![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
hiding the tears in my eyes, 'cause boys don't cry
As I'm certain you are all well aware at this point, I have been using Harry Potter fic to alternately procrastinate and recover from reading for my comps.
I read this story yesterday in which Ron Weasley cries. A lot. Like at least twice every chapter of the story. AND I LIKED IT! *wails* The story, the crying, all of it. I even cried a little myself.
So here's the thing: normally when I encounter this sort of weepy, OOC behavior in fic I back button faster than Dean's single emo tear tracks down his left cheek. Because while it's true that many of the male characters in the shows I fan have cried onscreen (Spike, Sam, Dean, Ronon, Kirk) and some of them multiple times (oh you Winchesters *smishes*), they don't cry to the degree or in the way they're depicted crying in Those Fics.
You know The Fics I'm talking about. The ones where Spike snots all over his shirt when Buffy tells him he's beneath her and sobs until he can't breathe (heh) when the Scoobies are mean to him and swallows back his tears when Clem suggests politely that if he wants friends he might want to stop drinking so much and take a bath instead and weeps with joy (his hot tears soaking into threadbare cotton sheets) as Xander finally mends his wounded soul (or lack thereof) with his Healing Cock. And there's that fetishization of the crying itself--the prose lingers over it and langorously describes the way the character's body feels in the midst of the crying jag, the way his sobs sound, the way he either struggles against or gives into the physical need to cry. We're talking paragraphs here on the mechanics of crying.
And I suddenly realized as I was trying to discover for myself why I like this Ron story when I backbutton out of so many others that use crying as a plot and characterization point, that maybe I am kind of a fan of OOC weepiness. Sometimes. Maybe. *hides*
So here's my short list of conditions:
1. There's gotta actually be something for the character to cry about. LOL Some physical or emotional pain that's real and present in the story in a vital way and not just Daniel Jackson crying in his bunk because Jack won't let him go to Atlantis and HE REALLY WANTS TO GO! *sniffle*
2. I've got to be invested in the melodrama. I've got to care. And that's what I can't articulate, what frequently just boils down to the mood I'm in, what's got so many variables that I can't possibly unravel them all from the whole knotted up mess.
I know I've read meta before about male characters in slash who cry and how that crying is intended to feminize them, but that's not the draw for me. Regardless of what the Cure thinks, boys do and should cry and I'm not interested in identifying tears as a primarily female trait.
I think maybe what does it for me, bottom line, in the fics that I enjoy where characters cry more than might be expected from their representations in canon is what I enjoy so much about hurt/comfort--that characters are stripped down to their bare bones, to a line drawing of themselves rather than the exquisite detail of an oil painting so that deeply felt emotions can come to the fore when all the defense mechanisms and barriers and whatever else are erased. I think I like it when it feels like a moment of honesty and I suppose there's a bit of voyeurism there as well. I've been allowed to see this private moment of vulnerability. I dunno. *flails*
So here's where you guys come in. I always think better about this sort of thing in conversation. What do you think about crying as a trope in fic? Tell me everything.
I read this story yesterday in which Ron Weasley cries. A lot. Like at least twice every chapter of the story. AND I LIKED IT! *wails* The story, the crying, all of it. I even cried a little myself.
So here's the thing: normally when I encounter this sort of weepy, OOC behavior in fic I back button faster than Dean's single emo tear tracks down his left cheek. Because while it's true that many of the male characters in the shows I fan have cried onscreen (Spike, Sam, Dean, Ronon, Kirk) and some of them multiple times (oh you Winchesters *smishes*), they don't cry to the degree or in the way they're depicted crying in Those Fics.
You know The Fics I'm talking about. The ones where Spike snots all over his shirt when Buffy tells him he's beneath her and sobs until he can't breathe (heh) when the Scoobies are mean to him and swallows back his tears when Clem suggests politely that if he wants friends he might want to stop drinking so much and take a bath instead and weeps with joy (his hot tears soaking into threadbare cotton sheets) as Xander finally mends his wounded soul (or lack thereof) with his Healing Cock. And there's that fetishization of the crying itself--the prose lingers over it and langorously describes the way the character's body feels in the midst of the crying jag, the way his sobs sound, the way he either struggles against or gives into the physical need to cry. We're talking paragraphs here on the mechanics of crying.
And I suddenly realized as I was trying to discover for myself why I like this Ron story when I backbutton out of so many others that use crying as a plot and characterization point, that maybe I am kind of a fan of OOC weepiness. Sometimes. Maybe. *hides*
So here's my short list of conditions:
1. There's gotta actually be something for the character to cry about. LOL Some physical or emotional pain that's real and present in the story in a vital way and not just Daniel Jackson crying in his bunk because Jack won't let him go to Atlantis and HE REALLY WANTS TO GO! *sniffle*
2. I've got to be invested in the melodrama. I've got to care. And that's what I can't articulate, what frequently just boils down to the mood I'm in, what's got so many variables that I can't possibly unravel them all from the whole knotted up mess.
I know I've read meta before about male characters in slash who cry and how that crying is intended to feminize them, but that's not the draw for me. Regardless of what the Cure thinks, boys do and should cry and I'm not interested in identifying tears as a primarily female trait.
I think maybe what does it for me, bottom line, in the fics that I enjoy where characters cry more than might be expected from their representations in canon is what I enjoy so much about hurt/comfort--that characters are stripped down to their bare bones, to a line drawing of themselves rather than the exquisite detail of an oil painting so that deeply felt emotions can come to the fore when all the defense mechanisms and barriers and whatever else are erased. I think I like it when it feels like a moment of honesty and I suppose there's a bit of voyeurism there as well. I've been allowed to see this private moment of vulnerability. I dunno. *flails*
So here's where you guys come in. I always think better about this sort of thing in conversation. What do you think about crying as a trope in fic? Tell me everything.
Re: Let's make this all about me
meyou. *grins*Who is the character? Who? Who? Is it Faith?
I have to say that I've never read anything you've ever written and thought that anyone was OOC, so if you make her cry, baby, you must be doing something right. :)
I don't think I do a lot of making characters cry in fic. I don't think. I'll have to look at what I've written and see because I very well could be doing so and not really realizing.
I'm not so much attracted to the trope as a writer than as a reader and I think I like the crying trope best in a certain kind of story that I am periodically drawn to because I want to wallow in something melodramatic and angsty and I want to just dwell in that feeling.
Let me see if I can describe such a story without sounding condescending and bitchy about it. LOL Usually the kind of story that has the OOC weepiness that I like is an h/c story with both physical and emotional trauma. Often there's an element of misunderstanding or suspense. The character ususally feels isolated or alone and the story is one of coming to belong to someone(s). And frequently, the story is about a solid C or B- in terms of writing, you know what I mean? Nothing too terribly poorly written in terms of mechanics and grammar but nothing I'd rave about in terms of provocative and interesting use of language. In others words, utterly readable but nothing new or clever or whathaveyou. In fact, unlike a lot of fanfic where I'm drawn to the beauty of imagery or turns of phrase, this kind of story grabs me wholly in the emotional realm, speaks to me almost totally there. I have spent a lot of time on Wraithbait reading what I must admit are truly terrible John and Rodney are raped stories and thoroughly enjoying them for that reason.
Re: Let's make this all about me
Ahahaha I think the story I linked you to below might fit that bill, if you haven't read it before. John/Rodney kidfic, prompting John to deal with his long-repressed gayness.
Re: Let's make this all about me
I haven't read SGA kid!fic in a long time.