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December meme: A story you'd never want to write, but would love to read
Okay, "fail at shitposting february" is over! Where was I in December meme?
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noxelementalist requested "A story you'd never want to write, but would love to read!"
This one is actually tough, because I exist at all times balanced on the knife-edge between "Wanting to write literally every story" and "Never wanting to write anything at all ever".
(This balance may be familiar to some of y'all.)
There are some situations where the "don't want to write/want to read" balance leans more toward the one side than usual, though. They tend to fall into the categories of: I know it's not something I currently have the skill to write well; I know it would be a lot of effort and I am that lazy; I am too chickenshit to write it.
Most of the stuff I'm too chickenshit to write is also stuff I'm too chickenshit to talk about too much in this journal, but a lot of it is either stuff that cuts really close to the bone for me - the kind of personal-issues stuff that if I wanted to be a DEEP LITERARY AUTHOR, I should probably be deliberately poking at, but all I ever dreamed of as a writer was being able to put out fun stuff about spaceships and dragons on command, and ugh, 'know thyself' isn't fun :p
Or it's stuff that touches on issues like identity and politics that fandom as a whole is pretty sensitive about right now, and/or that I feel like my views aren't really lined up with the generally-accepted views, but they're also not coherent enough that I feel up to defending them, and/or that I feel like my voice isn't the right voice to be writing about those things right now. Some specific examples in that last category:
I'd still really love to read more Black Panther fic that specifically explores Wankanda's relationship with the colonizers - whether that's stuff about Bucky & Shuri's relationship, or Erik's history (I really want fic about Erik's pre-movie team-ups with the Winter Soldier, for example), or Nakia's spy adventures, or T'Challa at school abroad having to pretend Wakanda is less than it is, or stuff that looks at the worldbuilding very closely, and where there are clear, long-standing non-African influences, and what that says about Wakanda and cultural interchange in general, or South African Raimonda adapting to Wakanda - well, there's so many possible stories! Except that I really don't want to be the white girl presented with Blank Panther and only wanting to write about white people stuff. Even just wanting to write about Wakandans in Wakanda is scary enough, because - because, well, it's not mine, it's explicitly not mine, and it's not something I feel comfortable claiming as mine, even as much as I would, say, a Chinese fandom. But that's of course also really complicated, right, because white people staying out of fandoms like that doesn't help to magnify those voices either, and white people really need to work on their shit around racism more than black people need to do it for them, so someone probably should write some of those stories, but...
So yeah, chickenshit.
Also I want to read a "Judaism-is-the-default" AU for pretty much every fandom (yes, including Black Panther. Actually, especially Black Panther, African Jews are great) and am definitely not the right voice to write those at this moment either.
In the category of "stuff that would be way too much effort", we've got a whole bunch of ideas that would need to be 100,000+ words in order to be good (including quite a few continuations of stories I've already posted as 'done' on AO3...), and while I want to write them, I don't want to write them desperately enough to put 100,000+ words worth of my life into writing them. Also, stories that would require getting deep into canons I don't really want to go that deep into anymore. Also, stories that would require SO MUCH research in order to feel like I'm doing them well. For example, I really want a Rivers of London/Guardian crossover where Peter is sent to the SID as part of an exchange program, to learn about how a magical-crimes unit that's actually been functioning as a proper unit functions (and 'start dating the mysterious, distinguished, impeccably dressed magic specialist' is NOT HELPFUL, and stop laughing when I talk about how smoothly the SID functions, you don't know my life), and also obviously someone would be sent to London in his place (although I haven't decided who, because any option would be equally amazing). But, while I'm not as worried about the #ownvoices aspect there as with something like Black Panther, there would still need to be a lot of cultural-specific stuff that would need to be done right, and for me to be the one to do it would be so much research...
Similarly I would love more stories about Steve Rogers and 1930s queer culture (yes, I have probably already read the one you're about to rec, but that doesn't mean I won't be compelled to immediately re-read it if you do) and especially the one where Sam takes Steve to a modern drag ball because he never got a chance to go to a Harlem one like he always dreamed of as a teenager; and the Steve/Tony one where they both fall back in time and get trapped in 1930s Brooklyn and Steve uses the queer community passwords he remembers to get them a life and adopted family in the past, and then they get the chance to go back home and of course things are so much better for queer people now, except that - except that in the 1930s they were part of a community that in a lot of ways was easier than today's outward-facing alphabet soups, and they're not sure they will still work; and honestly I would like all of the fanfic in all of the different historical/international/intersectional queer communities and families, but I have done just enough of the research to not be satisfied unless I have done all of the research, and I don't have that kind of time or focus in my life.
(somebody write me a fanfic about Bucky being adopted by the Wakandan Jewish queer community. :D )
In the "I just don't have the skill to do it well" category is -- well, is nearly everything in my WIPs file, 'cause that's often why they stall out. The one I am currently banging my head against is that I have gotten to the point in the Superman fic where Girl Reporter Lois Lane and Playboy Billionaire Bruce Wayne go on a date. And I would read ALL of the fanfic about Girl Reporter Lois Lane and Playboy Billionaire Bruce Wayne dating and being unsure as to whether they enjoy the fucking or the mindfucking more (there is not NEARLY enough of it around, and what exists is hard to find on AO3, and is also disproportionately written by very good writers). But to be done well, it needs to be drenched in both sexual tension and performative heterosexuality, and sexual tension and performative heterosexuality are basically the opposite of what I am good at. They-- go to a fancy restaurant and at least one of them is probably wearing nylons? And they mush their mouths together at some point I guess? Ugh. So I may end up just fading-to-black on all the Bruce/Lois dates and writing the part of the fic I actually know what I'm doing with, even though if I was reading this fic and the author did that I would want to punch them because the Bruce/Lois is the whole reason I want to read this fic.
Anyway.
Also there are some stories where it's the opposite, where I want to write them but not read them, at least if you interpret that as "don't want to read them as written by anyone else, because anyone else who wrote them would probably do them WRONG". Those I usually do actually write, though, because I am filled with the righteous fury of "even if I do screw them up, at least I won't screw them up as bad as THOSE OTHER PEOPLE WHO HYPOTHETICALLY MIGHT WRITE THEM INSTEAD would screw them up." (A significant % of all my kinkmeme fills in my kinkmeme days were like this.)
What kinds of stories do you want to read but not write, or write but not read?
noxelementalist requested "A story you'd never want to write, but would love to read!"This one is actually tough, because I exist at all times balanced on the knife-edge between "Wanting to write literally every story" and "Never wanting to write anything at all ever".
(This balance may be familiar to some of y'all.)
There are some situations where the "don't want to write/want to read" balance leans more toward the one side than usual, though. They tend to fall into the categories of: I know it's not something I currently have the skill to write well; I know it would be a lot of effort and I am that lazy; I am too chickenshit to write it.
Most of the stuff I'm too chickenshit to write is also stuff I'm too chickenshit to talk about too much in this journal, but a lot of it is either stuff that cuts really close to the bone for me - the kind of personal-issues stuff that if I wanted to be a DEEP LITERARY AUTHOR, I should probably be deliberately poking at, but all I ever dreamed of as a writer was being able to put out fun stuff about spaceships and dragons on command, and ugh, 'know thyself' isn't fun :p
Or it's stuff that touches on issues like identity and politics that fandom as a whole is pretty sensitive about right now, and/or that I feel like my views aren't really lined up with the generally-accepted views, but they're also not coherent enough that I feel up to defending them, and/or that I feel like my voice isn't the right voice to be writing about those things right now. Some specific examples in that last category:
I'd still really love to read more Black Panther fic that specifically explores Wankanda's relationship with the colonizers - whether that's stuff about Bucky & Shuri's relationship, or Erik's history (I really want fic about Erik's pre-movie team-ups with the Winter Soldier, for example), or Nakia's spy adventures, or T'Challa at school abroad having to pretend Wakanda is less than it is, or stuff that looks at the worldbuilding very closely, and where there are clear, long-standing non-African influences, and what that says about Wakanda and cultural interchange in general, or South African Raimonda adapting to Wakanda - well, there's so many possible stories! Except that I really don't want to be the white girl presented with Blank Panther and only wanting to write about white people stuff. Even just wanting to write about Wakandans in Wakanda is scary enough, because - because, well, it's not mine, it's explicitly not mine, and it's not something I feel comfortable claiming as mine, even as much as I would, say, a Chinese fandom. But that's of course also really complicated, right, because white people staying out of fandoms like that doesn't help to magnify those voices either, and white people really need to work on their shit around racism more than black people need to do it for them, so someone probably should write some of those stories, but...
So yeah, chickenshit.
Also I want to read a "Judaism-is-the-default" AU for pretty much every fandom (yes, including Black Panther. Actually, especially Black Panther, African Jews are great) and am definitely not the right voice to write those at this moment either.
In the category of "stuff that would be way too much effort", we've got a whole bunch of ideas that would need to be 100,000+ words in order to be good (including quite a few continuations of stories I've already posted as 'done' on AO3...), and while I want to write them, I don't want to write them desperately enough to put 100,000+ words worth of my life into writing them. Also, stories that would require getting deep into canons I don't really want to go that deep into anymore. Also, stories that would require SO MUCH research in order to feel like I'm doing them well. For example, I really want a Rivers of London/Guardian crossover where Peter is sent to the SID as part of an exchange program, to learn about how a magical-crimes unit that's actually been functioning as a proper unit functions (and 'start dating the mysterious, distinguished, impeccably dressed magic specialist' is NOT HELPFUL, and stop laughing when I talk about how smoothly the SID functions, you don't know my life), and also obviously someone would be sent to London in his place (although I haven't decided who, because any option would be equally amazing). But, while I'm not as worried about the #ownvoices aspect there as with something like Black Panther, there would still need to be a lot of cultural-specific stuff that would need to be done right, and for me to be the one to do it would be so much research...
Similarly I would love more stories about Steve Rogers and 1930s queer culture (yes, I have probably already read the one you're about to rec, but that doesn't mean I won't be compelled to immediately re-read it if you do) and especially the one where Sam takes Steve to a modern drag ball because he never got a chance to go to a Harlem one like he always dreamed of as a teenager; and the Steve/Tony one where they both fall back in time and get trapped in 1930s Brooklyn and Steve uses the queer community passwords he remembers to get them a life and adopted family in the past, and then they get the chance to go back home and of course things are so much better for queer people now, except that - except that in the 1930s they were part of a community that in a lot of ways was easier than today's outward-facing alphabet soups, and they're not sure they will still work; and honestly I would like all of the fanfic in all of the different historical/international/intersectional queer communities and families, but I have done just enough of the research to not be satisfied unless I have done all of the research, and I don't have that kind of time or focus in my life.
(somebody write me a fanfic about Bucky being adopted by the Wakandan Jewish queer community. :D )
In the "I just don't have the skill to do it well" category is -- well, is nearly everything in my WIPs file, 'cause that's often why they stall out. The one I am currently banging my head against is that I have gotten to the point in the Superman fic where Girl Reporter Lois Lane and Playboy Billionaire Bruce Wayne go on a date. And I would read ALL of the fanfic about Girl Reporter Lois Lane and Playboy Billionaire Bruce Wayne dating and being unsure as to whether they enjoy the fucking or the mindfucking more (there is not NEARLY enough of it around, and what exists is hard to find on AO3, and is also disproportionately written by very good writers). But to be done well, it needs to be drenched in both sexual tension and performative heterosexuality, and sexual tension and performative heterosexuality are basically the opposite of what I am good at. They-- go to a fancy restaurant and at least one of them is probably wearing nylons? And they mush their mouths together at some point I guess? Ugh. So I may end up just fading-to-black on all the Bruce/Lois dates and writing the part of the fic I actually know what I'm doing with, even though if I was reading this fic and the author did that I would want to punch them because the Bruce/Lois is the whole reason I want to read this fic.
Anyway.
Also there are some stories where it's the opposite, where I want to write them but not read them, at least if you interpret that as "don't want to read them as written by anyone else, because anyone else who wrote them would probably do them WRONG". Those I usually do actually write, though, because I am filled with the righteous fury of "even if I do screw them up, at least I won't screw them up as bad as THOSE OTHER PEOPLE WHO HYPOTHETICALLY MIGHT WRITE THEM INSTEAD would screw them up." (A significant % of all my kinkmeme fills in my kinkmeme days were like this.)
What kinds of stories do you want to read but not write, or write but not read?