#// also what do we think about me writing in primarily you/reader terms unless I have a specific idea and developed oc in mind?

[snarkwrites]

found ➼ s.walsh

┇ᵖʳᵒᵐᵖᵗ  ┇

nothing. this is based on an idea I’ve had for a few years now that I haven’t ever really been brave enough to write out a fic for.. I figured that I could do it this way, see how it goes and where it leads..

Just curious, is everyone else enjoying the reader/you format more or would you guys prefer it if I went back to writing I or original characters better? Anyway, yeah, here this is. Have it, please?

┇ʷᵃʳⁿᶦⁿᵍ ┇

besides angst and mention of injuries, none.

┇ᶜʰᵃʳᵃᶜᵗᵉʳ | ᶠᵃⁿᵈᵒᵐ | ᵖᵃᶦʳᶦⁿᵍ┇

past hints of Rick Grimes x Reader and present Shane Walsh x Injured!Past Lover Female reader, the walking dead ┇ᵗᵃᵍᵍᶦⁿᵍ ᵐʸ ᵇᵃᵇᵉˢ;┇tag list here

@chasingeverybreakingwave

@kyleoreillysknee

@mrsstevenbuchananstark

Your eyes flutter open slowly and you lie there, taking in the strange surroundings you’ve awoken to. The first thing that you notice is that you’re not wearing your own clothes and this is followed shortly by the fact that everything -even your hair, hurts.

The door to the bedroom gives a slow creak as it’s pushed open and a man you’ve never seen before, -albeit a handsome one, muscular with buzzed dark brown hair and dark brown eyes, leans in the doorway and watches with arms folded over his chest as you attempt to sit up clumsily.

There’s a bottle of Southern Comfort sitting on a table by the door and it’s got wildflowers sitting inside, you notice. The room you find yourself in reminds you in some ways of a hospital. Or a prison infirmary, though you’re not sure why that last one comes to mind.

“W-who are you?” You wince at the sound of your own voice as you ask the question and you fall silent again, waiting on the man to answer.

“Shane Walsh, darlin. Wouldn’t advise movin around too much.” he nods to the way you’re still fighting to sit up in bed a little better as he moves across the room and sinks down to sit at the bottom of the bed. It hurts a little that you can’t just look at him and remember who he is, but Herschel’s warned him that you may or may not have significant injury to your memories because you’d taken a blow or two to the head at some point in time before Shane got lucky enough to find you.

You repeat his name. “Shane Walsh.” but nothing about it stirs any kind of memory at first.. After a second or two, you feel this tug. Its’ as if you should know him like the back of your hand but the more you try, the more it frustrates you when you can’t seem to for the time being.. You stop trying to force anything to come and you focus on what you do know, which isn’t much at all. This, of course, prompts you to ask your next question. “Where am I? What happened to me?”

Seconds pass and the man says nothing. You’re sitting up a little better and Shane gets up, walking to the top of the bed. Leaning you up slightly as he fluffs the pillows at your back. You can’t help but stare at him with a brow raised as you wonder why he’s helping you and wait on some kind of an explanation as to what happened to you in the first place. 

It almost seems as if he’s not going to answer, you’ve nearly given up on it, but Shane sits down beside you and after a few more seconds of staring at calloused hands, he answers quietly. “Yer safe, that’s all that matters. As far as what happened to ya, best I can tell is you were runnin from Walkers when I found ya. Covered in blood. Looked like ya got beat pretty damn bad too. You collapsed so I carried ya back here.”

The door to the room opens a little wider and a man with graying hair and a kind but tired and wrinkled face wanders in. You notice that he barely seems to look Shane’s way as he asks the question, “How long has she been awake, Walsh?”

“Couple minutes now. Think y’ can make her realize it ain’t a good idea, all the movin she’s doin?”

Rick gazes at Shane for a few seconds. It’s on the tip of his tongue to tell the man to get lost, get away from you but instead, he turns his attention to you and all your assorted injuries instead. Telling Shane to stay away isn’t going to do any good and deep down, Rick has a feeling that maybe Shane having something -or someone else other than only Judith, to focus on might just keep him from going too far down a dark and lonely path.

You are the one that got away, after all. He never got over losing you years ago and since he’s found you again and saved you from whatever dastardly plan Negan had in store for you he hasn’t left your side more than a handful of times.

Rick leaves the room and pulls the door closed behind him. Just like it used to be, the air is thick with tension and it’s enough to make him feel like he’s invading a very private moment between two people all over again. It was always like this between the two of you, he thinks to himself. Carl wanders over and nods to the door. “Did she wake up, Dad?”

“She did.”

“ You left Shane in there with her?” Carl questions the wisdom in his father’s decision. Rick shrugs as he nods. “Shane’s not gonna hurt her, son. Everybody else is questionable, but he’d never hurt her. Might even do him some good, finding her..” Rick goes quiet and he glances at the closed door. He was wary about leaving the room himself but the tension between you two was so damned thick that he couldn’t stay. ... not to mention your own past ties with her and that little green eyed monster that started to creep it’s way in when Shane brought her back a few nights ago... the thought comes but Rick shoves it out. You only ever really loved Shane. Shane was it for you like Lori, at one time, was it for him. ... now all that’s been shot to hell and she’s gone... the thought comes and it has Rick grimacing as the pain washes over him all over again. 

Carl eyes his father warily and glances at the closed door before shrugging it off and making his way out into the ‘yard’ of the prison to tend the garden because it’s his turn to water and weed the vegetables planted.

Your vision clears just a little better and you find yourself looking at the dark haired man again. Swallowing hard when you do because everything about him still seems familiar and yet, you can’t put a finger on it. Memories you should be able to call up easily just aren’t coming.

Just random little bits that you feel aren’t connected, they can’t be.. Men shouting, laughing. A man with a barbed wire bat grabbing you up. The impending sense of doom. And lastly, darkness. None of it explains why you feel like you know the muscular,dark-haired man like the back of your hand. None of what you can recall even seems to even be about him and you’re frustrated with this.

“You seen that man you think had her holed up? The one y’ think might’ve hurt her?” Rick asks quietly when he walks back into the room to check on how things are going. For all he knows, Shane’s the instigator in the incident that occurred between himself and the man with the barb wire wrapped baseball bat. It’s not like it’s a stretch, Shane’s taken a dark turn since this whole thing started. Rick can’t help but feel that whatever happened the night Shane came back to the prison carrying you in his arms might well have been antagonized heavily by whatever course of action Shane chose to take.

“Naw, it’s like him n’ his group up and disappeared. Wish they would come back though. I’d fuckin kill him for whatever it is he’s done or was plannin to do.” Shane seems angry and tense as he says it and when he looks at you, the anger seems to fade out of his eyes just a little. They’re softer as they fix on you and he leans in a little, brushing hair out of your eyes. 

“ We’ll keep an eye out.” Rick answers quietly before leaving the room again. He goes off to find Daryl and check the perimeter around the prison to make sure it’s secured.

 You swallow hard, your eyes dart to thick and calloused fingers for just a second or two.

A name keeps repeating itself in your mind.

Negan.

“Who’s Negan?” you ask before you can stop yourself. Just mentioning the name calls forth more of the same random flashes of memory and thought. This deep seated fear comes right along with it.

Your question seems to have Shane tensing up all over again and he growls quietly. But when he answers you, you know what he says is a lie, or at very least a half-truth, because if he didn’t know something, he wouldn’t have had the reaction. “Some weird guy I ran into on a supply run. Nothin for y’ to worry yer pretty little head over, darlin.”

Shane’s right fist clenches when you ask about Negan because all he can see in his mind is the way Negan had you locked away in some room with all the other women. Kept calling you one of his ‘wives’. Guy said he treated all of the ‘wives’ decent - and insisted that he’d saved your life, and yet, your injuries came from somewhere. Guy also said that you didn’t know your own name and you didn’t talk, either.

“O-oh.” you answer before falling silent. The light overhead catches on something silver around your neck and you gingerly raise a hand, trailing your fingers over a delicate silver chain. You pull it from beneath the oversized khaki colored shirt you’re wearing and you gaze at it for a few seconds, lost in thought as bits come flooding back.

This time, those bits involve the man sitting right beside you.

Shane happens to glance over at you and as soon as he sees the way you’re staring at the locket around your neck, he knows to stay quiet. He knows that something is coming back to you.

He just hopes it’s enough to ease your mind. Make you realize that you’re safe and he’s not a threat -at least not to you, everyone else, they can go straight to hell as far as he’s concerned. He’s only stuck it out this long because of the child he possibly shares with Lori, his - or Rick’s,  infant daughter, Judith. There’s no way in hell he’s taking off and leaving her with this group -and Rick won’t allow him to take Judith and leave the group either because neither man is entirely sure who Judith’s father is and Rick doesn’t trust him as far as he can throw him these days,  despite the fact that at one point in time, he trusted Rick more than anything. Rick was a brother to him. As the thought surfaces, he attempts to shove it out because he knows he’s at fault for this no longer being the case and while he does feel guilt over it, he also knows that deep down, he’s right. They’re not going to survive if they don’t learn how to embrace the fact that dark and desperate times call for dark and desperate measures.

“S-shane?” your breath catches in your throat as you begin to remember exactly how well you know the man sitting right beside you. And deep down, you’re remembering that you’ve always regretted having to leave him behind years ago.

Shane clears his throat, nods but doesn’t say anything. “What’d you remember?” he finally asks after a long pause that feels as if it lasted hours.

“You gave me this locket. We were gonna run away together.. I couldn’t meet you in time.” you answer quietly as your past with Shane starts to piece itself together. You feel safer now, a little more at ease.

You can remember enough about yourself now to know who you are. And you were found by Shane and Shane Walsh would die before he allowed anything to happen to you, so you know you’re safe now.

It’s something you haven’t felt in a really, really long time. The thought creeps in and you take a shaky breath or two as you sit quietly beside him. 

Shane’s the first one to speak up. “ I need to check your bandages, darlin. Make sure they’re still good n’ tight.��� he mumbles after a few seconds. He turns slightly so that he’s facing you and he reaches out, thick fingers catch in the hem at the bottom of the khaki shirt you’re wearing.

It has to be one of his, you find yourself thinking, because it smells exactly like the cologne he always wore when you were his girlfriend back then. The scent is comforting as what remains of it fills your nose. The shirt is pulled away from your body and as soon as the bandages are revealed, you grimace.

“The doc said he thinks you got yourself a few bruised ribs.” Shane explains gently as his eyes settle on you. He feels the bandages to make sure they’re still secure around your upper body and for a few seconds, his hands linger on your curvy frame. Then he raises his hand and his fingers catch on the thin and delicate silver chain at your neck as he bites his lip and his eyes settle on you.

 If these were different circumstances, he’d probably still be holding on to the emptiness and the hurt, the bitterness that came with showing up to your favorite spot to go and be alone together and finding out you’re not there. But that was years ago and now, with everything that’s gone to hell in a handbasket, it seems so small and insignificant somehow. His eyes settle on the heart shaped locket.

It took him an entire summer working to save up to get it.

“Shane?”

“Yeah?” he glances up at you when you say his name softly, lost in thought. 

“I didn’t show because my dad, he.. Found out. And he packed me up, shipped me off to live with the grandparents. I wanted to leave with you, I swear I did.” you mumble the words quietly and as they start to trail away and die, you add in a whisper, “I never stopped loving you. I tried so hard, I just.. I couldn’t.”

And after all the years that have passed since that last night he saw you, he’s faced with one simple truth. After you left, he stopped looking. He got more into the here and now as opposed to the long-term. And he starts to realize that everything that went down between himself and Lori was nothing more than two lost people. Two lonely people.

Coming together to make the best out of their own individual bad situations.

“Darlin, I..” Shane starts to say it back but parts of him feel as if he doesn’t have the right to, after all, he’s not the same man. He’s older. He’s turned into someone he doesn’t really recognize anymore.

But at his core, he knows that he still loves you and he always will.

Life is too short. Life also isn’t fair.

But circumstance has brought you back into his and he’d be an idiot if he didn’t take the chance, the thought comes just as he fails a final time at pushing the words he’s dying to say to the back of his mind instead of allowing them to come out. 

“What, Shane? What’s wrong, baby?” you ask the question quietly and it just sort of...breaks… him. He gazes at you for seconds that seem to stretch lazily into hours. And finally, he takes a shaky breath and leans in a little closer. “I ain’t the same guy. But I still love you too, darlin. You’re safe now, okay? I gotcha. I promise.”

It’s not much, but it’s the best he can promise because absolutely no one is promised tomorrow, let alone five seconds from now. It’ll have to be enough. He hopes against hope that it’s enough -that he’s enough, and he takes a few shaky breaths, waiting. Wondering what your reaction to what he’s just told you will be.

You grimace as you try to move yourself closer to him and he shakes his head, moving to squeeze himself into the bed beside you as best as he can given it’s lack of space. An arm slips around your shoulders and you lean your head against his. 

“Everything’s gonna be alright.”

“ Yeah.” you manage to respond as you glance up at him. You know he’s not the same man, there’s just something different, something darker in his eyes that wasn’t there before and despite seeing it, you know one thing beyond all doubt. He still loves you and you still love him and now that you’ve finally found him again, you never want to leave.

Ever.

[menaceanon]

4, 11, and 13 for the ask meme!

Oooh, let’s see! Gonna do all of these for Chiaroscuro. This also got... way longer than expected lmao.

4: What’s your favorite line of dialogue?:

So there are a handful of moments I’m really fond of, but there’s one exchange from chapter 5 that remains my favorite. Up until this point I’d only had a rough plan for Mary and Ed’s dynamic, but when I wrote this exchange I knew I’d really found them, and (better yet) that it would work. Also, Mary’s confession about barnacles still makes me laugh.

She passes the bandage to Ed, who loops it around his front and hands it back on the other side. “I’m afraid I’m not very diligent about drilling them in their manners.”

“Oh, yeah, manners,” Ed says. “I was just about to complain about their manners. Oof,” he adds, as she tugs the bandage pointedly. 

“I’m trying to warn you that they’re about to latch on to you like a couple of barnacles. They have sticky hands and a thousand questions.”

“Are you sure you know what a barnacle is?”

“I have no idea what a barnacle is.” Mary tucks the bandage in on itself, checks her work, and straightens. “Put your shirt on,” she drawls, “you’re distracting Doug.” Ed winks at her. 

11. What do you like best about this fic?:

That’s tough to say, since the fic is really just me picking up things I like and cramming them into a word doc as fast as I can. But if you were to force me to choose… Actually, I can tell you what I’m proudest of.

I like that Mary spends time playing counselor, but it’s never at the expense of her personhood. That’s a pet peeve of mine, when a character—usually a woman and/or a person or color—is written less as a character than as a conduit for a ship, and their own needs and wants and loves and hates are subsumed to that purpose.

The first thing we see Mary doing in her new life is counseling another widow, and from her voiceover in ep 10 it’s clear that she spent a lot of time deliberately learning about herself. This is a woman who likes thinking about what makes people tick and how to solve their problems. It makes complete sense that she’d meddle with Ed and Stede. But it’s always going to be on her own terms. That’s important to me.

The itchiest parts of this story for me are the places where that element could use some improvement—either earlier chapters, when I was writing mostly just to get a silly scene out of my head and only had a faint idea what the arc of the fic would be; or else times I had to write quickly and force myself to publish on time because (speaking of working on yourself) I’ve spent a lot of time teaching myself not to let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

But whenever I struggled to write a scene, that idea became my lodestone, and I think—I hope—it shows.

13. What music do you listen to, if any, to get in the mood for writing this story? Or if you didn’t listen to anything, what do you think readers should listen to to accompany us while reading?

So I rarely have music on while I’m plotting or writing, because unless I am Extremely In The Zone it’s just going to be ADHD sensory hell. But I do put my headphones in and go for a walk when I’m stuck on a scene, and I listen to songs that—usually sound-wise and nothing else—fit the tone of what I was trying to write.

Honorable mentions go to Leon Bridges (who, now that I’m considering this question, may have the end credits song), ABBA (obvi), and the Umbrella Academy soundtrack (a helpfully diverse collection).

That said, my playlists were recently all obliterated (thoughts and prayers please) so for Chiaroscuro I primarily listened to the OFMD soundtrack. It actually worked out really well. I also got a free dose of serotonin every time I re-realized that this was the first time i had a blorbo show make a canon ship playlist.

Maybe when the fic is wrapped I’ll go through and put together a proper playlist (Menace said, boldly, as though she doesn’t just listen to the same 15 songs over and over) but for now I can tell you there is, in fact, ONE scene in the fic with an extremely and meticulously specific music cue:

[spoilers for Chiaroscuro below the cut!]

If I blocked Chapter 15 out like a movie scene, with no accounting for how long it takes to physically read the scene, then Jethro Tull’s Locomotive Breath would start at the line: “But Ed is here. Ed is here.“

That sweet little guitar lick about 0:30 in hits as Ed appears etched in shadow—then the beat picks up as Mary realizes he’s set something of a trap.

That fuzzy guitar whiiiine, of course, happens right as Anne Bonny says, “Blackbeard.” And then the beat drops.

[dwellordream]

“...First, let’s talk about materials. We can rule out a Steppe Nomad inspiration for any of this right off. The Eurasian Steppe is very large and covers a range of arid climates (that is to say, parts of it are colder, parts of it are warmer), but they all have spinning and weaving technology, by which the supple hairs of woolly animals, or plant fibers like linen, or cotton, or even natural protein fibers like silk can be fashioned into fabric which is more flexible, comfortable, breathable and temperature controlled than the raw leather we see in the show.

...there is a distinct lack here of lots of leather, except in the sort of things that lots of cultures use leather for (boots, fittings, saddles, bags, tents). Instead, clothing is mostly made out of nice, comfortable, breathable textiles, because of course it is. That is not to say, to be clear, that leather or hides or fur were never used – fur especially was used; merely that they were generally used to supplement clothing primarily made out of textile.

...Now Plains Native American clothing does make much greater use of animal skin as a clothing material, but there is an important distinction to be made here. The problem here is with the plasticity of the term ‘leather’ which can technically include a wide range of products, but in practice is understood to mean exactly what the Game of Thrones costume department and literally every piece of official artwork of the Dothraki understand it to mean, which is the product of tanning processes.

I am not an expert, but as far as I can tell, Native American clothing was not made in the same way; animal products were used in a process I have seen described as ‘brain tanning’ (rather than using chemical tannins) and the final product was then smoked. The result – which is often called ‘buckskin’ regardless of the animal source for the hide – is very different from the leather we see in the show.

This is, in terms of material, very clearly not what the ‘vests’ the Dothraki in the show are wearing. Buckskin would also be used to make trousers, as opposed to the “horsehair leggings” of Martin’s wording, which also strike me as deeply improbable. Haircloth – fabric made from horsehair (or camel hair) – is durable, but typically stiff, unsupple and terribly itchy; not something you want in direct contact with your skin (especially not between your rear end and a saddle), unless you just really like skin irritation. It is also a difficult material to get in any kind of significant quantity – and you would need a significant quantity if you intended to make most of your trousers out of it.

...Well that’s for materials, what about patterns? Once again, we can quite easily rule out anything steppe inspired. Again, the Eurasian Steppe is big and has lots of variety, but relatively long robes are generally the norm in terms of dress; where long robes were not worn (see our Scythian above), the common pattern was heavy sleeved garments and trousers with very complete coverage. A common example of the type of long robe-like garments is the Mongolian deel, a long sleeved robe or tunic which provides a lot of protection against the elements. In the case of elites – and Daenerys is, initially, mostly around elites – these could be made of expensive silk or brocade – but poorer versions might be made of wool.

...And there is good reason for these relatively high-coverage garments. Plains or Steppe peoples naturally tend to live on, well, plains and steppes – that is large expanses of semi-arid grasslands. The very nature of that terrain configuration produces fairly extreme seasonal temperature variations (that is, very hot summers and very cold winters) as well as extreme daily temperature variations (that is, hot days and cold nights) because such places are far from large bodies of water and also don’t have tree-cover, both of which serve to moderate rapid temperature changes.

Consequently, as anyone who has lived in a plains state in the USA (or on the Eurasian Steppe, though that is fewer of my readers, but for my brave handful of hits from that part of the world, hello and welcome!) can tell you, you need clothes that can be layered and which can be both warm in the winter and cool in the summer. For us moderns, we mostly do this by owning multiple season-specific wardrobes, but clothing is expensive in pre-modern societies, so multi-purpose garments, or garments that be layered, to turn a warm-weather outfit into a cold-weather outfit are important!

There’s no reason to suppose the Dothraki Sea would be any different: it sits at about the same latitude as King’s Landing so there is little reason to assume it would be warm all-year-round. Parts of the Eurasian Steppe stretch decently far south, sharing a latitude with northern Italy and Spain; nevertheless they do not enjoy the same Mediterranean climate because they don’t have the same exposure to the weather patterns created by the sea. The southern end of the Great Plains stretches down all the way into Texas, but still gets properly cold in the winter with temperatures regularly dipping below freezing in the winter despite the latitude. For a people who are camping and working outside all of the time, warm clothing is going to be a must.

...There is tremendous variety here, but I don’t think any of it could be aptly described simply as “Men and women alike wore painted leather vests over bare chests and horsehair leggings.” Now, if you looked hard enough could you find something that resembled Martin’s leather vests, bare chests and horsehair leggings somewhere in the clothing of Native Americans across two continents? Probably, but among the specific Native peoples that Martin cites as inspiration, it does not seem to be at all common. And if that description was wholly unconnected to anything in the real world, we might well stop there and conclude that, well this is just the ‘dash of pure fantasy’ that Martin was talking about (although as we’ll see, it is going to be quite a bit more than just a dash). But I don’t think we can stop there, because (removing the medallion belts) Martin’s description does adequately describe something that exists in the real world: Halloween costumes purporting to depict Native Americans.

...The vest-and-pants style of Native American Halloween costume seems to be rather rare now, but it was, at least to my memory, much more common in the 1990s, when A Game of Thrones was written (initial publication date of 1996). You can see them, for instance, on many of the background extras in the famous Thanksgiving scene from Addams Family Values (1993) and that vest style was also a part of the outfit for the also-quite-unfortunately-branded YMCA Indian Guides/Indian Princesses program (rebranded as the ‘Adventure Guides’ in 2003 after decades of Native Americans complaining about it) which was also fairly popular in the 1990s.

Now, I am not saying that Martin planned to construct his Dothraki out of Native American stereotypes and bad Halloween costumes. In fact, I am fairly confident he intended nothing of the sort. But in the absence of doing some effective research (and it is going to become increasingly apparent that at least effective research was not done) there was quite possibly nothing else to inform the effort other than what was ‘in the air’ of the popular consciousness. Of course the danger of those often simplistic public stereotypes is that people often do not know that they have them, assuming instead that the vague impression they have is essentially accurate (or at least, close enough for a regular person). And that’s a real problem because it reinforces the popular stereotype, especially given Martin’s reputation for writing more ‘historically grounded’ fiction. And that is a problem because…

The clothing that the Dothraki are described and visually shown wearing is clearly intended to convey things about their society. Returning to our visual comparison above, it is easy to see that the actual clothing of both Eurasian and American ‘horse cultures’ was often bright, highly decorated and generally eye-catching, featuring complex patterns and shapes. It was both nice looking, but also spoke to the humanity of the people that made it and their very human desire to look nice and have nice looking things. By contrast, the clothing of the Dothraki is presented as simple, rugged and unadorned.

...I want to stress this to make the point clear: people in the past liked to look nice! Much of the popular perception of pre-modern clothing assumes lots of dull, drab colors, undecorated or merely adorned with rough pelts, but this is almost entirely a Hollywood construction. The Romans didn’t exclusively dress in white (indeed, the toga candida, the white toga, was an unusually formal thing to wear, like a politician’s suit-with-flag-pin), medieval peasants didn’t wear drab brown (they dressed in bright primary colors mostly), and as I hope the historical pictures for this essay show, both steppe nomads and Plains Native Americans wore nice clothing with lots of patterns, color and decoration. These men next to Khal Drogo are his elite guard of ‘bloodriders,’ the companions of a ruler who wields tremendous power and wealth! And yet they have opted to wear mostly undecorated bland brown leather.

Just to underline this point, think about what a fine set of clothing communicates to an observer (for instance, one of Khal Drogo’s thousands of mounted warrior retainers who are present at this event). Imported goods, like metalwares (which nomads won’t generally be able to make themselves) or fine imported fabrics demonstrate not only trade contacts but also often that the leader has useful ties to foreign leaders (since such things were often gifts or tribute from foreign courts). Garments whose production, due to fine patterns, complex weaves, intricate beading or quillwork, would take many, many hours of production demonstrate that the leader has a lot of subordinate people in their household (in many cases, that would mean women), which both implies the ability to give these people as gifts (either in marriage or because of their non-free status) and also the access to resources (in this case herds of animals) needed to sustain so many people – in short, the sort of leader who can reward faithful warriors richly.

And of course a leader who outfits his closest retainers – his bloodriders, in this case – with such wares (especially expensive foreign metal military equipment) demonstrates both access to military capital and also the ability to reward his trusted lieutenants. In short, the Khal whose person and immediate retainers are decked out in finery looks like backing the winning side, which is a very important thing to assess as one of his warriors. So even if not one of Drogo’s men cares about their personal appearance at all, it is still politically important for them to dress for success.

Which then demands the question, looking at the very fine clothing of historical horse cultures that supposedly provided the inspiration for these Dothraki fellows: Where is the exquisite bead work? The fine quillwork? Where are the carefully made fringes? Where is the silk brocade? Where are the detailed, complex patterns?”

- Bret Devereaux, “That Dothraki Horde, Part I: Barbarian Couture.”

[swordandboardllc]

All You Will Ever Need To Know About Writing Horses, Part 1.

Trust me, I’m not exaggerating with that title. Before I became a full-time writer, I spent my days teaching riding lessons. I went to university for Equine Sciences, and spent my teenage years apprenticing under a marvelous horseman who taught both working cowhorse and fixed ‘problem’ horses.

Note: if a term isn’t defined, feel free to ask for the definition in the comments. It likely isn’t a term you would want to use in a fantasy setting, but further education is always awesome!

Getting the Details Correct: Why Does It Matter?

Immersion, first and foremost. Horseback riding is not an uncommon hobby, especially among fantasy readers. While some readers are fairly forgiving of issues, it’s one of my personal biggest pet peeves. So to make it easy for writers, here are all the major details most people don’t know, don’t get correct, etc etc.

The Basics: horse 101

Anatomy

Hoof & Leg

Horses stand on what is the equivalent to the human middle fingernail. The leg is the equivalent of the finger. That’s why horse legs are spindly and fragile.

hooves need to be picked out by their caregivers (riders or grooms) at minimum before and after riding. Debris can get caught in the grooves of the hoof (or in the shoes) which can lead to injuries (think of if you had a piece of gravel jammed under your fingernail and then had to type with it)

Mouth

Horses have a space between their incisors before their molars, which is where the bit fits in their mouth.

The older the horse is, the more ground down their teeth are and the harder it is for them to break down forage.

Eyes

Horses have horizontal pupils, though their eyes are dark enough you don’t normally see them. Because their eyes are on the sides of their heads, they have blind spots directly in front of their nose, below their neck, and behind their tail.

Horses have terrible depth perception. They aren’t colorblind, but they are dichromatic (unlike humans who are trichromatic) and see blues and greens. No reds.

Tack (Gear)

Halters & Lead Ropes/Shanks

Rope or leather that goes around a horse’s muzzle, along the cheeks, and then behind the ears and below the jaw. Depending on the time period and culture, these can be plain and simple or highly decorated.

Arabian halters are usually styled differently as a thing chain that goes behind the ears, sometimes across the brown, down the cheeks and around the muzzle.

Halters do not have anything go into the horse’s mouth and the lead rope attaches underneath it. Halters can be left on when the horse is being ridden (under the bridle) and the lead rope can be tied around the neck or attached to the saddle if there is a place for it.

Bridles

The general style of a bridle is similar to a halter, except that instead of having a piece that attaches around the muzzle (a noseband), the cheek pieces attach to the bit.

Reins attach to the bit and then go back to the rider. There are two main types of rein: split reins and loop reins. Loop reins are one single piece of leather (or two that buckle or tie together in the middle) from one end of the bit to the other. Split reins are two pieces of leather, one for each side of the bit. Managing split reins can be very difficult for beginner riders (I always tied them together to make a loop rein or just gave my students loop reins until they mastered the basics).

Bits

There are too many different types to break down and this isn’t for the faint of heart to play around with. If you really want to get into this level of detail, comment and I’ll give you more info!

Bitless Bridles, Hackamores, Riding Halters, etc.

Lead ropes can be made into loop reins and the halter can be turned into a bitless bridle in this way. The average, well started horse will understand the pressure cues being given this way.

Saddles

Modern day saddles come in two main types: western and english. Both of these riding styles have ancient roots. Western saddles are bulkier, with a horn in the front. English saddles are smaller and lightweight.

Many ‘working saddles’ have a built up pommel area in the front of the saddle (in front of where your thighs would be if you were in the saddle). Consider what sort of setting you have, what kind of tools horses are being used for, etc. in your worldbuilding to figure out what kinds of saddles make the most sense.

Cinch/Girth

Cinch is the western term for the band that goes underneath the horse’s belly and keeps the saddle in place. Girth is the english term for it. As long as you keep consistent, either word is an acceptable term to use. To tack up properly, you need to “tighten the cinch”.

Stirrups need to be adjusted between riders that have different leg lengths. So if you have an extremely tall character and an extremely short one, please take a moment to adjust the stirrups before they sit in a saddle the other was riding in.

Saddle Blankets

Saddle blankets go underneath the saddle as a protective layer between the saddle and the horse. Western style saddles have lambskin on the underside of the saddle to have additional padding for the horse, but still require a blanket.

English style saddle blankets (saddle pads) are smaller and thinner than the western blankets as the english saddle is smaller and lighter.

"“Are you sure you are?” Loralee asked, glancing dubiously at Jin’s tack. Loralee handed her mare to Jin before double-checking the amira’s saddle. The cinch tightened an inch. Loralee buckled the clip and retied the knot before taking her mare back from Jin."  -- Chapter 8, The Dying Sun by L.J. Stanton

Diet & Care Needs

Obligate herbivores with one stomach, horses need frequent small meals to keep their gut-fill at appropriate levels. Large meals several times a day is harder on a horse’s body.

Horses primarily eat roughage (grasses). They can also have their diet supplemented with different grains, fruits, and vegetables.

Fun fact: horses don’t get drunk off beer.

Personality & Body Language (They Aren’t Dogs)

Horses are prey animals first and foremost, unlike dogs, and react to the world through that lens. It means there is a high likelihood of horses spooking at nothing, or at dark spots on the ground. They tend to be cautious at water crossings unless trained. They can be loyal, but they certainly don’t do things like wag their tails happily.

Whinnying and nickering aren’t anywhere near as common a behaviour as movies and television would have you believe (once again, prey animals). Horses will shriek, whinny, and nicker to communicate with each other for different reasons.

Blowing (exhaling loudly) in combination with lip licking is a stress relief/self soothing behaviour.

Horses greet each other by sniffing noses and smelling breath. A horse will do the same with a person or an animal that comes up to it (like a dog or a cat).

Pinned ears are a threat and sign of imminent danger. Pinned ears are usually followed by nipping, biting, shrieking, striking, and/or kicking

Striking is with the forelegs, kicking with the back legs.

HERD DYNAMICS

Lead Mare

decides where the herd stops to graze, drink, etc. etc.

helps decide whether or not spooking is necessary

Lead Stallion

protects the herd from predators and competition

Mares

make up the rest of the herd. These may be a group of sisters and aunts, but mares will come and go from herds as other stallions harass/steal mares, so they aren’t always related. Liking the stallion has a greater bond than family.

Bachelor Bands

colts (male foals) are kicked out of their birth herds when they reach sexual maturity. For safety, they will often form bachelor bands. During mating season, these bands may break up or splinter depending on whether there are herds with mares nearby.

Gaits (speeds)

Walk (4 beat)

Trot (2 beat, diagonals)

Canter/Lope (3 beat)

Gallop (4 beat with hang time)

See Part 2 in two weeks for Riding!

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[cappymightwrite]

ASOIAF & Norse Mythology

PART 2: The ‘Long Night’ and the Fimbulvetr

In PART 1 of this meta, from looking at just a few fan question answers, it seems rather clear to me that GRRM has more than just a passing interest in Norse mythology. One of the most fascinating and haunting myths in the Norse canon is the lead up to and resulting fallout of Ragnarök. In the show, the ‘Long Night’ appears to be just that, one night, and not even an awfully long one. In the books, however, it seems likely this will play out very differently. As a Norse nerd, the similarities to Ragnarök are just too obvious not to sit up and take notice, in particular, the similarities between the ‘Long Night’ and what is called the Fimbelvetr — which in my Old Icelandic dictionary translates to ‘the great and awful winter.’

Before I really get things rolling, lets take a moment to go over which Old Norse-Icelandic sources are traditionally used by medievalists to reconstruct the pagan conception of Ragnarök:

The Eddic poems Völuspá ‘The prophecy of the seeress’ (st. 40–51) and Vafþrúðnismál ‘The lay of Vafþrúðnir’ (st. 44–53) — these two poems provide us with quite a lot of information, with some sections being more comprehensive than others. Additionally, other Eddic poems, such as Lokasenna, Hyndluljóð, Grímnismál, and a few others hint at motifs, stemming from the ideas of Ragnarök.

In the Gylfaginning section of the Prose Edda (ch. 51–53), Snorri quotes many of the relevant stanzas from Völuspá in support of his own writing, though he also adds information that is unknown to us from other sources.

There are also a few skaldic* poems which give us minor hints regarding the incidents that will take places during Ragnarök.

NB: Eddic poetry is the term given to the poems primarily contained within the Icelandic Codex Regius manuscript, known as the Poetic Edda (written c. 1270, but arguably containing remnants of an older oral tradition). These poems are of unknown authorship. As for Skaldic poetry, these poems were written by known Icelandic skalds (ONI: skáld, ‘poet’), often in the courts of foreign kings, typically Norwegian, praising their patrons in exchange for royal favour; they span approx. c. 800–1300, so in some cases predate the recording (though not necessarily the composition or oral origins) of the Eddic poems.

According to Jens Peter Schødt, the Gylfaginning and Völuspá ‘are certainly the most extensive’ written sources we have on the Norse myths, as they ‘have played the most crucial role in the history of research.’ It is quite possible that GRRM has read much of the available textual sources on Ragnarök to help inspire his own work. That being said, if I had to bet on one being the touchstone source for him, it would be the Gylfaginning, since not only does it include detailed prose accounts of the events leading up to, during, and following Ragnarök, it also includes relevant Eddic poetry (notably Völuspá) in order to authenticate those descriptions. It really is a one of kind, unique source.

So, how about we begin with chapter 51 of Gylfaginning, where it is asked outright by Gangleri (aka King Gylfi) ‘what is to be said about Ragnarök?’ to which High answers:

There are many important things to be said about it. First will come the winter called Fimbulvetr [Extreme Winter]. Snow will drive in from all directions; the cold will be severe and the winds will be fierce. The sun will be of no use. Three of these winters will come, one after the other, with no summer in between. But before that there will have been another three winters with great battles taking place throughout the world. Brothers will kill brothers for the sake of greed, and neither father nor son will be spared in the killings and the collapse of kinship.* So it is said in The Sibyl’s Prophecy:

Brothers will fight,

bringing death to each other.

Sons of sisters

will split their kin bonds.

Hard times for men,

rampant depravity

age of axes, age of swords

shields split,

wind age, wolf age,

until the world falls into ruin.

The above translation is by Jesse Byock from the Penguin Classics Prose Edda — the translations in square brackets are his and included in the text, and he also uses a translated title for the Eddic poems, in this case, ‘The Sibyl’s Prophecy’ in place of Old Norse-Icelandic: Völuspá.

Several things are striking about this passage, chief among them, the fact that the precursor to Ragnarök is the Fimbulvetr, ‘the great and awful winter’ or ‘Extreme Winter.’ But before that, ‘another three winters’ in which much social upheaval will take place, circumstances that feel quite at home in ASOIAF. I would be hesitant to argue that GRRM is using the above description as an exact blueprint, but that being said, some of the circumstances described do feel very familiar to readers of his series:

‘Brothers will kill brothers for the sake of greed’ / ‘Brothers will fight’

This is perhaps suggestive of the Baratheon brothers, Stannis and Renly. Although, I’d say that the motivations/cause of the latter’s death is a little more nuanced than just ‘greed.’ But this is worth noting: the Norse source might offer us the seed of an idea, but it is GRRM who then “waters” it, effectively imbuing these dynamics with a deeper meaning and complexity.

Also, if we think of ‘brothers’ in a less literal sense, this could also apply to the ‘killing’ of Jon Snow by the black brothers of the Night’s Watch.

‘Neither father nor son will be spared in the killings’

Ned and Robb Stark fit into this category quite well, as both their deaths are gut-wrenching moments in the series. But also, more generally, this highlights that anyone, even beloved family, even heroes, can fall.

‘The collapse of kinship’ / ‘Rampant depravity’

In his footnotes, Byock observes the word sifjaslit to mean ‘the breaking of kinship bonds, but there is also the connotation of incest.’ In my ONI dictionary, sifja-slit translates to ‘adultery,’ since it is a compound of the nouns sifjar ‘affinity, connection by marriage’ and slit ‘rupture, breach’ — the latter most likely derives from the verb slitna, meaning ‘to break’ or ‘snap.’

The breaking of marriage bonds is present in ASOIAF, as in the case of Robert and Cersei’s respective adulteries. But we could also view Robb Stark’s marriage to Jeyne Westerling as a breaking of a betrothal bond as well.

Overall, I would say that there is room for both interpretations, and as we know, GRRM is pretty found of incest, prime cases currently present in canon being Jaime and Cersei Lannister, as well as the Targaryens.

‘Wolf-age’

Wolves feature a lot in Norse mythology, so it is interesting that the Starks, who are really the heart of ASOIAF, are so heavily associated with them.

Furthermore, the provisional title for the last book in the series, A Dream of Spring, was A Time for Wolves. The phrasing of this is just another way of saying ‘Wolf-age’, as found in Völuspá. But to potentially understand GRRM’s change in titles, it should be remembered that wolves in Norse mythology are often associated with war and violence — see, for instance, the kennings ‘wolf-wine’, ‘the river of Fenrir’, ‘the warm ale of the wolf’, which all mean blood. As someone familiar with Old Norse poetry, A Time for Wolves suggests to me a period of violence, whereas A Dream of Spring offers more hope and the potential for rejuvenation, perhaps paralleling the events that follow Ragnarök, as described in the Prose Edda and Völuspá (which I might get into further down the line).

‘Until the world falls into ruin’

It is strongly predicted, and alluded in the text itself, that the Wall will at some point fall, an event that will act as a precursor to the second ‘Long Night.’ The Wall is also considered by some people to be the end of the known world, so its destruction is strongly linked with the collapse of the social structure of Westeros as a whole.

As we can see, certain parallels can be made, though it is also worth noting that there are instances where they can’t be. For example, ‘sons of sisters will split their kin bonds’— I can’t really think of a relationship to compare this to in ASOIAF, unless it hasn’t happened in the text yet, and then who would it be? Robert ‘Sweetrobin’ Arryn and…Bran Stark? There are obvious similarities and ways in which we can link these descriptions to GRRM’s text, but we should be cautious to avoid shoehorning.

Indeed, it is fun to make these comparisons, but I think the main take away from this chapter of the Gylfaginning is that during the time closely preceding the Fimbulvetr, there will be ‘hard times for men’ with much social upheaval, including bloodshed, betrayals, and incest. In my opinion, the ‘Long Night’ has been heavily inspired by the Norse Fimbulvetr, and this is reflected in the way ASOIAF characters describe the ‘Long Night’, closely paralleling its Norse source.

To summarise from the above quotation, during the Fimbulvetr:

‘Snow will drive in from all directions; the cold will be severe and the winds will be fierce.’ (Gylf)

‘The sun will be of no use.’ (Gylf)

‘Three of these winters will come, one after the other, with no summer in between.’ (Gylf)

In ASOIAF, the earliest mention of the ‘Long Night’ is in AGOT, Bran I, in which Bran recalls the ‘the hearth tales of Old Nan’ detailing the apparent savagery and cultural difference between the northerners and the wildings, noting that ‘their women lay with the Others in the Long Night to sire terrible half-human children’. This evokes the above quotation from Völuspá, the reference to ‘rampant depravity’ in particular. But it is later, in Tyrion III, that we get the first real parallel between the Long Night and the Fimbulvetr:

Lord Mormont moved to the window and stared out into the night. “These are old bones, Lannister, but they have never felt a chill like this. Tell the king what I say, I pray you. Winter is coming, and when the Long Night falls, only the Night’s Watch will stand between the realm and the darkness that sweeps from the north. The gods help us all if we are not ready.

From the description in Gylfaginning, we know that the Fimbulvetr is preceded by three winters, ‘one after the other, with no summer in between’. Without taking it too literally, this description at the very least suggests that a move towards cold weather will herald the coming of the ‘Extreme Winter’, as this is foreshadowed as early as AGOT in this Tyrion chapter when Jeor Mormont states that he has ‘never felt a chill like this […] Winter is coming’. Directly following this statement is the foreknowledge that the Long Night is indeed on its way.

The reference to a ‘darkness that sweeps from the north’ is noteworthy too, as although most often associated with freezing weather, the Fimbulvetr is also crucially connected with the disappearing of the sun (‘the sun will be of no use’, Gylf). Indeed, the very name the Long Night suggests much the same phenomenon, as explained to Bran by Old Nan later in AGOT, in Bran IV:

Fear is for the winter, my little lord, when the snows fall a hundred feet deep and the ice wind comes howling out of the north. Fear is for the long night, when the sun hides its face for years at a time, and little children are born and live and die all in darkness while the direwolves grow gaunt and hungry, and the white walkers move through the woods.

[…]

Thousands and thousands of years ago, a winter fell that was cold and hard and endless beyond all memory of man. There came a night that lasted a generation, and kings shivered and died in their castles even as the swineherds in their hovels. Women smothered their children rather than see them starve, and cried, and felt their tears freeze on their cheeks.

I mean…this might as well be a description for the Fimbulvetr, it is THAT similar! Indeed, as we know, in the world of ASOIAF the seasons work a bit differently, as alluded to by Old Nan when she refers to ‘a night [i.e. a winter] that lasted a generation’. Similarly, the Fimbulvetr is unusual in that it is preceded by ‘three winters’, which suggests an extended winter lasting up four years, culminating in the ‘Extreme Winter’, aka the Fimbulvetr. It seems likely that the timespan of ‘a generation’ has been exaggerated for the sake of myth making. That being said, we would expect the Long Night to still be noteworthy in its duration. So, perhaps it is possible that, were GRRM to emulate the Norse source, his Long Night could potentially last for a similar amount of time (four years). Either way, I think we all expect it to last longer than it did in the show!

In conclusion, the way in which the Fimbulvetr is described in the Norse sources bears a striking resemblance to the descriptions of the Long Night in ASOIAF. Futhermore, and most interestingly to me, it seems entirely possible that, like the Fimbulvetr, and like the first Long Night that went before it, the next Long Night will include the disappearing of the sun...an important feature that I will discuss further next time! So stay tuned!

References/Bibliography (excluding ASOIAF):

Snorri Sturluson, The Prose Edda, trans. and intr. by Jesse Byock, (London: Penguin Classics, 2005)

Jens Peter Schødt, ‘The Ragnarök Myth in Scandinavia’, in Finding, Inheriting and Borrowing?: The Construction and Transfer of Knowledge in Antiquity and the Middle Ages, 2019, Vol.39, p.365-384

END OF PART 2…

I haven’t quite decided if I will include my stuff about the sun disappearing in Ragnarök and the ‘Red Comet’, or if I’ll give it its own separate part...we’ll see! I would also like to talk a bit about the significance of storytelling as a way of recording history in ASOIAF... Basically, I have a lot of thoughts on things!

[recurring-polynya]

Hi Polynya! Love your stuff. I saw you mention that there are some “Rukia gets jealous” fics. Do you have any that you would recommend? And if you would make something like that, what canon character(s) can you imagine Rukia getting jealous of (romantically)?

Thank you!

The best example of the genre that I can think of, in the sense that it really goes into the jealousy aspect, is A Taste of Affection and Jealousy by Magpie_Game. Nanao and Renji bond over their respective one-sided affections while dragging Shuuhei’s drunk ass home from the bar and start up a cute li’l relationship, which sends both Shunsui and Rukia into panic. I do not care for the ShunNao ship, but I sort of skimmed those parts and enjoyed the fic very much overall (ngl, I kept yelling at Nanao to go for Renji). Rukia does not come off super-great in this fic, but I am very forgiving. There’s also a part where Renji and Izuru go to the batting cages that I think about a lot.

Hey Jealousy by ehvul_butterfly is a slightly silly one about Rukia getting pissed when all the other female lieutenants are horny for Renji.

What I Came for and What I Didn’t by eosdawnaurora (one of my fav Renruki writers, btw) is a bit of the same idea, slightly more serious, only it’s ladies of Squad 6, who, I may point out, are canonically hot for their assistant captain.

Hanami by Bukittyan is a very cute fic overall, which has a bit of Rukia being (irrationally) jealous of Momo in the beginning.

As for me, I did, at one time, write a fic, A Supposedly Fun Thing We’ll Never Do Again, where Renji sets Rukia up on a date with Momo and, in revenge, she sets him up on a date with Nanao, and then they have “why did I do this?” regret, so it is like jealousy in it’s mildest possible form.

I’m not trying to be a pedant about the difference between the words “jealousy” and “envy,” but it’s relevant to what I want to say. “Jealousy” is being possessive over something or someone which you regard as yours, “envy” is longing for what another person has. Usually, “jealousy” is the only one that applies to romantic scenarios. In this sense of the word, though, “jealousy” is not a thing I am interested or capable of writing about. To me, it is an ugly emotion that reveals a very distinct character flaw (which isn’t to say I don’t enjoy reading stories about jealousy, it’s just not my wheelhouse as a writer)

In order to write a Renruki story where Rukia is jealous of Renji, it either has to be a) a misunderstanding that contains poor enough communication to persist throughout the story, or b) Renji actually has to pursue some other relationship. As far as a) goes, I like to have Rukia and Renji be pretty honest with one another and have a good understanding of one another, and want the best for each other, so it just doesn’t ring true to me. As for b), the way I like to characterize Renji is that he is hopelessly devoted to Rukia-- he is not going to move on unless she explicitly rejects him. This is certainly a good framework for a story-- she rejects him, he finds someone else, she gets jealous, but there’s a certain meanness in it that isn’t what I enjoy writing.

On the other hand, I have often interwoven into my stories the sense that Rukia envies some of her and Renji’s mutual acquaintances, primarily Momo, and to a lesser degree, Nanao. Even though, from an exterior lens, everyone regards Rukia as a million miles above Renji, she, herself, doesn’t think she’s good enough for him-- that she thinks he would be better off with someone smarter, more feminine, more traditional, more organized, more disciplined. She’s also somewhat envious of Renji himself-- at how well he’s done for himself, at how he present himself to the world in a way that’s true to himself, at how many friends he has. Rukia may think of herself as badass, but she rarely thinks of herself as attractive. If there is one way I have imprinted myself on my characterization of Rukia, it’s that she’s able to find self-worth in what she does, but not who she is, which is one of her main character arcs over the course of my long series The Heart is a Muscle. It’s interesting to me that (in my writing) she’s not really envious of Rangiku, who is objectively beautiful and cool, but also a hot mess, which is not what she sees Renji going for in the long term. Rukia also has a brief bit of enviousness when she finds out that Renji used to date Shuuhei, but once she gets to meet Shuuhei and very quickly realizes that he is also a rampant disaster, it fades.

I think if I had to write a story on the topic of jealousy, I would probably set it in the Academy days, and the enviousness would be directed toward Momo. I think Momo and Rukia were both very envious of each other in those days, primarily because I like that a backdrop to them overcoming it and becoming friends in their post-trauma adult years.

A runner-up concept is that I am mildly fascinated with the idea that Renji, as a Vice-Captain and person-close-to-Byakuya ought to be a major catch as far as the social climbing minor nobility goes. I could see a fic where he catches the attention of various Kuchiki-family hangers on, and Rukia loses her mind of the idea that he might accept a very generous marriage offer to some beautiful and charming daughter of a mid-level house, which seems like a rational and sensible thing to do. Renji, of course, would never, we all know what he cares about.

As usual, I encourage my readers to add their own fanfic suggestions in the comments or reblogs!

[erinxneil]

You know I own a gun, right?

So, I decided I was going to begin this as a prompt challenge because its been a SUPER long time since I’ve written anything, so I’m going to be using the prompts from @criminalmindswriter here and write a story for each if that makes sense? It’ll make more sense the more of them that I write, this is prompt #1 - “You know I own a gun, right?”

masterlist

Pairing: Spencer Reid X Reader

>>>Not neccesarily romantic, this post is primarily focused on friendship!

Summary: Spencer seems to forget the advice that Morgan once offered him years ago about messing with a woman who carries a gun, when a prank war goes too far. 

I sat in the rolling chair in front of my desk, legs propped up on the table, smiling as I listened to Prentiss rant about the douche bag at the bar last night who didn’t know when to take a hint. As Emily continued to complain that it seems as if men no longer had any sense of decency, I reached down to adjust the height of the chair, realizing it no longer held the comfort that I remembered. My eyebrows furrowed as I twisted the knob however it refused to budge. Emily’s voice became white noise in my mind as I smiled kindly while roughly forcing the handle into movement, only for my efforts to be in vain.

“Y/N?” Emily questioned, an eyebrow raised in confusion. She was not angry at me for paying little attention to her story, she was more amused at my predicament and obvious frustration.

As I opened my mouth to explain my situation, I noticed a certain doctor smirking into his cup of coffee as he walked past our desks.

“Hey, genius!” I called out. “Do you have something to do with this?”

Spencer feigned surprise. “What are you referring to?” His face could almost be mistaken for innocence, had it not been for the flare of mischief that lit up in his eyes.

“Look, Reid, all I know is that someone moved my chair about ten inches from its comfortable position, and that you happen to be often chipper for someone who was forced to wake up at five in the morning today.” I narrowed my eyes at him as he blinked innocently.

“Again, wish I could help you.” He sipped his mug and began to walk away slowly, before throwing a glance over his shoulder branding a sly grin. “And if someone did happen to move your adjustment lock approximately 2.4 inches from its original position before jamming it into place, it would likely have to do with your inability to remain in your own seat on the jet, and intruding in their own personal space.” With this statement, Spencer smiled cheekily before strutting into the conference room.

“Oh, is that so?” I called out after him. Well, two can play at this game, Reid.

- * - * - * - * - * -

I grinned mischievously as I stared at the masterpiece in front of me. At first glance, it appeared as if there was not a paper out of place. Reid’s desk was as tidy as ever, to reflect the pristine image that he desired to be viewed as.

However, as we know, the surface is never what it seems.

I quickly marched back to my desk, a slight quirk in the corner of my lips to be the only hint of my devious plot. Morgan appeared to be the only one to notice, as his eyes glanced at me, back to Reid’s desk corner, and dragged slowly back to me with furrowed eyebrows.

Morgan was the only agent present this early- of course, aside from Hotch who was on the phone in his office. “Might I ask what you were doing over at Pretty Boy’s desk over there?” I smiled innocently. “I have no clue what you are talking about.”

Before he could question me further, the man himself entered into the building. He walked over to us slowly, eyes raking the scene and not spotting anything unordinary. “Hey, Reid, make sure you tell your mother happy birthday for me, I remembered you mentioned it the other day.”

Reid paused for a moment, a smile crossing his face. “Thanks, I will.”

I grinned softly. “I’ve always loved birthdays. A sign of life and happiness.”

Spencer continued towards his desk, his smile growing as if he had hoped someone would give him an opportunity to spout his useless knowledge. “Actually, did you know that you are 13.8 percent more likely to die on your birthday than any other normal day?” Reid sat in his seat and reached for his pen. “ This is quite interesting, because-” 

He paused, hand hovering over the pen, confusion crossing his features as he leaned forward slightly.

Spencer looked around somewhat panicked, before his eyes passed mine and realization fell upon his face as he noticed my smirk. Glaring, he watched as I placed the bottle of clear, contact-drying glue onto my desk.

“What’s wrong Spence, cat got your tongue?” I grinned.

- * - * - * - * - * -

What began as a harmless prank war quickly escalated into a dangerous battle of wits as tensions rose between the two agents. 

The pranks evolved from small, mildly irritating occurrences into humiliating and mildly life threatening disasters. Both Spencer and Y/N were extremely competitive and often the best at whatever they did, therefore it would be nearly impossible for one to relent without the other admitting defeat.

The rest of the team refused to get involved. Morgan is aware that I could quite literally destroy him, while Emily fears that Spencer will revert into his robot form and unlock his repressed mind-controlling powers to force her to submit to his will should she dare to intervene. Hotch initially didn’t mind the banter, as it caused the two to become more competitive in terms of cases themselves and in turn solving them quicker. However, as the battle escalates, Hotch fears that the childish games will cause someone to get hurt.

Which he couldn’t be more right.

While the pranks initially began as hiding valuables or increasing the frequency of the volume of his headset every time that Spencer said the word “Actually-”, these elevated into becoming trapped in a closet for hours without food or drink, or trapping car keys above a large tub of hydrofluoric acid. (If it was not obvious, this was a prank straight from the mind of the doctor.) 

Spencer had gotten very fed up after the last prank required him to follow a scavenger hunt throughout the office within ten minutes to find his badge before it would be shredded, only to find that it had been taped under his seat the entire time. Because of this, when I walked into the office the following morning to find his elaborate prank, I was not surprised. 

As I walked through the conference room doors, I immedately froze as I felt the ground shift beneath me. I realized I was standing on a pressure plate when lights began flashing around me, sounding a faint alarm that gradually grew louder, and I spotted Doctor Reid sitting before me with a smirk planted gracefully upon his lips.

“Y/N, what a pleasant surprise!” He grinned. I rolled my eyes. “What kind of prank is thi-” A churning sound above me caused me to slowly glance up, noticing a bucket slowly being lowered further towards me.

“You were saying?” He smiled. The once innocent grin had a devilish flame now as he stared at me, anticipating my next move. “How in the hell did you do this?” I questioned, growing nervous as the bucket drew closer.

“Garcia owed me one after she helped you hack into my computer.” He grinned sheepishly, as if ashamed that he could not do this all by himself. But of course- Garcia, the only one who while remaining impartial, had offered to equally aid on both of our sides. I suppose I had known it was only a matter of time that he had cashed in this favor, however with the amount of detail in this prank, it is clear that the brainpower of Garcia only amplified Spencer’s genius thoughts.

I decided to turn the tabled on him. “Aw, Pretty Boy, you really must think about me often if you came up with such an elaborate plan like this. How long did this take you to set up, several hours?” The slightly pink tinge that was hinted across his cheeks suggested that I was underestimating his preparedness for this prank, and that I had struck a nerve. 

Spencer quickly composed himself. “I’m not the one whose about to be drenched in that god-awful smelling liquid. It will drop on you in a matter of two minutes, unless I press this button telling it not to. I could explain to you all of the ingredients that it’s composed of, however-” “I’m good, thanks.” I huffed.

“Alright Reid, what do you want?” He smiled, knowing he had me right where he wanted me.

“I want you to admit that not only did I beat you in this prank war, but that I am also otherwise far superior to you in every aspect.” 

I glared at him. “You know I own a gun, right?”

Spencer chuckled. “So do I hear that you would enjoy smelling like-”

I huffed. “Alright, fine, fine, you, Doctor Spencer Reid, have bested me in this prank war and are far superior to me in every aspect of life or whatever.” I grumbled in annoyance.

Spencer grinned mischeviously. “I’m sorry, I didn’t quite get that, could you repeat yourself?” I offered him a deadpan stare to which he simply smiled and pressed the button. The alarms silence and the blaring lights died down. I stepped off of the plate, and all returned to normal.

“Now was that so hard?” He questioned smugly, holding the door open for me.

I walked up to him with a tight smile, before bashing him in the back of the head with the butt of my gun. Not hard enough to do any real damage, but definitely rough enough to make sure he knows to give it up. He yelped loudly as I walked away, arms crossed in annoyance.

Morgan glanced up at a flustered Reid who was rubbing the back of his head with a grimace.

“What did I tell you, kid? Never mess with a woman who carries a gun.”

-*-*-*-*-*-

[thoughtfulfangirling]

January 2021 Books

I tend not to come to dislike or hating things very easily. Generally, the things I try, I can find a lot I like in them and go with the flow. I feel like it doesn’t make me very good about recommending things because I’m not too picky once I get invested in things, but here are my takes on the books I’ve read this month. (I can be super picky about what I pick up in the first place, but once I overcome that and get a foothold in something, the above applies.)

Anyway, belatedly, here’s last months reads and blurbs on my thoughts under the cut (long)

1. A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J Maas

I somehow didn’t realize this was YA. It has the plot simplicity I’m used to seeing in YA but it definitely got darker and more sexual than I would have expected for the genre. I actually rather appreciate this series for that reason. It did some things alternatively I didn't expect and was quite delighted by it. Fantasy, romance (f/m), fairies, light political intrigue (setup for book 2), etc.. I have since read book 2 and would have caveats about this depending on who was interested.

2. This is How you Lose a Time War by Amal El-Mohtar & Max Gladstone

This was amazing! A quick read of poetic language and dark love across sci fi warring factions. Primarily told through a series of letters exchanged back and forth between protagonists and focused on the characters.

3. Sparrow Hill Road by Seanan McGuire

What a great ghost story! it's told a lot like a series of short stories that come together into a winding narrative of a ghost's journey through the roads of America. Heavily American mythology vibes. Fascinating world building, intriguing characters, and beautiful message and arc. I'm thinking I might pick up more from this series in October. I got pointed in this book's direction due to how the way the book is structure feeling like a great depiction of trauma and how things get segmented and out of order and intangible, and it was just a really neat book. Would definitely recommend.

4. No Visible Bruises: What We Don’t Know About Domestic Violence Can Kill Us by Rachel Louise Snyder

I’ve now read a fair amount on the topic of domestic abuse, but they have largely focused on the individuals involved, and while this book does pick particular individuals as an example of extreme DV, this book zoomed out and looked at this problem from a broader perspective, talking about stats and looking at environmental and systemic factors. It’s a dark book that gets heavy and dissects sensitive situations but didn’t feel like it failed to humanize the issue, sometimes more so than a reader may expect. I definitely found it an insightful and interesting read. It’s the first book in quite a long time that was a physical book I held in my hands. I expected I might struggle too much between it not being audio and being nonfiction, but I moved through it quite quickly.

5. Her Royal Highness by Rachel Hawkins

This was a re-read. It’s a cute little wlw class romance. I think I read it in 2018, and it was fun to revisit. It’s a quick read with some enjoyable characters, and for those who do audiobooks, some cute accents. 

6. The Magician’s Assistant by Ann Patchett

This was a beautiful story about grief and the way our connections open us up to new possibilities and changes in our lives if only we’ll reach out grasp them. It’s a slow paced story, functioning mostly in the internal monologue of our protagonist dealing with the loss of the man she’s loved and the things she comes to find out she didn’t know about him. 

7. Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir

This was another reread, doing a chapter an evening with Empty. It helped so much to listen to this a second time between being able to see the pieces put down and not listening to it at such stressful times and in such a fragmented way. I love how it is somehow a puzzle, a haunting, and a journey of growth in an old relationship that seemed doomed to fail in so many ways. Plus I love big, sarcastic, sentimental butch disaster Gideon so goddamn much. XD 

8. Labyrinth Lost by Zoraida Córdova

This was very enjoyable, but I can definitely tell that I’ve outgrown a lot of YA. It’s not that there’s anything wrong these stories-I would have loved to have grown up with this book-it’s just that it lacked a complexity I’m getting used to and that I look for in these stories. I’m so glad though to be seeing more writers of color writing experiences and characters more like them getting attention in the literary world, and I will continue to find reading these stories worth it to get glimpses into that, but I wish I saw more of this sort of hype for these writers around more adult books. It’s out there I’m sure; I just have to find it yet. Working on it! But for a YA reader I think this is a great story. I like the worldbuilding so much and the costs of the magic and the journey. I might still have to check out book two when I need an easier read. 

9. Well, That Escalated Quickly: Memoirs and Mistakes of an Accidental Activist by Franchesca Ramsey

I’ve been holding onto a hard copy borrowed from a friend of this for well over a year now. I got this book around the same time I got my hands on So you Want to Talk About Race and thought they were going to have very similar contents. I was incorrect. Well, That Escalated Quickly is much more about what it means to have a popular online presence. It was a really great read in a time when being online is, right now, for many of us, the only consistent way we can interact with others. I really appreciated her sharing her stories of her mess ups both as someone who needed to be called out and as someone who, for a time, was considered a ‘call out queen’ and her thoughts on community responsibility and bearing responsibility on both ends of those spectrums: it’s not just a person who messes up who bears a responsibility to act with community goals in mind to reduce harm, but also the responsibility of those who call out and when and how those might look for most effectiveness for change, personal wellbeing, and community responsibility. (The term community responsibility I’m using probably comes more from Conflict is not Abuse than this book, but I could very well see this book being a great primer for Conflict is not Abuse and might rec this to someone not yet ready for the later.) 

10. A Court of Mist and Fury by Sarah J Maas

This book was a roller coaster. I started off really excited about some ideas and themes it was exploring that I don’t really see done hardly ever and was really intrigued. About a third of the way through, it did something that I felt very much undermined one of the themes I was enjoying a lot, and up until the very end, I was very close to deciding against reading book three. At pretty much that last minute though, it intrigued me enough to want to see how a thing would be played out and a resolution would be found. I don’t even know if I’d say I super liked the book and thus series by the time I was done reading this one, but I was intrigued. Sometimes I get the feeling the author doesn’t trust her audience and spells certain things out way too much, sometimes to the detriment of the plot, and I’m really not a fan of the ‘so totally outclassed, all odds staked against the heroes’ thing that’s pulled in this book that comes out of nowhere and when this time we actually have powerful characters but here we are. I don’t think I’d actually recommend the series to others unless I knew their tastes aligned well, but I think I will be finishing it. 

[thewritershelpers]

Let’s Get Dressed (FULL)

A long, long time ago (2013, to be exact), H from TheWritersHelpers and C from WriteWorld (inactive) got together for a collaboration on how to write and describe clothing. This is the fruits of their labor.**

Anonymous asked: Any tips on describing clothing?

The Writer’s Helpers and WriteWorld have teamed up to create a series on clothing and fashion. These articles were primarily written in the context of how to write about clothing. 

Clothing is a term that is used to describe items worn by humans (and recently other animals, like tiny dogs), either for practical reasons or for reasons of style. Since humans have been wearing clothing for tens of thousands of years, it’s probably best to narrow down the timeframe for the clothing you’re describing to a particular era, year, season, etc. With that in mind, let’s talk about fashion!

Fashion (n): A popular trend, esp. in styles of dress, ornament, or behavior.

We’ll be discussing the dress and ornament portion of this definition. Now, there are a few ways that fashion might affect your description of clothing: Your character might be fashionable, ahead of the times, behind the times, or apart from fashion entirely. All of this is going to make a difference not only in what the clothing actually is, but also in what there is to describe about said clothing. Let’s have a look at these different positions for your character on the fashion scale:

1. Fashionable. Fashionable characters are insiders. They are usually very in tune with what is hip with the kids. Fashionable characters (for an example, read the booksThe Devil Wears Prada,,The Princess Diaries, and Confessions of a Shopaholic) can usually have a backstory where they once were not fashionable- perhaps the unpopular nerd- and with a little help or luck, improve their fashion sense. Magazines such as Vogue, Seventeen, or GQ can act as guides for your fashionista characters in present day. For more on eras, check out the “Links to Look At” section at the end of this article. If you’re writing a fashionable character, you might use clothing labels to describe your character’s clothes as opposed to just describing the color, size, etc. You might also want to thread themes through the character’s style, such as the season or a trademark for the character (think always wears yellow or channels Audrey Hepburn on the red carpet). Materials vary often in fashion, but fashionable characters are more likely to wear expensive fabrics and jewelry. After all, they have a reputation to uphold. 

2. Ahead of the times. These are the trendsetters, the fashion pioneers, the people who pave the way for others and push the boundaries in all the right ways. Trends come and go, but the fashion forward never look back. Characters wearing forward-thinking fashion (or couture) might find themselves in fur and duct tape and think nothing of it. Descriptions of their clothing might tend toward the bizarre and using eclectic words may help drive home the eccentricities of their style.  For example: Her aluminum coat sparked like Tesla coils in the firelight. Weird descriptors aren’t a problem for fashion-forward characters. The weirder, the better.

3. Behind the times. There are those unfortunate souls who do not keep up with the fashion popular at the time your story takes place. Whether it’s the 1580’s or the 1980’s, not all fashions are universal. Styles come and go, but if your character’s whole wardrobe was procured twenty years before the story begins, they’re probably not up with the latest fashions. This might arise from monetary constraints or because of isolation, but the simple fact is: not everything is retro-chic.

Retro-Chic (adj): pertaining to the fashionableness of the nostalgic revival of a style.

Characters who are behind the times might have old clothes that aren’t in the best condition. They may not have the vocabulary to describe the clothes they wear or that others wear with any degree of accuracy. This most especially applies to clothing labels or technical terms for the design of clothes as the character is not up on the popular designers and the newest fashions.

Apart from fashion altogether. There are many reasons why a character might be apart from fashion. Fashion is essentially self-expression, and some people don’t care. Take into consideration religious preferences (monk attire is pretty standard), strict parental figures (if your character is a youngster), or time travel (we’re lookin’ at you, Doctor Who). Characters who stand apart from fashion may also be unaware of the terminology to accurately describe clothing popular at the time and in the place of your story. These characters might not, for example, know the word “silk” and so must describe around the word. They might not have any concept for manufactured material and therefore have trouble describing nylon or faux leather.

Links to Look At:

“Why Do We Wear Clothes?” by vsauce

Glossary of Clothing Terms by allwords.com

Your Guide to Clothing Terms by EBay

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Let’s look at detail. What sort of descriptors could you use, how could you use them, and why?

Try not to go overboard with the description, but make your descriptive words count. Let’s look at an example of a simple description of the two largest articles of clothing on an example character:

She wore a top and a skirt. 

That’s pretty basic. “Top”, for example, isn’t very descriptive. After all, women’s fashion is complicated! So, let’s use specific terminology: 

She wore a blouse and a skirt. 

You might add color: 

She wore a black blouse and a gray skirt. 

You might add fabric descriptions (Remember, the color describes the fabric now, so it goes before the descriptive word for whatever material the clothing is made of):

She wore a black silk blouse and a gray tweed skirt. 

There are other descriptors worth mentioning such as how the clothing drapes or hangs, its age and general condition, its size and length, and the overall feeling toward it from the narrator. 

How it drapes: The dress was slinky; it clung to her curves and pooled like water at her feet.

Its age/condition: His jeans were faded and ratty at the seams, especially on the back pockets where there were inch-wide holes.

Its size/length: Her boyfriend’s XXL shirt nearly swallowed her up and fell to her knees like a shapeless potato sack.

Narrator feeling: It was an ugly gray uniform. 

With all of these descriptors around, the business of relaying useful information to the the reader about a character’s clothing can get pretty muddled. No one wants to read a description like:

She wore a boring black silk blouse that was over-large, a few years old, and hung blandly from the crest of her breasts. Her shin-length gray tweed pencil skirt was also old and too small for her hips. 

There is just way too much going on there. Too many descriptors. Cut out the adjectives and adverbs that aren’t absolutely necessary, the ones that don’t really add anything essential to character or the look and feel of the scene. You may think that the above example is so obviously bloated that it’s too easy for me to state offhand that you must hack away at its descriptors and leave only the bare essentials. Well, I agree, but it is possible to have a decent bit of description and still overshare. For instance, it might be way too detailed to embroider the blouse and skirt example thusly:

She wore a black silk blouse that shone in the flourescent light of the waiting room. It had loose sleeves that gathered at the crook of her elbows with a little bow and buttons covered in the same sleek material as the blouse. Her skirt was made of gray tweed and slightly out of fashion. The waist cut uncomfortably into her stomach just below her navel and the hem rode up past her knees when she sat. She couldn’t cross her legs in the skirt; it was too tight. 

Now, if the “loose sleeves that gathered at her elbows” are described for a purpose--maybe she has an injury or blemish she’s trying to conceal or she’s very modest--then details of this kind are great to have. Unless the details of the clothes are important to develop the character or the plot or the setting, you need not distract the reader with unnecessary description. 

There are a few methods to consider when describing clothing. 

Blocks. Block style moves from the biggest, most noticeable articles of clothing to the smallest. It describes in a similar order to what the eye sees. Since the largest piece of clothing at around eye-level will be covering the upper body, block style usually starts there with a shirt or jacket or the bodice of a dress. Layers in an outfit are described from the outermost clothing item to the innermost item, then go back to catch the accent items. 

For example: He wears a jacket, vest, and crisp white shirt with a checkered tie and matching blue pocket handkerchief. 

Another fun tip: If items match, you only need to describe one with the corresponding details. Notice that I was able to omit the color of the tie because I said the blue handkerchief matched it and that I didn’t mention the pattern on the handkerchief because we knew that it at least looked good with a checkered tie. 

In the instance of a dress, however, it is more likely that block style will point out the most noticeable (i.e. largest) part of the dress first. If the dress has a poofy skirt, you can bet block style will point that out. Regardless, if the article of clothing covering the upper body is separate from the article covering the lower body, block style usually describes the top first then moves to the bottom then to details like shoes, belts, and jewelry.

Colors. A large part of clothing is color. The color of what a person wears often depicts their mood without them realizing. It has a lot to do with color psychology (x), which describes how different colors affect a person’s mood. The human eye is also attracted to bright colors (some of which even cause headaches and irritation, such as bright yellow or red), though the average eye can see around seven million colors. For more information on color theory, click here. 

More likely than not, a person wearing orange might be noticed before a person wearing gray. The eye is drawn to the orange because it is bright and demanding. Weather also affects what colors a character would wear. For example, in winter months, many people wear darker colors such as black, navy, grays, and browns (termed neutrals) because the lack of Vitamin-D in the human body doesn’t allow for endorphins to be produced as largely, causing a decline in mood. It is commonly believed that darker colors represent darker or depressing moods. And in summer months, your character might be wearing brighter colors such as yellows, pinks, and greens because sunlight elevates a person’s mood.

It is also important to remember the cultures of your characters. Say a character is getting married and is of Irish descent. Assuming she’s traditional, she would wear a blue wedding dress because in ancient times, blue represented purity and was the prefered color for brides. In many cultures, such as in Sweden and China, the color white represents mourning or death. It is essential to research the culture of your characters. Otherwise, you may end up with a white wedding that feels like a heck-of-a-lot more like a funeral. For more on what brides wear around the world, click here. For more on color symbolism, try here and here.

Describing colors can be difficult and you don’t want to be put into the category of really cliche fan fiction descriptions. His green orbs watered and he blinked to keep the tears from spilling over... Not happening here. Generally, you’ll need another word to help describe the color of something (for a list, click here). For example:

His shirt was pastel blue.

Placing “pastel” in front of “blue” indicates that the blue that he was wearing was lighter, or closer to a neutral color than if he were to be wearing a dark blue shirt. 

Her jeans were covered in patches fabric with flamboyant pink bunnies.

What do you think when you see the word flamboyant? You think bright; you think colorful; you think brightly colored and decorated. It adds more than just saying “Her jeans had patches in them”. Don’t be afraid to dip into the Crayola Crayon color dictionary and use names of colors like “Mac n’ Cheese Orange” or “Sahara Desert”. Used in the right context, these colors can add another dimension to your regular oranges and browns. Though these fun words are great alternatives to your average colors, be careful not to overuse them. No one wants to read one incredibly-detailed clothing item after another. 

Fun fact: If you put a group of women in a room, those who are wearing red are most likely on their period. 

Reverse Order of Dress. This is a weird one. When in doubt, describe in the order that you put on your clothes--backwards. Obviously, you’d want to start with the visible items and work your way closer and closer to the body. So, if you put on your shirt then your pants then your cardigan then your shoes, describe in that order. 

** This is not to say that H will not continue this series later on. However, this is the extent of their collaboration. 

[echodrops]

I just read your post about shipping and energy and I finished it with an interesting question in mind. A los of the examples you use to defend the theory the "tension" Or energy beetwen the characters have some Interactions that could be consider "Toxic" Así a relationship, but because of that tensión that just make more fans ship it. Emotions of jelaously, hate, self worth bla bla. I would like to know your opinión on Toxic relationships on shipping and the difference (1/2?)

And the difference of how people Accept it depending if the ship is Slash or het. Dont get me wrong. What I try to exploin in My crappy English is that sometimes I have seen shippers calling Toxic and unhealthy het ships (I can give you plenty of examples) but at the same time drowning in feelings about the exact same concept on Slash. It can be domination, bickering, power dinamics etc.   Please a dont send this ina negative context its just something I have notice (2/2)

No worries, I got you. I think your point is really valid and there are a lot of discrepancies in how people ship when it comes to het versus slash.

In this case, my answer to this has three different parts to it:

1) I am always very, very cautious about applying the term “toxic” to a fictional relationship because--and I am aware this is not a popular opinion to have on tumblr--I do see a clear distinction between fiction and reality. Can systemic, widespread efforts in media to normalize something have impacts on public perception? Sure. Japan’s thing for twelve-year-old girls in anime is fucked up, my dudes. But in terms of fictional relationships, would any sane person look at things like, say, a psychopathic villain and hero ship and go “Oh man, Sephiroth/Cloud is such relationship goals; can’t wait to find me a serial killer!”? “Yeah dude, I really hope my next girlfriend is a yandere who will stab me sixteen times in non-vital places for fun!” “I can’t wait to engage in armed combat with my evil boyfriend who has enslaved my best friends and won’t give them back unless I let the rest of the world perish!” ...said no real person ever. Lots of things happen in fiction that we--as readers and viewers--can fully appreciate would never be okay in the real world. (And yes, this does extend even to more realistic things like jealousy, bickering, bullying--I like Bakugou as a character, but I’d never be able to tolerate a person who acted like him in real life.) 

I wholeheartedly believe that, outside of illegal things which should obviously be reported, each person has responsibility only for their own fandom experience, and I highly encourage people to make full use of the blocking and filtering features available in fandom spaces to avoid any content that makes them feel uncomfortable or any ships they find to be unhealthy.

So: My opinion on toxic ships is that virtually any ship in this world could be perceived as toxic by someone, and that the alternative--a world in which the ONLY ships we’re allowed to write about or draw or even just like are those which are perfectly healthy pure pure love-fests--sounds horrible to me.

2) Very few people ship without an endgame in mind. I can’t think of anyone who looks at two characters who absolutely hate each other and thinks “Wow, I can’t wait to write a 100,000 word fic in which their relationship does not evolve in the slightest and they end the story hating each other exactly as much as they did on Day 1!” JK, maybe I can, I was in the Durarara fandom, after all. When people ship “toxic” relationships, it is almost always with the idea of character growth and change in mind--the idea is “They are not healthy for each other now, but the whole point of my story or art is that they’ll become healthy for each other over time.” The power of love can heallll peopleeee.

Are the characters jealous of each other now, aggressive toward each other now, enemies right now? Obviously in the shipper’s mind, these are challenges that can be overcome in time by the characters learning and developing into better versions of themselves. Perhaps this is an overly optimistic worldview that leads people to make bad choices in real life--awful people in real life rarely change as much for the better as characters in fiction are capable of changing, but that’s the beauty of fiction: it doesn’t show us people as they are, but people as we wish they could be. We want to believe that the toxic pair of characters can find common ground and heal each other. That the people who are jealous of each other will instead come to appreciate each other by the end. That the misunderstandings will be cleared up. That mistakes will be forgiven. People typically aren’t shipping a toxic ship because they love toxicity--they’re shipping that relationship specifically because they see potential beyond that tension.

We typically ship with “happily ever after” in mind, with the understanding that the life is too hard and people too flawed for that road to always be an easy one.

3) I think you are right that there is a discrepancy in the way that people view het ships and slash ships; namely, there is a discrepancy between the way het ships and mlm ships are viewed.

There are probably a lot of long and complicated sociological explanations for this that someone with more research in the field could explain better, but my first thought on this is that the discrepancy is based primarily on how fans understand male and female dynamics versus male and male dynamics.

For example, society is coded strongly to view a man who hits, dominates, or is aggressive to a woman as a very, very bad guy. (Perhaps this is something widespread media depictions have normalized?) Whereas “dude kicks another guy’s ass” has a whole different connotation in modern views. It is certainly a double standard, and part of the reason that so many male victims of abuse, sexual assault, domestic violence, etc. go ignored. Men are viewed as “too strong” to be victims; therefore, even many of the “wokest” fans can accept two male characters having a violent dynamic, when they would never accept that scenario between a male and female character.

That said, I think we also need to recognize that the way female characters are portrayed in media contributes to this problem. A preponderance of female characters in media are limited in what they can do and the situations they are allowed to engage in. As with BNHA, for example, “good” women are not allowed to be violent, jealous (other than over boys), aggressive, etc. Women are simply treated as not eligible for a wide variety of the dynamics that fictional men are written with. A male character having a superiority-inferiority complex over his also-male rival? Not surprising in the least. A male character having a superiority-inferiority complex over a female rival? Pshhh, yeah right. A female character bitterly jealous over a male character’s power, leadership, or skill? Surely she just admires his ability. Through a combination of misogyny and toxic masculinity, the stories themselves tell readers that unhealthy dynamics are commonplace and acceptable when they happen between two males, while “good” female characters should only be a source of healthy, supportive dynamics.

If we’re talking about unintended messages that writers send readers/viewers when it comes to character dynamics, this is definitely one of them!

tl;dr: Writers train their readers to expect and want certain things, but often do so carelessly or while unaware of the ways their own stereotypical societal views and cliche genre conventions will be taken and transformed by fandoms.

[jjungkooksthighs]

finally got enough time to read yearn for you and girl!!!!! where do I start from? first of all, I'm sorry you did not receive enough love for this fic but I'll try my best to try and express all the gratitude for you. ok so, this is gonna be messy because english is not my first language and I'm a bit dyslexic so forgive me😔... I remember reading edacity and thinking damn! she can write! and got soooo hooked on the way you write. then I stumbled on claws of carnality and I already told you anything I had to say about this fic: a masterpiece. then I decided to read undercurrent (I couldn't read it straight away because of how long it is and how hectic life could be) but then again, what else could I have expected from you? the way you described the scenes (don't wanna spoil anything if people didn't read it yet).. it was like I was there (this applies for all of your fic but this one has something different to it? can't really describe it, I'm sorry). you are such a talented writer, so elegant, so eloquent, so detailed, so entrancing, so attractive in a way? so when you announced you were going to post another story I was thrilled! and you delivered, god, did you deliver. I was so frustrated with jk at the beginning of the story, you pulled me in your story with just a few sentences.. but at the story went, I felt so content because of how you described their relationship, the trust they have in each other, the desire to please the other, the love you can basically feel through the words and when I was reading about the flashback, I could feel the love. I also loved how even if he is a hard dom, he is so whipped for her... when she stands after he strips her and he sees her kick her heels off and he grins? my heart beat a little faster, don't ask me why. I loved how even if jimin was there, he could also have not been there at all and the after care? the way he is basically going around, calling her his fiancee, love them. at the end, my greedy, curios brain (and heart, who am I kidding) wanted more lmao. I have a few questions if you don't mind.. what happens with taehyung? because he was a bit of a brat, trying to get in her pants and then complaining when he got a bit left out? honey, you got a big storm coming. will you ever write little drabble for this couple? like, how did he propose? not gonna lie, kinda curious about the dress he picked out for her for the gala.. no pressure tho baby, feel free to ignore this part. I also loved how he called her petal and flowers and how he didn't even think twice about buying the necklace. want something like this for me, it would be the life, having someone you love who loves you back and is always ready to remind you... anyway, this is all for today, gonna go read yean for you a few more times now☺️🥴. hope you are having a good day, we love you💙

Your english is very impressive for someone that doesn’t speak it primarily, darling. You don’t need to apologize for being dyslexic, either. You can’t help that and should not apologize for something beyond your control. Anyway, you found me through Edacity, huh? It’s always interesting hearing about how you guys find me, I have to say. That one was written in a lust filled craze following the video that the gif used for that fic was recorded from. Manbun Jungkook really took my pussy (and fingers) and said WORK FOR IT. Ugh, he’s just so hot istg I really couldn’t help myself when I wrote that fic, lol. Anyway, it’s cute that you cycled through like all of my fics and I’m glad that you liked my work enough to keep reading through everything that I had posted on here! I will say that Undercurrent is very precious to me because it’s the very first reader x member fic that I wrote and posted to Tumblr. I love that story so much and I’m so elated to know that you appreciated it as much as you did! It took about two weeks for that like YFY, but every time that I sat down to write it, I just would smile like an idiot whenever I’d read through it at how cutely I encapsulated the lovers to be in their feelings for each other. 

Truly, who else writes a damn novel for their first ever fic? Gah, I am still so soft over Undercurrent. That fic is like my first child, lol. It is very special to me. So is COC, but we all know my sentiments about that fic at this point. I feel like I’m being annoying with it, but the self-consciousness and insecurity about that one still persists and whenever I hear about it from my readers, I get nervous because I have this lingering anxiety that more negative comments will be given on it. Well, this ask isn’t about COC, so I should move on, I think. Sorry about that mini-rant, anon!

Switching back to YFY, Jungkook’s personality in this one is a little different than what I have done before and I am glad that you liked the way he’s built in terms of his characterization. I wanted to show a Jungkook that was so in love with you that he is willing to give you anything you want (even if that means fucking another man) while also staying true to the possessive creature that we all know he is in real life. He adores reader very much and because of that, he just wants to see her happy at the end of the day. She is a constant in his life and gives him stability where the world would fall apart under his feet and he cherishes her for that for sure. I adored their relationship just as you did because they care about each other so much and each one of them just wants to please the other always. It’s funny that you say that Jimin could have not been there because the person that commissioned this fic from me actually wanted just a CEO!Jimin fic in the beginning, lol. Kook wasn’t even factored into the story in the initial stages and it actually was going to be a hybrid CEO!Jimin fic where he goes into heat while at work, but that idea was never fully fleshed out because Jungkook had to come out with his D’ICON stuff and really, it was over for me when I saw that video of him in the leather fit. 

I talked to my commissioner about it and she was more than eager to have Kook involved in the fic (even though she originally thought that I would not go so far as to write 31.5k words worth of shit that Kook was responsible for over 22.3k for before Jimin even makes an appearance, lol. I couldn’t really help it being the Jungkook slut that I am, but hey, it brought such sin out of it and I can’t apologize for THAT because it was too much fun to keep writing the lewd escapades of reader and her fiance that loved his future wife too much to deny her of anything so as long as he is part of it. 

As for Taehyung, well...let’s just say that Jungkook had a nice “chat” with Taehyung and the two ended the discussion with Jungkook sat in his office while Taehyung got to listen to a recording of reader fucking herself with Jungkook’s name falling repeatedly from her lips. Taehyung may or may not have had a tent in his pants while Jungkook gave a cruel smirk and when you’re summoned to his office, let’s just say that Taehyung gets a nice show while Jungkook fucks you over his desk. Now, this is done AFTER Jungkook orders you to bind Taehyung’s wrists with his tie so that he can’t do anything while he watches, his lips drawn between his teeth the entire time that Jungkook fucks into you like a crazed man. When it’s all over and you lie boneless on the desk, Jungkook eats the sandwich you brought him off your stomach before eating you out and let’s just say that when Taehyung leaves the office, his cheeks have never been more red both with embarrassment and rage. 

Wow, I really let myself keep going with that, huh? I guess that shows just how much I’m fond of YFY, lol. 

I would consider writing a drabble for YFY, but that would have to be commissioned as I am facing a financial crisis right now and can’t really afford to spend time writing anymore unless I will be compensated for it! It’s very sweet to ask that because it shows me you want more of this story and that’s very heartening to know!

As for the dress, I would be more than happy to show it to you if you message me (you can go through anon again if you prefer) once more with that question because this ask is already really long! 

Also, I’m pleased to know that you liked the pet names! I have a weakness for them, you see, so you’ll find an abundance of that in just about everything you read from me. 

It would be quite a life to have a man like YFY Jungkook in it, wouldn’t it? You would never want for a thing with him, that’s for sure. You also would never feel deprived of attention or love because he’d readily relinquish both to you 24/7. I wanna swoon over YFY Jungkook because he’s just so dreamy, isn’t he? 

Anyway, I am so happy to hear you liked the story. Thank you for reading my work and taking the time to say all of that, lovely. It really makes my day so much better when you guys tell me things like this and I can’t thank you enough for being nice enough to let me know all of this!

[writtenbyhappynerds]

FF102, Unit 7: That Good Emotional Shit

Some tropes and cliches work for fanfiction. Some don’t. You’ll see lists on Tumblr and Pinterest of whump prompts or cliches to use. Some of them are not worth your time. Others, that we will discuss, are. We’re going to rapid-fire this chapter. We’ll take a trope/prompt/cliche and explain why it works and in what context it works best.

          A good cliche or good trope allows the audience to see the growth and development of a character. We have talked negatively of twin OCs and evil twins because those characters are always the exact same as their cast counterpart, just louder. A good cliche or trope will push your characters into development. An evil twin doesn’t do anything for your OC. An OC who’s been written as calm and in-control finally losing it and snapping? That shows the audience the OC has been pushed over the emotional edge. If the cliche can develop a character, it’s a cliche or trope worth using.

          Angst and angst-fics are so popular because they are pure character development. They are a character coming to terms with themselves and getting past an event that continuously haunts and guilts them. It’s all character development, and we as an audience like to see that kind of journey. There’s nothing wrong with angst fics, and light angst in your own stories is good because it shows not only development for the character but more realistic consequences for a character’s actions. We’ve talked about realism before, and fanfics that aren’t rooted in reality will let horrors, trauma, and death roll off the back of their OC like it’s a Tuesday at Wendy’s. Life isn’t like that, and angst fics lean heavily into the recovery and grieving of loss. It’s what makes them compelling because we see how damaged a person can become, and how strong they are to heal themselves.

          Fluff tropes or whump prompts work especially well if the character has been penned as someone who doesn’t trust others or struggles with being vulnerable. Seeing two people dance drunk in their kitchen, sick prompts, and scenes where one character has to be vulnerable works when that character isn’t comfortable there. It creates inner conflict with the character having to trust other people, and having to rely on others. It creates an exterior conflict where the character is incapacitated or becoming open with others. These fluff prompts can work when they’re placed later in the story. They can appear more organically if they’re used as a tool for character development and not an AU in a piece that is already fanfiction.

          The Editor is a big fan of opposites attract. We’ll also combine this with enemies to friends to lovers prompts, which are popular for a reason. They are filled with character development. Being able to look past your hatred and find the beauty in someone you previously despised is a major representative of growth. It shows us how a character can mature and learn to let go of the past and be open to the future. Brooklyn 99’s Jake and Amy is a great example of friends to lovers, but beyond romantic interest, this works for companionship and friends as well. Look at Zuko and Aang’s relationship in Avatar: The Last Airbender. The growth and maturity from these two characters were monumental; it showed the ability to forgive and to be kind and to take the traumas of your past and not let them define you. Zuko is a fantastic example of character growth, and his entire arc can speak for the development that comes from being an enemy to a friend.

          The Editor also likes slow burns. I do too, primarily for the realism they present. To quote Frozen, “You can’t marry a guy you just met!” Love takes time and effort and work. It takes so long for feelings to fester and grow and blossom into something more, that stories, where two characters fall in love in a matter of days, seem unrealistic. Not only that but in the real-world relationships like this are unhealthy and create characters that are co-dependent. Slow burns don’t have to go from hatred to love either. It can just start at indifference. If you look at Percy Jackson, Percy and Annabeth didn’t even kiss until the end of the Last Olympian. They had a friendship for 4 years before that, and in that time were able to figure themselves out before figuring out a relationship. That really represents the pinnacle of slow burns: we don’t want a character’s entire story or history to be tied to some other person. Slow burn fanfic lets the character blossom as a healthy individual and figure out who they want to be, before merging their ideals and their life with someone else. It’s realistic, and the time it takes for two characters to come together only lets your heart grow fonder. Your audience will feel more emotionally connected to these characters because they will have seen them go through so many personal struggles. There’s nothing wrong with taking your time. We want to see it.

          I am a slut for hospital prompts. The hurt/injury cliches, where the character collapses and ends up in the hospital for an extended period of time. It’s sometimes not realistic but that’s some good shit right there. What can make these prompts especially juicy, is if the character is written as a strong or capable character. Seeing Sam or Dean Winchester end up hospitalized hurt the audience more because we know those characters A) don’t get hurt that bad that often and B) Have never relied on hospitals unless it’s really serious. So, when they did turn up in the hospital we knew that the stakes were increased and that the situation was dire. It offers tension, and it can show you how human even your strongest characters are. You can’t re-set a broken leg on your own. You can’t fix a bullet wound by yourself. So seeing these characters have to acknowledge that they don’t have all the answers and can’t fix themselves. It shows the audience how false a character’s confidence or competence can be.

          I personally like little-kid prompts or genius little-kid tropes. That isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, and it has to do with little children being poorly written. Usually, this trope is used so the writer doesn’t have to stress about writing a realistic child. If they make the child a genius they can have it brought up to the same speed as the adults. However, writing children is easier than you think (See unit 5) and a super-genius child can be smart, but not wise. What I mean is that a genius child needs to pick a struggle and commit to it. They can’t be both book smart and street smart because they still don’t have the life experience that adults have. So you can have a genius mathematician child, but that kid isn’t going to be of much help in your detective fanfic where your OCs are supposed to be busting drug rings, because what child knows about that? Now, you could have a child know about the criminal underground because maybe they’ve grown up in it and worked as a mule, but that child isn’t going to be a mathematician like the other kid. You need to pick a side of the line, and there are so many ways for a person or a child to be a genius. What makes it realistic is picking just one. Look at Damian Wayne. He was a child prodigy in combat. He was gifted because he had tutors and masters who taught him for his entire life. But he knew so little about the outside world and how it worked. He was gifted but sheltered. Jason Todd is the opposite. He was a street rat, who had an innate knowledge of the criminal underground but didn’t have as much of an opportunity to learn through academic outlets. He knew the streets but didn’t get to learn the books until much much later. Each picked a struggle to start out with. That’s not to say that you can’t expand their range of knowledge later on, but it comes with time is the key note: if your character starts out knowing everything there’s nowhere for them to go.

          Speaking of little kids, the outcast/weird kid making a ton of friends is often used, and it’s an oldie that’s been around since The Lightning Thief. What this prompt represents is the ability of a person who doesn’t fit traditional molds to find their place and their happiness in the world. We all like content that makes us feel less alone, and prompts like this can even be cathartic for the reader to remind them that they themselves are not alone. Your writing should mean something to someone up to and including you, and these prompts warm us up and make us feel like somewhere there’s a place for us. No one likes to be alone.

          What you should take away from this unit is that predictability is okay as long as it’s done well. Cliches are not going to kill your narrative. Tropes and whump prompts are not bad, they just need to be executed in a way that makes us feel like it’s genuine character development and not an out-of-body experience. We want to see development and growth because that truly shows progression not just of time but of a person, and if you can execute it well, you can pull off just about anything.

          Next week we’re discussing research, and diving deeper into how you should be researching your settings, flaws, and how you should study your own field of work. We apologize for the delay. Unforeseen circumstances came up that life never prepares you for, and the Big Sad came over me for a while. We’ll see you next week!

Xoxo, Gossip Girl

[buzzdixonwriter]

Colonialism

You back into things sometimes.

One of my many guilty pleasures is old school pulp, which I first encountered with the Doc Savage reprints in the 1960s, then old anthologies, then back issues at conventions, and now thanks to the Internet, an almost limitless supply.

And to be utterly frankly, a lot of the appeal lays in the campiness of the covers and interior art -- brass plated damsels fighting alien monsters, bare chested heroes combatting insidious hordes, etc., etc., and of course, etc.

Once past age 12, I never took these covers or the covers of modern pulps such as James Bond, Mike Hammer, or Modesty Blaise seriously; they were just good, campy fun.

While my main focus remained on the sci-fi pulps, I also kept an eye on crime and mystery pulps, war stories, and what are sometimes called “sweaties”, i.e., men’s adventure magazines.

Despite the differences in the titles and genres, certain themes seemed to pop up again and again.

Scantily clad ladies, typically in some form of distress, though on occasion dishing out as good if not better than they got.

Well, the pulps that drew my attention were the pups made for a primarily male audience (though even in the 1930s and 40s there were large numbers of female readers and writers in the sci-fi genre).  Small wonder I was drawn to certain types of eye candy; I had been culturally programmed that way.

That’s a topic well worthy of a post or two on its own, so I’m putting gender issues / the patriarchy / the male gaze aside for the moment.

What I’m more interested in focusing on is the second most popular characters to appear on the covers (and in the stories as well).

The Other.

The Other comes in all shapes / sizes / ethnicities.  Tall and short, scrawny and beefy, light or dark, you name it, they’ve got a flavor for you.

“Injuns” and aliens, Mongols and mafiosi, Africans and anarchists.

Whoever they were ”they ain’t us!”

Certain types of stories lend themselves easily to depicting the villainous Other.

Westerns, where irate natives can always be counted on to launch an attack.

War stories, where the hero (with or without an army to help him) battles countless numbers of enemies en masse.

Adventure stories, where the hero intrudes in some other culture and shows them the error of their ways.

Detective stories, where the Other might be a single sinister mastermind but still represents an existentialist threat.

And my beloved sci-fi stories?

Why, we fans told ourselves our stories were better than that!  We didn’t wallow in old world bigotry, demonizing blacks and browns and other non-whites because of their skins.

Oh, no:  We demonized green skinned aliens.

Now I know some of you are sputtering “But-but-but you wrote for GI Joe!”

Boy howdy, are you correct.

And boy howdy, did we ever exploit the Other with that show.

I never got a chance to do it, but I pitched -- and had Hasbro accept -- a story that would have been about the way I envisioned Cobra to have formed and been organized, and would focus on what motivated them.

They were pretty simplistic greedheads in the original series, but I felt the rank and file needed to be fighting for a purpose, something higher to spire to that mere dominance and wealth.

I never got to do “The Most Dangerous Man In The World” but I was trying to break out of the mold. 

For the most part, our stories fit right into the old trope of The Other.

Ours were mostly about the evil Other trying to do something nefarious against our innocent guys, but there’s an obverse narrative other stories follow, in which our guys go inflict themselves on The Other until our guys either come away with a treasure (rightfully belonging to The Other but, hey, they really don’t deserve it so we’re entitled to take it from them), or hammer The Other into submission so they will become good ersatz copies of us (only not so uppity as to demand equal rights or respect or protection under law).

These are all earmarks of a very Western (in the sense of Europe and America…with Australia and New Zealand thrown in) sin:  Colonialism.

Now, before going further let’s get out terms straight.

There’s all sorts of different forms of colonialism, and some of them can be totally benign -- say a small group of merchants and traders from one country travel to a foreign land and set up a community there where they deal honorably and fairly with the native population.

The transplanted merchants are a “colony” in the strictest sense of the term, but they coexist peacefully in a symbiotic relationship with the host culture and both sides benefit, neither at the expense of the other.

Oh, would that they could all be like that…

Another form of colonialism -- and one we Americans are overly familiar with even though there are all sorts of variants on this basic idea -- is the kind where one culture invades the territory of another and immediately begins operating in a deliberately disruptive nature to the native population.

They seek to enslave & exploit or, failing that, expel or eradicate the natives through any means possible.

It’s the story of Columbus and the conquistadors and the pilgrims and the frontiersmen and the pioneers and the forty-niners and the cowboys and the robber barons.

It’s the story where different groups are deliberately kept separate from one another by the power structure in place, for fear they will band together and usurp said power structure (unless, of course, they band together to kelp make one of ours their leader, and build a grand new empire just for him).

It’s the story where our guys never need make a serious attempt to understand the point of view of The Other, because they are just strawmen to mow down, sexy lamps to take home.

I think my taste in sci-fi and modern pulp writing in general started to change around the mid-1970s.

Being in the army quickly cleared me of a lot of preconceptions I had about what our military did and how they did it.

The easy-peasy moral conflicts of spy novels and international thrillers seem rather thin and phony compared to the real life complexities of national and global politics.

Long before John Wick I was decrying a type of story I referred to as “You killed my dog so you must die.”  Some bad guy (typically The Other) does a bad thing and so the good guy (one of ours -- yea!) must punish him.

Make him hurt.

Make him whimper

Make him crawl.

Make him suffer.

The real world ain’t like that.

Fu Machu falls to Ho Chi Minh.

As entertaining as the fantasy of humiliating and annihilating our enemies may be…we gotta come to terms with them, we gotta learn to live with them.

That’s why my favorite sci-fi stories now are less about conflict and more about comprehension.

It’s better to understand than to stand over.

. . .

The colonial style of storytelling as the dominant form of story telling is fairly recent, dating only from the end of the medieval period in Europe and the rise of the so-called age of exploration.

This is not to say colonial story telling didn’t exist before them -- look at what Caesar wrote, or check out Joshua and Judges in the Old Testament -- but prior to the colonial age it wasn’t the dominant form of storytelling.

Most ancient stories involve characters who, regardless of political or social standing, recognize one another as human beings.

And when gods or monsters appear, they are usually symbols of far greater / larger forces & fates, not beasts to be subdued or slain.

Medieval literature is filled with glorious combat and conflict, but again, it’s the conflict of equals and for motives and rationales that can easily be understood.

It was only when the European nations began deliberately invading and conquering / dominating foreign lands that colonialism became the dominant form of storytelling.

It had to:  How else could a culture justify its swinish behavior against fellow human beings?

Even to this day, much (if not most) popular fiction reflects the values of colonialism.

Heroes rarely change.

Cultures even less.

We’ve kept The Other at arms length with popular fiction and media, sometimes cleverly hiding it, sometimes cleverly justifying it, but we’ve had this underlying current for hundreds of years.

Ultimately, it hasn’t served us well.  

It traps us in simplistic good vs evil / us vs them narratives that fail to take into account the complex nature of human society and relationships.

It gives us pat answers instead of probing questions.

It is zero sum storytelling: The pie is only so big, there can’t be more, and if the hero doesn’t get it all, he loses.  (John D. MacDonald summed up this philosophy in the title of one of his books:  The Girl, The Gold Watch, And Everything.)

It’s possible to break out of that mind set -- The Venture Brothers animated series brilliant manages to combine old school pulp tropes with a very modern, very perceptive deconstruction of the form -- but as posted elsewhere, imitation is the sincerity form of flattery that mediocrity can pay to greatness, so while I certainly applaud The Venture Brothers I don’t want to encourage others to follow in their footsteps.

Because they won’t.

They’ll pretend they will, but they’ll veer off course and back into the old Colonialism mindset.

We need to break out, break free.

Here in the U.S. it’s African-American History Month.

The African-American experience is far from the Colonialism that marks most white / Western / Christian storytelling (and by storytelling I include history and journalism as well as fiction; in fact, anything and everything that tells a narrative).

It’s a good time to open our eyes, to see the world around us not afresh, but for the first time.

Remove the blinders. 

I said sometimes you back into things.

Getting a clearer view of the world I’m in didn’t come from a straightforward examination.

It came from a counter-intuitive place, it found its way back to the beginning not by accepting what others said was the true narrative, but by following individual threads.

It came from Buck Rogers and the Beat Generation and Scrooge McDuck and the sexual revolution and Zen And The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance and the civil rights era and Dangerous Visions and the Jesus Movement and Catch-22 and the Merry Pranksters.

It came from old friends, some of whom inspired me, some of whom disappointed me, and yet the disappointments probably led to a deeper, more penetrating insight into the nature of the problem.

This Colonialism era must come to a close.

It can no longer sustain itself, not in the world we inhabit today.

It requires a new breed of storytellers -- writers and artists and poets and journalists who can offer 

It’s not a world that puts up barriers by race or gender, ethnicity or orientation, ability or age.

There’s ample opportunity for open minds.

All it asks of us is a new soul.

  © Buzz Dixon

[sothischickshe]

7. One-shots or longfic? 12. What turns you away the most from a fic? 41. Favorite fluffy tropes?

7. One-shots or longfic? 

I suppose the boring answer to this is, it depends. (Although surely you COULD have a realllly long one-shot? Or no?) 

In terms of super long multi-chaptered fic, I think that’s absolutely perfect for stuff that’s very tightly plotted AND full of character development. So that when you’ve finished a chapter you’re on the edge of your seat, somehow with NO IDEA WHAT’S GOING TO HAPPEN NEXT as well as SOME CLEAR IDEAS ON WHAT’S GOING TO HAPPEN! That really hits my love of serialised storytelling.

I’m not a huge fan of reallllllly long fics that are long for the sake of it? I mean I can totally see why people (writers and readers) want to swan around in a fantasy world that’s lovely but I’m drawn more by arcs (character primarily, but also story) than like... niceness?

One-shots can obviously be of very varied lengths so I do feel like this is possibly something of a false dichotomy, but I definitely love both those reallllly chunky one-shots that you can just roll around in, and I also super love short especially kind of spiky one-shots which are like the greatest short stories, where word choice has such an impact and there’s a degree of ambiguity. (Also, one-shots that grow organically into two-shots or series! GOOD SHIT!)

Which I guess is a long-winded way of saying, I like it when the format matches the story, ha ha. (I AM applying coffee but it takes time, and I’m blinded by the sunlight atm!)

12. What turns you away the most from a fic?

This might depend a bit on my mood. Lack of line breaks is almost definitely an absolute no-no for me (I’m almost always reading on my phone.)

I think it’s really important to support writers who aren’t writing in their first language cos wtf that’s amazing (especially because English is an extremely stupid language) so I don’t get too fussy about mistakes generally, but if I find it difficult to parse the writing, I’m out. And I’m not actually a copy editor but, like, I’m kind of a copy editor in life so if there’s looooaaaaadddsss of mistakes (or an apparently random application of tenses) in a way that makes it seem that someone just hasn’t bothered to read it through, sometimes that’ll get me? This’ll probably depend on a matrix involving how tired I am and how long the work is.

Any of the whoever/reader stuff - cool if that’s what you like, but it’s not for me.

I don’t mind dark at all, and I don’t mind violence, but I think if it’s an extremely unkind perspective that is generated by hating a character/wanting to punish them? And racism. Misogyny. Homophobia. Transphobia. Extreme OOC-ness too.

And this is probably hypocritical but like... excessive Britishisms? If we’re talking an American show/fandom, obviously. Like, obviously I can see how that slips in!! And as with typos etc it probably wouldn’t make me stop reading unless I’m really tired/the work is long and the examples are plentiful, but it can take me out of it, because it makes the tone feel off? I’m talking the obvious ones: ‘mum’, ‘pavement’, ‘boot’ (of car), ‘petrol’, ‘car park’, ‘mobile phone’, ‘telly’, ‘bloody hell’. Again, if English isn’t the author’s first language it doesn’t bother me so much but, c’mon, all Brits can speak American to a degree, right? (I do still kinda wanna write Beth and Rio as awful Anglophiles just so I can have them swearing truly impressively at each other.)

41. Favourite fluffy tropes?

Ahem, look once again, shout out to fake dating!!!!! I feel like we need far more more Brio fake dating fics! AHEM.

But I suppose that could be angsty and/or excessively (lol is there such a thing) smutty, not necessarily (purely) fluff?

I think for Beth/Rio, and I don’t even know if these necessarily constitute tropes per se, it’s some mixture of:

-the familial - either or both of them fitting into each other’s broader families. Rio having relationships with Annie and Ruby and Stan (and Judith!), not just Beth and the kids. Beth having relationships with whoever Rio’s family are, and definitely his friends, not just him and Marcus. One of my pet peeves in rom-coms is when the main characters don’t seem to have friends (unless it’s a plot point), and one of my pet peeves in life is when people can’t be friends with their friends’ significant others.

-peacefulness - we very rarely see moments of genuine calm between Beth and Rio in the show (especially atm!) - what does that look like? I think it looks quiet.

-conflict - which sounds weird for fluff, but, I mean, they suck? So, I like it when they’re in a relatively good place, but they’re still, at their core, a little bit terrible?

-Dean being wound up and/or shit(ted?) on

-everybody must get stoned (two fucking weirdo uptight control freak nerds... let them calm down, pls)

-hilarious banter, shit jokes, dumb suggestive comments

And I think my preference for fluffy Brio is generally AUs and/or future fics and/or something to do with fairly exceptional circumstances because... they currently extra suck?

Fanfiction asks

[fatechica]

You don't need to post this on your blog or anything, I just hope you don't feel pressured to change how you write because of recent drama. I say ignore those people. If they don't like it, if they jump to ridiculous conclusions, that's their problem. Your writing is good, and the people who read it will know it's good, and the people who know you know you are good.

Anon, first of all, thank you for the kind words about my writing and thank you for giving me an out with regards to answering this publicly. I appreciate both so much and thank you so much for your kindness and consideration.

That said, I’m going to do the ill-advised thing and wade into this. Not because I desperately want to, but because there are things I need to say that I think should be part of this discussion. 

A NOTE BEFORE I BEGIN:

While I welcome honest debate about the nuances of this general topic, I will not engage in dishonest, hostile attacks. I am not afraid to turn off all anons and continue on Tumblr mostly as I have been: as someone who primarily reblogs gifsets and graphics and occasionally posts links to my fanfic. I cannot be bullied off this platform - in fact, I will not. I have been around for too long to let people hiding behind the safety of anonymity dictate to me what is and is not allowed.

It is not up to anyone here but me what my level of involvement is in this fandom and in this space and no one has the right to decide for me. Go ahead and block me from seeing your content directly if that’s what you want (if that’s even possible - I never know with Tumblr sometimes). But I exist on Tumblr for reasons other than Stranger Things (weird, I know, considering that’s all I reblog) and my self-worth isn’t tied up in this platform. So, with that said….

To start, to say that I am disappointed in what I saw today in the Stranger Things fandom is a massive understatement. Regardless of what caused this - regardless of your opinion on what is, essentially, a gray area (as in an area that not everyone agrees about the definitions of) - ganging up on and bullying people is completely unacceptable. If you can’t see why that’s wrong, then I don’t know what to tell you.

Fandom should be a space where everyone feels like they have a place. Not the same place that you have or I have. But if they want to participate in their own corner, there should be somewhere they can look at and go “yes, that is where I can be”. And this is regardless of what that might look like.

For example, I hate the Harringrove ship. Like with a passion. I think it’s incredibly disrespectful to Steve’s character and I cannot understand the leaps of logic required to turn Billy’s storyline into something worth redeeming. I think it’s also incredibly exploitative of gay relationships and it squicks me out to no end.

Does that mean, however, that I don’t want people who do ship them to have somewhere to go? Of course not! People have a right to engage in a piece of fiction however they choose (because, at the end of the day, it’s fiction and the characters on the page literally aren’t physically harmed). And it’s not up to me to say what isn’t allowed.

But, conversely, I don’t have to see it if I don’t want to. No one can force me to read Harringrove fic or engage in Harringrove posts on tumblr. But, here’s the thing: I’m responsible for curating my own fandom experience. Which is why I filter out the Harringrove tag on AO3 and block the Harringrove tag on Tumblr.

I would never, however, go the Harringrove tag or find a popular Harringrove blog and harass them. Even if I think it’s wrong. Even if I think their ship is exploitative. I would never try to drive people out of a fandom because their experience doesn’t mirror mine, because they get enjoyment out of something differently than I do.

But, that’s about a ship portrayed by actors who are of age. Which is where the very gray area in what happened today comes into play.

I think we can all reasonably agree (even though I know there’s some people who won’t) that explicit material about characters portrayed by underage actors is wrong. And, when I say explicit, I mean play-by-play, detailed descriptions of sexual acts.

Some people will disagree with me. That’s fine. I literally cannot stop anyone from having their own opinion about fictional characters.

(I know some people will argue that it’s different when they’re aged up and they’re imagining different people as older versions of the characters, but that’s between you and your conscience. And, like with Harringrove, I just don’t wanna read it at all. Nor do I want to write it.)

But there is a massive difference between writing about exploring healthy, emotional intimacy (which often includes suggestions of physical intimacy since a lot of, though not all, relationships are made up of both) and writing smut meant to titillate.

The first is character-driven, diving in and showing how people form healthy relationships. The second is just exploitative.

The first is about coming-of-age when you’re in love and you don’t know how to handle everything and you’re figuring it out as you go. The second is about shock and arousal.

The first is about balancing the emotional and the physical, about trust and respect and love, about how it feels to be head-over-heels in love with someone; it’s about how we grow and mature and set healthy boundaries. The second is about pornography and that’s it.

The first sometimes includes hints of sensuality and suggestions of more. The second is only about the physical and nothing else.

(And, yes, I’m aware there is a whole sub-genre of “Porn with Feelings”, but this fandom has not really embraced that as a sub-genre so it’s not worth mentioning.)

Now, like I said, we can all pretty much agree that the second one is wrong. 

But the first one? That’s up to your comfort level. It’s up to you to decide where that line is.

You don’t want to read fiction about older teenagers navigating relationships, which often includes dealing with their own sexuality? Well, then, the back button is your friend.

You think anyone who suggests that something physical happens between teenagers means that the author is imagining those very teenagers having sex? Well, then, that’s you projecting onto that author. You don’t know what went through that author’s head when they wrote it.

If you think that everyone who writes anything or suggests anything intimate about characters who are played by underage actors are immediately imagining those characters played by those actors having sex, then you are no better than the people you’re accusing of imagining that very thing. Because guess what?

Now you’re imagining it, too.

I have to say, it takes a lot of nerve to go into someone’s writing and tell that author what they were thinking when they wrote it. I know once a piece of fiction is released into the world, the author loses the ability to control how it’s interpreted, but authorial intent IS A REAL FUCKING THING and NO ONE is allowed to dictate to an author what he or she was thinking when they wrote it.

Because unless you’re a mind reader, you have no goddamn clue what that author was thinking. And if you get offended by what you’re reading then, like I said, the back button is your friend.

Which brings me to the final thing I want to say at the end of this very long essay: we have got to stop gatekeeping in this fandom.

Believe me when I say that gatekeeping and purity trolling in all forms has led to the downfall of many fandoms and fandom communities (see: ALL OF LIVEJOURNAL). I’ve been there - I’ve watched it happen. There is literally no better way to stifle creativity and fandom growth by dictating what is and is not allowed in harsh, black and white terms.

So, if we want to have a healthy fandom where open discourse is allowed, where people can share their interpretations of the characters and explore what must be going through their heads as real people growing up might be experiencing, if we want to make this a place where people feel included for years to come, if we want to have a space where people can create and post and share, WE NEED TO STOP DOING THIS.

Learn to agree to disagree. Learn that some people have different boundaries of acceptable and appropriate than you. Learn that most people do not approach sensitive topics from a place of exploitation and titillation.

I’ve long been concerned that we aren’t mature enough as a fandom to handle nuanced discussions like the one that didn’t happen today.

To be perfectly honest, I don’t have a lot of hope for this fandom if things continue on the way they are. And, though I’m not going anywhere for the time being, I hope that I’m proven wrong. I hope we can learn the difference between inappropriate and uncomfortable; I hope we can learn how to have nuanced, respectful discussions where we disagree and separate to our own corners to experience fandom how we want to experience fandom.

I hope that we can figure out how to grow up as a community.

But absolutely nothing I saw today tells me we’ll be able to do that.

[angofwords]

This fan’s take on AshEiji

A conversation with @silverquillsideas this morning got me thinking about something that I, quite frankly, have thought about over and over in the past, but never quite put down in words. She asked me what I thought about the arc of Ash’s feelings and what he might understand about those feeings during the timeline of Banana Fish. We talked a bit, and then she suggested her own take on Eiji. This made me realize that I needed to write an essay. So if this is tedious, you can lay part of the blame at her door.  :P

Ash Lynx’s feelings. It’s a complicated bag to unpack, but here’s my take after the anime and (even more) after years re-reading and reconsidering the manga: Although their relationship was platonic, Ash loved Eiji in a romantic way.

Not immediately. He was in awe after Eiji’s jump – something he probably rarely felt, given he was arguably the most talented punk on the NYC streets. The fact that Eiji could so something like that, something that had never been a possibility for him, threw him for a loop. But that wasn’t love. Fascination, maybe? Fondness? I think that Eiji’s actions in those first couple volumes of manga solidified Ash’s basic trust and friendship, but not much more.

Then there’s the prison kiss, the mission to save Griff and its terrible ending. I doubt any of this changed his feelings. At this point, Ash was focused on his own shit – the last thing he had time for in that prison was lingering over what kissing Eiji might’ve made him feel. (Yes, the fanficcer in me aches to write that sentence, but that’s legit how I read the canon.) It’s only later – after Eiji ditches Ibe and Charlie to go on the lam with him, after that botched attempt at Dino’s life, after Cape Cod – that things start to change.

In California, Ash tries to put on the brakes. He decides, all on his own, that Eiji has to go back to Japan. He even tries being mean to him (‘Go back to Japan. You’ll only be in the way.’) but it doesn’t really work. It makes Eiji cry and makes Ash feel like shit, but neither of them (nor the readers) believe that this is what Ash wants. This is the scene where Ash first gives Eiji an indication that he might be special to him, when he says that Eiji’s the first person ever to help him out without expecting something (the only specific he mentions is sex) in return. I feel like this is actually untrue. Shorter, Max, and even Charlie have helped him at one time or other without demanding payback. I think Ash is trying to say something different here – on the one hand, he’s telling Eiji that there is something special with him, but on the other (at the same damn time) he’s shutting down any thoughts of sex that might be budding in Eiji’s teenage brain. If this isn’t putting the brakes on a potential relationship, I don’t know what it is.

My thoughts have lately been that this is an indicator that Ash himself must be developing non-platonic feelings for Eiji by this point. It’s an odd point to make, even considering that Ash’s history makes him bring up sex in strange places (like later, when Eiji suggests Ash might try modeling), unless Ash has already realized that there’s something to be wary of here.

And then all hell breaks loose and they lose Shorter in the most horrific way. This shatters any resolve to keep Eiji at an arm’s length – immediately following this Ash is at his most protective. He keeps Eiji hidden away from everyone – including Max and Ibe – insisting that this is the only way he’ll be safe. This is also when he crumbles and asks Eiji to stay with him. I think that, in the moments when it looked like Eiji was going to die by Shorter’s hand, Ash realized the full extent of his love.

That’s not to say he’s ready to set up house and live happily ever after. Well, not the happily ever after, at least. They do set up house, and I can’t be the only one who thinks that their condo must have more than one bedroom, right? This is Ash keeping Eiji close and yet holding him at arm’s length, which he does for basically the rest of the series. His reasons are easy enough to see – primarily, he doesn’t think he’s good enough for Eiji. This can be interpreted in the most basic way: being with Ash puts Eiji’s life in danger, but also in a more intangible way: Ash feels like he’s a crap human being and believes Eiji belongs with someone better. I think both figure into his behavior, especially as things come to a head with Arthur and he decides once more to send Eiji home.

By Halloween, Ash still hadn’t found a way to tell Eiji (Ash Lynx, afraid of words?!), and instead he tells him the story of the girl he “really loved” and how she didn’t survive the world he lived in. The parallels to Eiji are so obvious that even Eiji picks up on them, but when he asks Ash if he’s trouble for him (basically giving Ash a wide open door to telling him about the plane ticket burning a hole in his pocket), Ash still can’t say anything, instead opting to have a beery slumber party on the living room floor.

After the adventure of the mental health facility and the forced separation from Eiji it requires, Ash finally gives up on sending the boy home and their relationship settles into the comfortable not-talking-about-it of long-married couples and tightly closeted “roommates.”

Through it all, though the readers can clearly see Ash’s devotion to Eiji and that said devotion is clearly reciprocated (Eiji telling Yut Lung that Ash cares for him as much as he cares for Ash? :swoon:), it’s quite possible that Ash himself actually has much less of a sense of Eiji’s feelings. I mean, he’d be blind if he didn’t get the best friends vibe, but toward the end when Eiji vehemently insists that he’d do absolutely anything for Ash, that nothing he does can shake Eiji’s loyalty, Ash is startled. And so when he gets a note that’s “practically a love letter” from him, it’s no wonder he’s jostled out of his calm. I don’t think for a second that Ash was running toward a happily-ever-after, but I do think he was giddy with the sudden and intense knowledge that all of his feelings were reciprocated wholeheartedly. He wouldn’t have let his guard down if this letter was just a reiteration of things already known – he might’ve managed to steel his resolve and stay put, if nothing in that note was a surprise to him. I think that might be the most heartbreaking part of the ending for me – Eiji might’ve fully understood their bond and their feelings, but Ash didn’t. Not till the end.

But what of Eiji’s emotional arc? I’ve given this a lot of thought, too. The conclusion I’ve finally reached (though by no means do I insist it is the One True Interpretation) is that Eiji is basically demisexual in a way that doesn’t specify gender. When Ash asked him if he had a girlfriend, he didn’t immediately think “Girls? No way!” In fact, the way he interprets the word (as someone he’d had sex with) indicates that maybe he did have a girlfriend (or more?) with whom he hadn’t reached this level of intimacy. And yet, he wasn’t so straight that he couldn’t immediately cast himself in the parallel role in Ash’s girlfriend-who-died story. This indicates a sexual or romantic flexibility that doesn’t lend itself to his being straight or gay. And I suggest demisexual mostly because it seems to suit Eiji’s personality to require that deep emotional connection before he can contemplate sex (consider Garden of Light and his long term, possibly lifelong celibacy).

Take that kiss, for example. Yes, Eiji was flustered as hell. Yes, he was embarrassed. But even in the anime (which, in my opinion, hinted at Eiji’s sexual attraction as early as their first meeting), Eiji never once looks back on that kiss with anything resembling longing or titillation. And this is a shoujo manga, where such lingering examination is practically required! I think this is because, at this point in the story, while Eiji is fascinated by Ash and possibly even fixated on him, I don’t think he’s in love.

So when does Eiji’s feelings change and how do they evolve? I think that, like Ash, Eiji was feeling their bond as early as Cape Cod, though during that trip it felt like three boys on equal footing rather than a-bonded-pair-plus-Shorter. Possibly he fell prey to the rush of damsel in distress endorphins when Ash rescued him at Golzine’s, but that probably would’ve faded if that were the source of his romantic attachment. Even the fan-favorite “forever” scene could be more platonic and big-brotherly than romantic. It shows clear love and devotion, but nothing about the scene is necessarily romantic and their awkward waking the next morning is played more for humor than sexual tension.

In fact, I think the first sign of real longing from Eiji’s side comes while Ash is fighting Arthur and Eiji’s dealing with being told to go home (again), and even that’s not as strong as it will become, because Eiji basically says he’ll go home and never come back, more like a jilted lover than the dedicated partner he becomes.

But then Ash gets hurt and is declared dead, and Eiji gets kidnapped by Yut Lung for no reason anyone (even Yut Lung?) can explain. Here’s where Eiji gets intense for the first time, and it’s mostly because Yut Lung taunts him about it. By insisting that Ash cares more for Eiji than Eiji does for Ash, it makes Eiji evaluate his feelings for (possibly?) the first time. I think this is when Eiji decides on “soulmates.”

And from that point onward, Eiji becomes Ash’s partner in all things. He steps up his game with the gang and with Ash, less often hesitating to dive in, even when it means getting into another fight (like when Ash screams at Sing and Eiji – very gently – tells him off for it).  That being said, Eiji refrains from any verbal expression of his feelings and avoids physical affection except in the most extreme circumstances. I’m sure this is because he understands Ash’s physical and emotional limitations, but also, how hard would it be to discover yourself in love with someone who once praised you for not being into him sexually? (I feel like that last bit would be an impossible hurdle for someone like Eiji, thus pretty much assuring that any physical relationship would have to be initiated and directed by Ash.)

Toward the end, though, Eiji can feel the situation getting desperate and he knows he needs to somehow get Ash away from the whole situation (an interesting inversion of the “send Eiji home” impulse, in fact). He tries a couple of times to express his devotion, but Ash doesn’t really hear him until the aforementioned scene where Eiji snaps at him that he doesn’t care if Ash is “bad news” and wants to be with him forever no matter what. (<3<3<3) And by then, shit’s out of control and Yut Lung has gotten to the Chinatown boys and we all know what happens.

I’d almost say that it’s possible to read Eiji’s love as platonic even now, but you’d have to allow a certain exclusivity to their bond that isn’t usually found in platonic loves. And his letter – maybe it’s not impossible to read that in a non-romantic way, but it’s impossible for me. I’ve tried and tried over the years (I’ve tried out every interpretation of this manga known to mankind, believe me), but even when I can almost convince myself that it could be some seriously intense hetero-life-mate stuff, Garden of Light blows it right out of the water.

So that’s my take. My evaluation that always, always leads to a romantic love housed in a platonic relationship. I’d like to think that more time would’ve allowed them to express that love, and it seems to me that Eiji, at least, was beginning to scramble toward a confession if only as a last-ditch effort to save Ash from his fate. We’ll never know what might’ve been said if Ash had reached the airport – it’s possible he would’ve had a moment in the cab or subway to recollect his cool, but I don’t think so. That boy was all shook up. Either way, it’s not how the relationship started or how it ended that makes it so powerful to me, but the journey. Ash and Eiji had one hell of a journey. <3