Day 14: Share your love for something fannish: a trope, cliché, kink, motif, theme, format, or fandom.
So many options here! I'm going to take several of them.
1. Character Type
Female. Mature, not (usually) a girl. She knows who she is, she's comfortable with that. She doesn't give a whole lot of fucks, but she's not rebellious for the sake of rebelling. She knows her mind and she can effect a certain detachment when her opinions are knocked back, even if she doesn't feel that detachment.
The appearance of things is important to her - she's not going to burst into tears or break down in public, composure, comportment, and control She doesn't avoid a scene, but she looks for ways to defuse it before it escalates - and sometimes she lets it escalate because a good scene gets it all out. She has emotional sensitivity, even if she doesn't always choose to use it. She's not afraid of her emotions, but she's cautious about showing it.
She's not manipulative; she's blunt, often forceful, and if she's angry with you, you'll know it.
And she's my fannish catnip, every time.
2. Trope.
There are several, but I think I'll go with soulmates.
My first instinct is to say that I hate soulmates. When we're talking about reality, I loathe the idea of one person in all the world meant to be your perfect partner? No. HELL NO. What about people who divorce/separate? Remarry? What about people who are eternally single? Too bad if you're ace or aro! And screwed if you're longing for love and can't find someone who fits you perfectly.
Newsflash: we're all imperfect down on this little blue-green ball, and so, too, are our relationships with each other.
So, yeah. The idea of soulmates in RL? (Plus all the potential for abuse; "I'm your soulmate, nothing I do to you is wrong." RUN. RUN NOW. RUN AND NEVER LOOK BACK.)
Fannishly? That's a different matter, especially when 'soulmarks' get involved - a visible sign that the marked person then has to reconcile with their life, mindset, and the person who is their soulmate. Because I don't like happily-ever-after kind of soulmark fics; I like the bittersweet ones, where soulmates are, for some reason or another, apart and likely to stay that way - until something happens to bring them together.
In my own repertoire, I'd point to:
Pacific Rim: gather up the broken pieces - Raleigh, implied Mako/Raleigh, pre-movie
MCU: No Fate - Maria Hill/Steve Rogers
MCU: Between Destiny And Love - Maria Hill/Clint Barton, Maria Hill/Steve Rogers
One rec I'd give is:
MCU: you are part of machine (you are not a human being) by shuofthewind - Maria Hill/Steve Rogers
I'm sure there are many other excellent ones, but I can't think of them right now. This is the one that kicked me in the gut.
Oh, what the hell. I'll put Fusion AUs in there, too, just for good measure. I've done a whole lot more Fusion AUs than I have Soulmark AUs!
3. Themes
I'm sure there are themes that I put in my work - loyalty, good judgement pragmatism - certainly the characters I pick are, if not heroes, at least characters who have the potential to be heroes. (In fact, the less likely the narrative is to see such a character - femme, of colour - to be the central hero of the story, the more likely I am to pick them as my focus character.
So many options here! I'm going to take several of them.
1. Character Type
Female. Mature, not (usually) a girl. She knows who she is, she's comfortable with that. She doesn't give a whole lot of fucks, but she's not rebellious for the sake of rebelling. She knows her mind and she can effect a certain detachment when her opinions are knocked back, even if she doesn't feel that detachment.
The appearance of things is important to her - she's not going to burst into tears or break down in public, composure, comportment, and control She doesn't avoid a scene, but she looks for ways to defuse it before it escalates - and sometimes she lets it escalate because a good scene gets it all out. She has emotional sensitivity, even if she doesn't always choose to use it. She's not afraid of her emotions, but she's cautious about showing it.
She's not manipulative; she's blunt, often forceful, and if she's angry with you, you'll know it.
And she's my fannish catnip, every time.
2. Trope.
There are several, but I think I'll go with soulmates.
My first instinct is to say that I hate soulmates. When we're talking about reality, I loathe the idea of one person in all the world meant to be your perfect partner? No. HELL NO. What about people who divorce/separate? Remarry? What about people who are eternally single? Too bad if you're ace or aro! And screwed if you're longing for love and can't find someone who fits you perfectly.
Newsflash: we're all imperfect down on this little blue-green ball, and so, too, are our relationships with each other.
So, yeah. The idea of soulmates in RL? (Plus all the potential for abuse; "I'm your soulmate, nothing I do to you is wrong." RUN. RUN NOW. RUN AND NEVER LOOK BACK.)
Fannishly? That's a different matter, especially when 'soulmarks' get involved - a visible sign that the marked person then has to reconcile with their life, mindset, and the person who is their soulmate. Because I don't like happily-ever-after kind of soulmark fics; I like the bittersweet ones, where soulmates are, for some reason or another, apart and likely to stay that way - until something happens to bring them together.
In my own repertoire, I'd point to:
Pacific Rim: gather up the broken pieces - Raleigh, implied Mako/Raleigh, pre-movie
MCU: No Fate - Maria Hill/Steve Rogers
MCU: Between Destiny And Love - Maria Hill/Clint Barton, Maria Hill/Steve Rogers
One rec I'd give is:
MCU: you are part of machine (you are not a human being) by shuofthewind - Maria Hill/Steve Rogers
I'm sure there are many other excellent ones, but I can't think of them right now. This is the one that kicked me in the gut.
Oh, what the hell. I'll put Fusion AUs in there, too, just for good measure. I've done a whole lot more Fusion AUs than I have Soulmark AUs!
3. Themes
I'm sure there are themes that I put in my work - loyalty, good judgement pragmatism - certainly the characters I pick are, if not heroes, at least characters who have the potential to be heroes. (In fact, the less likely the narrative is to see such a character - femme, of colour - to be the central hero of the story, the more likely I am to pick them as my focus character.
no subject
Fusion AUs don't always work but when they do they're awesome. :)
no subject