Sorts of fake married fic
May. 16th, 2018 11:40 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethThere's the sort of fake married where people have to go undercover for something, like with choices and on purpose
and there's the sort of fake married where there's a Comic Misunderstanding that for some reason has to be continued with
and there's the sort of fake married where a married happens, say offworld in a ceremony or something to do with magic, but the people in it hadn't formed an intention, they're just now being treated by everyone including the universe as if they're married.
Like, there's consent issues in some of those. Noncon married.
And then there's the happiness level.
Like, there's the sort where they're pretending to be married and this is like so comfy and nice and they are somewhat surprised but hey they could go with this
or there's the sort where they're both miserable, but they interpret it as miserable because married, whereas we know from the genre promise of HEA they're miserable because it's fake.
I don't much like reading whole long fics of people being miserable.
Like, angst married isn't so much fun.
Especially if they could fix it by having a single conversation where they hadn't already assumed what the other half of the conversation would be.
So I was trying to figure out why Fake Married is the best and the worst, and I think those are the parameters. Angst about something they didn't consent to, The Worst. Fluff about something they're doing for reasons that turn out to be more layered than anticipated, The Best. Especially with that light dusting of angst near the end where it's supposed to be Over but they realise why they feel bad about that but they assume the other isn't feeling the same way and must now somehow have a Communicate before the Happily part.
Like, there's other ways, but if someone is taking advantage then that's... nope. So if I'm still reading it's because everyone is doing their best to respect each other and it's all going some degree of angst.
I just like the fluff version better.
... not least because it overlaps all the 'team living together having movie nights' fic, where all the good in themselves things are happening with people you actually like, and then by the end of the story they decide to just keep doing this forever.
Teams seldom do that, they keep getting rotated.
Boo.
Team marriage for the win.
and there's the sort of fake married where there's a Comic Misunderstanding that for some reason has to be continued with
and there's the sort of fake married where a married happens, say offworld in a ceremony or something to do with magic, but the people in it hadn't formed an intention, they're just now being treated by everyone including the universe as if they're married.
Like, there's consent issues in some of those. Noncon married.
And then there's the happiness level.
Like, there's the sort where they're pretending to be married and this is like so comfy and nice and they are somewhat surprised but hey they could go with this
or there's the sort where they're both miserable, but they interpret it as miserable because married, whereas we know from the genre promise of HEA they're miserable because it's fake.
I don't much like reading whole long fics of people being miserable.
Like, angst married isn't so much fun.
Especially if they could fix it by having a single conversation where they hadn't already assumed what the other half of the conversation would be.
So I was trying to figure out why Fake Married is the best and the worst, and I think those are the parameters. Angst about something they didn't consent to, The Worst. Fluff about something they're doing for reasons that turn out to be more layered than anticipated, The Best. Especially with that light dusting of angst near the end where it's supposed to be Over but they realise why they feel bad about that but they assume the other isn't feeling the same way and must now somehow have a Communicate before the Happily part.
Like, there's other ways, but if someone is taking advantage then that's... nope. So if I'm still reading it's because everyone is doing their best to respect each other and it's all going some degree of angst.
I just like the fluff version better.
... not least because it overlaps all the 'team living together having movie nights' fic, where all the good in themselves things are happening with people you actually like, and then by the end of the story they decide to just keep doing this forever.
Teams seldom do that, they keep getting rotated.
Boo.
Team marriage for the win.