characterisation. IN BED.
So I have a huge chunk of thesis staring me in the face, which means naturally, all I want to do is start a meta discussion. About sex, because I have a one-track mind like that.
Generally, in RL, there's not really a necessary, exact correlation between a person's dominant personality traits, and what they're like/what they like in bed. Not to say that there's no relationship at all between the two things; no doubt there usually is - but it's usually a bit more complex and unpredictable than, say, uptight person likes to take control of sex (or even the reverse). Characterisation in fiction, though, usually sees people a bit more schematically than they actually are - most approaches to character seem to stress coherence, seeing people as collections of either causally or conceptually related traits and experiences.
My question, then, to those of you who write fic about/involving sex: given that these games obviously never show how their characters like to fuck, how do you personally decide what a character's like in bed? By which I mean both how they're likely to behave/think and what they're likely to do/like/dislike/refuse/prefer.
~ do you extrapolate it from what you already know about the character? (e.g., one line of reasoning that I've used more than once is Klavier Gavin = rock star = performer = exhibitionist = watches himself in the mirror)
~ or do you work on the principle that it's probably quite realistic to assume that people behave very differently in bed?
~ do you figure that any act is fair game, as long as their personality/behaviour traits remain recognisable while they're doing it?
~ conversely, with some characters, are there some things you just cannot see them doing, under any circumstance? some kinks you cannot see them having? if so, why?
~ what role, if any, do your own kinks/desires/experiences play? do you ever pepper jack cheese the characters you're writing? do you gravitate towards writing characters who you think would plausibly share your kinks - or deliberately avoid them (I actually find it very difficult to write about sexual experiences that I've either had or would genuinely want to have myself), or neither?
~ does any of this change depending on the purpose/function of the scene you're writing? e.g. a scene where the sex is meant to be a reflection of/interrogation of aspects of a character or relationship, vs. a scene where the sex act/kink/etc. is the starting idea and focus
Or feel free to answer any questions that I haven't asked and you think are more interesting :D
I'm talking mostly about specific, individual sexual behaviours here, rather than sexual orientation - but I suppose the corollary question to this would then be, given that there's probably even less of a straightforward relationship between personality/history and sexual orientation, in the absence of any decisive evidence, how do you decide on a particular character's sexual orientation (or asexuality)? Would you consider anything fair game, or at least workable, for any character, or do you think that some characters are more plausibly queer/straight/homo-, bi-, hetero-, a-romantic asexual than others - and if so, why? I tend to think that anything's workable when it comes to orientation, usually, and yet I do find myself instinctively feeling that, for example, Klavier is more plausibly queer than Apollo, which I suspect says more about my preconceptions than anything else.
Anyway, have at it, guys; I would love to hear your thoughts.
Generally, in RL, there's not really a necessary, exact correlation between a person's dominant personality traits, and what they're like/what they like in bed. Not to say that there's no relationship at all between the two things; no doubt there usually is - but it's usually a bit more complex and unpredictable than, say, uptight person likes to take control of sex (or even the reverse). Characterisation in fiction, though, usually sees people a bit more schematically than they actually are - most approaches to character seem to stress coherence, seeing people as collections of either causally or conceptually related traits and experiences.
My question, then, to those of you who write fic about/involving sex: given that these games obviously never show how their characters like to fuck, how do you personally decide what a character's like in bed? By which I mean both how they're likely to behave/think and what they're likely to do/like/dislike/refuse/prefer.
~ do you extrapolate it from what you already know about the character? (e.g., one line of reasoning that I've used more than once is Klavier Gavin = rock star = performer = exhibitionist = watches himself in the mirror)
~ or do you work on the principle that it's probably quite realistic to assume that people behave very differently in bed?
~ do you figure that any act is fair game, as long as their personality/behaviour traits remain recognisable while they're doing it?
~ conversely, with some characters, are there some things you just cannot see them doing, under any circumstance? some kinks you cannot see them having? if so, why?
~ what role, if any, do your own kinks/desires/experiences play? do you ever pepper jack cheese the characters you're writing? do you gravitate towards writing characters who you think would plausibly share your kinks - or deliberately avoid them (I actually find it very difficult to write about sexual experiences that I've either had or would genuinely want to have myself), or neither?
~ does any of this change depending on the purpose/function of the scene you're writing? e.g. a scene where the sex is meant to be a reflection of/interrogation of aspects of a character or relationship, vs. a scene where the sex act/kink/etc. is the starting idea and focus
Or feel free to answer any questions that I haven't asked and you think are more interesting :D
I'm talking mostly about specific, individual sexual behaviours here, rather than sexual orientation - but I suppose the corollary question to this would then be, given that there's probably even less of a straightforward relationship between personality/history and sexual orientation, in the absence of any decisive evidence, how do you decide on a particular character's sexual orientation (or asexuality)? Would you consider anything fair game, or at least workable, for any character, or do you think that some characters are more plausibly queer/straight/homo-, bi-, hetero-, a-romantic asexual than others - and if so, why? I tend to think that anything's workable when it comes to orientation, usually, and yet I do find myself instinctively feeling that, for example, Klavier is more plausibly queer than Apollo, which I suspect says more about my preconceptions than anything else.
Anyway, have at it, guys; I would love to hear your thoughts.