fic talk: old kindnesses

[sword_logic]

still feels so fucking weird to put titles on things. formalizing my thoughts? don't know her

anyways, as i was driving home today i thought about the very first few fics i wrote and posted back when i really first got into fandom; this was early 2011 rvb, pre-S9 rvb, which is to say, a whole different beast (and for me, pre-AO3. this was an archive hosted on its own site. a relic even in those times, i think). that's not especially relevant save for the date, though, and the fact that it was my first time writing fic intended for the consumption of others, and unleashing it on the world. 2011 was really my first true foray into fanfiction, since in the weeb days i only stuck to deviantart, and where i'm going with this is that i didn't know how to format fic. the first thing (or few things? idr) i published was formatted like a published book would be — chunks of paragraphs, indented dialogue, etc. also, reasonably sure it was a pwp. that'll be relevant later in this meandering post.

anyways, the whole point is, one of the most standout things from this time period that i still remember is that some kind soul gave me some really wonderful course correction on that first fic(s). part of it was "hey you should reformat this" (bless) and the other part was some thoughtful and constructive criticism on the fic itself. i was reminded of this because a) i came across a fic today that was formatted in huge paragraphs and b) i fizzled out while writing a pwp a while ago, and i was thinking about it today too. (i need a tag for meandering posts. this will probably be its inaugural use.) gentle course correction is important and i want to learn how to successfully do it, because a lot of times all someone needs is a tiny nudge to get properly on the right track.

but anyways anyways, there's a lot of truly excellent pwps for this one ship (sadly pretty small, like 35 works on AO3 small), and the authors for this ship really have a great way of weaving in really fantastic worldbuilding headcanons and character studies; this ship is seriously blessed by some phenomenal creators. everything in that tag is incredibly aware of the lore and i've adopted a lot of those thoughts as headcanons, and what's truly wonderful to me is that i can't imagine those things being presented by the pov characters in a situation outside of the weird love/hate fwb situation that most people write them in. and back to that constructive criticism on the wee babby pwp i wrote, fuckin, 8 years ago? more? that person, whoever they are, asked me some prompting questions in the spirit of concrit; i don't remember exactly what they were, but they went something like this: why was person A passive here when they are very aggressive and take-charge in the show? what motivated these two people, who are usually at odds, to get together in a way that doesn't reflect their usual interactions?

basically, what i'm trying to think-out-loud for myself here is... what do i actually want to do with this pwp. lord. how do i want to use this as a character piece for them? do i even want to? what do i want to say about the world and how it's affected them? also how do i be funny about it. god.

i think a lot of my struggle writing this can be attested to the fact that, for a very long time, i wrote off pwps as not being legitimate forms of character/world/lore exploration. you don't need plot to explore those things, and you can definitely explore them through porn; it just didn't click for me since i was running (reading?) in circles where there wasn't a lot of focus on that, so i was put off by it. which like, valid to be put off by a flavor i don't like, i guess? but this particular ship (and its fics) is kind of a perfect storm of "i want all these elements and having them be delivered via pwp is the cherry on top because it makes the fact that it's them two even fucking funnier." and i want to take that! and write it myself!

but alas, it's 11pm and i'm sure i'm overthinking this. i'll try to dedicate at least some brainpower this week to hashing out what i want out of this thing i'm writing. why they're at it, why they're at it like this, and what it says about them. 11pm overthinking post DONE siri send tweet