#buying the idea of a character with anxiety being a non-coquettish dom

[aeide-thea]

so as per prev tags i read A Sensory Experience of Metal and Other Metal and having finished it i basically think what i said before but more so: i thought certain things abt it were vividly diverting and delightful and other things were really very sketchily penciled in!

in some ways i do think the biggest thing that's stood out to me abt the various m/m books by, uh, fandom-nurtured authors that i've read lately-ish (thinking vaguely of FM and, uh, other FM here, in addition to op. previously cit.) is how mediocre their female characters have imo been—in some ways that's to be expected bc supporting characters in romance are very often mere ciphers, and if both members of your central pairing are men, then, well... but i do feel like people could be briefly sketched and still feel realer and more like there's a logic of their own to them, beyond just Necessary NPC? like, i have some issues with both heyer and sayers (antisemitism foremost among these) but both of them managed to make it feel as though their romances were happening within the context of a believable society populated by believable bit characters (sayers' artist lesbians!).

(as per prev post also some thoughts abt what gets fleshed out vs what's just wooden set dressing in general, and some wondering abt the extent to which a fannish apprenticeship tends to encourage those flaws, but those i think i more or less covered in prev tags, if somewhat incoherently/inconclusively.)

#anyway this is not a useful post to anyone but me probably‚ i just like to take notes for my own records #bc it IS sometimes convenient to be able to flip back and say 'oh right THAT's what i thought of that book!' #anyway i love fandom and ppl wrote flawed books before fandom was a twinkle in bored housewives' eyes but #there ARE particular modes it trains you to perhaps overdevelop and others it doesn't train you to develop at all #and i do kind of think i'm seeing the traces of that in more and more books #some people would say that's not necessarily a problem‚ and on the face of it maybe it isn't #but i think i do in fact want authors to be able to tell what they've actually gotten down on the page and what they haven't #and instead are supplying out of their own reservoir of canon‚ which in fandom readers share with authors‚ but which in origfic they can't #like that does in fact feel like a pretty fundamental aspect of storytelling craft to me that i want a professional to be aware of #ok also one last totally unrelated thing is that i really have trouble PERSONALLY #buying the idea of a character with anxiety being a non-coquettish dom #like speaking personally i LOVE to get playfully toppy but like. idk. it's topping as flirting kind of. #also i mean 'dom' is an overstatement wrt the level of power exchange happening in this particular book #(or anyway the level of *sexual* power exchange—the whole 'commoner employee/royal employer' dynamic is a whole other thing) #(oh man i have. so many thoughts. mostly abt how ppl KEEP trying to write royalty bc they think it's sexy but then want to make it moral) #(i kind of think the minute you open the can of morality worms you've kind of ruined the fantasy) #(like i'm not opposed but then you're asking me to think with my *actual* brain and morals and not just. you know.) #okay i super lied abt the topic three topics ago being the last one but maybe this will be— #lots of thoughts abt like. the MULTIPLE friend-cum-valet relationships in these various books that don't imo get adequate arcs #it's like somebody told ppl our prince-heros had to have a humanizing commoner connection #but forgot that if they don't ask the 'friend' how they're coping with whatever mostly-offstage struggles have been tossed their way— #they aren't actually acting like friends! #like obviously it's a balance bc the main characters' problems ARE going to take center stage and should #but increasingly i'm like. does X random character seem like they've got a coherent track they're moving along even if we only see a clip #does X non-central relationship feel like any tensions introduced into it along the way have gotten resolved by the end #things CAN be left to linger but that's different from slapping some sloppy spackling on and calling that a resolution #ok maybe someday i will learn to stop shoving half my thoughts in tags so i can like. sort them into paragraphs or something at least #but today is clearly not the day i'll be starting #bookblogging #okay i lied one ACTUALLY FOR REAL last thing is that the ''''hilariously Difficult'''' magical-truth-assessor character in this is.