help, fandom, help!
Jun. 15th, 2016 09:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
If you want to read my fic and hate spoilers, then skip this. But if you enjoy laughing at my pain (let's be honest, my pain is funny even to me) then feel free to witness my confusion below.
Basic fic premise: just after the fall of SHIELD, Natasha finds out about Yelena Belova's reconstructive surgery to look like her in order to infiltrate SHIELD's networks. Hard on the heels of this (only very slightly unsettling) news, Pepper reveals that she's been lying by omission about having superpowers the four months they've been dating. Pepper reveals this because Natasha is pretending to be emotionally stable despite her currently less than stellar emotional state (SHIELD/Yelena/her emotional confidantes being out of the country or unavailable).
So: if I let Pepper keep Extremis (and Extremis!Pepper is one of my favorite things, solid gold kink) then I'm not sure how to work that ideologically into the story from Pepper's point of view and keep my underlying theme of vulnerability and the need for trust. Maybe I can contrast her physical invulnerability with her higher emotional vulnerability after she killed Killian? Maybe Pepper feels outclassed being a glorified personal assistant dating OMG The World's Most Dangerous Spy? What would a normal person do here? Insert answer in comments. *points at comment button*
Most of the fic is written from Natasha's headspace because I had a complicated childhood (heh) and I'm better at writing her than Pepper. But there are a couple scenes that either have to be in Pepper's perspective or omniscient third person from nobody's perspective because they have to be a surprise to Natasha later. The problem with that being: I know how to make Natasha vulnerable, but Pepper is a normal, neurotypical person, and my powers of imagination are failing to bring me enough of what that's like to model the people in the situation. And if I can't model Pepper having the feels then I can't model a Natasha responding to her and I'm kinda stuck.
Do I make Pepper really anxious about revealing her secret and invent a reason for her fear? I could do that. That would increase her feelings of vulnerability and is a thing that normal people do, I am reasonably sure. Like 75%. I've read books where it happens? Or do I make her find out about Natasha's secret freaking out and have them fight about keeping secrets and write her vulnerability as the fear of losing relationships because of lack of trust? It would be difficult to write them fighting, but I could do it, and I have not seen any examples of two emotionally astute adults having an argument in any fandom, so maybe that needs to be written.
There needs to be a fic primer on How To Argue Like An Adult, and I could write that. Or you could write that. We could all write that! There needs to be a challenge where people write grown-up relationship problems. Kinda like Take Your Fandom To Work day, but with relationship troubles. I should poke a BNF and see if it gets traction.
Basic fic premise: just after the fall of SHIELD, Natasha finds out about Yelena Belova's reconstructive surgery to look like her in order to infiltrate SHIELD's networks. Hard on the heels of this (only very slightly unsettling) news, Pepper reveals that she's been lying by omission about having superpowers the four months they've been dating. Pepper reveals this because Natasha is pretending to be emotionally stable despite her currently less than stellar emotional state (SHIELD/Yelena/her emotional confidantes being out of the country or unavailable).
So: if I let Pepper keep Extremis (and Extremis!Pepper is one of my favorite things, solid gold kink) then I'm not sure how to work that ideologically into the story from Pepper's point of view and keep my underlying theme of vulnerability and the need for trust. Maybe I can contrast her physical invulnerability with her higher emotional vulnerability after she killed Killian? Maybe Pepper feels outclassed being a glorified personal assistant dating OMG The World's Most Dangerous Spy? What would a normal person do here? Insert answer in comments. *points at comment button*
Most of the fic is written from Natasha's headspace because I had a complicated childhood (heh) and I'm better at writing her than Pepper. But there are a couple scenes that either have to be in Pepper's perspective or omniscient third person from nobody's perspective because they have to be a surprise to Natasha later. The problem with that being: I know how to make Natasha vulnerable, but Pepper is a normal, neurotypical person, and my powers of imagination are failing to bring me enough of what that's like to model the people in the situation. And if I can't model Pepper having the feels then I can't model a Natasha responding to her and I'm kinda stuck.
Do I make Pepper really anxious about revealing her secret and invent a reason for her fear? I could do that. That would increase her feelings of vulnerability and is a thing that normal people do, I am reasonably sure. Like 75%. I've read books where it happens? Or do I make her find out about Natasha's secret freaking out and have them fight about keeping secrets and write her vulnerability as the fear of losing relationships because of lack of trust? It would be difficult to write them fighting, but I could do it, and I have not seen any examples of two emotionally astute adults having an argument in any fandom, so maybe that needs to be written.
There needs to be a fic primer on How To Argue Like An Adult, and I could write that. Or you could write that. We could all write that! There needs to be a challenge where people write grown-up relationship problems. Kinda like Take Your Fandom To Work day, but with relationship troubles. I should poke a BNF and see if it gets traction.