i have Acquired many 1980s romcoms (and a couple of the beloved 1990s romcoms with a Softer Sensibility, e.g. sabrina (1995) & while you were sleeping (1995)) today - naiffic is too melancholy & lonely & glum to really function as a romcom, but the romance between dunk and lyonel i want to have a particular wistful aspect, a particular blend of friendship and affection and increasing seriousness w/o neglecting: other relationships, jobs, the world around them, etc.
i really ought to read more hmm what i think of as society novels, from the 1930s-1950s, which ofc doesn't fit with the 70s/80s vibe of the fic but ... well, it's tagged anachronisms isn't it? and while i want to be frank about sex and sexuality and gender + the complexities of gender in a world compliant w/ omegaverse, there's a kind of melancholic energy + a viper-mean edge inherent to pre- and post-war society literature. so dawn powell, nancy mitford, etc.
the ancient anxieties (i.e. wips untouched for years) mean i worry a prolonged absence from fleafic will mean i shan't return to it. i AM resolved to return. but naiffic is consumptive at the moment i think in part because i feel much freer with it; i can play more with form than i can in fleafic. but at the same time, fleafic is more heavily stylized, and in general heavier, and although it makes for slower going (as a writer) it is also more satisfying; the conclusion of each chapter of fleafic feels like a relief, not of setting down a burden, but of having said something i wanted very much to say.
i don't want to be TOO light with naiffic but i want the weight to go largely unnoticed, if that makes sense.
in a way everything i write is either an amusement in the moment, or me striving helplessly to recreate the way i felt finishing THE SUN ALSO RISES by hemingway the first time in my senior year of high school.
