#plottily planned

[olderthannetfic]

Heyo, anon who was thinking about writing a Murdock/mannequin fanfic and asked about crack fics. I have realized that the term "crack fic" probably doesn't really fit the premise; I guess I was thinking about "fic for a (kinda sorta) crack ship" and my brain short-circuited that into "crack fic" (oops). Your description of "strange subject matter written in a standard way" does fit my premise nicely, I guess it wouldn't really be a crack fic then. The episode that ship is from also shows later that he genuinely cared about the mannequin and is really upset when it gets broken irreversibly later, so this is more along the lines of Murdock genuinely having a thing for and a relationship/an affair with this mannequin rather than just joking about it, so yeah, the plan is: strange subject matter but non-crackish depiction.

As for the definition of crack fics: the ones I have come across have been a) "usual/standard premise but intentionally silly/wacky (humourous) writing intended to be read as silly as if one had to be on crack to write it and to take it seriously" b) "strange/silly premise and intentionally silly/wacky (humourous) writing intended to be read accordingly as if one had to be on crack to think of the mere premise of the fanfic" c) "strange/silly premise and dead-serious writing as if the plot were the most standard and regular fanfic premise to ever premise plottily," so to say.

My personal definition would probably fall somewhere between a) and b), although I'd love to find more cases of c), as that sounds the most fun to read to me. Have also come across crack fics by middle/high-school students, and by that I mean people who wrote in their author's note stuff like "lolllz i wrote this during lunch break at school with a couple of friends and they dared me to post it so here you go lmaooo" (this is paraphrasing of course, but I have stumbled across multiple crack fics that have author notes like this).

Btw have decided to give it a go, so I'd like to thank you for helping me reach that decision! I was unsure whether this idea would be too silly to write, but then remembered that no amount of silliness can stop me from making fictitious people and fictitious mannequins smooch, ha! (Also am going to look for that Care Bears fanfic, that sounds like fun, so thank you for the recommendation.)

Another btw: I am no longer thinking that Murdock's potential depiction of potential interest in guys is just a joke... Have just seen "There goes the neighbourhood" (4x10), and pretty close to the beginning, they're deciding to leave with a client and her friend/boss is staying in the room, so they're saying their goodbyes and then exiting the room, and Murdock is the last to leave, and he says, "Such a pleasure meeting you, let's do lunch!" and puts on his hat and charmingly smiles at the guy, and then the camera is on the guy who does look interested. I am deciding to categorize this interaction as "not-subtle-at-all flirty encounter," and now firmly believe that either the character was written/directed as bi/pan or bi-curious (considering how much cheek-in-tongue innuendo and humour the show has, I wouldn't be that surprised if they'd decided to subtly and not-subtly get a non-straight character past homophobic film/TV censorship of the 80s) or the actor decided to portray him as interested in guys without the studio/director/whoever-decides-stuff knowing or approving, heheh. (Or the actor just felt like flirting with or hungrily staring at handsome guys, which I also respect lol.) Let's just ignore that I gravitate toward rarepairs and that that probably means I tend to interpret stuff as romantic/sexual interest innuendo that's not actually meant/written to be interpreted as such and that most other people don't bat an eye at, and that that probably means my interpretation is total bullshit, ahem. XD

Also wanted to say thank you for letting me ramble about this specific headcanony stuff from a circa 40yo TV series and unload my silly little thoughts and probable over-interpretations into your inbox. (Holy shit, this ask got long. Sorry for that!)

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"Crack treated seriously" is how people often talk about option C.

[bobbie-robron]

It’s all very well being moral but it doesn’t put a roof over your head, does it?

01-Dec-2016 episode 2