call for fic-kinks

[fahye]

I put this request out via email but I figure I'll throw it open to the world, too:

What plot devices are your pet loves? I'm not really interested in fandom-specific stuff, just devices that you really love seeing. As major or minor or profound or ridiculous as you like.

(This is in the interests of helping me develop structure for a WIP that I have just unearthed, so bonus points for things creating tension/deepening the dynamic between people in an established relationship, but absolutely anything will be helpful. I'd like to be able to pull this post up for inspiration at a later date!)



- Anger and/or violence on behalf of (or in revenge of) the other party.
- Convoluted and very character-specific declarations of love.
- Conspiracies! (Like in, say, Twelfth Night.)

Comments

[genarti]

Unspoken understanding -- silent looks exchanged, conscious manipulation (or at least awareness) of the undercurrents under the words. Especially if someone else who isn't privy to all of the undercurrents is observing, whether or not they're aware that they're missing levels of the conversation. I love taking a close, comfortable dynamic and throwing a third (or fourth, or fifth) party into the mix as a semi-outsider.

[silveraspen]

I was going to type up a whole post of my own, but Gen said it first. (Who's surprised?)

But also! Complexity of dynamics. To put it in actual context, what I love most about OMGPILOTS is all the background there between Lee and Kara, not the pretty. I love the tension and the uncertainty and the fact that they've known each other forever and they snark and are comfortable with it and then suddenly it's WHOA HEY WHAT HAPPENED?

If that makes sense. I can give other examples, too. :)

[genarti]

Oh yes. That's another one. Complex dynamics, and shifting dynamics also. Some of my favorite fictional relationships are ones where the characters play more than one role towards another, and they shift suddenly and seamlessly between roles in response to the situation and what the other person is doing. Sometimes those roles are all comfortable ones, just different, and sometimes it means the conversation does wild swerves, but either way it's fun.

...Gee. Aspen and I agree. I for one am stunned by this.