soph (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
sophia_sol) wrote2011-01-17 11:07 pm
sophia_sol) wrote2011-01-17 11:07 pm
Entry tags:
In which I continue to be obsessed with Dresden Files, surprise surprise
Welp, remember how I said I'm not shipping Harry/Thomas? I'm still not shipping Harry/Thomas. Yes, I've read all the (grand total of 16!) fics that the AO3 has for that pairing, but I'm not shipping it, or at least not exactly. It's weird -- I mostly just read the fics out of this interest, this fascination, with how the shippers would choose to go about it. And mostly the ways they choose to go about it are not the ways I would have chosen, or the ways I would find interesting. Which is either a good thing or a bad thing. Good in that fic is the number one best way to convert me to a new ship, and none of these did that. But bad in that now I'm getting all thinky in my head as to how I would go about doing a Harry/Thomas fic.
And mostly I'm just sitting here and going "but...but....my boundaries! What happened to my line?" Because I gotta admit this is looking dangerously close to shipping.
But it's weird in that I'm quite sure there are standard practices in place already as to how incest gets dealt with in incest-shipping fic, the tropes that everyone understands and expects, the things that would make a shipper roll their eyes at the noob thinking she's being so ~intelligent and special~ with her wonderful ideas as to how to do this thing as if they haven't been done a thousand times before. I know this. And I know that I know none of them, incest being ostensibly my line in the sand.
So what this means is that I'm left trying to construct my hypothetical Harry/Thomas that I'm never going to actually write without any feel for the subgenre, which is the sort of thing that ends up with mainstream authors creating godawful pretentious scifi because they don't know the genre.
Just for the record, the Harry/Thomas in my head involves a slight au from the books, in which Harry and Thomas somehow end up together (or at least having sex together) well before finding out they're brothers, long enough before that they have the time to get comfortable with the thing they have, to enjoy it, to realize it makes them happy. And then they find out, and are like OH CRAP, but in the end the allure is too strong.
Except I just remembered that Thomas most likely knows about their brotherhood from before their very first meeting, so that sort of situation would then end up with some uncomfortable power dynamics, where Thomas is purposefully keeping some very important information from Harry. So that doesn't work so well.
And now I really have no idea what sort of Harry/Thomas my totally-not-shipping-it brain wants, because none of the fics I've read have been it, and I can't come up with any ideas, and yet I can't let the thought go that it could be fascinating and wonderful if done right.
WHAT IS "DONE RIGHT", BRAIN? TELL ME. PLEASE.
can you tell I'm fresh out of Dresden/Marcone fics?
And mostly I'm just sitting here and going "but...but....my boundaries! What happened to my line?" Because I gotta admit this is looking dangerously close to shipping.
But it's weird in that I'm quite sure there are standard practices in place already as to how incest gets dealt with in incest-shipping fic, the tropes that everyone understands and expects, the things that would make a shipper roll their eyes at the noob thinking she's being so ~intelligent and special~ with her wonderful ideas as to how to do this thing as if they haven't been done a thousand times before. I know this. And I know that I know none of them, incest being ostensibly my line in the sand.
So what this means is that I'm left trying to construct my hypothetical Harry/Thomas that I'm never going to actually write without any feel for the subgenre, which is the sort of thing that ends up with mainstream authors creating godawful pretentious scifi because they don't know the genre.
Just for the record, the Harry/Thomas in my head involves a slight au from the books, in which Harry and Thomas somehow end up together (or at least having sex together) well before finding out they're brothers, long enough before that they have the time to get comfortable with the thing they have, to enjoy it, to realize it makes them happy. And then they find out, and are like OH CRAP, but in the end the allure is too strong.
Except I just remembered that Thomas most likely knows about their brotherhood from before their very first meeting, so that sort of situation would then end up with some uncomfortable power dynamics, where Thomas is purposefully keeping some very important information from Harry. So that doesn't work so well.
And now I really have no idea what sort of Harry/Thomas my totally-not-shipping-it brain wants, because none of the fics I've read have been it, and I can't come up with any ideas, and yet I can't let the thought go that it could be fascinating and wonderful if done right.
WHAT IS "DONE RIGHT", BRAIN? TELL ME. PLEASE.
can you tell I'm fresh out of Dresden/Marcone fics?
no subject
although there may be 4,000 words in my 'drafts' folder on AO3 with the tags 'Sharing Body Heat, Canadian Shack, Snowed In, Spirit Animals, Dreams, Hurt/Comfort, Blanket Fic, Soul Bond'Anyway. I lost any incest squick long ago, and I haven't actually got to the point where Thomas shows up in the books yet anyway, but when I've been in a fandom with a major incest pairing, I usually find that what they're doing isn't what I want out of the pairing, either. (Especially Sam/Dean, there was so much they could have done with incest there and missed it.)
Based on what I've read of Thomas in non-pairing fic, I think I would want either a) your AU where neither of them knows, or b) a story where Thomas has no incest taboo and legitimately doesn't understand Harry's squick, or c) some kind of weird magical situation where incest isn't just normalized, it's mandatory, and Harry accidentally gets used to it.
no subject
Ooooh, YES PLEASE. *wants*
I have never tried the whole Sam/Dean thing because, well, incest squick, I have it.
But I LIKE YOUR THOUGHTS when it comes to Harry/Thomas. In particular, I now REALLY WANT a story that combines your points B and C. I think it could be fascinating. And frankly, it would not surprise me if B were the truth about Thomas.
no subject
It is exactly as ~quality~ as that tags list made it sound! But if I get far enough into it (that is, at least to the point where Harry has woken up from his coma, because it is that sort of fic) that I have reason to believe I'll finish it, I might actually start sharing my shame with the world. :P Under one of my spare AO3 pseuds.Sam/Dean had the potential for a similar sort of thing (especially early in the fandom when we knew less about their childhoods), where the authority figures in their lives actively *encouraged* incest between them, because it would be too dangerous to get attached to outsiders, and it would help isolate them from falling back in that world while bonding them more closely, and also, ~magic~, and you know, "keep it in the family" around that sort of Hunter exceptionalism they had going. And their 'authority figures' were exactly the kind of fucked-up where it would have been in character to do that.
...but no, it was all either guilty hiding, or some variation on Trickster Made Us Do It, or deliberately unrealistic fluff, I didn't find a single fic that actually decided to use it to explore the, well, incestuousness of Hunter culture.
//tangent. Although, hell, Harry/Thomas that's all tied up with Harry's *severely traumatic* sexual history and involves serious and decades-long headfuckery of him on the part of his mother/his godmother/duMorne/the Council/the Courts/possibly even Bob in one of his more ambiguous modes to the point where Harry can't react normally to incest taboos: I would be all over that in all its angsty, id-ficcy glory.
no subject
Okay, yeah, that sounds like the sort of thing that would be actually interesting to explore in a Sam/Dean fic, and now it makes me sad that that's not where fandom chose to go. SIGH.
Ooh, your thoughts about Harry's reactions to incest taboos intrigue me. I mean, Harry's working the Have I Mentioned I'm A Good Old Fashioned Heterosexual Kind Of Guy angle pretty hard, covering up what I interpret as some fairly strong bi tendencies. But it could totally be covering up far more than just attraction to men!
The problem with talking about these incest fics that I apparently want is that I have this deep need for happy endings, and I don't know what would constitute a happy ending in a fic like this. I mean, I still have my incest squick, which is telling me that ending it with a happy Harry/Thomas ship is at best a somewhat disturbing and bittersweet ending. But otoh, the Harry/Thomas thing would be the whole point of the fic. *flails*
no subject
I am now 5,000 words into this thing, Harry is still asleep, and it is suddenly throwing mpreg hints at me. I am going to have to beat it with a stick. Unless I just get distracted by the anon meme first.In canon Harry has this deeply screwed-up relationship with sex, yeah. (And I'm only halfway through book 3!) The way he just assumes that Susan is treating their relationship as quid pro quo and thinks that's healthy, the way he acts with his godmother and walls in his memories of Elaine. And then the way he reacted to the homeless girl in this book - whose behavior was obvious, to both me and every other character who's met her as evidence of long-term and severe sexual abuse, but that Harry thinks is perfectly normal behavior.
Closeted bi tendencies are the least of his issues.
Yes, that's my problem with 'cest ships, too. I want them to be at least kind of realistic! But I also want a happy ending! And I don't know how to have both.
no subject
Ah, Harry and his deep deep issues. Also, obviously I need to start paying more attention during those scenes instead of just giggling at how ridiculous Harry's being. I mean, I was kinda creeped out by Harry's sexualized interest in the homeless girl, since it was so very inappropriate, but I missed the evidence of sexual abuse.
Yeah, I don't even know what to do with the incest and happy endings thing. I'll cross that bridge if/when I come to it?