Threes and threes

[bironic]

As a cis het, I experience Pride Month as a more concentrated than usual opportunity to celebrate friends*; identification feels like appropriation. Still, I've enjoyed wearing my stealth gray-ace necklace, courtesy of deelaundry, more than usual in June.

*and family and colleagues and strangers, and to help lobby for compassionate treatment of queer people globally and listen and otherwise be an ally

One of these years I'll wrestle out the post that's been tumbling in the back of my head about the ways the "gray asexuality" label does and doesn't fit. It's hard to define something by a partial and possibly temporary, even if longstanding, absence.

*

Either way, the kink remains! Heh.

1) 4,100 words and counting on two nonconathon fills.

2) I finally watched Professor Marston and the Wonder Women and came out of it with a general response of ♥. If I'd known before festivids that it focused so much on long-term polyamory, kink and student/teacher relationships rather than being a straightforward biopic about a comics creator and the women who inspired him, I would have watched it sooner! Or maybe I did know at some point and then forgot, oops.

Of course, a Hollywood biopic is going to be prettier and narratively/emotionally tidier than reality. Curious about how closely it tracks to the actual people and events it purports to depict, I first checked out the NYT film review and the review of Jill Lepore's related book, The Secret History of Wonder Woman, that it linked to. Among the major divergences, it was disappointing to hear that William Marston was kind of a sleazebag and that there was another woman in the picture whom the movie never mentioned. It also appears to be a point of contention whether the real Elizabeth and Olive had a romantic and/or sexual relationship independent of William.

That said, I'm not invested in the film's historical accuracy and am fine with viewing it through the lens of "loosely inspired by." So those discoveries mainly gave me a greater appreciation for how the director, Angela Robinson (female, lesbian, black), chose to (re)shape the story. Such as William voluntarily taking a back seat so often, in life and in bed. The vehemence with which he defended feminism and non-normative aspects of sexuality; the sympathy with which the film approached same, albeit with a heavy hand. The intensity of the Elizabeth/Olive dynamics. The beauty of the shot in which William's blurry vision of Elizabeth and Olive resolves into two people. Etc.

One of many Q&As with Robinson digs into the tensions that arise from, for example, crafting a biopic that's more about your own artistic vision without consulting with surviving family members.

How many of you posted about the movie when it came out? Link me?

*

I'd been thinking again about student/teacher and other relationships involving authority figures in fic, which is what led to the above. What I continue to love all these years later about stories like Sickness and Shame by recrudescence (doctor/patient), Bend It by Nellie (coach/athlete) and Maybe I'm Already Crazy by foxxcub (teacher/student)—all Inception, Arthur/Eames, FYI right at the cusp of underage in the U.S.—are that they thread the needle between coming too close to reality and going too far into fantasy.

By which I mean, if you swing too far in the realism direction, then either the adult/authority figure comes off as creepy or outright abusive, like what happens in the vast majority of cases IRL—I'm talking about fic involving consensual relationships in this case; when you're reading or writing noncon, then of course that kind of characterization tends to be the goal—or else the characters talk or think around the ethical issues and don't act on their feelings. (Are there any fics in that second category? Hm. I've struggled with it when writing before. 'Have sex already!' 'But we want to be in character and/or sympathetic, so how do we cross this line?' ETA: Oh, right, that's how things shook out in an old Willow/Giles WIP.)

Whereas if you swing too far in the fantasy direction, then as soon as the characters realize the attraction is mutual, they slide down the magical erotica chute into passionate sexytimes, no bumps along the way. And that's not satisfying for me. I want the characters to confront the issues—the power imbalance, the trickiness of consent, the potential consequences—before finding a way forward together. As you may recall, the glossing over of this stage is what prevented me from fully adoring many of alethia's Michael Burnham/Christopher Pike fics (captain/crew member, Star Trek: Discovery), which are otherwise so close to perfect. IIRC, Dating Wrong and A Light Touch handle it pretty well.

What drove me up the wall about a long fic someone recced the last time I asked around for student/teacher stories, More Than Just a Pair of Sinking Ships by Robespierre (Merlin/Arthur), is that, while student!Merlin is depicted as crushing just as hard as teacher!Arthur, Arthur, the POV character, does soon come across as a creep and loses sight of what is appropriate, adult behavior. If only it hadn't taken those wrong turns (IMO), the pining and catharsis could have been gorgeous.

Forever chasing more of the good ones.

Comments

[skygiants]

This isn't fic, but I've been reading a whole bunch of thrillers by a nearly-forgotten 1960s author recently, and every single one features a teen girl who's in love with a significantly older authority figure that she meets when she's a child -- and in every single book, the adult spends the entire book wildly uncomfortable and insisting that his feelings for her are one hundred percent platonic and she has an awkward teen crush that will go away soon, the girl insists that this is not a crush but Real Forever Love, and at least one sympathetic/perceptive side character informs the adult/authority figure that he loves her back while the male protagonist is like "haha! no! what? gross." And this plot is very much NMK but it also sort of fascinates me because it's always such a careful dance of the line -- the male protagonists never actively reciprocate but you're given just enough textual evidence to think that they might in a tormented and ethically repressed way, if you want to read it that way, but you don't have to if you don't want to -

[bironic]

That sounds delicious! Is this Audrey Erskine Lindop or someone else?

[skygiants]

This is Audrey Erskine Lindop! I've not yet had a chance (but will hopefully soon) to write up the one that's most like this, in which the plot is "adolescent in love with her adult stepbrother, who has recently become very weird around her, worries that he might be the local serial killer; investigates while actively destroying key evidence lest anyone else suspect that he is the local serial killer."

[bironic]

...There is a lot happening there. I look forward to your review, if and when you should write it!

Your initial description also reminds me (1) of a similar scenario I enjoyed in the History3: Trapped episodes alpheratz showed me when she visited last month, involving a repressed bodyguard who denies his own feelings as well as the protestations of love from the woman he's cared for since she was a child; and (2) that I come by it honestly, as my mom used to adore the Meggie/de Bricassart ~love story in The Thorn Birds when she was younger.

[rionaleonhart]

This is a really interesting entry and helps to articulate something I'm struggling with right now. I'm getting back into Scrubs, I'd like to write fanfiction, but the relationships I'm interested in have significant age-and-power imbalances, and the older/more powerful figure is constantly aggressive, threatening and verbally abusive. I don't want to smooth away those sharp edges, but I also want to keep the humorous tone of the canon; I don't want the reader to be thinking 'what a horrific tale of an abusive relationship', even though in real life these relationships would definitely be unhealthy. It's a hard balance to strike, as you say. Rereading the Scrubs fanfiction I wrote as a teenager, I can see I definitely strayed too far from the fantasy and into 'wait, this is horrifying' territory at times.

[bironic]

Yeah, that sounds really difficult! Hm. I don't know Scrubs well, and I don't know if you're looking for advice, but I've been thinking about what you said, and -- I don't know if this is helpful or just obvious, but -- you're into these 'ships, right, which means you see something appealing in them despite the troublesome aspects you note above, and maybe you even see how they could work, so, can you keep that whole picture or those counterweights in your head when you develop your story ideas? Would that be enough to steer you through the narrow zone between declawing Cox (I assume) and writing something creepy or straight-up noncon? Or is your concern also/more about reader reception?

I hope you get helpful comments on your post as well.

[rionaleonhart]

Thank you a lot for these thoughts! It's interesting to ponder this.

maybe you even see how they could work

'How would JD/Cox work?' I ask myself.

'Cox would fuck JD at work and then pretend it never happened, leaving JD pining and confused,' I answer.

Not the most functional of relationships, but intriguing nonetheless. Maybe Cox would go 'shit, this is fucked up, gotta distance myself from the kid' and JD keeps insistently closing that distance and Cox goes 'goddammit, you're making it really difficult for me to do the right thing here.'

[selki]

I haven't seen Professor Marston and the Wonder Women but now I want to. I knew some of the history behind WW but hadn't seen much about this movie before. I like that (it sounds like) the director knew about some of the shadier aspects but chose to make this with mostly positive emphasis but showing some of the disagreements for balance, especially since he's dead and the positive spin won't help further ~grift happen.

I can see why there's some concern about her not meeting with the family, especially with the mess that came with the white-savior Green Book movie recently. I get what she's saying about some parts being agreed facts and some parts being open to interpretation.

I read your student/teacher/authority thoughts with interest. I can't think of fic that has the characters grappling with the issues well; as you say, it usually slides into creep/abuse or it's a fast mutual dive into sexytimes. Though The Police's "Don't Stand So Close To Me" has a little of that, maybe.

[minoanmiss]

Huh, how did she make the movie without meeting with the family? The credits feature family photos, which I had assumed they gave her. Now I'm picturing her hiring a cat burglar to get those photos. :D

[bironic]

Everything I know I learned from Google, including that Q&A linked above. IIRC she did reading-type research, which I guess didn't take as long as it might now, since Lepore's book, for instance, hadn't been published yet, they said.

Maybe the photos were already out in the world? Or they had basic contact but didn't go into details?

[bironic]

>>and the positive spin won't help further ~grift happen.

Good point! If and when you watch the movie, I hope you enjoy it, or at least find it interesting.

I suspect I'll want to watch it again, and that's going to be a different experience, knowing not only the plot but also more of the historical and filmmaking context.

[seascribble]

I don't have many thoughts on the kink myself (except for, yay! Kink!) but it's extremely refreshing in this day and age of the tumblr anti to read a nice, nuanced post on what makes a Problematique Trope enjoyable. Huzzah for DW.

[bironic]

Oh, Lord. I can only imagine.

[sovay]

Forever chasing more of the good ones.

It's a slight AU for reasons that will immediately become obvious, but I had no prior affinity for the pairing and I unqualifiedly recommend this Hermione/Snape: "Galleons and Sickles and Knuts, Oh My!"

[bironic]

Oh, I used to read so much Hermione/Snape. Thank you for this - I've bookmarked it for later!

[minoanmiss]

Yes, that balance is what can make student/teacher so sartisfying. In an example of an unsatisfying one, I remember a fill for an "aliens make them do it" Pike/Kirk prompt, where the author had them pretty much talk themselves out of the sex due to the ethics. Meanwhile, inn a related trope, boss/subordinate, the way dsudis made Aral, Cordelia, and Jole wrestle with those issues but also find a way through was so freaking satisfying.

Also if I failed to inform you that Professor Marston and the Wonder Women was about " it focused so much on long-term polyamory, kink and student/teacher relationships" I apologize profusely. I STG during the polygraph scene I thought of you.

[bironic]

You very well may have, or you may have enthused about it behind a cut that I didn't click on! In any case, enjoying it now.

>>where the author had them pretty much talk themselves out of the sex due to the ethics.

Oh, I'd love to read that. (Although all the sympathy for your having encountered it anticipating some juicy AMTDI and being thwarted!) I wonder how hard it'd be to track it down on the AO3.

I will also look for that Dira story. Thank you for the tips!

[minoanmiss]

As I naughtily steal time:

https://minoanmiss.dreamwidth.org/169389.html

the Pike/Kirk was by Kayliemalinza, IIRC, and Dira's series is titled Everything That You Can Keep or somesuch.

[toft]

I totally feel the same way about relationships that involve IRL power dynamics in this way - I love them but it's a very fine line for me and fics that don't tread that line throw me out immediately. This was always true, but especially since I started teaching. I have been having very complicated feelings about this dynamic lately because I'm developing a new relationship with a mentor/boss who is an older man, which in my life has almost always resulted in me crushing desperately or hating them dramatically (except for my PhD supervisor, lucky me and bless him), and trying to figure that out with him has been hard and has involved me trying to actually wrestle with that part of me that is super into those relationships in fantasy while not in any way wanting that for myself IRL (but that line being blurred sometimes). I love fics that acknowledge the complexity and difficulty and need for negotiation in relationships that come with an externally-imposed power dynamic, as well as the pining that results when They Can Never Confess Their Love Because Inappropriate.

relationships involving authority figures in fic

[selki]

Not *fanfic*, but I read a book this weekend that might fit the bill for y'all:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B011G3HIFE/
Regency, m/m/, a nobleman and his valet have been attracted to each other for FOUR YEARS (book doesn't cover all that) but have been concealing that from each other. Once they realize it's mutual, slow burn (but not a forever wait!) because the Very Noble Nobleman doesn't think the valet has agency to refuse. The extremely capable valet (think Jeeves only more dangerous) is miffed. 3rd in a series (first two were more about other characters, with some hints of the attraction).

[stultiloquentia]

It's hard to define something by a partial and possibly temporary, even if longstanding, absence.

I FEEL THIS SO HARD GODDAMN.

Glee fandom, for mysterious reasons, had a rash of Kurt/Blaine student/teacher fic that complicated the dynamic by throwing in -- heesh, I can't even remember the fannish shorthand for it -- the biologically determined D/s + soulbond trope?

Like, 18yo student is a sub who's been masquerading as a dom for social reasons, but Biology Will Out, and he's hit a crisis point and is about to go into cardiac arrest unless somebody Marks him, and Oh Noes, it's after band practice and everyone else has left and Teacher is the only dom in the building who can Complete the Task!

Or, freshly hired young History Prof has the name of his dom + soulmate on his wrist. Guess who's in the front row of his history seminar?

Some of them were pretty great, and I enjoyed thinking about the creative variations even when the execution was iffy.

[thirdblindmouse]

For me, I think the trickiest componenent of the delicate balance in student/mentor fic is not exactly maintaining sympathy so much as maintaining the right kind of angst. I can tolerate characters behaving pretty awfully to each other (in an in-character way), so long as it's in service of the kind of angst I like. To wring the maximum amount of "I couldn't possibly want it! OK, fine, I do want it! But I shouldn't want it!" out of the mentor character, they have to be aware of boundaries existing that they are deeply opposed to crossing, and they need to cross them as much as possible while trying as hard as possible not to. So it's not the inherent dubcon qualities of that kind of pairing that enhance the angst best, but fear of same, and as always externally applied dubcon elements like sex pollen and forced-to-fuck that can cross those boundaries without getting them over their discomfort with crossing said boundaries.

No, of course I'm not writing exactly this for Nonconathon, why would you think that. Are you signed up too?