In Which Our Heroine Is Aggravated
Apr. 23rd, 2023 01:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
writerkitApparently I am going to receive comments to the effect of "but it's Star Trek technology; why has he not just had transition surgery yet?" on every installment where the protagonist being trans becomes plot-relevant.
Now, I could give a whole bunch of Watsonian reasons for that, some of which are going to come up at later points in the story. "Because he's genetically engineered and the surgical team looking at his DNA would probably reveal that" is an obvious one that anyone familiar with canon should be able to work out for themselves. As is "Not everyone wants transition surgery."
But the actual answer is "Because that's not the story I want to tell." It's less interesting. There's less to explore. It means I don't get to play with all these layers of trust and fear and someone unexpected discovering and keeping your secret and that's the first hint that your complicated relationship is going to have caring at the root of it all. It means I don't get to contrast the two secrets he's keeping about himself (his transition and being genetically engineered) and the different ways they isolate him from the people around him and what happens when he finally meets someone he can trust with both things. (A friendship I am so looking forward to writing and sharing.) It means I don't get to have the planned installment about the problems of getting T on a space station run by a fascist dictatorship, which is going to have huge ramifications for the long-term plot.
There's actually quite a bit less story if he can have the magical perfect surgery and be done with it.
Fanfiction is a gift. I've written, over the course of the last three weeks, 20,000 words of an AU that not that many people write but a lot of people love. For free, for fun. This kind of thing makes me not want to write it, delays my working on it until I can calm down again. Because this is supposed to be fun.
It's a big archive. There's a lot of stories out there if you don't like mine. Go read those.
I'm not going to justify that this is the story I want to tell.
Now, I could give a whole bunch of Watsonian reasons for that, some of which are going to come up at later points in the story. "Because he's genetically engineered and the surgical team looking at his DNA would probably reveal that" is an obvious one that anyone familiar with canon should be able to work out for themselves. As is "Not everyone wants transition surgery."
But the actual answer is "Because that's not the story I want to tell." It's less interesting. There's less to explore. It means I don't get to play with all these layers of trust and fear and someone unexpected discovering and keeping your secret and that's the first hint that your complicated relationship is going to have caring at the root of it all. It means I don't get to contrast the two secrets he's keeping about himself (his transition and being genetically engineered) and the different ways they isolate him from the people around him and what happens when he finally meets someone he can trust with both things. (A friendship I am so looking forward to writing and sharing.) It means I don't get to have the planned installment about the problems of getting T on a space station run by a fascist dictatorship, which is going to have huge ramifications for the long-term plot.
There's actually quite a bit less story if he can have the magical perfect surgery and be done with it.
Fanfiction is a gift. I've written, over the course of the last three weeks, 20,000 words of an AU that not that many people write but a lot of people love. For free, for fun. This kind of thing makes me not want to write it, delays my working on it until I can calm down again. Because this is supposed to be fun.
It's a big archive. There's a lot of stories out there if you don't like mine. Go read those.
I'm not going to justify that this is the story I want to tell.
no subject
Date: 2023-04-23 06:36 pm (UTC)