Singing the Body Electric

Comment below and I'll ask you five questions. Answer them in your own journal, offer to give the first five commenters their own sets of questions, and let the cycle continue!

kindkit was kind enough to supply me with these fab questions for a third outing with this meme:


1) The gods of television have chosen you to select one non-canonical ship from OFMD (but with canonical characters only, no OCs) to become canon. What do you choose and why?

This power would be dangerous in my hands. :D

A ton of possibilities immediately crowded in, and I think that goes a long way toward explaining why I've ended up so fannish about Our Flag Means Death. I'm a dyed-in-the-wool multishipper, and the show's not only given me an unprecedented number of canon relationships I'm invested in, but so many non-canon pairings to enjoy in fic and art.

Right now, I'm deep enough into my Izzy/Jim/Oluwande fic that I'm tempted to pick that, because I would love for Izzy and Jim to get some bonding time in season 2 and for Jim to start their own collection of husbands à la Spanish Jackie. But in terms of what I'd want to see based on season 1 rather than if-then-elsing season 2, honourable mentions go to Frenchie/Wee John, Lucius/Fang, and Jackie/Jim, but the winner has to be Izzy/Lucius.

The sexual chemistry and power dynamics in Izzy and Lucius's 1x05 confrontation knocked me dead. I adore that scene and everything both parties brought to it. Absent some curveballs, I wouldn't want to see them end up long-term primary partners, but I would absolutely dictate an arc for Izzy that leads to him and Lucius hooking up.

I frequently bounce off takes on what a positive ending for Izzy looks like because I don't think acknowledging how his strategy for survival/security/success hurts others and himself necessarily means embracing things the crew of the Revenge like. He doesn't have to appreciate fine fabrics, do arts and crafts, eschew monogamy, enjoy silliness, be fun to be around, or want to make friends with the Revenge crew in order to let go of abusive pirate culture and stop impeding other people's choice to leave it or stay out of it entirely. If he does want to make other changes in his life or explore new things, great, but the point as I see it should be having the freedom to do what makes him feel fulfilled while letting others find their own fulfillment. But sleeping with Lucius is something he already seems to have conflicted interest in, so I'd like to see him end up in a place where he can resolve that internal conflict in the company of someone who's got a much better read on him (and more self-regulation) than the last person Izzy turned his attention to.

A kiss would be great, since allegedly there was one written out in season 1 - or just Izzy staggering out of some supply room, disheveled and smoothing down his hair, and a shot of Lucius strolling out smugly a few seconds later with his sketchbook in hand.


2) What's a piece of non-word related art (maybe visual art, maybe music without lyrics) that you love?

I like art that you can come to from anywhere and appreciate as one immediate visual experience, but I'm a sucker for pieces with complex narratives, in conversation with other works/people/phenomena through their iconography, that can send me down a rabbit hole of research and ideas after viewing them. My current obsession on that front is Kent Monkman's The Academy. It's a delightfully meta and layered painting/essay about the Western gaze, constructed around works like Laocoön and His Sons, Zeuxis Choisissant des Modèles, and Self-Portrait Devoured by Demons, and featuring Norval Morrisseau, Jacques-Louis David, and the artist as both Kent Monkman and his alter ego Miss Chief Eagle Testickle (dressed up as Harriet Boulton Smith).

My art knowledge is very low, but I love this piece because I can enjoy it aesthetically and on the basis of what I can read as a layperson, but also because I can follow its 'citations' and see more of the story every time I come back to it.


3) You can have an hour-long conversation with any (dead) historical figure. They'll truthfully answer anything you ask, to the limits of their personal knowledge. Who do you interrogate and what do you ask them?

Oh man. This is such a fascinating question, but I'm not sure I can think of any historical figure where I feel like getting some firsthand clarification or confirmation from them would do anything but personally torment me in light of the fact that it probably wouldn't be enough to override the popular narrative. Anything else would be more a matter of satisfying some minor point of personal curiosity or "who I'd like to hang out with for an hour," and I think I'm taking the question way too seriously, because I'd feel seriously bad wasting someone's last hour of consciousness. Unless this was more simulation than supernatural, in which case, ooh - maybe Denny, the teenage Neanderthal/Denisovan girl, or another named Paleolithic figure? I'd love to ask an early verbal hominin about their life: what their community is like, how they spend their days, what they enjoy, what annoys them, what they create, and how they conceive of the world around them.

If it really were a temporary resurrection, however, I'd go with a songwriter or poet who died in a creative period with unfinished business and ask if there's anything they want me to copy down and release for them. (I mean, heck, I'd ask the Paleolithic figure the same thing.)


4) When you write fic with a historical setting, how much research do you like to do? What's your "enough" point for research?

I love doing research, but I know I also use it as an excuse to procrastinate. "Enough" for me is reaching a point where I have a good idea of what I don't know. That way, when I'm writing, I'm at least somewhat clear on when I'm being factual and when I'm being deliberately ahistorical, when I'm handwaving things because I can't or don't want to research more, and when I really need to pause and find something out because the story hinges on it.

I also want to have a sense of what the characters find notable. Which of this old-to-me technology is old to a character and what's offputtingly new? What events are generational divides between characters of different ages? What materials or mores are going to stand out to someone and what's the norm? I usually write in third person limited, so I try to research from the point of view of what I need to know to write these specific characters rather than to know everything there is to know about the period.

Canons like Our Flag Means Death and Team Fortress 2 (one of my last major fandoms) hit a sweet spot for me because they let me nerd out over historical stuff and drop in whatever details I find interesting or compelling, but they deploy anachronism strategically in a way that lets me off the hook from striving for maximum accuracy.


5) What monster/scary creature type (e.g. ghosts, werewolves, vampires, zombies, demons, etc.) do you find scariest? Is the scariest one also your favorite, or not?

I'm not scared of vampires per se, but I'm most likely to avoid vampires on film or go in ready to fast-forward because I'm squeamish about veins, arteries, and spurting blood. I enjoy the immortality and separation from humanity aspects, but the feeding's a real issue. Likewise, I don't find zombies inherently scary, but they're probably the monster I'd least like to go up against in a horror situation because of the general hopelessness associated with them: societal collapse, personal powerlessness, and just the relentlessness of it all.

My favourite is probably demons, with ghosts coming in second. (I really dig werewolves but as more of a fantasy thing than a scary thing.) I like the mystery elements you often get in fiction with demons and ghosts. Characters are researching things, trying to figure out which demon they're dealing with or who the ghost was in life. There are rituals, historical elements, temptation and trauma, metaphysical realms, and possession, and the day can be saved through communication, trickery or personal will, rather than just stabbing the right spot.

In terms of pure scariness, human 'monsters' are reliably at the top of my list. With supernatural creatures, there's an extra protective layer of fiction and also lore and rules about how they can be beat. I'm more freaked out by slasher movies with serial killers, captors, stalkers, murder cults and clans, etc.

Scariness != favourite for me. I think the monsters I like most are the ones who are either the least scary or who lend themselves to dark fantasy plots and tropes I enjoy, rather than the ones that disturb me the most effectively or viscerally. Almost all of the comics I'm currently following are horror, but I rarely watch horror movies and would never go to a haunted house/corn maze experience, because I don't like jump scares or the physical experience of being afraid.