fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #2520 ]

[ SECRET POST #2520 ]

⌈ Secret Post #2520 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 039 secrets from Secret Submission Post #360.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
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You know how some darkfic is of a particular kind where a character who is canonically a good guy is portrayed in a really dark light while still staying true to most of his/her personality? Especially when the dark!character is one side of a pairing, which is transformed into a really fucked up abusive pairing even if the pairing is quite positive in canon? I don't mean deconstruction fic, where a character's canon actions are interpreted in a dark way (like what happens to Twilight, etc), but where the author knows perfectly well that the character is not actually that dark in canon, but creates a sort of Evil Alternate Universe except instead of the whole universe being full of darker duplicates, only the one character is dark (and not necessarily full-on evil, just distinctly darker than canon)?

I LOVE this. I love the shit out of it, but I don't know why it turns my crank so well. Does anyone else love this too? Do you know why you love it, and can you explain to me why you love it? Because I can't figure out why I love it.

For me, it a combination of two things. One, it trips my kink switch, just because dark characters are more likely to do the kind of sex I like.

Two, I grew up in a nice family, with nice expectations, and never heard anything of family problems or drama. It was constant cookies and fluffy bunnies and sunshine. Of course, now that I'm an adult, I'm allowed to know my family drama, but it was kept from me as a kid. Whereas I'm a rather dark person. I can have a black sense of humor, I love horror movies (the more twisted, the better), and I always had to hide that side of me around my family. I imagine that they'd view me as a dark!character, so seeing that in a fictional character is, I guess, comforting.

I do!

I think to me it's about character exploration and character dynamics. Really with any AU, the fun part is still being able to tell those characters are themselves despite differences. With dark!fic it's fun to deconstruct, particularly when the character is normally heroic. Taking them apart, seeing what would remain true to their canon selves, and putting them back together slightly twisted.

Sometimes I do it to more than one--for example, if the one you twist originally has a lot of influence on other characters in canon, that can ripple outwards.

The other thing is, the fact that I usually write heroic characters who may be kind of fucked up but at least try to do the right thing makes it so much fun when they are deliberately out for selfish ends instead of their canon selfless ones.

I only like it if the evil character is paired with an evil version of whatever character I pair with them (Like Evil!Sherlock/Evil!John). And they don't die in the end.

I love it SO MUCH and I'm not entirely sure why guess part of the reason is the sense of freedom -- you can have these characters you love doing absolutely horrific things that totally fascinate you or hit kinks (sexual or non-sexual) of yours and explore possibilities they'd never explore in canon, but you don't get pissed off at it the way you would in fic that's just bashing and misinterpreting a character, because you know it's intentional, and that the author doesn't really mean it.

There's something kind of...explosively revealing about it (especially within the context of shipping, and doubly so when shipping popular pairings between main characters). If you know the author is doing it intentionally, it's a bit like taking a central support pillar out of the canon framework and replacing it with a powder keg, and then standing back to see what happens.

Also, a dark!character can serve to highlight the canon character's good traits, in a "there but for the grace of God go I" or "what if...?" type of way.

I tend to be really idiosyncratic about it. I love fic for dark versions of some characters, while dark versions of other characters do jack shit for me. There isn't even a logical pattern to my likings and dislikings (like, I know some people only like dark! fic for characters who are extremely nice and wholesome in canon, and dislike it for characters who are canonically a bit dark, but there's no such pattern for me. It's on a case-by-case basis).

Also, um, does anyone have recs? I'd like to indulge in this some more, now that you've reminded me of it.

There was a thread with recs like this over on FFA a few posts ago: http://fail-fandomanon.livejournal.com/71929.html?thread=340334329#t340334329

I love them. It's because they hit a lot of different things I love. Here are some of them:
a) I love alternate versions of characters generally, where they retain the main aspects of what makes that character them but alters some particular thing or stretches something out more than usual. Those are fun.
b) I like fiction that plays with moral ambiguity so yes, characters being more morally ambiguous or dark than in canon, but not just portrayed in a B&W "evil villain" fashion appeals to me.
c) If it's done with a ship I already love, there's the appeal of that ship.
d) It's usually able to work in kinks I love, such as noncon and dubcon and manipulation and other things like that.
e) I especially love it when the characters' relationship already has some aspects with issues in canon but the fic where the character is darker really exaggerates and exploits them. Like in one of my canons, too characters have a kind of dependent relationship where one character often exerts control over the other. In canon I wouldn't say their relationship is bad or unhealthy. But in fic you can make one of them way more controlling and exaggerate it to the point where that character is much darker than in canon and exploit that in order to produce some pretty hot kink stuff. It takes a lot of aspects of the relationship that I enjoy and dials up them up to 11 with bonus noncon. Love it.

I like it, especially for pronz reasons, but I LOVE it when some conception of a dark!character becomes a collective fanon. Like, post-season-4-dark!Wilson from House. Or Dark!Batman-who-is-banging-the-Joker. Or came-back-wrong!dark!Captain America after Civil War.

Or even more specifically, the Dark!Watson "character" that happened on the Sherlock Holmes kinkmeme after the '09 movie -- he has a whole distinct characterization and schtick that everyone buys into (for porn and/or shiggles) and inspired a whole slew of fic featuring him, rather than just "a dark interpretation of Watson". I think that phenomenon was really cool because it really throws characterization in sharp relief -- if everyone agrees that this interpretation is the shit and they all understand it and write it, that means it scratches some kind of itch that's present in the actual canon, not just a personal whim of one writer.

OMG DARK!WATSON!! I remember that! It was so hilarious. People just collectively invented a character by accident and then started writing prompts like "Dark!Watson eats all the marshmallows in Holmes's Lucky Charms and leaves him with just the grain" and "Dark!Watson has a boo-boo and makes Holmes kiss it better" AND EVERYONE WAS PRETENDING TO TAKE IT SERIOUSLY WHILE GIGGLING BEHIND THEIR HANDS AND IT WAS SO GREAT.

I wasn't a huge fan of the movie, but the Holmes '09 fandom was the greatest. It was possibly the most fun, least irritating fandom I've ever seen.

Eh, I only really like it when it actually works with canon. Which I guess is what you refer to as deconstruction fic... I'm just a canon snob, really. :P

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[ SECRET POST #2520 ]

The appeal of Dark!Character fic

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Re: The appeal of Dark!Character fic (Recs?)

Re: The appeal of Dark!Character fic (Recs?)

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Re: The appeal of Dark!Character fic

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