Tau Ceti HQ

Title: Fits and Starts
Author: prodigal
Fandom: The State Within
Category: m/m slash
Pairing: Nicholas Brocklehurst/Mark Brydon
Rating: NC-17
Word count: 3,237
Warnings: None that I am aware of

Author’s note: Unbeta’d and only my second fic in English, ever, so er… this will undoubtedly show, but I’ve done my level best. Concrit welcomed!
I’m sure many writers and readers in this fandom care about plot, realism, and good storytelling. Questions like ‘what are they doing at that hotel’ and ‘what would such shenanigans mean for their professional relationship?’ spring to mind. I swear I also care about such questions occasionally. Now is not one of those times. What you get here is decidedly PWP. Dramaturgically unsound, smutty fluff-smut this way lies.

Summary: Nicholas realises he wouldn’t mind having sex with Mark Brydon. Mark’s supposedly being straight poses a bit of a challenge. But nothing insurmountable.

 

I have a few questions for myself and the thousands of other female slash writers out there concerning themselves with male protagonists:

When you write about some delicious guy - maybe even in the 1st person perspective - do you ever think about what it really is that turns you (and your readers) on? What is your fantasy really? Is it to go to bed with the guy? Or is it - I suggest to you - to be the guy?

And what is it really, the attraction of m/m slash? Isn't it the writer - and the reader - fantasizing about being an attractive man, having sex? And because the writer is female and (more often than not) het herself, the sexual partner is imagined to be male.

If I'm right, what does that make us? Transsexuals? Do we secretly want to be men? I think it's more complicated than that. I think we want to be the kind of person that we ourselves find attractive. Because we want to feel attractive. Because we need to be in control of the desired male body. That makes us something like narcissists, I think.

I see fanfic writing as a kind of role playing: we put ourselves in the place of someone we like. Why? And when we're drooling over somebody on the screen, shouting "I want your body!!" - do we mean, "I want to go to bed with you" or "I want to take over your body"? Because there's a hell of a difference, don't you think?

Of course, there's no reason why we couldn't want both. I just find it really interesting that so much fanfic is written from the perspective of the guy that the writer fancies. Or lusts after, drools over, goes 'squeeeee' about or whatever you wanna call it. Like she wants to be him.

I know I sometimes envy the actors that get to play the characters I find attractive. I actually envy them. And I get really pissed off when they don't do the things I would have done, given the opportunity. I mean, if I were Krycek, right, I would definitely have kissed Mulder on the lips instead of that little peck on the cheek. Yeah. I would have snogged him within an inch of his life. And not just because it would be nice to kiss Mulder. Also - and more importantly - because it would have been a sexy look on Krycek to kiss Mulder.

It was Robert Smith who wrote the lyrics, "Why Can't I Be You?" I can so relate to that.

It certainly throws a new light on the concept of possession. So, when you're possessed by someone - or into them, get the picture? - it may be that it really is some kind of wished-for symbiosis.

Or maybe I'm just a sick weirdo. ;)