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kindkitI've seen this in various places around my timelines--don't know the origin--and I thought it was interesting.
1. Describe your comfort zone—a typical you-fic.
A sad middle-aged man falls in love with another sad middle-aged man. Together they become slightly less sad, but not completely un-sad because they have Regrets, and also because eventually they will die.
There are variations (sometimes a sad young man falls in love with a sad middle-aged man! or even another sad young man!), but this basic pattern is in many, many of my fics.
2. Is there a trope you’ve yet to try your hand at, but really want to?
I don't really think of tropes that way. Which isn't to say my fic doesn't have tropes, but they tend to turn up spontaneously as I write rather than being something I set out to write.
Nevertheless, I've been toying for a while now with the idea of a marriage (or probably matelotage) fic for Our Flag Means Death. Not, alas for my very faint hopes of becoming a big name in the fandom, because I have anything very romantic in mind, but because I don't. Matelotage seems to have been fundamentally a property arrangement, and so was marriage in this period, and I'm interested in how that works with/against ideas of romantic love. Particularly in a Stede/Ed context, because Stede has been through a marriage that was entirely about property and it made him (and his wife) miserable--would he actually want to marry again?
If I'm consciously, deliberately invoking a trope I'm probably trying to subvert it.
3. Is there a trope you wouldn’t touch with a ten foot pole?
Lots of them. Omegaverse springs immediately to mind, and its cousin mpreg. Soulbonds, especially the kind where destined partners get a visible mark to help them find each other. None of it's really my thing.
Having said this, I will now probably get a burning urge to write 100% sincere soulbond mpreg omegaverse, but I will try to fight it off.
4. How many fic ideas are you nurturing right now? Care to share one of them?
There's the fic I'm writing, which is about witchcraft and queerness and the ocean, and there's the marriage/matelotage vague idea mentioned above, and that's about it. I seldom overflow with fic ideas.
1. Describe your comfort zone—a typical you-fic.
A sad middle-aged man falls in love with another sad middle-aged man. Together they become slightly less sad, but not completely un-sad because they have Regrets, and also because eventually they will die.
There are variations (sometimes a sad young man falls in love with a sad middle-aged man! or even another sad young man!), but this basic pattern is in many, many of my fics.
2. Is there a trope you’ve yet to try your hand at, but really want to?
I don't really think of tropes that way. Which isn't to say my fic doesn't have tropes, but they tend to turn up spontaneously as I write rather than being something I set out to write.
Nevertheless, I've been toying for a while now with the idea of a marriage (or probably matelotage) fic for Our Flag Means Death. Not, alas for my very faint hopes of becoming a big name in the fandom, because I have anything very romantic in mind, but because I don't. Matelotage seems to have been fundamentally a property arrangement, and so was marriage in this period, and I'm interested in how that works with/against ideas of romantic love. Particularly in a Stede/Ed context, because Stede has been through a marriage that was entirely about property and it made him (and his wife) miserable--would he actually want to marry again?
If I'm consciously, deliberately invoking a trope I'm probably trying to subvert it.
3. Is there a trope you wouldn’t touch with a ten foot pole?
Lots of them. Omegaverse springs immediately to mind, and its cousin mpreg. Soulbonds, especially the kind where destined partners get a visible mark to help them find each other. None of it's really my thing.
Having said this, I will now probably get a burning urge to write 100% sincere soulbond mpreg omegaverse, but I will try to fight it off.
4. How many fic ideas are you nurturing right now? Care to share one of them?
There's the fic I'm writing, which is about witchcraft and queerness and the ocean, and there's the marriage/matelotage vague idea mentioned above, and that's about it. I seldom overflow with fic ideas.
no subject
Date: 2022-09-04 09:48 pm (UTC)Naturally I support this idea, but the matelotage sounds really interesting, especially with a character who is gun-shy about the economics.
no subject
Date: 2022-09-05 07:49 pm (UTC)*grins* What I'm writing is kind of basic and straightforward compared to your sort of thing, but I guess more queer ocean magic stories is always a good thing.
The difficulty with matelotage is, from what I gather, the existing secondary sources about it are kind of iffy. People writing history about pirates tend to project whatever they want to see, be it an anti-capitalist utopia or a queer one. And, while the canon has at best a tangential relationship to actual history, I like to have a decent understanding of what I'm ignoring!
no subject
Date: 2022-09-05 11:57 pm (UTC)I am firmly of this belief.
People writing history about pirates tend to project whatever they want to see, be it an anti-capitalist utopia or a queer one. And, while the canon has at best a tangential relationship to actual history, I like to have a decent understanding of what I'm ignoring!
No, that's fair! Does matelotage exist within the canon's version of history?
no subject
Date: 2022-09-05 03:54 am (UTC)Almost certainly! "I have no interest in..." usually leads to the thought, "Unless..." for me! Good luck in your brave fight!
but not completely un-sad because they have Regrets, and also because eventually they will die.
Yes, good stuff!
no subject
Date: 2022-09-05 07:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-09-05 04:59 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-09-05 03:00 pm (UTC)Exactly! It's that thing of constraints being a spur to creativity; it starts that perverse brain process chewing over at whether there's some conceivable way to make it workable for you.
no subject
Date: 2022-09-05 08:07 pm (UTC)Though I feel like I've done my bit for kidfic--not actually mpreg--in my Ed longfic just by acknowledging that maybe Stede might want to see his kids once in a while. (I am profoundly not parent material, so I had to work pretty hard to imagine how Stede might not just be glad to have gotten away!)
I said above to
no subject
Date: 2022-09-05 02:57 pm (UTC)Well, now I want to shill at you: "Come to Disco Elysium for your sad middle-aged men needs!" *g*
(Okay, one of them's only a little bit sad, but the other one is a truly pathetic trainwreck of a human being, just an absolute garbage fire of substance abuse and sadness.)
no subject
Date: 2022-09-05 07:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-09-06 06:12 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-09-10 05:06 pm (UTC)