#British Real Person Fiction

[bakanokiwami]

TOP 10 CELEBRITIES & REAL PEOPLE FANDOMS ON AO3 BASED ON NUMBER OF FANWORKS, SINGLE CATEGORY TAGS ONLY VERSION (2009-2022)

If you want to see the Celebrities & Real People bar chart with the multi-category fandoms included, please check this post.

To make these bar chart race, all series titles in the Celebrities & Real People Category on November 29 (or the closest date to it) of every year were copy-pasted from Wayback Machine to Google Sheets, rearranged according to number of fanworks, manually filtered for fandoms belonging in only one category, and then inputted to Flourish to turn into a bar chart race.

Locked fanworks aren't included in the count because Wayback Machine can’t view those, only Ao3 users can.

Japanese Actor RPF was reduced to 9.66% of its total fanworks by 2015 because Johnny's Entertainment was removed from its subtags.

British Actor RPF was reduced to around 70% of its total fanworks by 2017 because RPF of various media was removed from its subtags.

Fandom tags that are no longer in the Celebrities & Real People category tag as of posting this are left out of the bar chart race. These tags are usually either miscategorized or already have other tags referring to the same fandom.

For tags that existed on the same years before eventually merging into one tag later on (such as CW Network RPF which later on merged with Actor RPF, I use the data of whichever tag has the highest number for that year. 

Please refer to this post for more bar chart races.

Thanks for understanding and hopefully I didn’t mess up anywhere! 🙏

[write-r-die]

By Tomorrow - Part 8

Masterlist

A/N: Did not proofread, just wanted to get this up b/c I’m in a slump and it makes me feel better to post

Sybil felt like a new woman when she descended the stairs the next morning, freshly bathed and wearing clean clothes that she borrowed from Catherine.

Sybil didn’t care for them overmuch – the Cavill plaid was made of lovely, bright jewel-toned colors, but everyone wore the same thing, which made it considerably less exciting. No matter. All she needed was needle and thread and she’d remedy the sartorial monotony in no time at all. And perhaps teach these women proper embroidery – surely they would have altered their clothes if they knew how.

Henry waited at the bottom of the stairs while his kinsmen pretended to eat. He didn’t offer Sybil his arm as she approached but she took it anyway. 

On the journey here, Henry and the others wore the clan’s hunting plaid, composed of muted tones, rather than the colorful formal tartan. But today Henry was all done up in purple and green. Such bright colors didn’t seem to suit him.

Arran waited with his hands clasped behind his back. Patrick and their sons stood further off.

“Laird,” she said with a smile, dropping into a curtsey. 

“There’s no need for that,” Arran said, guiding her back to her full height. “Welcome.”

Catherine appeared at her side. “She’s English, uncle,” she said. “Failing to curtsey is the equivalent of spitting in one’s face.”

“Catherine!” Sybil chided. “There’s no need to be vulgar.” She turned back to Arran. “She is right, though. I would hate to offend you in any way, especially after failing to greet you properly yesterday. I am terribly sorry about that, by the way, but Henry is terribly pushy and I was quite tired. Though I’m sure you know how bossy your nephew can be, since he is, after all, your nephew. . .”

Everyone’s eyebrows seemed to rise in unison as Sybil spoke. They looked at Catherine and Henry in amusement or disbelief or a combination of the two. 

Patrick outright laughed when he saw the look on Henry’s face.  

Sybil fell silent, cheeks reddening with embarrassment. Of course they would laugh at her – didn’t everyone always tell her how annoying and odd she was? She wanted to melt into the floor.

Catherine and Henry both shot death glares at Patrick. It was hard to tell which cousin was angrier at his rudeness. Even Arran turned to frown at his brother. But that was just Patrick’s way.

“Forgive me, niece,” Patrick said, still chuckling. “It was the look on Henry’s face that amused me.”

“Oh. Of course.”

Sybil made an effort to speak less while they eat their breakfast but she was too curious and excited for it to make much of a difference. She wanted to ask a thousand questions of each of her new family members.

Catherine, God bless her, knew this and steered the conversation to fit her friend’s desire without Sybil having to speak too much. 

Patrick really hadn’t meant anything by laughing – Sybil was already mostly recovered from the incident; everyone else at the table had already forgotten it – but Henry was still furious. It was his job to make sure Sybil was comfortable and happy in her new home. So far Patrick wasn’t helping.

Henry was distracted from his anger by a tug at his shirtsleeve. Finn stood at his elbow. Henry relaxed immediately. “There you are,” he said. “Are you pleased to have Catherine back?”

Finn nodded. “New horse,” he said, gesturing in the general direction of the stables.

“Yes, he was a present from the MacPherson’s brother,” Henry replied.

“MacPherson gave you a horse?” Hamish piped in.

“We were traveling on foot,” Sybil explained. “The first horse abandoned us after we fell down the slope. He said it was a wedding present. Henry neglected to thank him,” she added.

She expected his family to react to his rudeness somehow, but they didn’t. Perhaps they didn’t hear her right? She looked to Catherine, who rolled her eyes and shrugged. This was just one of his peculiarities to them.

They finished eating. Sybil offered to help the two serving girls carry everyone’s dirty dishes back to the kitchen. One of them thanked her and insisted that Sybil not trouble herself. The other girl ignored Sybil entirely.

“Don’t be upset,” Catherine said to her friend. “She’s only sour because she fancies herself in love with Henry.”

Sybil deflated. “Oh.”

“He never liked her,” Catherine assured her. “She can’t hold a candle to you anyway.”

The breakfast party disbursed. Sybil stood by the foot of the stairs as she pulled on a pair of borrowed boots and wrapped a spare plaid around her shoulders as a shawl so she would be comfortable as Catherine showed her around.

Henry appeared at her side.

“Catherine’s chosen a cottage she thinks will suit,” he said. “She’s done something or other to it, but it’s yours now. Make it however you like.”

“Henry,” she said softly, putting a hand on his arm to catch his attention. “I’ll be glad to go back to our cottage with you, but I don’t think it will work for the two of us to go to bed together at this point – both for practical and religious reasons, as I’m sure you understand. The Church says –”

Henry’s nostrils flared. “You’re speaking in tongues.”

“It’s only for a few days.”

“A few days?” he repeated.

“Usually six.”

“Usually?”

“Yes, that’s generally how long it lasts.”

His patience was at an end. “How long what lasts?”

“My courses.” Henry kept looking at her. “My monthly courses.” 

It took a long moment for Henry to work out her meaning. He half-growled, half-grunted, and walked away without another word. If she didn’t know any better, she’d think he was embarrassed. 

They’d begun just this morning, not a moment too soon. she didn’t know what she would have done if they came while she was traveling.

Henry reappeared a few minutes later when Catherine announced her intention to show Sybil around the village. He took her arm and pulled her aside; only Arran took note of iy.

“Are you lying to me about having your courses now?” Henry murmured.

“Why would you think that? You think I wanted to tell you?” she asked, tone dripping with revulsion. “Of course not! It’s private. And you’re a man. Men aren’t supposed to know such intimate –”

“Husbands should,” Henry interrupted.

She disagreed, “Well, you know already so I don’t have to tell you again. Why are we discussing this?”

“I wondered if you were lying,” he said casually. “It’s a fine excuse.”

“Excuse for what?”

Henry sighed. “I know you’re worried about the bedding,” he said, “but you have no reason to be.” She began to speak but he silenced her by holding up his massive hand. “We can wait until you’re more comfortable with me to consummate our marriage. But I won’t wait forever.”

“That’s . . . very reasonable,” Sybil said after a moment. “Thank you.”

He grunted again – more of a frustrated growl this time – and walked away.

That’s very reasonable. Had she expected him not to be?

***

Catherine spent the rest of the morning leading Sybil from place to place and introducing her to everyone they passed. Finn flitted in and out of their company like a woodland fairy. 

Catherine explained early on that her little brother had free reign within the clan, able to come and go as he pleased. But wherever he went, he seemed welcome. 

He had difficulty focusing or staying still for very long; he and Sybil had that in common.

The children stared at her and whispered to one another as she and Catherine ambled down the hillside where the bulk of the cottages were laid out. 

The boys’ parents told them the English had horns and cloven hooves; the girls were intrigued by her relative exoticism and the fact that she’d snapped Henry up as her husband at first sight. They were in love with him, of course, the way all little girls are in love with all older boys who are handsome and sweet.

Sybil greeted everyone in broken Gaelic, but her horrendous accent quickly exposed her as a foreigner. Not that everyone didn’t know already. Henry’s unexpected marriage to an Englishwoman was a hot topic of conversation ever since Catherine and the others returned and explained what happened on their journey.

It was so sensational, in fact, that hardly anyone paid attention when Cameron Maclean, the laird’s second and most decent son, sent his condolences to Catherine in a note wrapped with a lovely purple hair ribbon.

Patrick and Arran were a bit leery of the offering – Cameron, like all living men (including his brothers) – fancied Catherine. But it was a polite, innocuous gesture. He actively sought to smooth relations between the Cavills and Macleans, though everyone knew it was a futile effort.

They made the wise decision not to share the news of this gift with anyone else. Henry was liable to throw a table if he found out. 

Catherine intended to tell Sybil eventually, but now was not the time. She had too much on her mind as it was.

“Sybil here is my very best friend,” Catherine said congenially to one particularly displeased old Cavill woman. She looped her arm through Sybil’s in a subtle show of solidarity. “We are blessed that my cousin chose to take her as his wife. Don’t you agree?”

The woman relented, politely inclining her head at Sybil, before stalking off.

“I appreciate your loyalty, but you don’t need to threaten old ladies on my behalf,” Sybil said. “I’m English. Your countrymen naturally dislike me.”

“I didn’t threaten her. And hating you for no reason other than your heritage is ridiculous.” Sybil was surprised by the passion in Catherine’s voice. “I would have been a Scottish pariah in England were it not for you. I intend to return the favor.”

“You were not a pariah.”

“The women all hated me at first,” Catherine countered.

The men, however, were too busy worshipping at her feet to have a care for her nationality. It made Sybil furious sometimes. Catherine was married yet drowning in male attention; Sybil was as forgettable as she was single. But it wasn’t Catherine’s fault.

“And before you say it, I don’t consider any of those Englishmen to be friends,” Catherine said as if she heard her friend’s thoughts.

Sybil cocked an eyebrow. “Oh, really? I dare say they were very friendly with you.”

Catherine rolled her eyes and then grinned. “Come. Let me show you your cottage. I’ve had it all made up for you.”

Sybil looked out at the vast body of water at the very foot of the hill. “Can’t we stop and see the lake first?”

“Loch,” Catherine corrected. “And no.”

The cottage should have been underwhelming to a noblewoman such as Sybil – she was accustomed to luxury – but she found it charming. It was one large room with a dirt floor. The furniture was sparse to say the least: a bed, two wooden chests, a table, and a handful of stools. The bed was piled with quilts, pelts, plaids, and pillows. It looked almost as luxurious as Sybil’s bed at home. 

She was so overwhelmed by her friend’s kindness that she started crying. She covered her face with her hands. “Thank you.” Her voice was muffled. “This must have taken a long time. It’s lovely.”

Catherine chuckled “You’re welcome. Oh, don’t cry.”

“You know I can’t help myself,” Sybil said. “Leave me be.” She kept talking but her voice was too muffled for Catherine to understand. She finally wiped her cheeks, cleared her throat, and straightened up. “It really is wonderful, Catherine.” She sniffled one last time before her thoughts, as always, turned to other matters.

“I will need at least two more chests, though, for my gowns.” She walked the perimeter of the cottage, poking at just about everything she passed by. “And before you say it, yes, I know I won’t be wearing gowns here but I do like them. I’ll find a way to make them work. Maybe if I separate the tops from the skirts? In any case, I shall find a use for them. And I’ve got to make Henry new clothes now, too. Have you seen the state of his shirts?”

“I’m afraid you’ll have a tough time trying to civilize the fellow.”

“He will have a tough time trying to remain uncivilized, you mean,” Sybil corrected.

A male voice came from the doorway. “Who’s uncivilized?”

Sybil turned to see the man step into the cottage and away from the door.

It was her husband, but it wasn’t. The man before her had only stubble dusted along his cheeks and jaw, was missing at least two inches of curls, and looked some ten years younger. But there was no mistaking it. This was Henry.

“What have you done to your beard?” Sybil asked once she was composed enough to speak. Catherine slipped out of the cottage and her cousin quietly shut the door behind her. 

“Trimmed it,” Henry said flatly.

Sybil shut her eyes to keep from rolling them. “Yes, but why?” Would she really have to drag every word from this man for the rest of their lives? Each attempt at conversation was like pulling teeth.

“You said I was too furry.”

Sybil was so surprised she actually stepped back. “I beg your pardon? I said no such thing.”

“Aye, you did,” he countered, doing his best to bury the smirk attempting to crawl onto his face. “On the road.”

“Henry, women in England are raised with etiquette. We do not say such things to our husbands, especially when we’ve only known them for a few days. Perhaps Scottish women do, but we in England are far more civilized. Furthermore, I have no recollection of ever -”

“That night in the cave after the storm. You were asleep,” he said, the slightest smile playing over his full lips. Lord, she was long winded. One of these days he would have to measure how long she could go on for without stopping for air.

Sybil’s blood drained from her face. She looked absolutely horrified. 

“Did it upset you that I said that? I do apologize. That’s a terrible thing for anyone to say, especially a wife. It’s certainly not my intention to make you self-conscious, and I was asleep so I can’t be held entirely responsible for whatever I may –”

Henry grinned, flashing his immaculate teeth. “No, you did not upset me.”

The smile threw her a bit off-balance. “Then why did you change your beard?”

To please her, of course. 

Sybil realized that as she spoke. Henry was large and quiet and cryptic, but he wanted to please his wife. 

Under normal circumstances, she would’ve wept at that kindness – she wept at everything, especially now when she had her blood – but she managed to restrain herself.

She was hesitant at first as she rocked up on the balls of her feet and reached to brush her hand over his short whiskers. He didn’t tense or flinch, but he followed her with his eyes like he was worried she’d pounce. “You look much younger than before,” she said.

“Did I look very old?”

“Older than you are, certainly, but not old. Not exactly. I couldn’t see your face properly under all that hair. And you’re always frowning.”

He began to scowl at that but caught himself and neutralized his expression before she could say anything.

“You should have let me do it for you,” she continued, brushing her fingers through his hair. It was uneven, but his curls made it hardly noticeable. It was surprisingly soft.

Her touch felt divine. Henry couldn’t remember the last time someone touched him like this. He didn’t understand why it mattered so much.

Sybil wanted to thank him, but like two nights ago when she simply leaned against him, she wanted to do it without words.

She impulsively put her voluptuous lips against his. It was the best way to let him know that she appreciated his actions and what they represented, she decided.

When she pulled away he looked curious and cautious and amused. She looked confused by her own actions. Her eyes didn’t meet his, instead resting on his plush lips. They were surprisingly soft, like his hair.

Henry slowly leaned forward, lowering his head until they were face to face. He stopped just before their lips met and waited, knowing he might drive Sybil away if he was too aggressive. But the moment she closed the distance between them, he became ravenous. 

This was very different from when he kissed her at their wedding. 

She suspected she felt his tongue then; she knew she felt it now. Not poking or prodding like she imagined it might be, but all soft and warm and lingering. She started to relax against him, leaning into him, and his hands – which were previously folded behind his back – came forward, his arms encircling her waist.

Henry was doing his best to be careful, taking all his cues from the way she responded to him. The last thing he wanted was to scare her off. But there was no danger of that. Sybil was enjoying this just as much as he was. Too much.

Henry’s heart sank when she put her hands on his chest and pushed herself away from him. He loosened his grip on her but didn’t let go.

“Wait,” she gasped.

He grunted questioningly. He sounded concerned. If that was possible. Could someone grunt in a concerned fashion? 

Sybil still couldn’t meet his eye. They’d have to work on that, Henry decided. 

She shifted her weight uncomfortably. “It’s just – we ought to stop now since we cannot . . . because of my courses . . . and it can cause men pain when they can’t be fulfilled – you know – if they don’t complete – and I do not want to cause you injury –”

Henry arched an eyebrow. “What?”

“I said – I – you know what I said, Henry. Please don’t make me say it again.” She was already flushed with embarrassment – and from something else, something Henry had stirred inside her, but that she was reluctant to name.

“Where did you hear that?” he was clearly suspicious. “Who would say that in front of you?”

Her father’s friend told her so when she asked him to stop. She didn’t want him to be in pain, did she? She didn’t want to damage his health or injure him, did she? Of course not. So she mustn’t ask again. She must be quiet and let him – 

“I must’ve overheard the servants talking,” she rushed out. 

He grunted. He shouldn't be surprised she heard that – it was probably a common excuse among Englishmen when their wives were unwilling – but he didn’t like that she heard it.

“That’s not true,” Henry said. “It’s unpleasant not to finish once you’ve started, but it doesn’t cause any harm.” It was downright painful actually, but it didn’t cause any harm. He decided to keep the painful bit to himself.

Sybil stared down at her hands, probably too embarrassed about it all to meet Henry’s gaze.

He ducked his head low to catch her eyes. His voice was all gentle and soft. “Any time you want me to stop, I’ll stop. Whether or not you have your courses.”

She looked up, surprise clear in her warm brown eyes. “You will?”

“Yes.”

“Always?”

“Yes.”

So not only would he wait to bed her, but he would also stop dead in his tracks if she asked him to when the time finally came? That didn’t make a bit of sense. 

She told him so, and her heart sank at the look he gave her. 

[corvids-corner]

Y’all ever just get so in love with someone it makes you feel physically ill at times?

[captainshyguy]

i’ve been watching the great british bake of 2019 with my mum and it cracked my brain open like an egg so i will be insane for like a week probably heads up lol

[ladcedes]

controversial!

summary f1 heartthrob lando norris starts dating a hot, up-and-coming celebrity with a not-so-hot personality and some fans protest…

disclaimer reminder this is completely fictional!!! the “faceclaim” (very loosely) may be rachel zegler but in no way am i basing it off her personality!!! no hate to her at all i love her sm

the tweet:

comments

user-1 isn't this lando norris' new gf

user-2 no way she's featuring on a DRAKE album 💀💀

yourusername

Liked by bellahadid and 223,449 others

yourusername one thing about me and red carpets... i'll always be serving cunt ❤️‍🔥

view all 442 comments

hunterschafer yess always serving the best looks

bairdballad absolute icon!!

(liked by lando norris)

⤷ bairdballad wtf lando liked this

⤷ snowangel @.bairdballad lando is so real for that

landonorris always a stunner

⤷ yndefender so can we take this as confirmation that they're together

⤷ ynmyloves @/yndefender if this isnt confirmation idk what is 💀

ln4life her language is so vulgar why would lando be with her

⤷ futuref1w4g ikr she's such a bad influence

⤷ angelyns icb you actually said vulgar 💀 lando norris is a fully grown!! BRITISH!! man!!

⤷ milcedes @.ln4life @.futuref1w4g average instagram comments...

lewishamilton 👏👏👏

⤷ ylnstars LEWIS??? lando you better get tf up

⤷ ultraviolenced ariana what are you doing here

2007wdc we should expect lando of all drivers to be with a girl like her most tbf

⤷ 9thwdc aside from lewis

lando.jpg

tagged: yourusername

Liked by daniel3.jpg and 342.112 others

lando.jpg and that marks the end of the 2023 season ✨

view 4 comments

yourusername not a single pic of my face yet you tag me... someone tell him that's not how soft launches usually work

⤷ lando.jpg @.yourusername who says i'm trying to do a soft launch

⤷ yourusername @.lando.jpg you showed me hundreds of other 8K HD pictures of me with my face and only post faceless ones?

⤷ lando.jpg @.yourusername maybe i'm just gatekeeping your face

⤷ yourusername @.lando.jpg it's ok lan, you can stop trying to cover up your loser soft launch attempt, i'll still love you

comments have been disabled

yourusername

tagged landonorris

yourusername cheers to the haters 🥂 he still loves me xx

3 December 2023

view 316 comments

georgerussell63 @ landonorris Your gf is scary help

landonorris you tell em babe

norrislclrc queen behaviour i say

ln4life can’t believe he’d get with you

⤷ ynloml and? you think he’d ever look in your direction?

⤷ ynvfx literally get a life how are you still out here yapping about them even on insta??

ladcedes using this "comment" as an author's note! this is so scuffed im sorry i started it back in early december planning to do more for it but i got busy and atp just wanted to get it done 😭

⤷ ladcedes so for anyone confused about the drake album randomly being there… yeah…

[moonlightsapphic]

Look, I just need you guys to understand how important queer coming-of-age forbidden romances on internationally accessible platforms like Netflix is, especially to youth in countries where homosexuality still hasn't been legally decriminalised or socially accepted.

That was a mouthful, so let me explain. You, a white American adult with a liberal family, may not relate to a fictional anxious teen Swedish prince grappling with strict familial and societal expectations versus his first love. You may not find anything special in a bunch of queer British teens discovering themselves and figuring out complex relationships that are honestly rather simplistic, in retrospect. It might be a little too trite for you. Like, just a little vanilla without any extra drama. Perhaps corny—cringe, even. Too wholesome.

But you know what that is to me, a desi queer young adult? It's representation, in an unlikely place. My country certainly isn't making movies or shows where I see my secret relationship between me and my girlfriend portrayed. I don't see that happening in the next couple of decades, either, sadly. But you know who’s telling our stories? Alice Oseman. Lisa Ambjörn, Lars Beckung and Camilla Holter. Through fictional storylines that might seem kind of boring to you, I am finally able watch my lived experiences play out on screen.

American media has done such a disservice to queer coming-of-age stories. I want to scream this from the rooftops. Y’all, I’m glad to see more out quirky queer side-characters—I can’t get enough of them—but why is it so rarely their story, in sharp focus, about how they found themselves? I want to know how they overcame internalised homophobia. When was the moment they knew? What is the cost they have to pay for being out? For not being out?

And no, I don’t want it to be dramatic. I don’t need to see violence or betrayals or victorious kisses in public, really. I’m happiest with the teenagers behaving like real teenagers. Innocent, vulnerable, nervous. I want it to be heartfelt, and excruciatingly slow, and authentic. I want to see the small wins and the subtle losses. The quiet mental toll of how much you have to give to a queer relationship—especially your first queer relationship—and how hard that can be to separate from your Identity itself.

Give me that "am I gay?" quiz and genuinely crying at 3:00 AM because you're in a rabbit hole about LGBTQ+ rights in a country where you actually don’t want to be gay and you don’t even know if you “count” anyway. Show me that moment where you're going back and forth from forbidding yourself from seeing the one person that sees and understands you and it's to protect your mental and physical well-being but it's driving you insane. Give me ALL THE YOUNG ADULT BI+ AWAKENINGS where one person strolls into your life and changes everything. No, it’s really not the same as most cis-heterosexual insta-love movies out there, even if it looks that way to you. It doesn’t even cut it close.

The happy ending, the acceptance is only what I can dream of, not what I can expect. The wholesomeness is actually radical to me.

No, we’re not past the need for basic star-crossed queer romances. For most countries in the world (including for many white American teenagers!), we need them as much as ever.

[thefrogdalorian]

The Best of Both Worlds

Din Djarin x Female Reader Modern!AU

Summary: When a new Star Wars TV show called The Mandalorian premiered, you found yourself completely enamoured with the titular character. Enjoyment of watching the lone bounty hunter travel through the galaxy quickly turned to obsession. There was just something about the show that captured your imagination. Now, you spend much of your free time — when you're not working a fast-paced, minimum wage and incredibly stressful job at a prestigious London Museum— speaking to your online friends about your love for the show. There's just one thing... Despite how much you love The Mandalorian, no one knows the identity of the man behind the helmet... either in the show, or in real life. You only know him as Mando. No one has ever seen his face, no one knows his name.  Even after the countless hours of speculation from fans online, which even you have occasionally participated in, no one is any the wiser to the identity of the mysterious man who wears the shiny armour.  Surely, given the depth of your love for the show, you'd recognise if the man who you spend so much time obsessing over online was to ever cross paths with you. Right?

Content Warnings: Reader is AFAB, uses she/her pronouns and in her mid 20s. Age gap between her and Din is noted but not really central to the story. Grogu is human, hints of past trauma/child abuse before Din adopted him are mentioned but not described in detail. Some mature scenes later on in the fic but not explicit smut... because I just cannot write x reader smut! Author's Note: SO very excited to finally share this fic! Thank you to the lovely @suresnips for being my beta. I really appreciate you ♡ This baby was originally my NaNoWriMo 2023 project and was inspired by this post from @toxic-seduction that I saw one evening and couldn't stop thinking about! POVs will alternate chapter to chapter from Din to reader. It was fun to write that way! Set in London for a few reasons: partly because I love the movie Notting Hill and it has some of those vibes (if you squint), also, the village where Din lives is based on Elstree Studios just outside London, where the OT was filmed and ultimately because NO WAY was I writing a modern!AU set in the states, it would've been painfully obvious a Brit wrote it. While there are lots of references to places in London, I don't live there so it might not be truly accurate (Londoners don't come for me). Also, to be political for a sec, reader works at the British Museum and I hate that institution. This was actually the line of work I was interested in when I was at Uni but for many different reasons I did not pursue it. However, it works for the plot of this story and as you'll see, she doesn't exactly love it either and goes on a few rants. Just wanted to make that clear that her job there is not an endorsement of it or anything. I can't stand them or their historical apologist bs and I wish we would give back all the things we stole (including the Parthenon Marbles)! Finally, it was incredibly important to me that the actor behind Mando in this fic clearly be the fictional character of Din Djarin rather than the real person Pedro Pascal, because rpf is not my jam! I hope I did that pretty well but just wanted to warn that if you're expecting me to use Din as some kind of way to write a Pedro fic, this won't be for you! Okay, I'll shut up now! This fic is fully written, just needs editing so hopefully I'll get a couple of chapters up each week, but life happens. I'm very proud of this one and I really hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it! Also if you would like to be added to my taglist for this fic, please let me know! Happy reading ♡

❁ My Masterlist ❁ Read on AO3 ❁

Why Does It Always Rain On Me? [Reader POV]: After a dreadful day which saw you drenched by a rainstorm after leaving a hectic day at work, you reflect on your love for Mando and upcoming excitement for the sci-fi convention you will soon be attending with your internet best friend.

He Is My Only Priority [Din's Pov]: The character of The Mandalorian is known and loved by millions. But there is another, much softer side to the man who portrays him that Din Djarin is determined to keep hidden from the world, despite the challenges that presents for him and his beloved son, Grogu.

This Is Why (I Don't Leave The House) [Reader's POV]: Your internet bestie arrives in preparation for the Star Wars convention you will attend together. Everything is set for the greatest weekend of your life! Until you arrive at the con and find yourself overwhelmed by all the crowds and noise. At least you have numerous incredibly realistic Mando cosplays to distract you from how stressed you feel, and there's one in particular which is uncannily accurate...

Curiosity Killed The Cat [Din's POV]: Despite his reservations and against his better instincts, Din heads to a Star Wars convention that he was invited to. Although he fears that his cover will be blown, curiosity gets the best of Din and he can't resist attending a panel. But Din doesn't exactly find the answers he was looking for. Instead, he finds something far more precious. Something that he would never have expected...

He's So Tall (And Handsome As Hell) [Reader's POV]: Being back in the real world and returning to work after an incredible weekend at the convention where you had so many fun experiences is taking its toll on you. The thought of collapsing on your couch in front of The Mandalorian is the only thing keeping you going. However, the universe has other plans for you. News of an out-of-hours tour for a private client that you are asked to lead almost sends you over the edge, but when you finally meet the man, he is the opposite of what you were expecting. Weirdly, he seems familiar...

With A Little Help From My Friends [Din's POV]: Din returns to the set of The Mandalorian to begin filming a new season. Despite his experience and capability, he finds that he struggles to focus as his thoughts remain firmly fixed on a certain someone...

You're The Sunflower [Reader's POV]: Despite feeling certain that you'll never see the ridiculously handsome man you gave a tour of the museum to, a special delivery is about to change everything...

Your Face Hung Up High In The Gallery [Din's POV]: After a difficult few days of filming The Mandalorian, Din is excited to spend time with you as he finally takes you on your first proper date...

Have I Known You Twenty Seconds or Twenty Years? - (Reader's POV):  Despite a messy evening which led to you waking up in an opulent hotel which you have no memory of falling asleep in, memories of kind brown eyes and breathless kisses soon come flooding back to soothe your soul. Your relationship deepens as the two of you spending time together whenever your busy schedules allow. But one night, a turn of events causes you - despite Din's reassurances - to wonder if everything you have been working so hard to build together has just come crashing down around you...

There's A War Inside Of Me - [Din's POV]: The realities of the secret he is keeping from you begin to weigh heavily on Din's mind and he seeks advice from a certain curly haired co-star on what his next move should be. Things don't go exactly according to plan, not least because of the typically awful English weather...

It Could Be Love, We Could Be The Way Forward - [Reader's POV]: With your respective busy jobs keeping you and Din apart, a mystery date after a hectic day at work is exactly what you needed.

The Calm - [Din's POV]: When filming overruns and conspires to keep Din from the fun weekend he planned for you, he agonises over his decision. Fortunately, he manages to salvage the weekend, even after a calamity involving a rowboat...

P.S. - I tried to be inclusive for all body types and skin tones in this fic, but if I missed something, I do apologise. If you do spot something that takes you out of the fic, I am more than happy for constructive criticism as I wouldn't want anyone to be excluded on those grounds. I am always trying to do better and would love to know where I went wrong so I can improve and be more aware of these things going forward, so I would appreciate it if you could let me know if you do spot anything. Thank you so much! ♡

[filmnoirsbian]

Things read in May

Essays & Articles:

Ursula K. Le Guin on Being A Man

Investigating parents of transgender youth has agency on ‘brink of collapse,’ staff warns

Five Indigenous Speculative Fiction Authors You Should Be Reading

DECOLONIZING SCIENCE FICTION AND IMAGINING FUTURES: AN INDIGENOUS FUTURISMS ROUNDTABLE

Using Dogs As A Tool of Racial Oppression

Rings of Power: The new hobbits are filthy, hungry simpletons with stage-Irish accents. That’s $1bn well spent

First case of HIV cure in a woman after stem cell transplantation reported at CROI-2022

The Trees That Miss The Mammoths

NOPE’S SCIENCE CONSULTANT REVEALS THE NAME AND INSPIRATION FOR THE MOVIE’S ALIEN

Reflections on the Poetry of Eavan Boland

The dire state of trans healthcare in Ireland

How Letterkenny Got Indigenous Representation So Right

Einstein's Parable of Quantum Insanity

Surgical amputation of a limb 31,000 years ago in Borneo

Most Transgender Children Stick With Gender Identity 5 Years Later: Study

Were you a ‘parentified child’? What happens when children have to behave like adults

Fear of a Black Hobbit

It’s a ‘Full-Contact’ Haunted House. What Could Go Wrong?

The Craft: How a Teenage Weirdo Based on a Real Person Became an Icon

Remember When Multiplayer Gaming Needed Envelopes and Stamps?

‘We’ll Never Make That Kind of Movie Again’ An oral history of The Emperor’s New Groove, a raucous Disney animated film that almost never happened.

5 Incredible Sagas of Fandom Scams and Deception

I Used to Love British Period Dramas. Now I See Them as Colonial Propaganda

Why gender essentialism is a white supremacist ideology

Liberating Our Homes From the Real Estate–Industrial Complex

You Don’t Have To Be Pretty – On YA Fiction And Beauty As A Priority

Ten Years Later, There’s Still Nothing Like Tarsem Singh’s The Fall

Tolerance is not a moral precept

Scottish Poet and Publisher Derick Thomson 'Transformed' Gaelic Poetry

Poetry:

The Universe, as in One Last Song for the Lonely Hearts by Michelle Hulan

An Ordinary Evening in New Haven by Wallace Stevens

Heaven by George Herbert

Return from Death by Derick Thomson

Coffins by Derick Thomson

Chemin De Fer by Elizabeth Bishop

Yes, It Was The Mountain Echo by William Wordsworth

The Man and the Echo by William Butler Yeats

The Most of It by Robert Frost

Eros Turannos by Edwin Arlington Robinson

Books:

The Dark Yule by R. M. Callahan

The Invasion by K. A. Applegate

The Whisper by Aaron Starmer

House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski

Miss Iceland by Auður Ava Ólafsdóttir

[avelera]

I’ve been enjoying the Wondrium course, “The Birth of the Modern Mind: The Intellectual History of the 17th and 18th Century” much more than I expected to (based on the title). It certainly helps that the lecturer is extremely passionate about the subject. He also has a thick Jersey accent which makes it feel a bit like being lectured to by Danny DeVito.

But what really enraptured me about the course was its focus on how historical peoples thought differently than us, through the lens of how ideas we take for granted today were first introduced.

For example, one might think it obvious that, ideally, the pursuit of philosophy (as in literally “the love of knowledge”) and intellectual pursuits should be with the overarching goal of bettering the world. But that wasn’t a given, necessarily, before Francis Bacon who pioneered and championed this idea. His views became central to the later established British Royal Society, which formed a backbone of intellectual pursuits in England to this day, and likely plays a large part in just why this philosophy is deemed central to the sciences to the point of being self evident (at least, again, as an ideal).

Now, the reason I’m interested in this beyond basic curiosity is that I write historical and fantasy fiction. One goal I have when writing other times and places (real or imagined) is to capture or at least suggest and invoke a different thought process from our own. So this course is very useful in understanding how early modern people (in Europe) thought but also by extension how to create other, fictional ways to depict a different thought process. One of my favorite quotes already from this course, paraphrased, is that if we were sent back in time to a totally foreign, perhaps ancient era, we’d probably grasp pretty quickly what the rules for survival are. Like, how to make a living. Or how to not piss off the powers that be.

However, why everyone is doing what they do, how they think about the world, what basic assumptions they take to be self-evident and immutable, might be harder to grasp. For example, why do they simply accept the divine right of kings? Or that a deity makes the sun rise and set? Because they just do. That might be quite hard for a modern person to reckon with or accept.

(This particular question is quite close to my heart because I once disagreed with my Classics advisor about whether we’d get along with Bronze Age people if we ever got the chance to meet them. My advisor stated that ancient people would be utterly alien to us. Perhaps all she and I really had was a failure to communicate nuance, but I was baffled and outraged by the notion. Ape mothers with their babies have been able to recognize and on a basic level, identify and communicate with human mothers holding their babies sympathetically. Both understand they were mothers with babies and bonded over this. You’re telling me that I, as a fellow homo sapien, couldn’t communicate and understand a fellow homo sapien from a mere 3,000 years ago?? However, if the nuance instead was, “You could figure out quickly how to work within their society but you’d struggle with the rationale of the why of their society, it would be utterly alien to you.” That I would much more readily accept.)

Anyway, I highly recommend this course, especially for fiction writers who want to capture and understand that the way we think has evolved (speaking for the predominantly “Western” Anglosphere) and by extension, how to understand and portray other more archaic forms of thinking.

[cartograffiti]

An intro to the historical Zheng Yi Sao

Ruibo Qian's character in Our Flag Means Death is based on a real person, though like all its real pirates, she is a loose interpretation. In particular, the real Zheng Yi Sao wasn't born until 57 years after the real Blackbeard died!

In real life, she lived from 1775 to 1844. She was known by a variety of names; her birth name is usually given as Shi Yang. Zheng Yi Sao is the name most often used, which literally means "the wife of Zheng Yi" (more on him later), and you may also see variations like Ching Shih or Madam Cheng, depending on transliteration. Calling her Zheng, as Oluwande does, is good, or ZYS in fandom chat, but if fic writers crave a more personal connotation for a scene, Yang is a good choice for a given name consistent with the real woman. It's like the difference between Mr. Buttons and Nathaniel.

She was born in the Guangdong province, and many bios of her claim she worked on one of the boat brothels there, but this is speculation only.

When she married Zheng Yi, he was a successful member of a pirating dynasty, working as a privateer for emperors of Vietnam. The couple collaborated to unite six different pirate fleets operating off the Guangdong coast into a confederation, sealed with an agreement signed by the captains of each. Zheng Yi was informally recognized as the overall leader of the confederation until his death in a storm two years after the signing.

Zheng Yi Sao had the respect of other key figures in the alliance, and her smooth assumption of leadership was followed by a period of huge success and expansion for the pirate confederation, driving the Chinese government to desperation. This is where her reputation as a pirate "queen" comes from in real life, though I'm excited to see where the show goes with her fictional conquest of China!

In 1810, Zheng Yi Sao recognized that the confederation faced internal fractures and additional opposition, as Portuguese and British military forces allied with Chinese ships, so she led the confederation to bow out on a high, and use their immense power to bargain for a peaceful retirement, surrendering ships and weapons for pardons, supplies, and money. Although it's fictional that her crew was predominantly women, when Zheng Yi Sao surrendered, she did so accompanied by a delegation wholly composed of women and children who belonged to the confederation. At that time, the confederation consisted of 226 ships, 24 of which personally reported to Zheng Yi Sao.

If you're doing the math, she was only in her mid-thirties, and was far from done with life. She remarried, to one of her former captains, Zhang Bao, and accompanied him to the Penghu Islands, where he commanded a garrison. After his death, she returned to Guangdong and had another career of twenty-odd years, becoming the owner of a casino until her death at age 68 or 69 (nice).

She was one of the most successful pirates in history, both because of her power and her ability to survive it. I think she's neat as hell, and so have a lot of fiction writers! You might have encountered versions of her, or characters inspired by her, before, in things like Pirates of the Caribbean, the Bloody Jack novels, Assassin's Creed, and Doctor Who. It's fun to see a form of her in this! We can expect her arc to progress differently, but I hope having some context will help.

The most helpful things to note for the rest of the season for ofmd fans will be that Zheng is her surname, she wasn't really a contemporary of the other historical figures, and that her connection to sex work should not be treated as a fact, whether you want to include it in this fictional interpretation or not.

[andrromedaaa]

THE REAL MISCHARACTERIZATION OF HOBIE BROWN FROM ATSV

I wanted to say it for a pretty long time and give my statement in it. Hobie is fun character for sure and he’s fictional, you can interpret him as much as you want BUT we need to discuss about something.

And it’s about him being an European teenager in late 70s. I know how it sounds but mentality of European person is different due to the things around them. Y’know, British person would say biscuit instead of cookie or film instead of movie. British person would react in different way at some situations than American. Let’s just see what was going on in Europe back in the 70s. There was a communist bloc — Warsaw Pact — USSR; or let’s just say communism.

I don’t understand why you think Hobie would be a communist WHEN there were countries near him literally struggling because of it. There is a difference between being a punk and anarcho-punk. Yeah I know he has anarchist symbol on his vest but there is many factions of it. And I also know that in his universe, in UK, there is capitalist totalitarianism, so for sure his anarchism stands for overthrow government in revolutionary ways.

So wouldn’t it be a good lesson for all Europeans? That radical capitalism and socialism is bad? And from both, people were literally dying? If you really want to understand Hobie’s character from atsv at some point, you need to know some European history. Communism was killing people in Europe and y’all think Hobie, kid from this continent, would be blind at something that is going on near him? People were shocked because the torture that Winston Smith from ‘1984’ experienced was happening in soviet bloc, literally in real life, not only in the book.

First wave of punks that was in 70s, and punks were huge individuals back then. It was difficult to synthetically present their views. In general, punks, whose initial premise was the absence of any ideology, evolved over time into a socio-political movement directed against institutions that (as members of the movement believed) limit human freedom and independence. It would make sense in Hobie’s universe since he is also from the country with corrupted government.

I am European myself. I live in Poland, post communist country, so it was destroyed by communism and it is still struggling at some point because of that sad part of history. I hate hearing that Hobie would be a communist, knowing that he lives at the times where there was USSR. Y’all need to learn about punk subculture in UK more and history. Sorry, not sorry.

[canmom]

reading Brainwyrms by Alison Rumfitt. it's interesting. clearly part of the post-Topside wave of trans lit, with the same 'plugged in to twitter' energy, but way more British about it. which means most of the allusions are very transparent to me. it's a combo of... hardcore kink driven romance as the main arc, in a near-future setting in which TERFism goes further to the point of outright bombings, and a scifi element with alien brain parasites that it's gradually building towards.

compellingly written, I'll give it that for sure - I lay down to read for a bit and before I knew it I'd read like a third of the book. the main character's disaffected, traumatised air is well observed, and the kink doesn't hold back.

I think my reservation with it so far is that it feels a little too much like a polemic blog post about the way things are going. the MC Frankie is a trans woman with a pregnancy kink who survived a bombing at a GIC and now works in social media moderation - it's all stuff that is blatantly Relevant To The Argument, as it were. it's tricky to criticise it for that because it's like, what you're saying is that it's tightly constructed and thematically consistent and that's bad somehow? but I think I've come to feel that I like fiction to bring me something a little new and unfamiliar.

the chapter I most enjoyed so far was actually a more metaphorical, abstract interlude, in which resistance to fascism is cast as becoming 'one mass of queer flesh, which now grabbed and clawed...'; 'faces locked in kisses until they became one face. the cops would try to pull at this mass, but to no avail'. very 'faggots and their friends between revolutions' stuff.

the chapters which are presented directly as social media posts and articles are also sharply observed. i think a lot of fiction in which the internet features heavily suffers from not understanding the internet very well (Hosoda's Belle for example), but for example the chapter 'Curious Cat' where an anonymous person (blatantly Vanya) is sending messages asking for help with a parasite, and getting rebuffed or misunderstood, and the chapter where Frankie relates a murder of an instagram model by a stalker who posts about it to a reddit community devoted to her, read as very real.

a lot of the story is about responding to a terrifying political situation in sexual terms - a flashback chapter depicting Frankie having sex with some terf's pretentious brother ("with each thrust from him, she thought to herself, I am a traitor, I am a traitor to the cause"), or the preface which jokes about how in another world the author would be writing 'cool horror stories about vampires raping werewolves, ones with no subtext at all'. I prevaricate a little on whether this is a compelling examination of a theme that I do find interesting (the mysterious origins of sexual desire) or just edgy for its own sake.

this is an odd novel for me in some ways because while on one level, this is about people who I could very easily be a single degree of separation from were they real, it's also about a facet of life that is still quite alien to me and in many ways I only know about second hand. I've never been to a kink club (that wasn't in an MMO anyway lol), I'm way too much of a nerdy autist shut-in to know what it's like to be someone who would feel put out if she hadn't had sex in a week. so even before the parasite stuff, it's hard to know how much of Frankie and Vanya's stuff is real, and how much is fantasy. is this really how things go between people? it sounds kinda fun, but unlocking the door this far has already taken years.

when I've read books about the crazy lives that American trans girls supposedly live and interesting sex they're apparently having, they've been at a certain remove, the other side of the Atlantic. and this book feels sort of similar, even though I know it's set right on my doorstep. idk, I've never been good at this.

anyway I don't think I want to write fantasy novels so directly about The Discourse of the day, but it's probably good that someone is. that said, it's hard to parse like... ok, it's titled brainwyrms, and 'brain worms' is a common way of describing an obsessive, cultish idea you receive from the internet.

and like if you look at the newspapers, or twitter trans discourse, you certainly could believe that this country is on a rapid slide to putting us in camps. however, my day to day life has been... it's not without hostility, but the average street harasser isn't doing it because of a Guardian or even Mail article. this country has a subculture of deranged weirdos who hate our guts, and a political class who will happily stoke culture war shit to score points, but most normies I've met don't care one way or another that I'm trans - they might mention a family member or friend they know who's also trans. the day to day conflicts are over way more prosaic shit, the landlord vs tenant forever war, or how the kitchen should be cleaned. which of these windows is more informative of the 'overall' state of affairs? not that a more violent terf cult is a bad premise to write a novel around, but a sense of impending doom is a pretty powerful mechanism to keep you scrolling, right?

like in 20, 40 years - will the terfs really be bombing the Tavistock and banning transness, as Rumfitt imagines in her near-future setting preface? or will they go the way of those newspapers in Thatcher's time who smeared the gay movement, just as they smear us today? of passing political obsessions like 'new atheism'? I don't know the half-life of cult shit.

anyway, time to read the rest of the novel, and see how it handles this brew that it's concocted.

[yeah-thats-probably-it]

Behold, the thing I said I was going to do! (x) Nobody asked me to, but I did it anyway. Huzzah

If you don't want to share your actual first initial, you can use a nickname or fictional character instead.

I really tried hard to make these sound as plausible as possible per the way Wodehouse usually names things, so I put an explanation of all my thought processes under the cut.

Also, many of the color category placements are based on speculation and best guesses. If you think you could make a case for the color you're wearing being in another category, you can go ahead and put it there. Category justifications and list of canon references also under the cut.

*EDIT: Some new information regarding the way Drone nicknames work has been brought to my attention. I'm appending the following instructions to the nickname section: if you can think of a food pun based off the name you chose, do so, the stupider the better

First names: This is pretty simple, there aren't that many posh British first names. They mostly reuse the same 15 or so over and over. I used this list (x) of canon Drones as my reference to work off of for all names.

Surnames: All of these are either real British surnames (found mostly here) or real British town names (found mostly here). From Googling, this appears to be how Wodehouse created most of his characters' surnames. I generally tried to avoid names that have already been used, with the exception of Phipps, because Plum really seemed to like that one.

When it comes to place names, he tends to be more liberal about making up generically British-sounding shit or swapping out the suffixes of real places. For example, there's a real town called Steeple Bumpstead, but Steeple Bumpleigh is completely fictional. So I believe my instruction above to mash two names together still squares with the Wodehouse school of naming things, Your Honor.

Nicknames: Did you know that it's REALLY hard to come up with random combinations of sounds that a) are funny, b) sound like plausible nicknames, and c) aren't too similar to funny sound combinations that Wodehouse has already used? Because I do now

Most of the Drones just have regular nicknames based on a syllable of their first or last name (Corky, Freddie, Algy, etc.). Rules of hockey nicknames seem to apply. This left me with a fairly small pool of non-name-based nicknames to use as examples. Other categories of nickname include "personal characteristics" (Barmy, Ginger), "random syllable followed by y" (Tuppy, Biffy, Oofy), "random syllables shoved together" (Boko), "food joke or pun" (Stilton, Biscuit), and "random thing" (Bingo). I tried to include nicknames from all of these.*

I first assumed "Catsmeat" was just a random compound word, which is where Fishbowl and Mousetrap came from. On further searching I found out that his middle name is Cattermole, putting him more between the "based on real name" and "smushing random syllables" schools of thought. I kept them in partly because I thought they were funny and also because I can easily hear Bertie in my head telling Jeeves all about his old pal Mousetrap's romantic troubles. I imagine there are good stories behind them.

Colors: As stated above, placements are based on memory, conjecture, and cursory searches of the text. Some are pretty easy; Jeeves likes neutral tones. Some seem more context-based or depend on the specific shade. Pajamas seem to follow looser rules for acceptable colors, so I didn't count them.

Clothing items Jeeves has approved: shirts in light blue, mauve, and "dove colored"; brown or blue suit; tie with blue and red domino pattern; brown lounge with faint green twill (The Aunt and the Sluggard); blue suit with thin red stripe (Jeeves and the Chump Cyril)

Clothing items Jeeves has NOT approved: Blue suit with thin red stripe, confusingly; green tie that gives Bertie a bilious air (The Aunt and the Sluggard); "cheerful" pink tie (Jeeves and the Unbidden Guest); purple socks (Jeeves and the Chump Cyril); scarlet cummerbund that Bertie tries to justify by telling Jeeves he saw someone wearing a yellow velvet suit downstairs (Aunt Agatha Makes a Bloomer (Jeeves wasn't swayed)); white mess jacket (Right Ho, Jeeves, but I don't think it was on the basis of color)

Jeeves seems to endorse blue and red on some occasions but not others, according to mysterious Jeeves rules. Conspicuous bright red clothing is obviously verboten (see: cummerbund).

There's little data available on green. He approved it once in the form of an accent color, but vetoed a green tie on another occasion. Might be shade-dependent or only acceptable in small amounts.

Lavender gloves and spats tend to show up when a character is dressed in formal wear. I take this to mean that it's a normal color for such, but possibly not for casual wear.

I couldn't find anything on orange, so I made a guess. I think it's a good guess.

I could only find one instance of Bertie wearing yellow: in "Jeeves in the Springtime" he tells Jeeves to bring his "yellowest shoes" and "the old green Homburg." Jeeves doesn't voice any objection in the text, but there's no way in hell Bertie got away with this.

The only thing I can find on pink (excluding pajamas) is the "cheerful" pink tie mentioned above. I decided to err on the side of conservatism and assume that all pink is a no-go, but it's possible Jeeves would be less hostile toward a lighter shade.

For expediency (ha) and because the clothing power struggles become less frequent as the series progresses, I mostly limited my color search to the short stories.

I cannot just casually make a fun little meme. It has to consume my life and turn into an entire research project.

And there you have it! Like share and subscribe, ring that bell (ha) etc. etc.

*EDIT: Some new information regarding the way Drone nicknames work has been brought to my attention. While I still mostly stand by reasoning behind the nicknames, albeit a little more tentatively, I apologize to Catsmeat, Oofy, Biffy, Pongo, and Bingo for misclassifying the origins of their nicknames. The former is actually a food pun based on a real name, while the latter four describe characteristics.

Yeah, that's right, my memes have footnotes within footnotes

[wrishwrosh]

re: tags on labor in historical fiction post, would be very interested to hear what the four examples you mentioned are!!

ok u know what that tag WAS bait, thank you for taking it. technically speaking these aren't works dealing strictly with labor in historical fiction, they are my four treasured examples of BUREAUCRAT FICTION (so not NOT about labor in history?) i was gonna try to make this post pithy and short but then i remembered how extremely passionate i am about this microgenre i made up. so sorry.

bureaucrat fiction is not limited by genre or format but criteria for inclusion are as follows: long and detour-filled story about functionary on the outside of society finding unexpected success within a ponderously large and powerful System/exploring themes of class and physicality and work and autonomy and what it means to hold power over others beneath the heartless crushing wheels of empire/sad little man does paperwork. also typically long as hell. should include at least one scene where the protagonist is unironically applauded-perhaps for the first time in their life-for filling out a form really good. without further ado:

soldier's heart by alex51324. the bureaucracy: british army medical corps during wwi. the bureacrat: mean gay footman/new ramc recruit thomas barrow. YEAH it's a downton abbey fic YEAH it's a masterpiece. i've talked about it before at length, my love has not faded. the crowning moment of bureaucracy is a long interlude where thomas optimizes the hospital laundry (this actually happens twice or maybe three times)

hands of the emperor by victoria goddard. the bureaucracy: crumbling fantasy empire some time after magical apocalypse. the bureacrat: passionate late-career clerk from the hinterlands cliopher mdang. i reread this book every winter bc it is as a warm bath for my SAD-addled brain and every time i neglect all my responsibilities to read all nine billion pages in three days. it puts abt 93% of the worldbuilding momentum into elaborating all of the ministries and secretaries and audits necessary to run a global government and like 7% into the magic and stuff. there are also several charming companion novellas and an equally long sequel that dives more into the central relationship between cliopher and the emperor which i highly recommend if you like gentle old man yaoi and/or magic, but there's more bureaucracy in HOTE.

the cromwell trilogy by hilary mantel. the bureaucracy: court of henry viii. the bureaucrat: thomas cromwell, the real guy. curveball! it's critically acclaimed booker prize winning rpf novel wolf hall! mantel is really interested in particular ways of gaining and maintaining power in delicate and labyrinthine systems like the tudor court, specifically in strongmen who use both physical intimidation and metaphysical manipulation to succeed. under these conditions i do think my best friend long-dead historical personage thomas cromwell counts as Bureaucrat Fiction (as do danton and robespierre in a place of greater safety. bonus rec.)

going postal by terry pratchett. the bureaucracy: fantasy postal service of ankh-morpork. the bureaucrat: conman, scammer, and little freak moist von lipwig. this is definitely shorter and lighter than the other three entries on the list, sort of a screwball take on the bureaucrat. but the mail is such a classic bureaucracy thing? who doesn't love thinking about the mail? also contains a key genre element which is a fraught sexual tension with the person immediately above the protagonist in their hierarchy, who is also their god-king and boyfriend-dad. you can't tell me vetinari isn't torturing moist psychologically AND sexually.

anyway sorry about all this. if you've read any of these come talk to me about them. bureaucrat fiction recs welcomed with the openest possible arms.

[leohtttbriar]

Someone brought an overhated character poll to my dash about Kai Winn and im literally so sad about the responses. I knew there were people who hated her but it's really baffling to me how maybe 10 people tops acknowledge her past and the reasonings behind her choices, they just see a space Karen.

oh dude, i'm sorry that sucks. and "sad" really is a simple but fairly complete word when it comes to the character of winn adami, huh.

like. i think a lot about how she's the most normal-looking woman on the show. she is also, simply, normal. she is faithful and political and appears and acts in ways far more familiar to us than most characters. even the fact of her alien-faith hardly serves to alienate, given that she is faithful in the way we might be--without true expectation of ever meeting the divine in this life. while kira can seem more like a fictional character when she speaks of the prophets, due to her proximity to them, winn sounds like the person accosting you on a street corner to talk about the rapture.

that's the thing, though, isn't it. about the "karen" phenomenon in general. there is nothing uniquely bad about middle-aged white women--nothing that makes them uniquely ungovernable in social spheres in ways men aren't. in ways everyone isn't, in some way. (merely anecdotal evidence, but my own experience in the service industry made me far more wary of men in their 30s wearing patagonia vests over dress-shirts). winn adami is a normal sort of frustration to people. one they encounter in the day-to-day. the political conservative who stands outside of planned parenthood and tells girls not to throw away their everlasting souls. the pentecostal women speaking gibberish in church, gesturing to the heavens with their out-of-fashion french manicures, who brought a tater-tot hot dish with extra kraft cheese to the pot luck. the women with cross-walls. with like. so many crosses. the women with leathery tans on the aging skin of their arms and neck. the women who quietly walk into voting booths around the world and choose "safety" over anything else, whether or not that "safety" is real.

at least. that's who people think winn is. setting aside the fact that most people don't truly know the kinds of women listed above, that it's unlikely they've spared a single ounce of pity for women like that ever in their entire lives, winn is not exactly pitiable in this way. she is awash in power. she is intelligent. she thinks. she would stand in a voting booth and choose "safety" (whether or not it's real) but she's not the lady wearing a t-shirt that says trump could grab her pussy if he wanted. she's not one of the many blonde women on fox news. she's not even sandra day o'connor or any other female conservative intellectual. because she's a metaphor.

we don't know her real-world politics because she's a fictional character in a fictional universe leading a fictional world. we know she's a conservative because fights very very hard to maintain the status quo regarding her bajoran religion and its teachings. but we don't know how any of that can be truly allegorized to conservative policies in the real-world. the main tension being: conservatives in the real-world base a lot of truly evil policy on a made-up divine figure interpreted through thousands of made-up hermeneutics and it is materially all Not Real. in ds9, the prophets are actual beings who affect reality. winn's said and done things on the show that sound like something an annoying woman with a turquoise-cross around her neck would say at a utah city council meeting about creationism and "inappropriate books." she also says things that a woman would say at a protest against the racist and paternalistic policies of the british museum. all we know of her as a political figure is that she is conservative. and like, power-hungry and desperate, but those aren't essentially related. she wants to conserve. and that encompasses more than one thing.

which means that people, when they see her, simply aren't thinking. they react to a woman who looks as she does. who speaks like a politician. who makes decisions that are unfair. but, exactly as you said, the show grounds her. they give her a past. they richly flesh out so much about her. they have her acting too rationally sometimes for someone of her professed faith. they have her acting completely irrational as her gods reject her again and again. all while she clings to them with a faith that endured actual torture at the hands of violent imperialists who yet attack her planet and yet attack her and yet she has to speak with as the leader of bajor.

and it's hard to see (beyond the obvious) why this character receives so much vitriol when you have characters like garak and dukat and kira who all are considered charming and beloved in some way or another, while still being as complex as they are. (and i don't even think dukat is all that complex.) even sisko has some moments that, if i lived in his world, i would be somewhat repulsed by--like when jake begs him to let the prophets go and sisko embraces the cosmic over the request of his son. (again: the prophets are real though, so my "repulsion" is more a reaction against people i see as priests, who i find in the real world, as a rule, awful.)

so. it's definitely sad. because the level and kind of hate bestowed upon this character really does seem to be a symptom of a much larger issue: of course, misogyny.

also that people don't tend to think.

[fleshadept]

Reported. I also hate JKR but telling folk to kts? Bro, don’t harass people for enjoying fiction you might not agree with because I don’t know about you but I personally think that sending real life, actual, people death threats and harassing them will always be way worse than any fictional stories one might be able to consume.

fiction that i “might not agree with” lol. okay

the people willing to purchase that game after jkr has spent the past Several Fucking Years trying to and being largely successful in convincing the british public and beyond that people like me are degenerate, mentally ill, predatory, pedophilic monsters are people i’m perfectly fine telling to kill themselves. tee bee aych. funneling money into her bank account because these people are sentimental about a shitty, racist, antisemitic, blairite kid’s book series that will then be used against scottish independence and to directly harm trans people is ummmm not ok to me! it’s not fucking fiction anymore is it