mrsronweasley | Everybody's doing it! A poll.

So, this is something that's kind of interested me for a while, and now I'm sitting here, enjoying my newly-fast computer (oh yeah, my external hard drive came yesterday, and WHEEE MORE SPACE), and wondering:

How do people feel about kid!fic?

I know that in HP, I absolutely loathed it. Even though both Remus and Sirius appear to be good with kids, I could never, ever stomach them adopting/trying to raise a kid, and mpreg? FORGET ABOUT IT. (This is still the case, by the way, just in case you were wondering.)

Then, I came to due South. And then, I read 'With Six You Get Eggroll'. And, okay. The premise struck me as completely improbable, and I almost didn't read it. I mean, really, come ON: Ray and Fraser, raising SIX CHILDREN? WTF? What is this, "Sound of Music"?

But then I did read it, and completely fell in love with it. Because it strangely works and it's sweet and it just...it WORKS.

And then, there's Ray Kowalski, who, in canon, wanted kids, and in fact, this was probably the chief cause of his divorce. And I thought more about Ray and realized that he would have made a wonderful dad. Crazy, yeah. Overprotective? Yeah. Sometimes embarrassing? Sure! But he'd be CRAZY about his kids, and he'd have fun with them and know what to do when things wouldn't go well.

So, then I started searching for more kid!fic. And I was kind of lost.

And THEN, I SOMEHOW - *points accusing fingers at

katrin and

rhythmsextion* - got suckered into writing kid!fic. So, okay, it's an AU. But still. Here I am, writing it. (And yeah, Kat, I still am. In fact, it's been revived! Much to my surprise.)

So, I guess that sums up my history with kid!fic. I just never thought I'd have it in me to enjoy it, and now, I...really really do. It's Ray, it really is. He tugs at my strings and pushes all my (known and unknown) buttons.

Now, it's your turn. Tell me:

[Poll #727036]

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You know what, I think of myself as not wanting to read kidfic, just as I don't want to watch movies with kids in them - I resent the cutesiness, the limitations it places on the story, the simplistic, predictable dialogue, and the blatancy of the emotional hook. (I love books from children's points of view, but that's different.)

But there are exceptions - Aliens has a kid in it, and it drives the story instead of limiting it, and the emotional hook makes perfect sense in a survival setting, and it's, okay, a little cutesy, but I enjoy it.

Due South is the only fandom where I've liked kidfic. It still makes me uncomfortable, the hook is too overt or something, so I don't tend to reread it, but I do like it at the time, kind of like cuteoverload.com (http://cuteoverload.com/).

I think partly because Due South is for me in a lot of ways a, um, fix-it fandom? So to speak? I don't just want to read dS slash because I want validation of the subtext or because it's hot - I want it because I want someone to love Fraser and make it all better, and give him a chance to open up. And I want Ray to get his emotional security and have his big crush pay off. I can imagine them both wanting a long-term, secure, domestic, spouse-and-family situation, that creates something for the future, and raising kids sort of pings at that. (Oh god! grandkid fic! is there any?!)

(see, and I sort of love that idea - them as handsome old men, holding hands in the park, generations of their loving family around them, standing up at their kids' weddings - one gives the bride away and the other makes the toast, maybe? - framed photos on the mantlepiece - grandkids asking for stories or playing frisbee at the barbeque or - and at the same time I feel a little sick. cuteoverload!)

It's also a realistic setting for both their teamwork and their friction to play out, with lower stakes than crime-fighting - of course mom and dad argue but they still love each other, right? Or something. And also it's just easy to picture both of them dealing with children, in their different, but extremely cute, ways.

I don't know if any of those are the real answer. There's just something instinctive going on. When I look around at my other fandoms (Blakes 7, Professionals, LOTR, LOTRips, Sentinel, Farscape), the idea of kidfic is always somewhere between boring and threatening. It's easy to say it would be OOC for some of the characters to want kids - or that it would soften them to the point where they're no longer interesting - but mainly I just don't want some little burden taking screen time away from what I really want worked out, the relationship between the adults.

So why F/K kidfic? I guess something about F/K feels like it could be worked out through having kids? Going around in circles, giving up... now.

Ohhhh, that makes a lot of sense. If there's just too much cutesiness, I can't take it. I think that dS is the only fandom I will ever like kidfic in, mostly because their circumstances - staying together - tend to allow for that. And it's nice to think of them not being totally alone and isolated up north somewhere, if that makes sense. You said it:

I can imagine them both wanting a long-term, secure, domestic, spouse-and-family situation, that creates something for the future, and raising kids sort of pings at that.

Precisely. (And ditto also to the emotional payoffs for both Ray and Fraser. Oh, it just gets me where it hurts.)

It's also a realistic setting for both their teamwork and their friction to play out, with lower stakes than crime-fighting - of course mom and dad argue but they still love each other, right? Or something.

Yep, makes sense to me. They have such a wonderful, interesting dynamic - they're not perfectly amiable, they bicker, but they clearly love each other, and are willing to work for it - that them having a kid/kids could work out, in the fantasy of them as real people, so to speak, and in fanfic.

So, yeah. F/K kidfic is the only kind that's worked for me so far. Then again, I've only been in two fandoms and have only had two OTPs. *g*

Everybody's doing it! A poll.

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