Kinks, emotional, and types of fic.
Feb. 16th, 2008 02:48 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethI was thinking about setups for relationships, and types of first time, and which ones work in what canons, and stuff.
... okay, I was thinking about sex, a lot, but we all know this.
Characters having sex, in stories, in different ways. Different sorts of fun.
I'm a slasher. Have been for years. Many much reading of slash fic.
And I'm a Torchwood fan. Where we don't need slash goggles or photoshop. Where in fact I discover the existence of het goggles with serious denial filters, for I discovered there are people who still think Captain Jack Harkness is straight. I mean... *blinky*
And so I read Jack/Ianto, and Ianto/Owen, and Jack/Owen sometimes, and Ianto/Tosh, and I'm thinking of writing Tosh/Owen except only to make it messed up which sort of loses possible audiences both ways around, and Tosh/Martha should really exist so I can read it. And it's great. And the proportion of it that's some degree of canon is just *fun*.
So why is it only lately I've been thinking in RPS?
Am I not getting all my varieties in fanfic?
And you know, thinking about it, actually not.
In Torchwood I kind of figure everyone's figured themselves out. Tosh got to discover stuff and it was really sweet right up until it went all, you know, Torchwood. Which makes me :( because I like that discovery story but I'd have to either AU it or ignore it or have it all angsty, which is less fun.
Other characters? Seem too confident to be much surprised by their desires. I mean, Ianto might look like mr prim and proper, but he isn't all ... shy little presents or something, he's "if your interested, kinky stopwatch sex now pls?" And maybe there's virgins whose first response to same sex attraction is to get out a stopwatch... and er now I want to write it that way because that would be character mileage there... but mostly it just seems to me like he's skipped the 'figuring out who' and even the 'figuring out what' and is just going for it. Which is many kinds of cool. But...
I find I really like the story of the straight guy finding out he's actually not that straight. Not the story of the guy who is straight and keeps saying so and okay maybe lets the gay guy fancy him but is totally straight and staying that way. That's an annoying story. The part I like is the idea that there's this whole realm of desire that's just never occurred to them before.
They've been going through their life on default settings and the standard script and then, wow, rainbows! Or in story terms: experienced and happily queer meets newbie who thinks straight and sets about demonstrating possibilities. There's seduction, and surprise, and surprise about his own body even. There's experiences he'd never have imagined. There's going from a whole lot of nothing much to a bit of everything in one hot narrative. And it can look a bit like a power trip, someone playing out their desires on a blank canvas, but that's not the good part. The good part is the not-blank person learning to read themselves, finding out stuff about themselves and playing with it. Desire understood and expressed.
Then there's a variation with a bit more yearning. And this one could go to the stopwatch place. It's the Guy With A Plan. I just read a long complicated Robin epic where he was very much this guy. Someone who has never actually done any of this stuff, but have they ever thought about it. In detail. With plans. Possibly "quite a list".
For this one, the surprise is in a slightly different place. It's the difference between imagination and experience. It's the overwhelming sensory data, the breadth and variety of it, compared to what was maybe a little description or a visual they had. It's them finding out what works for them in practice. Which can be many sorts of surprises.
But it's also about yearning. There's this whole weight of desire and expectation built up behind some kind of barrier. I particularly like the calm on the outside, scorching on the inside sort of combination. Masks, or a particular way of wearing a suit.
Ianto could totally be a Plan kind of guy. Maybe he hadn't fancied men before he found himself attracted to Jack... but after that surprise, he's a researcher - he'd totally look stuff up. And think about it. A lot. And by the time he'd ever initiate something, he has a plan that goes all the way through to some satisfying conclusion. He has a whole list of plans.
And of course then there's the variety of fun that is letting him be in Control, and the other variety of fun that is making him lose it, get all mussed and hot and bothered. And some tension between the two.
*has happy thoughts*
But how this connects in my head to RPS is... the second way is plausible to me; the first is not with those two characters. But... I still like the kink. So what to do? Write a younger and more naive Ianto that could be snuck up on? Not so much fun. I thinking lately part of why I like slash is the first times happen later without any extra explanation necessary. Don't have to read about teenagers - and in general I've had about enough of teenagers, though teenage bats aren't very teenage in the irritating ways. Just reading about first times for grown up and therefore hot people.
... There's some people who look a whole lot like Jack and Ianto, who could plausibly fit that other setup really rather well... and be pretty... *happy place again*
... but that would be Weird. and possibly Wrong. I always thought. Because, Real People. They get to be in charge of themselves.
... but not the story of themselves, in a weird magazine mediated way.
I still feel like RP is creepier than fanfic, but I'm seeing some of how it works, for me.
Like... Doctor/Master = hot... but morally dubious and hideous angsty. But look over there - two people that look a whole lot like them and indeed play at being them! Couldn't that be hot?
... and around then I get *facepalm* at me, but I start to get it.
Also, while it is fun to write about the characters, it is also fun to write about being fans of the characters, and we all know the fanboys are running the asylum in this fandom. So there's fic that manages to both be kind of like Doctor/Master and kind of like queer Doctor Who fan gets to shag the Master and kind of like DW fan finds out he's the full stereotype by meeting the man of his dreams and someday the two of them become Doctor/Master and... I kind of feel like I shouldn't read it, but find I can totally see where the hotness lives.
I feel weird about that.
... I used to feel weird about thinking that stuff about the Doctor. Because the Doctor Doesn't Do That. Lately though I think the 10th Doctor really does. I has photoshop to prove it.
:eyeroll:
The inside of my head is a weird place, and sometimes even a map is only small help there.
So, anyways, emotional setups that are fun:
newbie discovers entirely unimagined funs
newbie discovers, imagines, and then finds reality is even better
but then at the other end of my favourite plots there's all the characters like Doctor/Master and Giles/Ethan that, if they have history, have a lot of history. Nobody there is a newbie any more at all. And in those... it's more about damage, I think, and the undoing thereof. Whatever relationship they had exploded, with shrapnel and lasting injury. But patience and compromise and a change of approach could fix it, and finally after all the trial and error they can get it right. I like that part a lot. I don't so much like the middle parts where they're still hurting each other but can't let go. Those aren't fun unless they're leading to the fixed place.
I guess those are about discovering too. They've got all that mapped out territory that they know in great detail... but it doesn't work. Then, much to their surprise, they change some thing - could be a small detail, could be giving up recreational genocide, but something shifts. And wow, everything fits now. Surprise and joy.
... this is why on Torchwood Captain John is going to be fun.
... I think it's also why I've been focusing on Owen lately. I mean, it's a sort of different case, but Owen has damage needs fixing. And actually canon has been doing nicely there lately. I just want to pull a few things further into the light and deal with them before he's all made shiny on the outside.
Now it is 0322 and that was all kind of rambly and possibly pointless. *shrugs*
-> sleep
... okay, I was thinking about sex, a lot, but we all know this.
Characters having sex, in stories, in different ways. Different sorts of fun.
I'm a slasher. Have been for years. Many much reading of slash fic.
And I'm a Torchwood fan. Where we don't need slash goggles or photoshop. Where in fact I discover the existence of het goggles with serious denial filters, for I discovered there are people who still think Captain Jack Harkness is straight. I mean... *blinky*
And so I read Jack/Ianto, and Ianto/Owen, and Jack/Owen sometimes, and Ianto/Tosh, and I'm thinking of writing Tosh/Owen except only to make it messed up which sort of loses possible audiences both ways around, and Tosh/Martha should really exist so I can read it. And it's great. And the proportion of it that's some degree of canon is just *fun*.
So why is it only lately I've been thinking in RPS?
Am I not getting all my varieties in fanfic?
And you know, thinking about it, actually not.
In Torchwood I kind of figure everyone's figured themselves out. Tosh got to discover stuff and it was really sweet right up until it went all, you know, Torchwood. Which makes me :( because I like that discovery story but I'd have to either AU it or ignore it or have it all angsty, which is less fun.
Other characters? Seem too confident to be much surprised by their desires. I mean, Ianto might look like mr prim and proper, but he isn't all ... shy little presents or something, he's "if your interested, kinky stopwatch sex now pls?" And maybe there's virgins whose first response to same sex attraction is to get out a stopwatch... and er now I want to write it that way because that would be character mileage there... but mostly it just seems to me like he's skipped the 'figuring out who' and even the 'figuring out what' and is just going for it. Which is many kinds of cool. But...
I find I really like the story of the straight guy finding out he's actually not that straight. Not the story of the guy who is straight and keeps saying so and okay maybe lets the gay guy fancy him but is totally straight and staying that way. That's an annoying story. The part I like is the idea that there's this whole realm of desire that's just never occurred to them before.
They've been going through their life on default settings and the standard script and then, wow, rainbows! Or in story terms: experienced and happily queer meets newbie who thinks straight and sets about demonstrating possibilities. There's seduction, and surprise, and surprise about his own body even. There's experiences he'd never have imagined. There's going from a whole lot of nothing much to a bit of everything in one hot narrative. And it can look a bit like a power trip, someone playing out their desires on a blank canvas, but that's not the good part. The good part is the not-blank person learning to read themselves, finding out stuff about themselves and playing with it. Desire understood and expressed.
Then there's a variation with a bit more yearning. And this one could go to the stopwatch place. It's the Guy With A Plan. I just read a long complicated Robin epic where he was very much this guy. Someone who has never actually done any of this stuff, but have they ever thought about it. In detail. With plans. Possibly "quite a list".
For this one, the surprise is in a slightly different place. It's the difference between imagination and experience. It's the overwhelming sensory data, the breadth and variety of it, compared to what was maybe a little description or a visual they had. It's them finding out what works for them in practice. Which can be many sorts of surprises.
But it's also about yearning. There's this whole weight of desire and expectation built up behind some kind of barrier. I particularly like the calm on the outside, scorching on the inside sort of combination. Masks, or a particular way of wearing a suit.
Ianto could totally be a Plan kind of guy. Maybe he hadn't fancied men before he found himself attracted to Jack... but after that surprise, he's a researcher - he'd totally look stuff up. And think about it. A lot. And by the time he'd ever initiate something, he has a plan that goes all the way through to some satisfying conclusion. He has a whole list of plans.
And of course then there's the variety of fun that is letting him be in Control, and the other variety of fun that is making him lose it, get all mussed and hot and bothered. And some tension between the two.
*has happy thoughts*
But how this connects in my head to RPS is... the second way is plausible to me; the first is not with those two characters. But... I still like the kink. So what to do? Write a younger and more naive Ianto that could be snuck up on? Not so much fun. I thinking lately part of why I like slash is the first times happen later without any extra explanation necessary. Don't have to read about teenagers - and in general I've had about enough of teenagers, though teenage bats aren't very teenage in the irritating ways. Just reading about first times for grown up and therefore hot people.
... There's some people who look a whole lot like Jack and Ianto, who could plausibly fit that other setup really rather well... and be pretty... *happy place again*
... but that would be Weird. and possibly Wrong. I always thought. Because, Real People. They get to be in charge of themselves.
... but not the story of themselves, in a weird magazine mediated way.
I still feel like RP is creepier than fanfic, but I'm seeing some of how it works, for me.
Like... Doctor/Master = hot... but morally dubious and hideous angsty. But look over there - two people that look a whole lot like them and indeed play at being them! Couldn't that be hot?
... and around then I get *facepalm* at me, but I start to get it.
Also, while it is fun to write about the characters, it is also fun to write about being fans of the characters, and we all know the fanboys are running the asylum in this fandom. So there's fic that manages to both be kind of like Doctor/Master and kind of like queer Doctor Who fan gets to shag the Master and kind of like DW fan finds out he's the full stereotype by meeting the man of his dreams and someday the two of them become Doctor/Master and... I kind of feel like I shouldn't read it, but find I can totally see where the hotness lives.
I feel weird about that.
... I used to feel weird about thinking that stuff about the Doctor. Because the Doctor Doesn't Do That. Lately though I think the 10th Doctor really does. I has photoshop to prove it.
:eyeroll:
The inside of my head is a weird place, and sometimes even a map is only small help there.
So, anyways, emotional setups that are fun:
newbie discovers entirely unimagined funs
newbie discovers, imagines, and then finds reality is even better
but then at the other end of my favourite plots there's all the characters like Doctor/Master and Giles/Ethan that, if they have history, have a lot of history. Nobody there is a newbie any more at all. And in those... it's more about damage, I think, and the undoing thereof. Whatever relationship they had exploded, with shrapnel and lasting injury. But patience and compromise and a change of approach could fix it, and finally after all the trial and error they can get it right. I like that part a lot. I don't so much like the middle parts where they're still hurting each other but can't let go. Those aren't fun unless they're leading to the fixed place.
I guess those are about discovering too. They've got all that mapped out territory that they know in great detail... but it doesn't work. Then, much to their surprise, they change some thing - could be a small detail, could be giving up recreational genocide, but something shifts. And wow, everything fits now. Surprise and joy.
... this is why on Torchwood Captain John is going to be fun.
... I think it's also why I've been focusing on Owen lately. I mean, it's a sort of different case, but Owen has damage needs fixing. And actually canon has been doing nicely there lately. I just want to pull a few things further into the light and deal with them before he's all made shiny on the outside.
Now it is 0322 and that was all kind of rambly and possibly pointless. *shrugs*
-> sleep
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no subject
Date: 2008-02-16 04:20 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-17 10:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-16 02:16 pm (UTC)Not so sure about your canon, but there must be "Captain Jack's first time evah" fic.
RPS: I had that issue with Oz. The show/actors, not the BtVS character.
Giles/Ethan ... it's more about damage, I think, and the undoing thereof.
I love you for that line a little. And the paragraph and the next one after it.
could be giving up recreational genocide
Aww, Kronos.
no subject
Date: 2008-02-17 10:11 pm (UTC)I haven't actually read many people trying to tackle that.
Possibly just the one. And I only remember that because it was utterly bizarre and had him raised in an all male environment except for this one girl who was there by mistake and of course was the one Jack slept with. What it had to say about omnisexuality I plain couldn't figure out, it was just odd.
I don't know about the rest of the universe, but personally I find Jack's exuberant sexual confidence and aura of sex god so much a part of him that rewinding him to first discoveries and possible lack of confidence seems almost like a different man.
... now I want to write it just to see if I can make it work...
no subject
Date: 2008-02-17 10:20 pm (UTC)At least one of them you can write with him having this confidence from theoretical knowledge prior to any experience, I bet.