like do i just link my archive here or what If we do I must warn that all my Kencyrath fics involve incest regardless of what my tags say. Just it's so common and central to the series that I see no reason in tagging that.
Okay, so this thread has been around for a while and I'm sure someone else has brought this up already, but I am newly annoyed and I need to rant briefly about this. Why, when people are writing gay porn, do they so frequently just assume that the more effeminate one (even when neither is exactly effeminate, it's always the one who seems closer to girlish, usually based on height and build) is going to bottom? It wouldn't even bother me if only the characters discussed it once it a while, but no, there are all these first-time fics with zero negotiation and really gender-role-laden assumptions out there instead. /Done.
Not too long ago we had a complaint about the related issue of "the one who bottoms constantly gets described as 'shorter' and 'smaller' even if the two people are exactly the same height or they're taller by several inches."
Oh, I figured this out! The bottoms are always shorter because their spines are being compressed by the SHEER VIRILE FORCE of the topping they experience.
After having heard many, many overwrought soulmate AU premises from YOI Badfic Friend, I would like to humbly suggest a soulmate AU premise, as someone who is hella creeped out by whole categories of soulmate AUs: One of those sensory-deprivation type soulmate AUs where you don't see color until you meet your soulmate or something, but only a small percentage of the population has a soulmate. Society is exactly as bad towards this as they are toward every other type of disability, with a side of creepy romanticization, fetishization, and concern-trolling- everything from"shouldn't you be saving yourself for your soulmate/but how will you be happy when you know this relationship isn't as REAL as it could be" to "those poor tragic babies, doomed to probably never meet their soulmate because the world is so big" to "but how can you LEAVE him, he's your soulmate, you'll be [disability] again." The main couple meets via an online soulmate-activism community, bonds over the fact that people are patronizing ableist assholes, gets in a long-distance relationship, weathers everyone and their mom going, "OOO, WHAT IF THEY TURN OUT TO BE YOUR SOULMATE~" while they scream internally, meets up for coffee when one of them is passing through the other one's town, aaand... *ping* "OH MOTHERFUCK-" This doesn't invalidate any of what they've been saying, dammit, would you creeps stop making |3 faces.
I remember a Kerbal Space Program fic where, at some point, "toxic hydrogen smoke" from a rocket engine's exhaust was referenced. Ah, yes, the dangers of dihydrogen monoxide.
Thousands of people die from it every year! It's found in every water supply in the world! It's colorless, odorless, and can be deadly if ingested in large enough quantities! It's the biggest component of nuclear power plant runoff!
PET NAMES. Oh my god, pet names. They can work. SOMETIMES. In the right time and place with the right characters, neither of these people should be cooing over each other in such an overblown, sappy manner! One keeps himself incredibly emotionally closed off even though he spends most of his time trying to help others with their emotions, and has gotten burned in the past when he failed to stay closed off. And one deliberately makes himself as emotionally inaccessible as possible, and it takes some extreme circumstances before he'll let you at emotions through any path besides anger. And neither of them is good at showing intimate levels of caring. The first point of order after establishing a very fragile, very delicate relationship should not be deciding what terms of endearment to use. Names. There's nothing wrong with names. If the emotions are there in a story, a name can sound just as sweet and intimate as the best pet name. But when you're starting from two characters like that, you're facing an uphill climb. When you're working with made up alien terms of endearment that I have to convince myself to take seriously, you're facing an uphill climb. I could handle some. SOME. But not when they're calling each other ridiculous sappy things basically every other sentence, and not when both of these incredibly closed-off people are calling each other these things in the middle of large, hostile crowds. God. Just... gdi, this story should be all my favorite things. Sick, twisted history with incredible mindfuckery and trauma that still lingers in the present, plus genuinely healthy caring and intimacy, and damage that both parties have to tread carefully around. I don't agree with all the characterization, but I can live with that. But I can only touch this thing in small doses and I'm scrolling past all the nonsexy bits because 1) you can dial back the amounts of sap, I promise it's okay, and 2) adding overblown pet names everywhere makes it harder to deal with the sap, not easier.
That reminds me: Yuri On Ice Badfic Friend has repeatedly encountered fic where Yuuri calls Victor "Vicchan." Vicchan is the name of Yuuri's dead dog.
Hilariously, I think I know exactly which fic/series you're talking about, and it's cracking me up (Is it 'treasure.' Because if so, OH BOY. If not, I may be conflating two different fics that bothered me, and/or there's more than one fic pulling this kind of nonsense, and I will weep)
If a character actively tries to shut themselves off emotionally, and still cares, you can still show that :( Even if they're frantic with worry, you can still show that. I'm going to ache more if one person is trying hard to fuss and take care of the other, even though they don't know how to take care of someone, who'd be dumb enough to let them help out? But! Even though they're worried, they're not going to show ANY of it! Because that would upset the other person more, and that's NOT HAPPENING. So they are not worried at all, they're not freaking out, they are one hundred percent fine and they're going to be as subtle and out-of-the-way about things as a cat winding around your ankles while you walk down the stairs. Of if the other person is rattled, seriously not-okay, definitely in need of some caretaking and emotional support. And determined not to show it. They're off-center right now, but this other person shouldn't feel obligated to help them, they're imposing on that person's goodwill, they're a burden, they should be ashamed of themselves. They're not okay, they're not sure how they'll ever feel okay again, but by god are they going to fake okayness so well that nobody will ever be able to tell the difference. It's just... so much easier to stomp on my heart if their emotions don't dovetail perfectly, if they don't meet in the perfect union of goals and needs. The longer you can hold onto that disconnect, the more I'm going to hurt, in the best way. Which can last! Well up through the point where they think they're moving towards a common place! They still hurt each other while only trying to make each other happy. And then ache over doing that hurt! Just..... AUGH. I am so frustrated. This would have been the ultimate dead dove + romance fic for me, but I'm going to struggle to make it through a single reading.
Slavecoding :< It's so me I could die. EXCEPT. Yeah, treasure is one of the pet names in the mix, brightspark is another. Starlight. Assorted incredibly romantic nouns. Frequently coming from Whirl. I'm dying, squirtle.
...I say, smiling with a rictus of agony God DAMN Whirl/Rung is such a quality ship...and then there's like ~60 fics total on AO3, and the most kudos'd ones are either compilation fics, or ones where Whirl's characterization is all off like this. Or the series where the writer uses 'bunting' as an alternative to kissing for mechs with no mouths, which isn't actually that bad! But I always think it says punting, and it would be so in character for Whirl to punt someone/punt himself through a window to avoid Feelings that I get mixed up every. time
