#the kind of unapologetic age gap fics i aspire to write tbh (although with a much larger gap than i could imagine writing for ofmd)

[bizarrelittlemew]

For the fic trope ask!

I've just read two of your age difference fics, Out of my head and Throw away the oars, which is a fic trope I LOVE. But I was curious what your opinion is on age difference as a reader? 😊

thank you, it means a lot to me that you read and liked them!! 💖

okay so first of all, i absolutely love this trope as a reader too, so it's an A or maybe even an A+:

A: Love it. Spend my time combing AO3 for it.

i want to elaborate a little on this though because it's actually something i've been thinking a lot about recently. my impression is that it's sort of a divisive trope, where most people either love it or actively avoid it - like, it either speaks to you or it doesn't. for ofmd specifically, middle-aged characters finding love is a core part of canon, and a lot of people (me included) love it for exactly that. i can absolutely understand that many will see de-aging one (or both) of the characters in a fic as unappealing for this reason (and i am not here to argue that they shouldn't - don't like, don't read). then, why do i like it so much? well, there's the obvious aspect of personally finding older people hot. wanting to fuck that old man and therefore writing how a guy fucks that old man lmao. but there's also the thing that adding an age difference introduces just a liiiittle bit of sexy power imbalance and conflict, similar to lots of classic romance novel tropes. the fantasy of having a more experienced guy show you the ropes while making you feel safe and desired. when writing, i put a lot of thought into 1) the older person not taking advantage of the younger person having less life experience (and usually making them struggle with their feelings because they don't target younger love interests in general) and 2) not infantilizing or taking away agency from the younger person (they're still a grown adult fully capable of making their own choices). when i write fanfic/AUs, i see it as a playground for exploring the characters in all sorts of ways, and i think it's interesting to change things i find fundamental about canon (and wouldn't want any other way in the source material), and changing their ages provides so many meaty things and opportunities to consider.

also, i have nothing but respect for giving a character a huge pile of daddy issues and either making them go "lalalalala i do not see it (as it's staring them right in the face)" or "obviously the only way to deal with this is to fuck that old man" 😌

send me a fanfic trope and i'll grade it!