OOC situations, I mean what if Simon was doing hard drugs or Willow became a hooker, it's all just ugly, ugly ooc things.)

I agree that I can't really see certain characters smoking. After looking at the thread linked up there, the thought of Sam and Dean smoking cigarettes is weirder to me than them smoking weed. THAT I can get on board with. Although that's said by a stoner so... yeah
*shiftyeyes*

ANYWAY, good post good topic interesting poll.

[cityphonelines.livejournal.com]

I can buy a non-canonical smoker who smokes in fanfic as long as the author explains that character change to my satisfaction.

I answered "maybe" to this; however, I rarely require an explanation for smoking in a fic. I suppose as an ex-smoker/occasional social smoker, I don't have stereotypes in place so I never have that knee-jerk feeling of "such-and-such would NEVER smoke, I can't imagine it" because, well, I can.

I'm equal parts pleased and ashamed that I have more than one on topic icon for this post.

[decynthus.livejournal.com]

I smoked 4 or 5 times in my oh-so-wild youth, but it was never tobacco. Does that count?
In fanfic, it depends a lot on the character. It still works for me even if it's not canon if it seems to fit with the canon characterization (Draco) or with the way a particular author paints that character. In some fics, it seems perfectly natural for Harry, and in others - just, no.
I can't usually buy the "I'm going to die, so what the hell" thing, although I do remember at least one that was plausible. A 15 yr old Harry took it up as a way to act out after being informed he was going to die on his 16th birthday. It was more about giving DD the finger than the actual smoking. It mostly only seems to work if you view smoking as a pleasure you've been denying yourself and no longer have to, or as something you've wanted to try. I can't see a non-smoker turning so enthusiastically to something they had avoided, or at least were uninterested in, previously. If I were facing the end of the world, it wouldn't be a cigarette I'd be looking to suck on. >:)

[lyr]

You know at least one person who has never smoked; I haven't (unless you count a single puff of my grandfather's cigar when I was a wee girl). I have always been violently and miserably allergic to cigarettes, plus the slightest whiff of cig smoke sets my asthma off something fierce.

[drsquidlove.livejournal.com]

Oooh, good thread.

Yes, what callmedsandy said! It's like swearing: just because they don't show it on wholesome shows doesn't mean it doesn't happen. That is exactly the analogy I just used with gloriana and elayna88 when your post led me to raise the discussion. (We're having a fannish gathering.)

Okay, I wouldn't believe Xander had been smoking regularly all the way through Buffy, but that he'd pick up the habit after Chosen? Oh, yeah. No further justification needed. I'd even believe he did it for a while within canon time - maybe with his workmates at one of his season 4 jobs, or secretly after Buffy's s5 death and/or resurrection. And I've already written a fic where Giles still had a very occasional habit, which he made sure the scoobies never saw, because I think that totally fits the character onscreen (and why we never saw it onscreen).

But for some characters, I suppose you'd need to convince me. I can't see Buffy smoking, for some reason. I'd be more likely to believe Willow smoking than Buffy. And Matt from Die Hard, never. He wouldn't be a tool of the tobacco-military-industrial complex. :-)

As for me, I've smoked... maybe twenty cigarettes total, ever? Pretty much all in the first year out of high school. And mostly smoked then because if I had one, then other people's second-hand smoke didn't bother me for the rest of the night. And just because it's the age when you try stuff. So like you, I assume most people have at least tried it, at some point. But I hate smoking, find it totally gross and unattractive to see or smell in RL.

However, I *really* like it when it pops up in fiction, as a novelty or just because it is damned sexy. 'Cos yeah, it can be damned sexy in fic or onscreen. It adds a... rawness(?) to the character. But there are tons of kinks I have in fictional life that I don't like in real life. And if people can have unprotected fanfic sex without strange penis diseases, then they can have fanfic cigarettes without tasting like an ashtray.

Damn, now I want to write a sexy Giles/Xander smoking fic.

S.

[kyuuketsukirui.livejournal.com]

I could buy it in many circumstances, but I would definitely find it weird if in a non-AU fic set during canon, John or Rodney or Sam or Dean just whipped out a pack like they were regular smokers. We see so much of them in situations where if they were smokers, they would be smoking, so I would definitely have a moment of "wait, what?"

I see people above saying to them it's the same as swearing, but for some reason it's different to me. I'm willing to buy characters swearing (and I add swearing all the time) even if they never say whatever words can't be said on TV.

But in AUs or pre/post-canon I can definitely believe it for a lot of people. John and Dean would be very easy to write as smokers. Sam I could be convinced, too, though Dean is definitely the more obvious choice. Rodney...you would have to do some pretty hard convincing because of what a hypochondriac he is. But I could still buy it.

And yes, I do find smoking sexy. -_-;;

I have never been more than a casual smoker myself. I like smoking, but am too cheap to buy cigarettes myself. I used to smoke quite a bit when I had friends who smoked, though, because they'd always share.

[executrix.livejournal.com]

In RL nobody should smoke because it's hideously dangerous and pointless and expensive. But in a fantasy world...

Also, the nature of adventure stories is that there's no point in being sensible anyway when your life expectancy is Last Tuesday.

I'm pretty sure that Avon smokes whenever cigarettes are available, especially if he can gather an audience to watch him put things in his mouth and then blow smoke.

[trobadora]

I can buy it if the characterisation works for me - and that's not something that can easily be defined. *g*

As for the "sexy" question, I voted no because that comes closest, but my real answer is: totally unsexy and icky IRL, but neutral on TV (after all, I don't have to smell it there) - like so many other things, it can be made to look sexy if they really try. *g*

ETA: Oh, and I've never smoked in my life. My father did, and that was quite enough - I found and find the smell revolting enough. *shudders*

[ariadne83]

I've never finished a whole cigarette. I've had a couple of puffs on maybe three separate occasions but... I'm lazy and I hate it when the smell gets into my hair so I never took up the habit.

And I thought it was great when our bars/clubs went smoke free a few years back because I used to stink after a night out clubbing.

I don't really have particularly strong feelings about characters who smoke though. Don't find it sexy but I wouldn't back button out of a story just for that. There's a lot of things people do that they don't necessarily tell you about.