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#and its MEANT to be fully literal but since it functions on a metaphoric level as well the idea is adjusted
specterchasing-a · 3 years
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Hold On (Part 2) || Eddie & Alfie
TIMING: One month ago, directly after part one.
LOCATION: En route to the woods.
PARTIES: @yikesimonfire​ & @specterchasing​
SUMMARY: Alfie and Eddie have a heart-to-heart in the car.
CONTENT: Internalized homophobia tw
Eddie mindfully secured his filming equipment in the trunk of Alfie’s odiously yellow station wagon. As he took a step back to close the hatch, an idea occurred to him. He hastily ducked back into the trunk and unzipped his bag to pilfer for his camera. Now satisfied, Eddie slammed the door shut and walked briskly to the car’s passenger-side. The moment he settled into his seat, a pronounced frown settled into his features.
“When are you gonna get your AC fixed?” Eddie implored, his gaze settling on his chaperone. “Every time I get in this car, it feels like the air’s been replaced by uncomfortably warm dog breath.” He refrained from adding that it smelled like it as well. Alfie didn’t need to be subjected to verbal beration of that magnitude after agreeing to accompany him tonight.
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While Eddie packed his gear into the back, Alfie hopped into the driver’s seat, helplessly turning the ignition repeatedly until the engine sputtered to life. Immediately, he was hit with a blast of cold air before the air conditioning unit forgot how to work. The ration of cool air was quickly replaced with a suffocatingly stale breeze. Alfie stretched over to unlock the passenger door and cranked the window open before rolling his own window down to allow a more comfortable airflow. Soon enough, Eddie was in the seat beside him.
A laugh reverberated in his chest at Eddie’s comment. “What do you mean?” Alfie asked, emphatically waving his hand at the dashboard. “It’s doing its best. Besides, parts are hard to come by.” That’s what he got for being cheap. What he needed was a new car altogether, but that wasn’t happening any time soon. The wagon got him from point A to B; that would have to be enough. It wasn’t like he needed a functioning air conditioner anyway, not that Eddie was privy as to why. “We can always take yours,” he offered with a small smirk.
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“I hate to break it to you, but its best doesn’t cut it. It needs to do another car’s best,” Eddie riffed while opening the viewer on his camera. With the press of a button, it became a diligent archivist of its owner’s per view. Without warning, Eddie lifted the device to eye-level and pointed it in Alfie’s direction. He knew well and good his friend didn’t enjoy being in the crosshairs of his filming, but that never stopped him in the past. Why would it deter him now?
“Trust me, I would love to take the Mini, but it’s… well, mini, and you know that. As quirky as your car is, it has better storage options.” Eddie’s voice lacked interest—he found himself too caught-up in recording to have any to spare. “You have a nice profile, have I said that before?” he asked, slipping further into his seat as he rested his feet on the dashboard. Meanwhile, his eyes (and camera) remained fixated on Alfie.
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“Yeah, I don’t think that’s gonna happen,” Alfie chuckled as he shifted the car into reverse and eased out of his parking space. With his eyes now fixed on the path ahead, Alfie didn’t notice the camera focused on him. “You really should have considered that when you bought it. What would you do if I ever wasn’t around to lend my cargo space?”
The compliment that soon fell from Eddie’s lips made Alfie’s brow raise. His eyes flickered to look at Eddie, only to find that he was being filmed. “Wha— Christ’s sake, Eddie, would you turn that thing off?” A fire rose in his cheeks, coloring them a vibrant red. He quickly turned his head away, but was unable to avoid the camera’s watching eye. Damn it. He hated being recorded; Eddie knew that. “Or, I’unno… turn it somewhere else, at least?”
As the car reached the edge of the parking lot, Alfie applied the brakes and looked back at Eddie, the blush still prominent on his face. “And buckle,” he scolded — albeit playfully — with raised eyebrows. “Seriously, are you trying to get yourself killed?”
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“Die, probably,” Eddie deadpanned. If he were to make an effort, his car could likely hold whatever necessities he needed it to. Alfie probably knew that, too. However, if he went that route, he wouldn’t be able to spend his time being a nuisance in the passenger’s seat. He much preferred reclining and filming to focusing on the road. A miracle happened the day he got his license, that much was certain.
Alfie’s reaction to being caught on candid camera inspired an impish grin from Eddie. He noticed the change of color in his cheeks—so did his heart, actually. It drummed desperately within his chest, as if also begging Eddie to rethink staring at Alfie for so long. Unfortunately, he rarely listened to what either of them had to say. “I can’t believe you hate art so much that you’d deprive me of my muse,” he said.
Eddie rolled his eyes, also playfully, when Alfie scolded him. “Not today,” he answered before he quickly switched his camera off and buckled in like he was told.
Deprived of his main source of entertainment, Eddie resorted to turning on the radio. Like everything else in Alfie’s car, the display refused to work properly. What should have been words and numbers looked more like hieroglyphs. Eddie briefly toggled through stations before a familiar tune (‘Hold On’ by Wilson Phillips) caused him to turn the radio off with evident disdain. 
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A strange sensation tugged behind Alfie's navel at the suggestion that Eddie would die without him. It wasn't true, of course. With any luck, Eddie would go on fine without him; he had to. Still, the thought made him feel… guilty? Alfie's time in this life was growing increasingly limited. He couldn't afford to think about it now. It would only make the time he did have left with Eddie less worthwhile, for fear of causing him any grief. 
"Your muse?" Alfie nearly cooed. "Please—" his voice cracked. "I have complete faith that you'll find something better." Once again unable to make eye-contact with Eddie today, Alfie shook his head with a breathy chuckle and rolled his eyes. His attention was back on the road and as the seat belt beside him clicked into place, assuring Eddie's safety, Alfie merged onto the street to begin their journey.
It didn't take long for Eddie to begin fidgeting. He knew well enough by now that finding a suitable radio station in the station wagon was unlikely. Alfie wouldn't complain about the music as long as it kept the camera off him. But when Eddie abruptly cut the radio off, he successfully piqued Alfie's curiosity. 
"What was that about?" he asked, an impish grin tugging at the corners of his mouth, and his eyes darting between Eddie and the road. "You trying to tell me you hate Wilson Phillips or something? And you were just getting onto me about hating art," Alfie teased.
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Alfie’s insistence that Eddie would eventually move on to something better almost made him laugh. For years, his thoughts revolved around his reclusive neighbor and not much else. Alfie and Youtube; that’s what filled his days since he moved downtown. “No, I won’t,” he gently corrected him. “Besides, I don’t want to.” It didn’t worry him to voice his genuine fondness for Alfie, not when they had years of friendship behind them. At this point, it would’ve been more alarming if he didn’t love the guy enough to negate his self-deprecation.
“Wilson Phillips is not art.” Eddie emphatically pointed a finger at Alfie. “Not that song, at least. ‘Hold On’ is trite and cheap. And, all it does is make me think about the time I spent in group therapy as a teenager when our counselor insisted on performing an acoustic version at the end of every single session. Every session, Alfie,” he looked at his chauffeur with bewildered eyes. “She even made eye contact with us while she sang—who does that? I never felt like I could look away, not when she was tearfully pleading with me to break free from the chains. It was torture. Wilson Phillips is torture, not art.”
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Alfie didn't want to argue about how quickly Eddie would (or wouldn't) move on. No matter how much Eddie didn't want to, there would come a point that he would have no other option. Besides, Alfie playing the part of Eddie's muse was clearly a joke. Or, perhaps more accurately, a metaphor for their friendship. All that mattered was Eddie had not meant it in a literal sense. So why had he allowed himself to become so flustered over it?
"Bullshit!" squawked Alfie, who was now fully prepared to enlighten Eddie about his previous love affair with the early 90s pop scene. Before he had a chance to share however, Eddie shared his own history with the song. Alfie's jaw slackened and he shot Eddie an incredulous look. "Every session?" he parroted in disbelief. His face scrunched as he imagined what kind of hellscape that must have been. Being forced to listen to acoustic covers was bad enough, but on top of awkward eye-contact? 
"Okay, yeah… no. I see your point," Alfie softly spoke after a moment. "Who in their right mind thought she was still fit to be a counselor after the first time that happened, anyway? Like — I'unno, you'd think someone would've had to question her capability or whatever at that point." 
"Still," he continued after making a point to showcase his disapproval with a series of disdainful facial expressions. "I stand by what I said. I think there's something beautiful in wanting to turn around and say goodbye — much like how you must have felt after being subjected to that special brand of hell."
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Eddie adopted a tight-lipped grin when Alfie conceded. “Every session,” he confirmed. Looking back, he couldn’t remember liking anything about group therapy. Owning up to his issues should’ve never been something that required an audience. As extroverted as Eddie could be, he kept his cards close to his chest when it came to his emotions. Alfie knew him better than anyone else and even he didn’t get the whole truth half the time.
Eddie let out a terse laugh at Alfie’s final comment. “Real cute,” he snarked playfully before his expression became more serious. “It didn’t help that I hated therapy in general. Not only did it well and truly suck to talk about my feelings, but the only reason my parents even made me go was the whole… ghost-vision deal.” Eddie emphasized his annoyance by accompanying the tail-end of his sentence with a flippant flap of his hand. “Funny, that they pegged the one thing that made me happy as the problem.” His brow raised as he pursed his lips.
“But, uh, wow—sorry about the impromptu sharetime,” Eddie said when shame began to collect in chest. “Don’t mind me complaining about therapy while simultaneously making you my therapist.” He hoped levity would be the cure for oversharing.
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Alfie’s face lit up at Eddie’s initial response. “I’m the cutest, obviously,” he chided with a lopsided grin. He couldn’t recall any previous conversations about Eddie’s group therapy, but he was well aware of his friend’s relationship to his parents. Maybe he had mentioned it before; it was truly a testament to how solid Alfie’s active listening skills were. “Fuck your parents!” his voice trilled. “Seriously — when have they ever cared about your happiness?” His commiseration was probably unnecessary; Eddie didn’t need another reminder that his family were awful. “Sorry… too far,” he added with a small frown. 
With a clear road ahead, Alfie lifted a hand from the steering wheel and maneuvered it around to rest on Eddie’s shoulder. “Hey, man, don’t sweat it — really. I will gladly take an impromptu sharetime over an awkwardly silent drive to our inevitable doom.” His gaze shifted to Eddie as he gave him an apologetic smile, allowing his hand to linger a bit longer than was probably acceptable. “Besides,” Alfie added, gently squeezing Eddie’s shoulder before returning his hand to the wheel, “that’s what friends are for, right?” 
It wasn’t often that Alfie referred to them as “friends”. The word was scattered few and far between, but that didn’t make it any less true. “From now on, that song is banned. We don’t talk about it. We don’t listen to it. It’s purged from our lives. What song? Wilson Phillips, who? Never heard of ‘em!” Alfie tilted his head in Eddie’s direction and peered at him expectantly, waiting for some sort of positive reaction to ensure he’d sufficed at making his friend feel better. 
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Eddie glanced at Alfie in surprised amusement after his initial outburst. “You’re right and you should say it,” he encouraged in a light-hearted tone that didn’t fit the topic. If he didn’t try to lessen the weight of the conversation, he might have to admit to how much it hurt to discuss. He couldn’t risk letting Alfie know the extent of his damage. 
When Alfie’s hand landed on his shoulder, Eddie felt a lump form in his throat. Usually, he initiated whatever physical contact they shared. He didn’t know how to react to being on the receiving end. Alfie’s mention of ‘inevitable doom’ managed to ease his uncertainty. Eddie replied with a soft huff of laughter, his eyes shining with fondness.
Soon enough, Alfie deprived Eddie of his hand, but didn’t give him much time to be upset about it. He called them friends. “Oh, is that what we are?” Eddie asked with a teasing grin. “Could’ve sworn our relationship was more like whatever Bugs and Elmer had going on.” His expression softened, though his grin remained throughout Alfie’s condemnation of Wilson Phillips.
“You’re…. You’re a really good guy, Alfie,” Eddie said. “Thanks for humoring me tonight.”
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It didn’t seem appropriate to continue down the path of shit-talking Eddie’s parents, no matter how much they deserved it. Eddie didn’t enlist Alfie on this adventure just to talk about all of his woes. If he was going to do this, then goddamn it, he was going to make the best out of it. Eddie deserved that much. “‘Course we’re friends,” Alfie returned with a playful sneer. “Though, I think you’re way off base with that one. If anything, we’re more like Bugs and Daffy.” His eyes focused on the road, but his mind was lost in thought. “Actually—” Alfie corrected, “come to think of it, that’s really fuckin’ accurate. Just, y’know, don’t ask me who’s who.”
In an instant, Alfie’s eyes were back on Eddie. Immense guilt crept over him for trying to turn down the invitation in the first place. It was glaringly obvious that Eddie was trying to involve him in his life; something Alfie tried to avoid with just about everyone who did. His heart ached. He didn’t want to refuse Eddie, truly. There just happened to be parts of his life that were better off private. But it wouldn’t kill him to hang out with the guy more every now and then. Well, given Eddie’s track record, it very well could. But it would be worth it… RIght?
“Listen, Ed… I know I’m a pain in the ass. It’s not — I don’t do things like this, y’know? I stay at home like the grumpy hermit crab that I am and that’s how I like it.” Apologies were never Alfie’s strong suit. It was rare that the words “I’m sorry” ever made it out of his mouth. “But I’m already pretty glad I came with you.” Once again, he was dancing the conversation dangerously close to heavy. Alfie mentally berated himself; he needed to keep things light. “But if we make it out alive, you do still owe me those Baby Ruths,” he teased, lightly nudging Eddie’s arm with his own.
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writeanapocalae · 4 years
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Nano 2019 Day 14 Writing Part 2
Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4 | Day 5 | Day 6 | Day 7 | Day 8 | Day 9 | Day 10 | Day 11 | Day 12 | Day 13 | Day 14 part 1
There were more shelves, most of which were empty, and there were floor plans, maps, and large swaths of fuse boxes on the walls. The water was still underfoot, still safe beneath him, and there were a few lights on the walls that weren’t functional. The mildew and mold on the walls was thicker, stronger, and taking over so much, dipping down into the water and preserved under the glass.
And there was the spined thing. He hadn’t even seen all of it, but it pressed into the remnants of the door and, even though the wood was mostly solid down there, as soft as it was, it slid through. It slid through as if the door wasn’t even there. It moved like there were no obstacles, the glass that kept them apart being the only thing that slowed it down. The shill in Anton’s spine grew stronger, the fear that there was more to this, he knew. There was obviously more happening that he couldn’t see and, far more than that, there was nothing that he could understand. That was more of a fear for him than the things that he saw. He was a detective. It was his job to understand, to put things together and figure out what it all meant. He couldn’t. Everything here was nonsense.
It coiled beneath his feet, wriggling and clacking its bones against the surface tension. It was less agitated now and he didn’t know if that was more or less of a concern.
Another shout from upstairs. He couldn’t recognize the voice from where he was but it definitely his name. He couldn’t imagine it being anything else.
Then he saw the generator. It was an old style, with a large crank on one side, with tubes and wires on the front. It was, of course, under the water. Which would mean it wouldn’t work. He had worked so hard on this already and now, there was no point to any of it. He thought that he was going to make a difference, that he would get some electricity and that would help them find each other and get out of there.
But now there was no point, not to any of it.
He wanted to give up. He was already so tired and now he just wanted to sit, put his head against the wall, and sleep. He wouldn’t the mold was far too much, the smell of it making him feel sickly, but he felt tired all the way into his bones. He did get on his knees though, wrap his arms around his chest so that his hands were on his shoulders, and rock gently. It wasn’t something that he did often, something that came upon him when he felt too much anxiety. He hadn’t had anxiety in a long time either. He hadn’t had an anxiety attack since R came into his life.
There was a cracking sound. It was from the same distance as the yelling. It sounded like metal on cement, like something hard being thrown into something harder.
He looked up, not far, but just a bit. Whatever was going on upstairs, it was something that wasn’t supposed to be happening. It would have sounded different if it was supposed to be happening and his name wouldn’t have been involved.
Looking up though, he saw a bit of hope. There was a series of valves on the wall, right in front of him and he could have kicked himself at his own stupidity. Above the valves there was, written in the same painted font as before, “Draining Systems”. He wished that he had light, he would have surely noticed this if there was light. He couldn’t have been that stupid.
Anton pulled himself up to his feet and went to them, grabbing a hold of the first of the valves. None of them were labeled but there was a small pressure gauge to the side of them, the red hand sitting consistently at the right. He had to lower the gauge and by doing that he would lower the water level.
The first of the valves didn’t budge, but the one in the center, the smallest of them, did, easily, and when he turned it as far to the left as he could, he could hear the water start to drain. It wasn’t fast, he couldn’t see the difference, but the pressure was decreasing slightly. If he waited a minute or two he could actually see the needle move a tick away from the danger zone. He tried the third one as well and that one made a difference. It was hard to pull over to the left and he had to force it, hearing it scrape against the hole it was drilled into, and then he had to hold it in position. The smaller one immediately slid back to the right when he had his attention on the rightmost one but it didn’t seem to matter much, the gauge was still moving down faster.
Half way to empty and the gauge stopped moving. The water was only half way down and he cursed, looking at it. The generator still wasn’t going to work, it was fully soaked and saturated in moisture. The tank would be full of water as well.
The spined thing was no longer submerged. It was in the same spot as before, trying to get to him, more agitated than it was in the water. Now it was just floating there, not caring that that was impossible because nothing was possible about it.
He’d thought it was some sort of creature or, hopefully, a machine, though its body looked too organic for that. Instead it was literal spines, human spines, true in shape and length, braided and rolling along one another. Heads flashed in and out of existence, coiling into one another the same way that the echos of faces, of sentience, had in the androids they had first met. These faces were stretched and charged with agony, lit from within as if they were made of hellfire.
He couldn’t imagine what they were, nor how they even existed. He didn’t want to think about why they were there.
Back at the valves he shoved the fireax into the wall as best he could, dislodging chunks of cement as he dug the blade as deep into it as he could. The handle poked through the spokes of the valve, holding it in place, letting him move his attention back to the smaller of the valves. Like before, it moved easily, but it didn’t do much to lower the pressure. He was able to get it down another two lines before he gave up on it, moving once more to the stuck valve.
Now it moved. As it did water started to sputter and dribble from the hole that the valve was inserted into. It was still hard to do, and it shuddered with how he forced it, but it was something. The pressure was going down again. The right most valve groaned and pulled at the ax, but he ignored it. He was making progress.
He shoved the valve over, as hard as he could, and there was a loud draining sound. The water slicked down, rushing towards the drains that he couldn’t see. They must have been in a different room then, the water running through the wood in the same way that the bones had.
There were a few gas tanks on the shelves and Anton grabbed one. He didn’t exactly know what to do with it, it was, after all, very expired. He didn’t know the exact length of time it took for gasoline to expire, but he did know that it did. If it lost potency, it would still work though, he was sure of that.
The gas was expired, the generator was full of water, and there was both glass and something indescribable between him and the generator. He knelt down, looking at it. What was exposed above the waterline before wasn’t helpful to him, the crank didn’t reach high enough and if it had he wouldn’t have been able to turn it. He was going to have to break the glass in order to reach it. And, in doing that, he would have to deal with those spines.
He sighed. He breathed. He went over to the three valves and gripped the ax once more by the handle. He still couldn’t believe that he’d been able to drain the water like that. It was like something out of a video game. He tugged, even put his foot against the wall for better leverage, and when the ax broke free it took a good chunk of cement with it.
He looked at the spines. They had flared open, and they were rolling along the bottom side of the glass towards him. With a deep inhale and a better grip on the ax he readied himself. They were just bones, there was nothing scary about bones. The faces, well, that was something else but they didn’t look real, more like a projection. If he could hit them before they hit him he’d be fine. He had to say that to himself a few times before he was really ready and then he chopped downward, hitting the ground beneath him.
It didn’t break the glass. There was no glass in the first place. It was just the best metaphor he had and it had made it so that his head could make sense of the sensation of walking on water. When he struck it it didn’t shatter, it just vanished. He fell, his deep breath coughed out in surprise and he landed, too hard, on the cement floor, his legs crumpling beneath him as the shock burst in his knees.
All of his muscles tightened as he bit on a shout, clutching the knee of his bad leg.
He didn’t have time for pain though. He didn’t have time to strike first. The spines were rushing him, far faster than they’d followed him, and those face were whimpering in waves.
He didn’t even have time to try and swing before the spines whipped into him, the cords of them flailing as they shot into, through, him, going through and up, as if he was nothing, as if he was the door, as if he was the bright flicker of magenta.
Agony rippled through him as his back arched, bright light flaring in his nerves and darting from spot to spot. Rage filled him with a boggy wetness, a weight to his joints and a spike to his heart that made him want to tear himself apart as much as whoever he saw next. Hungry, a deep, eldritch hunger, unfathomable and cold, froze his throat and shrank his stomach. That hunger was the worst of it, not for food or sleep or anything of that nature, the realization of that coming slowly as the cold spread, as that emptiness poured through his veins. It was for flesh, it was for life, it was for everything and it would drive him mad if he tried to contain it.
He felt like skin was stretched over the wrong body, like there were more lives inside of him, and he could hear the whispers of memories, a sunny day here, an argument there, too far away for him to catch the meaning of any of them.
Then the spine tore themselves out of his chest, the faces that adorned them screeching and sobbing. They spun around each other and, without a desirable host, they left him, racing towards the ceiling and through it.
He was left empty in a different way than before, a way that made him stammer and take a step forward, only to support himself, to spread out his center of gravity. He was no longer hungry, not longer angry. All he could feel was the ghostly sensation of cold fingers against his insides, probing for space, a place for those things to hide in him. And they weren’t things. They weren’t robotic either.
They were humans, at least, at some point. His mind went back to what Sarah had found about the graveyards. He remembered the book in Latin and the symbols drawn in red. This was all intentional. Every piece of it. The Caecus Corporation, somehow, they’d brought the dead back, at least they’d brought ghosts, and they’d forced them into the bodies of their androids. They’d tried to fake sentience by enslaving the souls of innocents.
R had felt all of this too. It had hated the feelings that had just been forced through Anton’s body, he could understand that.
@detectivesebcas​ @inthemoonshadow​ @etjwrites​ @lordfenric
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Don't mind me, just losing my mental sh*t
Has anyone else ever noticed it always seems to be the people who’ve never written/posted anything that leave the most unnecessary (and often meanest) comments?
Or the people who themselves write like they haven’t hit puberty yet but feel like they can comment like a professional editor by giving advice that is exactly the opposite of what they were just saying needs to be fixed?!
Not Winx Related, I just really needed to vent. I got a shit review on a non-Winx Story and as I bitch a little about that I'm finally taking the time to address a review I got on my GOT fic, which turned nasty that I want to pick apart, but not to his face because he is not the kind of reviewer who should be interacted with, so I'mma dump it here. (Rant un-beta'd.)
Like? You really want to leave a comment on chapter 2 of a part 30 chapter fic that you haven’t read saying shit like:
“I don’t see the point its basically a rewrite”
When, had you read even one chapter on, you would have begun to see the divergence that is about to slowly snowball out of control while the universe does its best to stay on track. (yes the 'its' typo is review accurate.)
Like buddy, I get it, you've never written anything in your life and you think this is okay to say to someone because, and this may surprise you: you're an asshole.
"The point" was that it was a fun idea, "the point" was that I was enjoying the crossover and figuring out how everything could go wrong by replacing a single major part, "the point" was many, many other people found it hilarious and so did I. Not "the point" but it was also a version of Harry Potter not written by a fcking TERF.
Or:
'This Character is just really out of character, you're doing a bad job of writing him.'
Okay *goes to check their fics to see how they wrote him to see if she can figure out where reviewer is coming from. they have no fics in the fandom.* 'hey reviewer, you say he's out of character, how would you go about fix him so he's more in character?'
'Oh well, he's just not very *season 1 characterisation despite the fact he's explicitly stated to be season 3 end of his character growth story arc*, you should have him do *a thing that is something he would never have done even in season 1*'
-
Or shit like (and this is a long one from 'Richard' who hid behind the Anon function):
"This is a great fic. It's surprisingly difficult for me to optimize the protagonist. So first,"
Like? excuse you? why would you need to optimize my character?
"I really hope Sansa chooses to mine the metric tonnes of valuable honey and wax from that beehive once she gets her inventory."
So I hate to admit that the honey and wax would be a good idea, and she will be getting a boon of that, but it will be because she'll be getting Bee Hives later, not because she'll think to strip mine a people in dire straights.
"Also, she has valyrian steel claws, which she now knows can dig into the rock very easily. Those crumbling ledges? She can dig new ones, she can dig a staircase. She can widen the entrance so that her soldiers come in to help mine the liquid gold. Especially since she appreciates the difference between currency and goods. Of course, maybe she'll establish diplomatic relations instead."
So I am going to look so fcking petty when I finally get the next chapter out, because I actually addressed this idea with reality. Trust me, I did some research, and while there's almost nothing easily found on how long it would take to do this sort of work by hand, what I found supported the idea that it's stupid. It takes (and I shit you not) literal days with a team of men using hand tools to carve through even a few metres of rock (the exact time depends on how hard the rock is and how large they make the opening/area).
Sansa would be literally clawing at the walls with her nails which, while yes they are Valyrian steel, are still attached to very human fingers and arms. and here's where my first hand knowledge kicks back in: I went on a mock archaeological dig when I was in high school, I spent several hours scrapping layers of compact sand to uncover artefacts, resistance levels aside, the repeated action is hell on your muscles, Sansa would spend as much time recovering as she would digging. to get all the way to the entrance would take her literal years with Richard's suggested method.
PLUS: the point of the adventures is for SANSA (and Arya) to have the spot light, to be forced to think and find ways to use the new Abilities they've been given, or to come up with new ones. It's part of my whole "Power is Earned, or it is Corrupted" mentality, if you don't work for it, you will sooner rather than later abuse it.
AND: of course she's going to use diplomatic solutions, she's Sansa, and that's what the clue of foreshadowing was saying! Literally everything you need to know to solve the Dungeons is in their individual clues!!!
"Secondly, medieval people already had long-lasting torches which burned for hours and hours instead of 5-10 minutes. Each torch looked like a pillar or stupidly elongated torch that was carried with the tip lit and burning down like a candle. They also didn't use candles as those were too expensive. They used rushes soaked in fat which could be made by the dozens to hundreds with a few hours' work. There's a youtube video on this subject entitled medieval misconceptions: torches and candles."
Oh. My. God. Such. Valuable. Information. If . Only. I had. Known. This. When. I wrote. about. reed candles. in this. very fic.
Literally of the four times I used the word candle, twice it was explicitly 'reed candles' (and guess what other name rushes go by?) and once it was a metaphor specifically about the smoke and not the candle.
As for the pillar candles, the ones that burn for hours are too heavy for someone of Sansa's size and arm strength and the hour candles, (if you've ever seen Avatar Last Airbender, the candles they used in the Secret Tunnel) are unwieldy and aren't so good for putting down in a way that doesn't risk them going out. (Putting them far enough into a wall sconce that it won't topple back out makes it very tricky to remove it.)
Which, why even bother with torches that are more effort to obtain when Sansa's powers make the 'advantage' obsolete anyway!? Not to mention: Displayed Content! If a show uses something even in the background, it exists in that world. Wax candles aren't that rare. (Also side note, because I do my fcking research: the majority of hives which supply the honey and wax to Westeros are owned by the Maesters of old town.)
"I don't really care about those things though. The latter is a mistake literally everyone makes and I didn't know was a mistake until a month ago. Which goes into my third point, how Sansa could optimize things."
Then why bring it up, especially since I didn't technically make said mistake??
"At this point she knows she needs people and she's already given her powers to someone trustworthy. She also knows that healing is a power she can give. And she knows they're going to need this at least as much as medics. And there are indeed people she trusts whom she hasn't approached with an offer of power. Ned Stark, Catelyn Stark, Lyra Mormont of Bear Island, and Tyrion Lannister. Tyrion Lannister can wait but not forever. Lyra should be approached as soon as possible."
NO. Arya was the exception, not the rule, Sansa isn't going to just go off and give her god-blessed powers to anyone else. I was hesitant to give it to Arya as it was, and only let myself because I could use the 'Arya's God is Death, there's more stakes than you thought' to fully justify it.
Tyrion as he is can't be trusted, and future Tyrion chose Dany over Sansa, neither Sansa nor Arya know how his story ended, so as far as they are concerned he's a good ally, but not actually trust worthy enough for this.
For those of you confused, Lyra Mormont is one of the daughters of the Lady Maege Mormont, and one of Lyanna's sisters. Lyra got maybe two mentions in the books and nothing in the tv series so I can only assume Richard meant Lyanna, who is currently 2 years old! But we'll come back to this, because Richard sure did!!!
As for the medic thing, I really hope Richard meant he was fcking off for good in his final word, because if he comes back, I really don't want him to think he's responsible for the medic corps that I've been planning and attempting to foreshadow with Sansa approaching Luwin, and Beth and Jeyne following Sansa's lead with archery.
Like, oh hey, guess which unfortunate field medic bride of a Stark might find her way to Winterfell if she hears about young women being trained in some basic healing to help Maester Luwin deal with any cases of over flow of patients. That's right, I'm planning for triage nurses! No magical powers required. 
"I assume she's going to get glass from Lys through the Tapestry of Doors. For that she's going to need tokens. She's going to need tokens for everything, and she already knows it. So collecting and hoarding tokens should be a big priority for her. And that means going places where there are tokens to be got. Places she hasn't gone to yet, like The Wall and Bear Island. Just to get tokens."
No. Again, just NO! Sansa already stated that Tokens and relying on them were a thing that would come back to bite her, she'll horde them as she finds them, but she's not going out of her way to find them because she has things to do! Also: the Tapestry of Doors was a piece of Flavour text for way late in the fic if it ever came back, and like a Stargate, requires one at each end, so someone would have to travel to Lys anyway, which is dumb when Sansa now has a Loom which can copy any 'raw' material, and the ability to convert that 'raw' material' into any object she has the blueprint for, which she can get by 'scanning' with her console.
She just has to put 2 and 2 together!!
"She also knows there are dungeons in each place, and that she needs to get to them. And that it's better if she gets in with people. Like people Lyra trusts to whatever dungeon is in Bear Island."
The thing about the Dungeons is that the whole thing is for Sansa, some of them will have special requirements, but very few of them are crucial, they're just there so Sansa has a place and a trial to obtain Unique Items of game breaking power or ability.
"The last way to optimise her powers is one I don't think she'll take even though it has a lot of benefits. Going with a squad of soldiers into the Dreadfort's dungeon in order to confront the walking dead, with hit and run tactics slowly draining the population there. The main benefit and reason to do this is to harden and blood the soldiers to prepare them for the Long Night, so she should have the soldiers on rotation in order to expose as many as possible to the horrors to come."
Problem is the undead in the Dreadfort Dungeon aren't the same as the Wights and White Walkers, they can just be killed in the same ways. The idea of these kinds of fics is that by the time the Long Night Comes, Sansa and Arya can do most if the heavy lifting. You are right that Sansa wouldn't risk her people for some EXP though.
Sansa will be going back though, there's a pair of Shears and Needle in there.
"Also, the loot should be great. Perhaps another loom. But I would do it even for more bobbins. Or nothing at all."
Literally the Loom is a one off item. It is super powerful with what it can do in the context, so having more than one would ruin the power balance I've been trying to keep between Power Fantasy and OP Bullshit.
-
Someone of course pointed out that (Richard said Lyra, but responder said Lynna) Lyanna was currently literally 2 or 3 years old, she can't do shit. (they also brought up that 2 (actually 3) characters had already declined the super powers, because it included bad timeline memory downloads.) Guess how Richard took that?!
If you guessed "not well" you get a cookie!
Seriously, I was kind of annoyed at his review because^^^ reasons he was wrong about stuff, but also the arrogance of 'telling me how to optimize my character' was just, icky, so I was just going to ignore him.
But then he went (in response to the other reviewer):
"(snort) I think you need to recall what Lyanna Mormont is like at 10 years of age. She is a force and she is in charge. And what exactly is your objection, that Sansa needs consent or is preserving innocence?"
No moron, the objection is that she's literally 2 or 3 years old, what the fck is she going to do in her tiny little body? But yes, now that you mention it, Sansa (was assaulted and lost her bodily autonomy, she) would place a huge amount of importance on consent, it's one of the reasons she was so upset by Arya taking advantage of her sleepy state to get her to agree.
"Lyanna Mormont wouldn't care. Jon and Robb care, that's why their sister cares. Lyanna would never thank Sansa for trying to preserve her innocence, keep her ignorant, or keep her weak. She would be insulted."
Lyanna is literally 2 or 3 years old, she doesn't know enough to care or be insulted by not being told that she's lost the chance to remember several years of horrific shit before being violently murdered.
Also I notice you didn't say anything about the name correction. Got it wrong the first time did you?
"Which leaves only respecting Lyanna's will. Or her mother's will maybe. Or at least informing them of what she's decided to do before she does it so they can prepare. But Sansa gains nothing by not asking."
And what would she gain by asking? also nothing. Lyanna is 2 or 3 years old. Also the fic isn't about her. Why would Sansa even trust her? The child who thought she could judge Sansa for being unable to stab her way out of some horrible places? who scorned Sansa because she was femme? Because Sansa's strength isn't the same as hers so Lynna decided Sansa didn't have any?
Lynna chose Jon to lead the North over Sansa who had a better claim to the throne, Jon, who spent the entire 8th season saying how much he doesn't want to be king, Jon who legit just tried to walk away from the Command of the Nights Watch.
"And this brings up another issue, the fact Sansa never decided FOR Jon and Robb cuts both ways. She informed them of their choice and she let them make it."
"Sansa didn't keep them in the dark without informing them of the decision she was making for them, as you seem to want to do, since that definitely isn't the right thing to do. Mushroom management is a shit heap."
The boys were already aware that something was up, Sansa had nothing to gain by lying, and she made the offer before she realised the memories were a thing.
"The question to ask a toddler is "do you want to grow up?" it's not a difficult question to ask and it does have a meaningful answer. And that's the problem you have, because you already know Lyanna Mormont would say yes and you want her to say no. That's why you want the question never asked."
"You want to pretend that Lyanna Mormont, DEFINITELY in charge of bear island at 10 years of age, is a gormless wimp like 25 year old Jon Snow who refused to be king and refused to even THINK whether or not Daenerys would be a good queen by constantly uttering the refrain "she is my queen"."
Laynna was in charge because she was the last of her family, everyone else was lost fighting someone else's war. More importantly: she's not even part of the equation? Why would Sansa travel to Bear Island to ask a 2 or 3 year old if she wants to become an angry and traumatised 10 year old in a 2 or 3 year old body which will feel like a prison because she's not as tall or fast as she used to be, because she can't lift or climb or jump or ride or fight like she used to.
And for what? a few super powers she has to ask Sansa for? For mental trauma her family and friends cannot comprehend?
But no, have a look at the part where Richard really started to cross the line:
"No, Lyanna Mormont wants power, wants to grow up, that is obvious. And you're an obstacle in her way. She would hurt you for standing in her way, probably smashing a mace in your knees. And you're so weak that yes you would in fact be hurt by a 2 or 3 year old toddler. She killed a giant and she would have no problem killing you for daring to think you're a giant."
"Stand aside little man and let Lyanna Mormont have her glory."
Now I don't know what this guy's obsession is with Lyanna, but that sounded like a threat to me. Like, who tells people that a fiction character would physically maim or murder a real person just for pointing out said fictional character is 2 or 3 years old?
Lyanna doesn't want power? She's not that kind of person, even if she is fictional? More importantly:
Neither I nor the reviewer were 'standing in her way' because she's a fictional character who's not even in this fic!!!
But his behaviour was pretty shit, so I told him to knock it off or I was going to turn the review filters on.
That went about as well as you might expect.
So I was All:
[I don't know what you think you mean by 'optimize the character' but half of your assumptions are wrong, the rest run counter to my pre-existing plans and I don't care for your overall demeanour. I was prepared to leave your post be, but your recent reply is inappropriate and uses language which runs VERY close to sounding like a death threat, which I DO NOT APPRECIATE. I don't want to be 'that bitch', but I am going to ask you to please be respectful, or I will be turning on the comment filters.]
Because I don't Know if you know this but AO3 has three filters in the privacy tab of every story posted:
1] “Only show your work to registered users”
this means that you MUST be logged in to an AO3 account to even find it let alone read it
2] Disable Anonymous Comments
you Must be logged in to leave a comment
3] Enable Comment Moderation
doesn't matter what you say, with out Author OK, your review will not be showing up in the comment section.
(… tumblr just did that thing again where it refreshes in the middle of my thousands of words of text and loses all my stuff, it is literally making me want to kill myself. Because I have to retype all the responses from the next fcking section. It's my own fault for not just using a word document, but also: fck tumblr? For being stupid?)
So, from here Richard had three options:
1- Apologise and move one
2- say nothing and pretend it hadn't happened and move on
3- He went with this:
“Your Sansa Stark is weaker than canon Sansa Stark. It's true your Sansa Stark has a strictly higher level of ambition than Sansa Stark. But what she uses in order to achieve her goals, her resources, is weaker.”
“She uses actions, capabilities and skills. She uses embroidery, archery, learning (archery), she uses the people she already knows but not strangers. She uses and manipulates the people she can interact with, learn from, act upon. The level of people that is directly equal to skills.”“
She doesn't use language, nor does she use strangers. Strangers are the level of people that don't require interaction but DO require language to deal with. And your Sansa Stark's language is too weak. When she manipulates the maid in the Dreadfort, it's entirely accidentally and unintentionally.”
Sansa has seen what power does to people, she's seen what lies ahead for the manipulators of the world, she's been taught at the side of Cersei and Petyr, and she does not want to become them. For all the horrific things she's gone through, Sansa came out the other side with her compassion intact, possibly even stronger than before.
“She talks to Domeric only because she's already interacted with him, she's been healing him for days by that point. She fakes Green Dreaming to her father because she knows her language is inadequate and will achieve nothing. The way her father and mother treat her, they know mere words would be inadequate. And they would dismiss any words she said. "Haven't we told our children dreams can't hurt you?"”
She doesn't want to interact with Domeric, he looks like the man who violated her repeatedly, killed her brother and sacked her home. She wants to be as far away from him as possible. When she does end up interacting with him, despite being so sleep deprived it's a wonder she hadn't started hallucinating, she manages to win him over pretty easily.
She fakes Green Dreaming because “a god made me time travel” is not only a ridiculous concept but a foreign one as well. Why would Sansa tell her parents that when it would mean admitting to going through some horrific shit, to letting her family down and being let down by her family when Green Dreams are a known thing which explains her knowledge. It's not inadequacy, it's efficiency and an attempt to hide horrible things.
I need to point out that “Haven't we told our children that dreams can't hurt you?” is said by Catelyn in self-recrimination afterwards, and is said specifically to reference the reason Sansa might not have felt she could go to them with her problem was because it was based on dreams. Because what parent would take dreams as a serious threat unless they were a Nightmare on Elm Street survivor, especially since Green Seers have become so rare they've been relegated back to myths and stories by the time Jojen and Bran show up.
“Language requires actions such as mouthing, shouting, tonguing, but actions will never add up to language. Actions are necessary but NOT SUFFICIENT for language. This is why you can't write a single damned sentence with only actions. Try it, you won't be able to.”
I can't take this paragraph seriously if only because of the use of the word 'tonguing'. FFS, he sounds like a small child trying to convince people he's got a PhD. 'If I throw out some big words and phrase them right they'll sound 'academic' and I'll look smarter!
'I know this probably isn't what Richard meant but: Sign Language? Is literally all actions?
(Obviously real language requires thoughts and concepts to be communicated to be a language, but even the most primitive of body movements can express something: I'm hot, I'm hungry, I'm angry, etc. It might not be true language, but it is communication, which is the basis of language, the reason we made language in the first place.)
“Canon Sansa Stark had dreams, plans, and designs on what others have. She wanted to wed a prince, she had designs on the princess position. She wanted out of King's Landing. She wanted Winterfell. She wanted the Knights of the Vale to fight ... FOR HER.”
“People who had never met canon Sansa Stark in their entire lives fought and died for canon Sansa Stark's benefit. For the designs of a (her words) stupid girl. And sure, her initial designs were stupid. And they only rose up to being pathetic. But they were designs, they were dreams, they were plans.”
I need to talk about my interpretation of Sansa for a minute, because that's what I've been writing: my interpretation of Sansa.
Sansa was raised with an idea of how the world should be, not how it was. She was raised loved and protected and surrounded by men of honour. Fed stories of heroes, brave knights and valiant princes, where good always triumphed, or was romantically defeated and beautifully tragic.
She wasn't raised to expect dishonourable men and hidden motives, she wasn't raised expecting a (metaphorical) dagger in her back.
She didn't want the crown, she didn't want the throne, she wanted “the prince” from her stories, who would cherish her and care for her and give her a family filled with love. And yes the pretty dresses and the shiny jewels and the adoration and praise. But she never wanted power, that came later.
Later after she'd seen the cracks in the world and the grime beneath the gilding, when she'd learned friend and foe were often the same, that people with power would hurt her, use her, that she was nothing but a trophy to them.
Sansa wanted power because “if I'm the one with the power, then they can't hurt me any more, if I have the power I'll be safe, if I have the power then I can protect people, if I have the power I can stop people like that.”
But Sansa has never had power, it was always borrowed, an illusion that could vanish at one misstep. She had no money of her own, her blood made her valuable to others as a trade commodity, but gave her no personal power.
When people fought for her, it was never really about her.
Petyr gave her armies so he could win favour so he could use her as a proxy for her dead mother. Brienne fought to fulfil an oath to Sansa's dead mother.
The Men of the North fought for Winterfell, to get revenge on the Boltons. The Wildings followed Jon Snow. And when it was over, it was Jon who was crowned king, not Sansa the one who had to talk him into getting back their home in the first place.
Her parents and Robb fought for her, but their armies fought for House Stark, for the insult Sansa and Arya's capture and Ned's death presented.
“Your Sansa Stark has no plans, has no dreams, and certainly has no designs. She doesn't use language, because her language is too weak and has no power. She doesn't use her emotions or feelings because they are brittle and far too weak to be used. Weaker even than the emotions and feelings of a stupid girl. She doesn't use her mind or intellect because she doesn't cogitate. She uses skills and ONLY skills. To try to fake everything else.”
It's odd that he says this when he started off this response by saying my Sansa was more ambitious than canon Sansa.
First of all: I thought I was making it fairly clear that her goals were: save her family, save the North, stop the White Walkers.
Her dreams are to never be beholden to another man ever again.
Sansa wants her family alive, she wants to be safe and she wants to be free of all the political manipulations she had to sit through in the first timeline.
Second of all: Richard has clearly never been assaulted in his life in any way and I am so fcking happy for him. Really.
Look, people who suffer long term trauma, (or short term, it doesn't matter how long really) are not magically okay afterwards. The idea that sexual assault makes femme women strong is disgusting and so toxically prevalent in movies and shows and books these days its... horrific. You'll notice butch women like Arya aren't typically assaulted to be strong, because they're already so 'manly'. It was a genuine surprise when they tried to have Brienne assaulted, but that was more about showing how much of a 'good guy' Jaime was than Brienne.
You can really tell in several places that the tv series had non-con fetishists on staff.
Sansa is so brittle now, because she feels safe enough to let herself feel the fear she wasn't able to earlier, to work through the panic and the anger and all the emotions she couldn't before.
“Your Sansa Stark plans to use skills in order to change the world. And since it's obvious the world isn't run by woodcutters or farmers or archers or anyone else defined by their SKILLS, she will fail. She will fail abysmally, totally and catastrophically. She hasn't got the slightest sliver of a chance.”
Quick tally: Sansa has managed to convince her parents she had knowledge of the future, put them on track to realising Petyr Baelish was stealing from the Crown, got Stannis curious in Dragonstone, came up with a plan to gain favour for the North by helping to pay of part of the Crown's debt and has begun working on a plan to ensure more food is available for the Northerners when Winter arrives.
Not to mention, (and you'd easily miss this): Sansa has begun influencing a shift in the young women of the North who had previously been influenced by the South.
The thing is, Richard seems convinced its about the looting and the grinding, 'kill enough stuff and you become a God!' but it's not.
“So you stacked the deck in her favor. You put a high tier deity on her side. Now Sansa has a slim chance to squeak out a win, using the power she's borrowing. But here's the thing, it will never be HER win because it isn't HER power, it isn't HER plans. Your Sansa Stark has no plans, but her deity does, even if they're stupid plans of puerile amusement-seeking. So IF there is a victory at the end, it will never be Sansa Stark's victory, it will be her deity's. Because she is only a pawn, a tool, a peon, a minion.”
Richard doesn't seem to understand what the introduction of Arya's God means for the lore. The amount of death from the wars is causing Bad Things in the back ground of the original timeline.
Sansa isn't the Being's pawn, she's their start player, the Being is a sponsor who's giving Sansa the chance and resources to be greater than she was. It's not about 'puerile amusement-seeking', but how do you tell a young woman who's gone through what Sansa's gone through that the fate of the entire human race is in her hands, that if she fails it won't just be her family that falls.
If Sansa thinks the Being just wants amusement, then Sansa will act as she pleases and hope it's good enough, which puts her closer in line with saving the world than if she's actually trying to save the world, because that is a much bigger task than 'stop the issues that got my family killed'.
The Being is only victorious if Sansa is, it's their shared victory.
Now up until this point Richard has been an arrogant tool, but it might almost seem like he's being reasonable. This is where he loses the plot and just starts back on his favourite fall back: threatening people with violence.
“Now generally, when an author writes a protagonist who is a pawn, a tool, a peon and a minion of a higher power, when they write a protagonist who is WEAK, it's because they themselves are weak. Generally doesn't mean universally however, so I had to know. And now I do. You are weak Jasper.”
“You want to convince me of something Jasper. You want to convince me that I'm wrong, that my opinion is wrong, that my position is wrong, you want me to change my mind, you want me to know my plans and judgment are wrong. Because they're in conflict with yours. But how do you achieve this? By threatening me with your borrowed power. Exactly like your Sansa Stark.”
Did he have to google the list of synonyms there?
I don't know what it is about being referred to by name, but it bugs me that he chose to use only a portion of my pen-name like we were somehow familiar, rather than not using my name or referring to me as OP or something along those lines.
Also I really have to disagree that only weak people write about people being weak, but I don't think his opinions of weak and strong match with mine either. 
He is wrong, but more importantly: he threatened someone with violence for daring to correct him.
I wasn't threatening him, I was warning him to stop being an asshole or I would disable anonymous commenting.
“You do this because you're weak. And what do we call weak people who complain about strong people's actions when they are the bitches of higher powers? We call them exactly what you "don't want to be", we call them bitches. You are a bitch to higher powers and you bitch about higher powers like me. You bitch about people who can use their intellects. And for a good reason too.”
“You fear my attitude because I am the bitch slapper. I slap little bitches like you all fucking day long every single day. It doesn't matter to me who it is, whether it's my own friends who are bitching, I slap them for it. And you will never ever convince me that you're right. Because you're weak. And because I don't respect bitches.”
Look, I've seen enough therapists of different varieties to pull off some impressive psych 101 bullshit so I can tell you right now: Richard is a man who has never held any real authority in his life, he has mediocre skills at best and often feels talked down to because he feels more entitled than he is and no one treats him like a god for breathing. He refuses to back down when wrong even in the face of evidence and then he pouts because the world didn't shift to match his delusions.
The worst part is I know this, and I know I shouldn't let this bother me. But it does. But it shouldn't and I can tell him to his 'face' via review reply why he's wrong, or he'll know it bothers me, then he'll feel validated, even though he's wrong. And he'll probably threaten someone with more violence and then I really will have to disable anon comments and effectively punish some readers who did nothing wrong.
“So what are you going to do to me that I care about? Stop me from reading your fic? You don't have that power. Stop writing it so that I can no longer learn how your mind works, my ulterior motive? That would be cutting your nose to spite your face. You would suffer far out of proportion to me. I would just move on to some other author. Report me? Go ahead, I don't care. Really, we're done here, so have a nice life.”
Yes I do, literally the first of the privacy filters would stop you from reading, but that would hurt my other readers who don't have an account.
'Ulterior motive'? Buddy, you apparently don't understand how any mind works.
Again: if you don't care why bring it up?
Are you really leaving though? Do you promise?!
“The only thing you could ever do to me is surprise me by ceasing to be a weak little bitch. Or even resolving to not be one. This would invalidate all of my predictions by rising to my implied challenge. That's what I like, win-win. (lol) I'm not holding my breath though.”
I don't have anything to prove to this douche tool and it bothers me that this is bothering me so much!!!! The worst part is, this review came at a time when my attention for the fic was flagging, so I'll never know if it was really this review or not that made me stop writing for the past few months?
Those of you with an AO3 account who drop by my profile to see if I wrote anything interesting may have noticed my recent 'for archive users only' locked fic. I can confirm that yes: to mental detox this review I went and watched a Chinese Xianxia drama that has become my new hyper-focus. Almost 100 plot bunnies are being posted into the locked fic in an effort to purge it rom my brain so I can get back to what I was doing. It seems to be working. I wrote about 1000 words for Episode: Sisterhood this week, so the chapter is almost done. At last!
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mild-lunacy · 7 years
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Sherlock, Irene and the Alien Girlfriend Trope
I don't wanna write this post... and the fact is, it's still not a natural reading of canon for me, but I think I like challenging myself to go deeper and deeper into the dark and the damp. As I said in my post-S4 meta on Sherlock's sexuality, I can't actually see Sherlock/Irene in the show even when I try to and suppose I should be able to, but I have to believe the intent was straightforward in the interviews about Irene, at least insofar as the acting. I'm thinking of the recent pre-S4 mention by Ben C, where he says Sherlock has a 'private life' with her to some degree. Given that I take Mofftiss' old interviews seriously (like I said recently), I suppose you could argue it follows we're meant to consider Sherlock ambiguously (but not really *romantically*) involved with Irene ever since ASiB-- in a very limited sense, anyway.
In other words, I imagine taking that texting reference in TLD seriously only makes sense if he'd texted her every now and then (not particularly often) but ever since the beginning. That would mean he'd done it in TSoT, for example, and that's why she showed up in his Mind Palace with all those other women he was intending to interview. So what do I think about that?
Like, remember that in ASiB, HLV and even TLD Sherlock thinks romantic entanglement isn't for him, and is 'human error', at least on the personal level. Any secret fluffy romance is out. So if any involvement exists, it's... maybe mildly sexually flavored teasing and a bit of chat, essentially much like what John was doing with Eurus. Oh, irony. Anyway, I still think it's weird, and almost completely unsupported. I don't even know how to respond (once I dissociate from my more intense emotions, I mean), because usually I need something to work with besides the suggestion there's something I don't know about, essentially. I mean, I think Sherlock respects her and finds her interesting... sexy would be a huge stretch. He's more likely to be flattered by the attention. However, I have to at least consider that Eurus asks that about him not being a virgin 'cause he's not... and it's related to the texting. Somehow.
Am I supposed to think about this so skeptically? I don't know, but considering that I like plenty of het couples, I can say with some confidence that I simply need something to work with before I find a romance or even attraction truly plausible for a character like Sherlock, and that's not asking for too much. This is *Sherlock*. You can't just hand-wave it or leave the audience to fill in the blanks when his very inscrutability and unsuitability for relationships has been a major refrain up to and including TLD. Anyway, note that I'm not suddenly accepting Ben C's statements as 'canon' -- I'm just taking them seriously and following the logical consequences to see where it leads. And seriously, it's hard to credit. If I force myself, I can imagine Sherlock's endless curiosity and bravado leading him to experiment once with Irene after he rescued her, and then texting. But with literally nothing to go on... and my conviction he's much more sentimental about other people than that, given he'd been a virgin *before* Irene, I can't do it. The main reason is my conviction we should be able to *tell*, because he would have changed his attitude or behavior somehow. After all, Sherlock's disconnection and its connection to romantic entanglement is a long-running theme, though we usually associate it with Johnlock, as most recently listed in @balancingprobability's post. You can't really resolve all that without consequences with Irene, either. So, I have to assume that he'd never consummated the relationship if it exists.
Besides that issue, I can't put a woman-- or The Woman-- into the box essentially reserved for Jim Kirk's 'alien planet only' girlfriend in Star Trek TOS. I mean that it seems unnatural to me to do out of any context, though I have to consider that the narrative may support it or indeed that could be the intent. That is, I have to imagine Irene Adler as a person who only really matters at all in a very narrow context, there and nowhere else. A brief vacation to carnal pleasure and/or ambiguously romantic interest, until it's time to go home to the Enterprise (and Spock-- or John, in this case). With Jim, at least it fits his personality; there's a reason Spock only did that when he lost his memory. It's not something you can casually insert for Spock, and so it never happened. Sherlock is much more like Spock than Jim Kirk, obviously. I don't really know how it works in Ben C's mind. The magic of heterosexuality at work?
This does appeal to me in one way, and that's just that I was never comfortable saying Irene's *only* function is metaphoric or representative of Sherlock's feelings. That sort of meta-only approach to characterization is just not very Mofftiss. Irene is a real person, so Sherlock has to have some actual relationship to her actual self and an actual explanation for her appearance(s) in his Mind Palace, no less so than any other character would need a reason. If you ask me, ultimately that reason isn't meta but neither is it meant to communicate the shape of any actual 'relationship'. No, what we have is the suggestion of one, much like Johnlock exists, between the lines. It's just... well, in this case, it's between the lines to preserve Sherlock's status, the legend and the mystery of 'Sherlock Holmes', I think. Even with het, they didn't want to go too far afield from focusing on Sherlock and John, or 'modern Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson', perhaps. It's all about them, and their stories. In the stories, Sherlock is either with John or alone, and so he remains-- with Irene Adler more or less a recurrent theme or memory rather than a person. A narrative ghost, like Mary.
It may seem like that's going back to the meta level, but it's a different kind of meta. It's more of a Holmesian commentary, a sort of self-indulgent homage rather than a fully fledged aspect of characterization. This is meant to be a teaser that relies on heteronormativity, not an actual relationship that makes any difference in the story. This definitely bothers me, especially in context with the continuous focus on Sherlock's capacity for romantic feelings and the importance thereof. This subject is constantly teased, presented as important, but not taken *seriously* except in ASiB and TSoT, which are also the two queerest eps. Like, by *no* stretch of the imagination is ASiB about Sherlock's relationship with Irene, and it could've been-- just like TSoT could've been about John and Mary, and wasn't. The women seemingly exist just muddle the waters, but that's particularly true of the way Mofftiss wrote Irene. They both work as conduits for the male characters' emotional development. They're still just... not pivotal to Sherlock or John's emotional growth, even though in TSoT and TLD John *says* as much about Mary. It just doesn't ring *true*. With Sherlock, there's absolutely no attempt made to make the arc about anyone other than John (and in fact, Ben C even mentioned this in the same interview he mentioned his 'private life' with Irene). So John is the center of Sherlock's universe, undoubtedly... but then there's texting vacations, sort of like sex vacations without the sex.
Anyway, it certainly casts their conversation at the greenhouse in TAB in a different light, given Sherlock *was* hiding some juicy tidbits and/or hetero impulses from John and from himself... maybe because Redbeard and/or Eurus's trauma, 'cause he heard Redbeard/a dog bark? Except who in the world hides heterosexuality, trauma aside. I just... I don't think it's *beyond* Mofftiss, but it really stretches credulity to think Gatiss wrote Sherlock as a closeted straight man. That's just... a bit much. I mean, I assume Ben C doesn't think of it like that, but Gatiss would be aware of the subtext, and he almost certainly doesn't think of it in those terms. So... I'd say we can dismiss any reductive or straightforward reading of Sherlock's sexuality, regardless.
It's obviously intentionally ambiguous, there's no way around that. The text isn't clear by any means, regardless if Ben C's headcanons, which you can see 'cause Moffat's said Sherlock's not interested in women, point blank. Honestly, that is what makes the most sense-- he may be haunted by Irene, and I suppose he visits her room in his Mind Palace sometimes (really?), but he's *obsessed* with John to the point where various villains feel the need to remark on it and/or show their home videos on the subject. Sherlock's emotional intimacy is overwhelmingly with John... and to be fair, that's not unusual in depictions of heterosexual manly men in genre media. Jim and (to some extent) Spock are certainly like that. It's just... Jim Kirk respected women, and they knew where they stood with him. There was no need for secrecy, and he was always sincere. This is... not that.
This is more like a heterosexual male fantasy projected awkwardly and incompletely onto Sherlock Holmes, who hadn't even developed enough conscious awareness of himself in his romantic/sexual aspect to do anything with it, for most of the show. The man was completely oblivious of most things to do with feeling until at least TSoT, so any long-distance texting would have been very, very bare bones until the time of TST/TLD, when John left him for good, and I guess he reached out to anyone who'd let him (he'd even tried therapy, after all). However, my suspension of disbelief can only stretch so far; so... still gay or null, essentially, as I said. It definitely doesn't extend to straight!Sherlock. Sorry, Ben.
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