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krytellaI’ve been thinking about things this way for years but realized I don’t think I’ve ever written it down, and I find it useful in talking about lots of stuff around pleasure and fiction.
Doylist kink is something the creator is getting something out of that we would define as "kinky." Erotic, or not if you want to be expansive about the definition of "kink." Quentin Tarantino's foot fetish showing up in his films is an example.
Watsonian kink is something at least one character, probably the point of view character, is getting kinky pleasure from.
A story can have both kinds of kink (very common), only Doylist (less common), or only Watsonian (even less common and usually by accident). Purely Watsonian kink seems to happen mainly when the author is interested in exploring the effects having the kink has on the character but doesn't actually want to depict it, or when they're trying to write for a prompt or challenge and fail hard enough at depicting what people like about the kink that all that comes across is the character liking it but there's no direct pleasure for the reader.
There are lots of fun ways to play between these two aspects in stories. I've leaned a lot in the past on the basic plot of a character confessing an interest they're ashamed of or shy about to their partner, and getting reassurance that it's okay. In which Ariadne gives Arthur a hand, for example, uses that device. I keep coming back to it because it's got a delicious kink sandwich: whatever the Watsonian kink is in the story, and the story's Doylist interest in making that kink hot for the reader, and then the less obvious Doylist kinks for shame and emotional hurt/comfort.
Was the entire point of this to write about Doylist h/c? No. Was it part of the point? Yes. But that's for another post on another day.
The terms Watsonian and Doylist used for ways of looking at canon were introduced to fandom by this post from fairestcat:
"The terms Doylist and Watsonian derive from the Sherlock Holmes stories. Doylist is from Arthur Conan Doyle, the author, and Watsonian from Doctor Watson, the narrator in the stories. The terms are most often applied to explanations of inconsistencies between (or even within) books or stories in a series.
A Doylist explanation discusses inconsistencies or plot in terms of why the author did things that way. Lois Bujold's Doylist explanation for some inconsistencies is "the author had A Better Idea" in the later book.
A Watsonian explanation discusses the inconsistency or plot point from the perspective of the story. Inconsistencies might be explained by a character lying or being unaware of all the facts."
I think you get some pretty interesting tools when you apply these terms to kinks in fic. I define it thusly:Doylist kink is something the creator is getting something out of that we would define as "kinky." Erotic, or not if you want to be expansive about the definition of "kink." Quentin Tarantino's foot fetish showing up in his films is an example.
Watsonian kink is something at least one character, probably the point of view character, is getting kinky pleasure from.
A story can have both kinds of kink (very common), only Doylist (less common), or only Watsonian (even less common and usually by accident). Purely Watsonian kink seems to happen mainly when the author is interested in exploring the effects having the kink has on the character but doesn't actually want to depict it, or when they're trying to write for a prompt or challenge and fail hard enough at depicting what people like about the kink that all that comes across is the character liking it but there's no direct pleasure for the reader.
There are lots of fun ways to play between these two aspects in stories. I've leaned a lot in the past on the basic plot of a character confessing an interest they're ashamed of or shy about to their partner, and getting reassurance that it's okay. In which Ariadne gives Arthur a hand, for example, uses that device. I keep coming back to it because it's got a delicious kink sandwich: whatever the Watsonian kink is in the story, and the story's Doylist interest in making that kink hot for the reader, and then the less obvious Doylist kinks for shame and emotional hurt/comfort.
Was the entire point of this to write about Doylist h/c? No. Was it part of the point? Yes. But that's for another post on another day.
