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theoccultz · 6 months

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🥀How do you arouse one's curiousity?

In short what makes you intriguing? ((Short pac))

- apologies for any mistakes, i didn't checked through

- there are 17+ mentions so if you're a minor pls refrain from reading it

-pics not mine credits to their rightful owners respectfully

- all of my pacs are exclusive for everyone.

-your reblogs ,likes , comments are appreciated

Pls let me know which pile you selected (:

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l. ll. III.

Vl. V. Vl.

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Pile l.

The emperor ,knight of wands x , death , pigeon

There's this authority to you that people cant shake off they feel like you're someone who's in a good position that you have made a name for yourself, others may see you having fun in different settings and its really surprising to them you may have a strong resting face or you're someone who's just there to get things done , people dont see you smile usually they feel like you dont like to waste your time onto stupid gossips and stuff .

People love how hard-working and dedicated you are , Its not hard for someone to have a crush on you , you are like a mystery, a dream fantasy which others want to have a piece of . Its really a fun energy . I feel in reality you are someone who's not afraid to be vulnerable, you give your all to others , you're not someone who just takes from others . You're helpful, kind and just what a person needs in a good companion.

Pile ll .

3 of wands , the fool , king of swords x , camel

Right of the bait , you guys exlude sexual energy , you have a desirable appeal , you have this energy of come correct or dont come at all , its like you have high standards you dont back down from things easily , you are not someone who overindulges in things you are someone who's changing at every point of life , people feel like you are made for success they feel like you'll succeed in life because you're doing whats necessary taking actions for your goals being out and about its really inspiring .

Others could also see that you stay in your head a lot , you're not necessarily very open about thibgs like others want to see more of you on things , they feel like you have potential,resources and power and you just need to use it correctly i feel like your energy and your drive about things could overwhelm you easily . People feel like you might need reassurance although you're very much about self and the next good things .i feel like people tend to rely on you or expect a lot from you , you look someone who's a provider, someone who can make things and lead others in the right direction,you could be an artist or a writer someone who's connected to their creative endeavours.

Pile lll.

The tower x , the high priest x , ace of cups , oyster.

Okay you guys this is so sweet , others find you intriguing because they feel like you have a lot of compassion and gifts that you can share with the world , they dont want to lose a person like you who's just so compassionate and loving you bring out the good in others the things they wanted to hear but never did , you could be someone who's an old soul a gentle spirit, others feel protective over you although you are someone who's very very strong you have been through stuff that others would've never been out of and its admirable.

People could see you worried and anxious most of the times and they feel like its not needed others can feel you're very deep and confident about their things you know your abilities and skills and you're the right person to decode signs for others. Yeah i feel like out of other piles you have a really powerful demeanor, you leave a lasting impression on people. People can see you leaving hurt and sadness behind and its really beautiful it takes a lot of strength to reach where you are now also i feel like you shine through no one can dim your light you really have an striking appearance it makes others look twice 🥹✨

lV .

The magician, 8 of wands ,2 of coins , stringray

Okay you guys are good at leaving stupid people behind , you dont dim your light because it took you long to get comfortable with it , you come off as sharp and authentic to people, there might be some negative assumptions or gossips that keeps surrounding you its cause the people are below you thats why they're doing it out of jealousy its like people wants to see you down or embarrassed on purpose. But it doesn't happen you see , you are not wrong gor choosing yourself , others may see you as selfish or impatient but its you who have finally learned to put yourself out there and change for the best . people find you really young or young at heart? But you're quite tough and you know witty nothing can get to you .

They keep wishing for the worst and you keep getting the best , i feel like yoir solar plexus is healed there's so much of good energy here on the table, people feel like you're reliable, honest and wouldn't do low energy shit like using others or deemning others . People also find you intriguing because you come off as financially stable or you could be very responsible and strong and it reflects in your decisions . They feel like you're your best self when you're being you , talking chatting interacting writing people would eat up whatever you say or do . I knrw this was my i'm almost there pile .

Pile V .

The moon x , king of cups , knight of cups x , king of swords x ,owl

You guys have a lot of admirers you should know , this pile have this energy of inspire and grow people want to be like you but you may not blend in with a lot of people, you're not someone who keep to yourself but you have a good sense of boundaries, i also feel like you have a good sense of humour,its delighting, people find you really peaceful yet Passionate ofc you have that fire but you carefully re-evaluate things and think things through, you have an analytical brain , you guys are compatible with a lot of people, others feel that chemistry with you . Others may not feel like you would know this much for whatever reasons it's surprising to find out infact you do know quite a things we dont know of or hobbies ,interests or issues that people wouldn't share their thoughts on because they're scared to say the wrong things or the truth itself, but you're quite bold and precise in saying what you have to say its impressive lol i could feel some reactions coming like did they really said that ?... Can we stop pretending that it wasn't fire ...

I also find you could have a lot of people with every kind of energy trying to get into your space , i also feel people can try to find dirt on you but its almost impossible to find something that makes sense and its not made up .i feel like you guys have this unattainable energy as well , you guys could be intelligent with your words yeah you could start a podcast or make a list of how to be that person , how to do this that ...and people would willingly listen because its helpful and its relatable and it contains the correct data . Or maybe you're really good at reserch , reading people you could be emotionally intelligent or you could be a lightworker yourself although i can see you're quite balanced in your material and physical world, you will not blindly follow things you'll question it , you could have strong 8th and 12th house placements that makes you find deeper values in things and lead you to the core , you learn from others , you don't have a fragile ego and you're not dismissive and you should recognise that pile 5,also you're intuiation is on point (:

Pile Vl.

2 of cups , 5of cups x, the strength x4 of pentacles. Scorpion , the bat.

Lmao ☠️ pile 6 ?

Okay you guys buckle up

So i feel like you're really handsome/pretty you naturally draw people in , others want to get to know you , they wanna hang out , they wanna fight they just wanna do something with you , i feel like you're a polite person but people you attract are mostly passionate and dedicated , they might get over protective of you i feel like a lot of people may realise that they exhibit behaviours that they never knew they had like aggression , jealousy etc , let me just say this a lot of people are tempted by you , mostly because you feel like the ideal person , people act up in your presence. You could be bisexual or you give off this free energy .

I feel like you guys give others a hard time you aren't really invested in others as they are towards you and its frustrating cause i feel like they do try hard and its not your fault you reject it unconsciously. Others feel you have a lot of options. I feel like others started to recognise your value as you started doing it yourself you may not have had good experiences growing up its like the attention you didn't get from your care givers ,your past friends ,now you get from others and you might feel overwhelm at times too you must have heard this too ...you have outgrown people who weren't meant to stay with you and i applaud you for that . For some reason i also see people could feel like you have multiple layers what you project is not how you always are like you could be really nice but you dont wanna hang out and they get salty ,you're not a people pleaser you are your own individual who makes decisions for themselve , people feel like you do the needed and leave but they dont want that like its the energy of people wanting you around I wont be surprised if you guys easily sway others attention .overall people find you intriguing because there's more to you than meets the eye its exciting yet idiotic to feel that way , you're familiar yet unfamiliar . I'd say you guys are seductive, there's a lot of emphasize on body parts there's a lot of sexual energy coming from others but i wouldn't go deep into it , others do masturbate to you ..your suspicions are correct . Ok i'll just say this muchh .

If someone is making you feel ashamed for owning your sexual nature than pls ignore and keep exploring, its your choice .

Thanks for reading!!

#pick a card #pick a pile #tarotblr #intuiative reading #spirituality #kpop tarot #vd

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howlsmovinglibrary · 3 months

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Could I trouble you for a book recommendation? As someone who usually pretty exclusively reads fanfiction or nonfiction, I’ve never been good at finding good fiction and you always seem like you have interesting reads!

hey anon!

if you have anything specific you're looking for, genre-wise/dynamic-wise/tone-wise etc., please feel free to send another ask! :)

for now, I've gone with a list of books that I all rated five stars when I read them, that remind me of fanfiction (or at least, the things *I* like in fanfiction!)

Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries by Heather Fawcett This is a fantasy novel with an academic rivals-to-lovers romance in it, focusing on an academic trying to document fairy activity in Iceland (in a world where faeires are real). The way the romance is written reminds me of my favourite fanfic dynamics (mutual pining high Charisma x high Intelligence, my beloved), but the plot of this novel is also really fucking stellar and it holds it's own not as a romance book.

Uprooted by Naomi Novik if you've read anything by astolat on AO3, then you've read Naomi Novik lol :')))) i prefer novik's fic, but Uprooted is one of my favourite novels. This is like, sorcerer x wizard, but again I feel like while the romance has fic qualities the plot of this novel really holds up (no one I know has been able to put it down for the last 100 pages. You then read the last 100 pages so fucking fast that you don't remember anything that happened.)

In Other Lands by Sarah Rees Brennan Sarah Rees Brennan writes with that humorous-but-serious style that I like in fanfic - like, the emotional moments hit so hard, but the rest is a wee bit silly and the jokes always land. This is a coming of age novel about a human guy who goes to portal-quest magic school, but basically tries to implement diplomatic/bureaucratic solutions to problems. The main character is a sarcastic bisexual after my own heart.

The Cruel Prince by Holly Black This is the vibe most enemies-to-lovers fics wished they had, to be honest. This book is very easy to read, but the relationship between the two leads is Very Good. It tails off in the third book (still sad about this, to this day), but the 'let's be worse together' dynamic really had me by the throat for a while! Jude is an adopted human girl living in Faerie, ruthlessly intelligent and desperate to keep herself and her family safe, trying to find ways to survive in a place where she is constantly under threat. Cardan is an asshole. But he's about to be humbled like you'll never fucking believe.

The Unspoken Name by AK Larkwood The Serpent Gates duology is the book series I've read most recently that gave me the serotonin hit of a solidly good fanfic. The author has this perfect balance of humour and solid, heartrending character work. Csorwe is a girl who has been selected to be the Sacrificial Bride to a god called the Unspoken One, but at the last minute is saved by a wizard who offers to take her away from her death and give her a new life.

#asks #bookish posts #book recs #these are all really fucking solid books I'll be surprised if you don't like at least one of them!

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sunset-a-story · 1 year

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Writeblr Intro

Hello, Writeblr. I joined to connect with other writers, especially folks who write/are into LGBTQIA+ sci-fi/fantasy stories. I’d love to connect with writers looking to hype each other up and get excited for each other about our stories!

Sunset, a serial fiction in three arcs (Sunrise, High Noon, Sunset), is posted weekly on our Patreon where you can support us while getting fun extras. You can also find Sunset on Wattpad & AO3 a week after Patreon. *Sunset is now getting an audiobook version for accessibility! More info here.*

Sunset is a slow-burn of mounting tension and stakes that only get higher with expansive worldbuilding and a majority LGBTQIA+ ensemble cast that has something for everyone from espionage to adventure to romance and even a dash of monster hunting.

Sunset is written by myself and my partner/co-writer @touloserlautrec who also does all the artwork and "issue" covers.

When asked to sum up my WIP badly as a joke I usually go with: Telepaths ruin everything.

Actual blurb:

Joey sees the history of everything and everyone he touches as translucent blue ghosts acting out the past all around him. And this includes his own past, which is how Joey knows he wasn't born, he was made. Made and thrown away. What he doesn't know is that the people who made him, SolCorp, are actively working to find him and bring him "home" to be with others that have supernatural knacks like Joey. Neither one has any idea how much that will change them both forever.

Cover artwork by my co-writer touloserlautrec

SolCorp was founded to hide the existence of knacked people and their myriad of superhuman powers from the world, keeping humans safe from out-of-control knacks and keeping knacked people safe from human intolerance. So when they discover that one rogue Sol scientist had generated 25 babies with a defective Probability Manipulation knack and abandoned them out in the world fourteen years ago, it's up to SolCorp to find them and bring them back. But maybe their knacks weren't so defective after all because as three of the Venus 25 grow into adulthood, improbable things start happening that will change SolCorp and the world forever.

Extras on Patreon include things like exclusive deleted & bonus scenes, Baguette updates, early access to art and fiction, correspondence from LAHQ, and gift packages of merch.

Current Stage of Writing Process:

Sunrise (115k words/250 pages): released on Patreon | Wattpad | AO3

High Noon (325k words/717 pages): Releasing now

Sunset: (995 pages so far) drafting in progress

If you're interested in being on the taglist for Sunset, please let me know in a comment!

Sunset is a very character driven story with an ensemble cast so we created a dramatis personae reference page (cheat sheet) in case you want to refer back to it until the story gets underway and you become more familiar with the cast.

I also offer Alpha/Beta Reading Services!

Details below!

If you're looking for someone to put eyes on your original WIP and offer helpful but gentle feedback, message me!

Why me? I have a degree in Creative Writing. I was gainfully employed as a professional writer for 6 years. I have been published in literary journals and was a founding editor of a literary journal that I helped run for years. I have a 1,800+ page serial, and I just plain love stories. As far as pricing, I charge a $40 flat rate for pieces under 10K words and $0.004 USD per word for pieces over that.

#writeblr #writeblr intro #writing community #writeblr introduction #writeblr community #writer #writers of tumblr #sunset a story

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inkstaindusk · 2 months

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hello. i've been thinking about system update a bit recently. how's it going? do you have any tidbits you'd like to share? also, i'm really enjoying your capman reki fic, thank you for writing it. i'm also pretty curious about your thoughts about rinne's partner in the reaper's game, from what i've seen from your posts.

(sorry if this is out of the blue, i was reminded that i should send asks more often)

Hello hi! Dw about seeming random, I'm certainly not complaining, I love talking about myself/my work. Thank you for liking capman reki! I'm really proud of it! And someone actually sent an ask about Rinne's partner a few days ago which is in my drafts now, I have to go post that

Anyway system update is, regretfully, on pause while I 1) recover from capman reki au 2) try to read more enstars stories to understand the characters enough to write them (just because it's Aira centric doesn't mean I wanna totally mischaracterize someone's fave) and 3) devour some romance/fantasy in an effort to remember how to actually write romance/fantasy. Not to say I'm not thinking about it and don't have ideas, I just haven't written anything especially concrete for it.

[scratches head] I guess I can talk a little bit about Rinne tho since I meant to talk about what he's doing anyway. There is a tidbit of a thing I did the other day:

It’s not like Rinne likes everything he’s done and will do. Messing with the heads of those high and mighty mages is fun, but the rest is necessary evil. He definitely never wanted to kill kids, especially not kids his brother likes, but he doesn’t have time to deal with regrets—or, he does, but there’s only so much he can waste. He has a goal and he’s already decided to see it through to the end, no matter what it takes. He's come too far. He’ll bear with the consequences after. “Ai-chan needs to go.” Hiiro will never smile at him like that again.

Rinne, Rinne, Rinne. Surprising absolutely no one, his goal as the villain is to destroy society completely and absolutely. Because what else would he do honestly. Translating idols -> mages, you can expect his backstory to be basically the same, except now with twice the magic and murder! (Isn't it so weird that enstars is an idol game but I have to say that this AU comes with more magic and murder than usual?) And of course Crazy:B is also with him. All of them have ~secret identities~ because I need them to move around without drawing suspicion as The Guys Who Tried To Murder Trickstar Last Week (or whatever it is they do in their first villain appearance idk).

I'm not sure what else I can say about him. Uhhh oh his super special exclusive magic is called Roulette because I'm unoriginal like that, he gets a new special magic every time he uses it but naturally he has no control over what it is. Sometimes it's awesome. Mostly it's stupid shit. He and Niki have argued extensively over whether the food ingredient identification magic is cool or not.

#if i had a nickel for every time i thought too much about rinne in what should be an aira au etc etc #im actually thinking about this au 24/7 i just never have anything coherent enough to share #asks #agried #au: system update #enstars lb #amagi rinne

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ultfreakme · 5 months

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Hi.....Do you mind if I ask you some random thing? I used to love shounen and shoujo manga equally....But ever since I found BL manga 3 years ago, my interest in shoujosei (especially het romance) decrese a lot, and what I search for is just the dynamic between mc (male) and male lead...I don't want to read mc (female) and male lead or mc (male) and female lead...And what I want to read mostly are just mlm or wlw stories....

What do you think is happening to me? Is it really weird?

I don't mind at all go ahead with random asks(as long as it's not about my personal life or anything I'm chill most of the time)!!

I remember this happening to me when I was a wee lass about 607 years ago when I discovered BL/GL not straight content. I just fully stopped consuming shojo and josei. I don't think it's weird, I've seen a lot of people say that they exclusively read and watch BL stuff. Nothing strange is happening to you(I remember feeling like that as a kid), it might be a shift in the perspective of storytelling. Or, lbr, the hot boys are being hot and the cute boys are being cute without any misogyny being shoved in our faces all the time so it's fun.

From my experience, I think I made the switch because I found a lot of BLs to be way less toxic solely because there wasn't a female character to impose dumb misogynistic hetero-conforming stereotypes on. I think about 70% of the shojo manga I read was very toxic and I read them when I was in middle school and high school with no ability to parse that what's right in fiction isn't good in real life. Shojo mangas were fun because I used to like romance, and a lot of the stories were about normal or 'ugly' girls finding their perfect prince charming bad boy, becoming beautiful and living happily ever after.

It was wish fulfillment, self-insert a lot of the time, and I wanted what the MC female characters had because apprently getting a hot boyfriend and getting pretty was the key to happiness. Except....as I grew up I realized the perfect love interest guys are actually all weird af. Shojo mangas often reinforce a lot of heterosexual ideas. Like a boy being mean to a girl is romantic interest, losing your virginity is a big special thing, that you just have to dress prettier and wear makeup and have a glo-up otherwise your life will remain shit(oh you glasses-wearing HEATHEN lmaooo). Something in my brain went, "this is what i want? this strange song and dance of tolerating bad behaviour and changing myself entirely is what I should do?". The happy ending was also always a wedding, pregnancy and having two kids(which fucking terrified me). And so, shojo and josei fully lost their appeal.

BL and GL though......there is no self-insert, there is no heterosexual gendered biases coming into play. The couples are made to stand on equal footing without anyone going "you're a girl so I'll protect you" or "you're a guy so I'll take care of you and cook for you" or whatever. I'm not a guy, so all my irl issues are FULLY detached and irrelevant in BL stories. Also I discovered around the same time I was bisexual/pansexual/some fucking queer thing. And around this time, BL webtoons were so different with their plots like I got romance + fantasy settings or sci-fi settings or crime dramas etc. I haven't read many GL, Tamen De Gushi and The Guy She Was Interested in Wasn't a Guy At All are the more prominent ones I remember, I think for GL i usually consume western media so I can't say much on GL manga.

I just, got tired of seeing heterosexual romance because in josei and shojo, those dialogues and ideas that define their relationship often actively dismissed queer relationships and as a baby queer, that didn't sit right with me. "We're a guy and a girl who hang out a lot, so we have to be romantically interested" or "I'm just girl, I can't help but like being in the arms of a guy" or "She's a girl, and she's tiny and I like holding her" blah blah BLAH.

BL ALSO does this but at least someone in-story would go "actually no fuck you my looks don't mean anything" even if it's once or twice and ultimately it at least looks like a choice that they fall into certain 'roles'. And in the GL media I saw, this doesn't even come up as a thing to discuss. Society isn't forcing them to be anything, in fact their parents and friend circles are weirded out about it at times.

I actually stopped reading BLs now too tbh. I like action/adventure and fighting plots so the romance genre doesn't give me much. I don't know your specific reason for switching to mainly BL and GL, but I gotta say, it's hard to find the really good stuff in shojo/josei sometimes and the kind of romances they have are kind of formulaic if that's the focus of the story. There are a bunch shojo/josei I still remember fondly; NANA, Princess Jellyfish, Kaleido Star, SKIP! Beat, Akatsuki No Yona etc. I'm sure there are a bunch of shojo and josei that are probably really good and explores the idea of being a girl or a woman or femme-aligned in a modern setting well, but I think the irl setting no fantasy days of het romance are over for me.

I'd just like to repeat that enjoying BL and GL and not reading shojo or josei isn't weird. The differentiation of BL or LGBTQIA+ romances and straight romances make less sense to me day after day because shojo mangas and Shonen Ai or Shojo Ai are the exact same genre at the end of the day; romance. You like romance. The configuration of the couple doesn't mean too much because despite the baggage that comes with a queer romance it's still a love story.

#riki asks

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rosy-avenger · 1 year

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Review: The Women’s War by Jenna Glass

-I have read and enjoyed books that are not perfectly socially just in their approach to marginalized groups. I am capable of evaluating a book on its execution, not just whether I agree with its political stance.

-However.

-A book that is explicitly billed as a "high fantasy feminist epic" wants to be a manifesto, and therefore I feel free to criticize its politics accordingly.

-And so.

-If your feminism does not include LBPQ women, it is bullshit.

-If your feminism does not include trans women, nor address the relationship between patriarchy and gender essentialism by including trans men and nonbinary people, it is bullshit.

-If your feminism does not include disabled women, it is bullshit.

-If your feminism does not include fat women, it is bullshit.

-If your feminism makes only the barest gestures toward acknowledging that men are also harmed by the patriarchy, it is bullshit.

Further complaints:

(Initial note: I refer in this post to “women” and “men” in the book’s fictional setting with the same level of cisnormativity that the book uses. This is because if I used the correct inclusive language, ie “uterus owners” instead of “women capable of becoming pregnant” when discussing in-universe characters and events, it would make it sound like the author used that inclusive language, which she emphatically did not. When I refer, in this post, to “women” as synonomous with “people who can get pregnant” or “people who are subject to misogyny”, it’s because that’s how the author writes. Rest assured that I know trans theory, even though the author doesn’t.)

So the premise of this book is that a generations-in-the-making conspiracy finally comes to fruition with a globally-effective spell that prevents women from conceiving or carrying a pregnancy against their will. The second half of the spell relates to the prevention and punishment of rape - more on that later in the post.

There is an ensemble cast of characters from two different countries and several different societal positions:

Alys, the daughter of the king of Aaltah, who was declared illegitimate when her father divorced her mother to marry someone else;

Jinnell, Alys’ young adult daughter;

Shelvon, the abused wife of the crown prince of Aaltah (the king’s younger son and Alys’ half brother);

Chanlix, a woman who was relegated to the "Abbey of the Unwanted", where noblewomen who are rejected by their families are sent in a combination of disownment and coerced sex work, and now finds herself the Abbess and responsible for guiding the rest of the "abigails" into the future shaped by the spell;

Ellin, a princess from the country of Rhozinolm, who becomes queen of Rhozinolm in her own right following the unexpected deaths of the king and all the close male heirs;

and various other more minor POVs.

Alys’ mother Brenna was the previous Abbess, one of the women who died to cast the spell and arguably the one most responsible for it, and both Alys and Jinnell face problems from association with “the most reviled woman in Aaltah’s history”.

-If you read that and thought "wow, that sounds like one of those books that wants to be a TV show", you would be right! It absolutely wants to be a TV show. Specifically it wants to be the next Handmaid's Tale. This "cinematic" style in books doesn't usually annoy me, but for whatever reason this one did.

-Aside from not including any fat women, the only fat men are antagonists who are either exaggeratedly evil or incompetently awful, and are described with words like "corpulent" and depicted lacking self-control in regards to food.

-I debated on whether to include this as a complaint, so consider this bullet point a provisional complaint: there is no racism, antisemitism, or Islamophobia in this setting, as there is no systemic racism, or any irl religions. The characters are all fairly racially ambiguous. (Hence why I didn't refer to exclusion of WOC as a your-feminism-is-bullshit point above.)

However, just because there's no racism or religious bigotry in the setting doesn't mean the author didn't bring her own biases to the story. I quote goodreads user pdbkwm, who wrote an extensive one-star review of this book:

He falls in love for an older Abby, a discarded woman who is forced into sex work, and tells her this:

"But for now, just take it off. It's only you and me, and I assure you I won't be scandalized at the sight of a woman's hair."

Abbys have to wear heavy wimples and a cloak around their bodies...sound familiar? It seems like whenever there’s a novel about feminism, there’s always a subset of women who are so oppressed that they have to wear some sort of head covering. As a hijabi, I’m just tired of these tropes. When it comes to Muslim stories, there’s always this white boy who encourages the Muslim girl to shed her hijab off and embrace his way of life. Tynthanal’s entire purpose is to be that white guy, even though I don’t think he’s actually white in the book. He’s described as nut-brown, but who knows what nut this is referring to.

I'm not hijabi, but on a technical level, the depiction of the issue of the abigails wearing robes felt very shallow and unexamined. I don't think Chanlix, the Abbess, was even ever described as wearing a head covering until the scene pdbkwm references, so it was a weird surprise to have this major dynamic-building moment between Chanlix and Tynthanal be based around a detail of Chanlix's character that had never been talked about before.

The only aspect of that plot point that I approved of is that after the scene where Chanlix is willing to take off the head covering when alone with Tynthanal, she does continue to wear it when in wider company. The other abigails are also described (in a one-off sentence) as variously choosing to continue wearing their robes or not, and to wear dresses or pants as they prefer. This is, however, the bare minimum of showing that women are individuals who want different things.

The psychology of modesty is a complicated issue, not only loaded with sociopolitical context but also just difficult to parse. Different individuals have different feelings about modesty, so I’m not going to say that Chanlix’s feelings about her clothing are unrealistic, but I was hoping for a higher level of nuance in the depiction of her attitude towards modesty garb, both her own and the other abigails’.

Further: I don’t understand how a ~feminist author~ doesn’t realize that a man telling a woman to take off a garment because her not wearing it won’t bother him is not appealing. His comfort is not the issue here!

-The magic system is interesting, influenced by alchemy and requiring that naturally occurring elements be combined in certain ways to create spells. However, this is tainted by gender essentialism, as there are "male", "female" and "neuter" elements and the expected way of the world is that only men can see male elements and only women can see female ones. There is a point where Alys realizes she can see some male elements, but it's not because she's trans.

-The parameters of the anti-pregnancy spell are that a woman will not become pregnant against her will, and that the spell can tell when a woman is being coerced and won’t let her become pregnant if she consents under coercion either. Since coercion can be either outright or subtle, I had a very hard time suspending my disbelief to accept that the spell can figure out something that a woman might not even know herself.

We see the spell in action in the case of Shelvon, who has been pressured for a long time to produce an heir for the crown prince (Delnamal, the main antagonist of the book). Shelvon was wed to Delnamal as part of an international trade agreement, which requires an active marriage between the two countries. Shelvon’s plotline includes facing the risk that if she can’t produce an heir, Delnamal will divorce her, and Jinnell will have to marry Shelvon’s father, a known abuser, in order to maintain the trade agreement. Even though Shelvon wants to save Jinnell from that fate, her not wanting to bear Delnamal’s child is enough for the spell to prevent her from becoming pregnant.

The author does not seem to be aware that choice is an action, not a feeling, and that rational human beings are capable of making choices contradictory to their unreasoning emotions. The ability to choose something that goes against our base instincts is one of the things that makes us human rather than animals; the spell takes that option away from some women like Shelvon.

The confusion gets worse with the second half of the spell, which as I said above concerns consequences for rape. We are told about the element “kai”, which relates to death. Prior to the events of the story it was only ever produced by men when they died slow, violent deaths, and could be used to create spells of mass destruction. However, the spell cast by Alys’ mother allows for a new kind of kai, women’s kai, which is produced when a woman is raped by a man. (Of course the book never references the possibility of men being rape victims or women being rapists.) I immediately thought this wouldn’t actually help any women, because it would turn women from baby factories into weapons factories; but the author hastened to plaster this plot hole by saying that a mote of kai can only be used by the woman it belongs to, and she can’t be forced or coerced in its use either. Ok, fine. But the next detail is that a woman only receives a mote of kai if she resisted/said no to her rapist. Somehow we are expected to believe that the very same spell that can tell whether a woman is being coerced into becoming pregnant, is incapable of telling when a woman was coerced into sex even if she didn’t actively resist.

From a technical perspective, the only reason the author constructed the spell this way is so that Shelvon, who submits to Delnamal despite her hatred of him, wouldn’t have a mote of kai that she could use on him. I call so much bullshit.

This second half of the spell also makes less sense in that, if the goal was to prevent rape, and the spellcasters were capable of creating spells that can read minds, I don’t understand why the spell only allows for punishing rape after the fact rather than stopping men from committing rape at all. They could have created a spell that made a guy’s boner go away at the sound of the word “no”, or made a man fall unconscious when thoughts of committing rape appeared in his head.

Both parts of the spell including the provision against coercion also doesn’t inspire confidence that women’s lot in society will improve. Just because a woman can’t be coerced by threats, torture, starvation, or any other means to concieve or to use her mote of kai, doesn’t mean men won’t still hurt women to confirm through experimentation that coercion doesn't work, or to take out their frustrations that they can’t make women behave anymore. And a male rapist who becomes impotent as a result of his victim using her mote of kai can still hurt women nonsexually, or even still commit more sexual assault by means other than with his penis.

I would have accepted if either Brenna or any of the other female POVs had acknowledged that the spell couldn’t possibly be written with enough detail to protect every woman from every kind of sexist violence, but no one ever did. It’s just not good writing.

-There is only a very basic level of differing characterization between Alys, Jinnell, Chanlix, Shelvon, and Ellin. Multiple POV characters should bring different things to the narrative; otherwise, you could have just restricted the POV to one person.

There are very rarely any times when women wanting different things (at any level) is important to the story. There are multiple points where it seemed as though groundwork was being laid for a conflict of interests between two women, and then it just never went anywhere.

-There is one antagonistic female character who only appears in a single scene; she is a chaperone who supervises Jinnell on Delnamal's orders to enforce his control over Jinnell. She is the only exception — and a very minor one — to a rule that otherwise spans the entire book: all the female characters are "good guys". There are no other female antagonists, nor are there any other situations where a female character does anything that inconveniences or harms any other female character. You can't be a feminist writer if you don't let female characters be wrong sometimes, with the agency for their bad decisions to actually cause problems.

At the very least you need to let female characters conflict with each other because of differing wants or needs, even if none of them are exactly "wrong". The premise of this book was perfectly set up to have some women supporting the patriarchy unquestioningly and/or some women who work with the patriarchy under duress; there could also have been women, or factions of women, who were all opposed to the patriarchy but had conflicting views about politics, ethics, and the best way to proceed into their new future. But instead, all the women seem to agree with each other about everything, even when it doesn’t make sense for them to do so.

-All the interpersonal dynamics between women have a tone of saccharine sweetness where no woman ever has any bad feelings about any other woman. Chanlix never feels so much as a brief resentment of the other abigails who she’s responsible for; Jinnell, despite being a teenager, never gets irritated with her mother; Alys does not get angry at Shelvon for being unable to produce an heir for Delnamal even as that puts Jinnell in danger; Shelvon, despite being habitually frightened and nervous of what Delnamal will do to her, doesn't resent other women for putting her in positions of increased risk, nor does her fear make other women resent her. The author evidently subscribes to the concept of the inherent sisterhood between all women, as unrealistic as it is. The experience of reading about the conflictless interpersonal relationships between women was exactly the same as eating pasta with no salt.

-You will also notice the high saturation of noblewomen in the main cast. Even Chanlix, while not currently allowed the status and privilege of a noblewoman, was born into a noble family, as are all the women relegated to the Abbey. There are no common-born women who get POV chapters. The only servant woman who gets any notable screen time is the personal maid of the queen; she is a Loyal Servant and that is her only character trait. She also only has a couple of scenes and is otherwise unimportant to the narrative. This is especially bizarre considering that one of Ellin's struggles as queen is not having very many people she can trust; we're told that she trusts the maid, but the maid has so little screen time that her position as a supposedly trusted confidante was meaningless to the narrative.

-Alys and Chanlix become friends, but their friendship is entirely uncompelling. Friendship between female characters is not interesting if the progression of the relationship is just “they exist in the same space and then they become friends”, and especially not when the narrative just says they're friends now without doing the work to actually portray the friendship.

-The world overall just doesn't seem to have poor people in it. One of the early plot events was an earthquake, which Alys predicted would cause a tidal wave; she immediately went out of her way to go to the harbor district that is mainly inhabited by the lower classes, and warn them of the upcoming tidal wave that would sweep away their neighborhood. This whole plot sequence was presumably meant to virtue-signal that Alys cares about poor people despite being a noblewoman, but the author avoided actually putting poor people on-page by only describing the sequence in retrospect.

Re economic status, while Chanlix is somewhat concerned with the problem of how to organize the abigails to make money to support themselves, the possible consequence of them all falling into poverty doesn't feel real. You know that post about how the MCU tells us that Peter Parker is poor and then depicts him tossing away his backpack when he needs to get into costume quickly, with no concern for getting it back, or consequences when he can't get it back? This felt like that. The narrative gestures vaguely in the direction of the abigails being working-class, but doesn't say anything realistic or believable about what their economic position actually feels like.

The plotline that Chanlix is part of is kicked off by the previous Abbess, Alys’ mother Brenna, casting the anti-pregnancy spell at the beginning. Even though Brenna didn’t survive the casting, the king and crown prince are determined to punish all the other abigails, and so send them all away into exile. Chanlix’s story is mainly about how the abigails establish a new town in exile, aided by the appearance of a new Well (where the magic in the world comes from) that allows them to create the same kind of spells they always have, and also experiment with magic to create new spells, and thereby establish themselves as useful to the surrounding settlements without having to continue their sex work.

There’s a description of the new town, Women’s Well, that says it’s a cooperative community where no one is desperately poor. This implies that the author is aware of the importance of community construction and maintenance that avoids letting anyone fall into poverty, but she continues to not depict poor people on page, or address feminist issues that affect poor women.

The whole Women’s Well plotline is badly executed in another way: Chanlix is the leader, and you would expect that her arc would be about her struggles with leadership, right? Even if the author is committed to no woman ever having negative feelings toward any other woman for any reason, and therefore doesn’t want to depict anyone opposing Chanlix’s leadership, Chanlix could still have a plot arc about gaining confidence in her leadership skills, right?

No such luck. There are ZERO scenes of Chanlix exercising her leadership after they arrive at the site where they will establish Women’s Well. The only scene in the entire book where she has to make a leadership decision is before they go into exile: one of the subordinate abigails has used her mote of kai to create a spell that will render a particular man permanently impotent. She asks Chanlix’s permission to cast it. Chanlix tells her no, but she does it anyway. Chanlix has a single moment of doubt as to what she should do — punish the disobedience or let it go — and decides to let it go. At the time, this read like foreshadowing for Chanlix being a weak leader who would struggle with keeping the people in her charge from constantly disobeying her. But like all the other things that seemed like groundwork for conflict, this never went anywhere.

-I never get the sense that any of the female characters like being women. Various women of the cast are said to have a range of interests, including Jinnell, the teenager, who likes ~frivolous~ female pursuits alongside many others who don't care; but nobody ever has so much as a single moment of (cis)gender euphoria where they are genuinely happy to be female. What the hell is female empowerment even for, if not that? (But of course if the author is a terf, she wouldn't want to approach such trans-influenced concepts as gender euphoria, even for cis people.)

I also would have expected a story about women's oppression to feature discussion of the injustice a female child feels as she reaches adolescence, and realizes what it means to be an adult woman in a sexist society. But by having the youngest POV character be 18, that whole phase of any woman's life is skipped over and ignored.

-The POV characters are a range of ages — Jinnell is 18, Shelvon and Ellin are early 20s, Chanlix and Alys are early 40s — but there are no major characters who are old women or young girls. Both of those POVs would have been valuable in a story about women, and specifically a story that pivots around a major change in how the world sees women. It would have made sense to include old women who have lived their whole lives under horrific sexist conditions, and show them contributing meaningfully to the politics of the new world; and inclusion of young girls would have reinforced that the adult women are fighting for a better future, not just survival in the present.

I strongly suspect that the exclusion of younger and older female characters is because the author wants the book to be adapted into a TV show, and she was aware that Hollywood doesn't want child actresses or older actresses if they can be avoided. Making choices about how to write a novel based on a screen adaptation that may or may not happen is not a choice I can agree with.

-There were moments early on where the sex work industry was talked about as unequivocally coercive and I was like, I disagree with that stance for real life, but I'm willing to entertain it for this fictional universe where things really are worse for sex workers than irl. But then there was a conversation between Tynthanal and Chanlix where he says he has never employed an abigail because consent is important to him, and abigails can't truly consent because of the coercive nature of being paid for sex. Since that is a stance that applies to real life conditions as well, I feel free to criticize this political position along with all the others listed above.

-When it starts to sink in for the people of this world that women can no longer get pregnant against their will, one of the social changes is that women who are interested in sex can now have as much unprotected sex as they want; the narration says something like "with the same lack of consequences as men do".

At this point (listening to the audiobook while driving) I was smacking my steering wheel and shouting "STIs!" at the book. The author did not see fit to include any other risks associated with unprotected sex besides pregnancy, which is unrealistic to the point of infuriating. In regard to STIs, it should have said "with only the same risks as men have".

Even aside from STIs, there are other potential consequences for women who start to be more open about having sex in situations other than what has previously been socially acceptable. The author even acknowledges elsewhere in the book that women face societal consequences (slutshaming) for sex outside of marriage, but then doesn't carry that to a conclusion that the women characters still don't have total freedom to have sex just because they can't get pregnant.

-Later in the book, Jinnell is facing the prospect of having to marry the abuser to maintain the trade agreement, and tries to avoid that fate by finding a man to sleep with so that her potential husband will reject her as unchaste. She flirts heavily with a guardsman but can't get him to follow through on any action. Jinnell later is confronted by Delnamal, who says that the guardsman told his supervisor what Jinnell did, and Jinnell is threatened with severe punishment for her attempt to throw away her virginity. The narrative here clearly wants us to blame the guardsman, but here's the thing: he was genuinely uncomfortable with Jinnell's advances, and it doesn't read like he told on Jinnell to punish her, just to get reassigned away from anywhere he might have to encounter her again. That's right, folks: if you get harassed by someone in your workplace, you shouldn't tell your employer so the problem can be prevented from happening again, because the harasser might get in trouble for it!

Even with the focus on conception and pregnancy, there is no discussion of birth or obstetrics. Women in a setting with no modern medical science should have taken the pain and health risks of childbirth into account when thinking about pregnancy, but no births happen in the story and none of the POV characters (including the ones who are mothers) ever even think about childbirth.

-In an absolutely bizarre narrative choice, the book is very limited in its discussion of what sexism is. Issues that the book does not discuss even in passing include: childrearing or any other labor considered to be women’s work; breastfeeding or restrictions on its social acceptability; women being disenfranchised from education; women having difficulty being taken seriously by medical professionals, or a lack of concern in the medical field about women's health issues; the expectation that women should follow particular beauty standards even when it is expensive or uncomfortable to do so; the prevention of access or societal disapproval for women in sports, the arts, religion, or any other field; in short, all the issues of systemic sexism. Even though the author clearly mainly wanted to talk about reproductive injustice, I fully do not understand why anyone would write a book about women’s oppression and not talk about these issues.

-All the abigails are women. There is no mention of male sex workers, either for women clients or men clients. Gender essentialism and queer erasure again.

-The book start-to-finish has a huge problem with telling instead of showing. We're told that Jinnell likes "frivolous" typically-female things, but never see any evidence of that on-page. We're told that Alys and Chanlix are friends, but we don't see them having any interactions that support the idea that they are friends. We're told that Women's Well establishes itself as an autonomous town, but we don't see any of that process. I don't know if this is because of the writing style that is meant to be easily adapted into television, but even screen media needs to know how to show rather than tell.

It's not even that the author tried to keep the length of the book manageable by describing things briefly instead of depicting them in full, because this book is twenty audio hours or about 550 pages long.

The one and only thing I unequivocally liked:

-The characters' names all include the name of one of the magical elements, which was a cool worldbuilding detail.

---

Overall, I do not recommend this book.

If you want an epic fantasy with actually complex female characters, read "The Bone Shard Daughter" and "The Bone Shard Emperor" by Andrea Stewart instead. No queer main characters, but there is casual queerness in the world and it’s a no-sexism world as well. The female protagonist faces legitimately complicated leadership decisions including what to do about the female antagonist, who is also a complex character.

If you want a feminist fantasy and are okay with depictions of awful patriarchy and rape culture, read "Girls of Paper and Fire" by Natasha Ngan instead. There are queer main characters, as well as realistic conflicts between women who are all being oppressed by the patriarchy but react to it in different ways.

If you want a feminist fantasy with no rape, but still with a female protagonist who has to deal with sexism, and becomes a good leader through a series of leadership moments that actually happen on-screen, read “Lady Knight” by Tamora Pierce (but read the first three books in the series first).

#rosy reads #the women's war #jenna glass #rape tw #tokophobia tw #long post #really long. four thousand words long lmao oops

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frozendelinquent · 2 years

Text

PLEASE REPOST, DO NOT REBLOG! Feel free to add to any of your answers! The purpose is to tell your partners about the way you write! For the multiple choice ones, BOLD all that apply and, if you want, italicize if it’s a conditional answer!

– b a s i c s –

NAME : Ari

ARE YOU OVER 18? Yes / No

IS YOUR MUSE? Yes / No ( While Junior was 17 in S1, I headcanon he turned 18 probably sometime after his initial episode and won’t be playing him underage. LOL )

ARE YOU SELECTIVE ABOUT WHO YOU WRITE WITH ON THIS BLOG? No (anyone) / Semi (most people) / Yes / Highly / Private (mutuals only)

ARE YOU SELECTIVE ABOUT WHO YOU FOLLOW ON THIS BLOG? No (anyone) / Semi / Yes / Highly

IF YOUR MUSE IS CANON, HOW MUCH TO YOU ADHERE TO CANON? Not at all / A little / Some / Mostly ( i am headcanon heavy but follow the series either way ) / Strictly / (OC) I write my own canon.

WHAT POST LENGTHS DO YOU WRITE? One Liners / Single-Para / Multi-Para / Novella

DO YOU USE ICONS AND/OR GIFS? No / Gifs / Icons / Gif icons

DO YOU WRITE ON OTHER PLATFORMS? No / Yes

WHAT LEVEL OF PLOTS DO YOU WRITE? Unplotted / Open Ended Plots / Semi-Plotted / Fully Plotted Epics (if someone would like to do a fully plotted epic saga with me like wow I’d be down)

HOW QUICKLY DO YOU USUALLY RESPOND TO THREADS? Very Slow (more than a month) / Slow (3-4 Weeks) / Average (1-2 Weeks) / Fast (Less Than One Week) / Very Fast (Less Than Three Days)

WHAT TYPES OF THEMES DO YOU LIKE? (feel free to add!) Fluff / Angst / Smut / Action / Tragedy / Domestic / Family / Conversational / Hurt-Comfort

WHAT GENRES DO YOU LIKE? (feel free to add!) High Fantasy / Supernatural / Science Fiction / Historical / Horror / Comedy / Romantic / Drama / Action / Adventure / Espionage / Everything

ARE THERE ANY THEMES YOU’RE UNCOMFORTABLE WRITING ON YOUR BLOG? (not triggers) No / Yes

DO YOU HAVE ANY TRIGGERS? No / Yes (Animal Death)

HOW DO YOU REQUEST IT TAGGED? If you’re RPING with me just give me a heads up. but like tw: or tw etc is a good way to go about it.

– s h i p p i n g –

WHAT TYPES OF RELATIONSHIPS ARE YOU OPEN TO? Romantic / Platonic / Familial / Physical / Sexual

WHAT TYPES OF PRE-ESTABLISHED RELATIONSHIPS ARE YOU OPEN TO? Romantic / Platonic / Familial / Physical / Sexual / If it makes sense and we talk about it, then I’m down.

DO YOU HAVE OTPS? No / Chemistry only / Yes

DO YOU HAVE NOTPS? No / Yes / I don’t know

ARE YOU COMFORTABLE WRITING SMUT? No / Selectively (I would have to know who you are and like talk to you regularly ooc for me to consider writing smut. Smut is usually done on discord or in private. / Yes

HOW EARLY IN A RELATIONSHIP DO YOU SHIP ROMANTICALLY? Autoship / During Plotting / After A Couple IC Interactions / Several IC Interactions / Slow Burn / Depends on partner & muse

ARE YOU OPEN TO TOXIC SHIPS? No / EXTREMELY Selectively / Yes / Never Tried It

ARE YOU OPEN TO PROBLEMATIC SHIPS? No / EXTREMELY Selectively / Yes

ARE YOU OPEN TO POLYSHIPPING? No / Selectively / Yes (so long as all muns agree and plot together)

ARE YOU AN EXCLUSIVE SHIPPER? No / Sometimes / Yes

DOES CRACK SHIPPING EVER HAPPEN? No / Sometimes / Yes (so long as there’s chemistry and you know if we both joke about it enough ooc)

DOES CROSSOVER SHIPPING EVER HAPPEN? No / Yes / Depends- as long as it makes sense Stolen from: @kryptonianclone Tagging: whoever the fuck gets down here to read this.

#| ❅ | sᴛᴀʏ ғʀᴏsᴛʏ ( ooc )#| ❅ | ᴍᴇᴍᴇ: answered

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cowboycakes · 3 years

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The Strategy

Pairing: Zeke Jaeger x Reader

Synopsis: The forest was the last place you thought you'd find yourself infatuated with someone you barely knew - especially not your cocky prisoner.

Themes: angst, flirting, guilty love, big plot twist

Warnings: kissing and suggestive language, bullying / teasing, mentions of death, some anxious thinking, light alcohol and tobacco use, profanity. reader uses she/her pronouns. s4 spoilers.

Word Count: 5.7k

Anon (🐸)'s Request: Hi ! Can I request a Zeke x fem reader imagine/one-shot? Reader is a captain for the survey corp and long time veteran. She is really intelligent and is a strategist for the corp. They kind of hate each other but have a lot of chemistry but start bonding before the forest incident. Sorry if that isn't specific enough and too vague.

On occasion, you tended to be so logical that it ruined your life. There was no room in your mind for daydreams, love, or speculation. Fate was false - most things in life were completely arbitrary. That was the way you’d trained yourself to think. Not because you enjoyed it, only because it made it easier to survive.

This way of thinking is a result of your lifetime with the Corps. The award of a Captain’s position was the fruit of your labor, along with being revered for your ability to strategize. Many of the most important and most successful missions in recent years had been planned by you. But, the bubbling tension and division within the walls have thrown you for a loop. You’ve attempted to collaborate with Levi in recent weeks to try to pin down any conflict - anything you could do to calm the storm and keep your comrades safe would be worth it.

Instead of being able to act on whatever plans you’d developed, you’d been assigned to the most bizarre mission you’d ever taken part in: babysitting some man in his late twenties, all the way out in a forest filled with towering redwood trees. This mystery man was apparently not to be trusted, he was Eren’s half-brother from Marley and the holder of the beast titan. He’d done tremendous damage to the Corps in the past. His intentions and motives now remained mysterious, but one thing was for sure: his loyalties lied with Eren, not with the Scouts.

You were disappointed and terrified all together. Being so far away from the action left both you and your comrades vulnerable. But, Levi insisted you needed to confine this man far away from society. And although you were a captain, whatever Levi says usually goes.

The forest wasn’t so bad upon your arrival. Damp pine needles that covered the ground coated the air in a sweet aroma. The blanket of shade given off by the trees was temperate in the summer heat. The tents you’d been provided with were sturdy, insulated, and a dark shade of green that complimented the woodland setting. Above all, you were accompanied by 30 trained soldiers and a shipment of high-quality Marleyan wine.

The entirety of your first day in the forest was spent unpacking and setting up your living quarters. Stars now peak through the canopy of branches above, and a cold breeze ruffles the millions of leaves surrounding the camp. The air was chilly despite the heat that blazed earlier in the day.

The cot you’d assembled in your tent is comfortable enough, but the grey sheets you’d just stretched over the mattress still smell stale. You conjure up the idea of going for a walk while your blankets air out. The musty scent sure wasn’t going to lull you to sleep.

Your timid feet crunch on the ground through the forest for a while, away from the camp. The mist of your breath is tangible in front of your face - the light jacket you’d brought wasn’t going to be enough to keep your goosebumps at bay. It’s much more intimidating out here at night than you’d expected. Darkness brought mystery to the gaps between each tree. And the sheer amount of trees beyond the campsite is dizzying, their height is even more difficult to process. They add a sense of company to your walk, although you can’t tell if they are peaceful observers or prying sets of eyes.

It’s surprisingly quiet out here, no animal or human alike made noise at this hour. The silence leads you to pick up on the echo of a fire crackling somewhere. You’re suddenly a bit excited - you’d figured everyone would have gone to sleep by now.

You spot a comforting orange glow coming from the other side of the distant campsite, offset from the main groups of tents. Maybe someone else’s sheets needed time to breathe too.

The light grows brighter as you trek towards it. It leads you to a humble tent and a fire pit with two rusted metal chairs placed on either side of it. In one of the chairs sits a blonde man in a white shirt, with his back turned to you. He has his nose in a poorly bound book - its stitching is frayed and the pages look wilted, as if they’d been dropped in water before. A cigarette smolders in his free hand.

Your feet crunch into the ground a little harder as you approach in an attempt to avoid startling him. The man looks up to you once you’re finally facing each other. His face is foreign to you. Round glasses on his nose reflect a golden luster from the fire in front of him, blurring your view of his grey eyes slightly. Blonde waves are parted down the middle of his head, tousled a bit too perfectly. He has a well groomed beard that compliments his structured face and strong biceps that peak through his shirt sleeves.

He’s handsome, classy, alluring. Nothing like the usual around here.

“Hi, I’m Captain Reader,” you say with a small smile.

“Reader, huh?” he says, folding his book closed, “I think I’ve heard that name somehow…”

“Oh, possibly. I’m a long time captain. I do a lot of strategic work as well, and it's not exclusive to the Scouts. So my name tends to get around.”

“My name is Zeke,” he replies, returning the smile. “It’s nice to meet you.”

Zeke… did that sound familiar? You couldn’t decide.

You take a seat in the other chair across from the fire, warming your hands once you get comfortable. The embers lit in front of you are only a sad little bundle of sticks, clearly in need of more fuel. Zeke rolls his shoulders back as his eyes focus in on your frame. His attention is definitely not on the book anymore. His body language almost tells you he likes what he sees - he’s open, relaxed, observant. The cigarette has gone a bit limp in between his fingers.

You’re guilty of curiosity too, as your eyes prod his figure. There must be something in the air.

“What’s that book about?” you question, “it looks… well loved.”

He chuckles. “It's a little fantasy piece, actually. Not something I’d usually find myself reading, but I’ve read it a hundred times now. It’s about a maiden who buys her way to heaven, and a prince who rescues her from the consequences.”

“Interesting…” you say, “how does someone buy their way to heaven?”

“With something far more valuable than money,” he explains. You wonder if the sultry undertone he added was all part of your imagination. It was a little grumbly, suggestive.

“And what would that be?”

“Not sure, still trying to figure that one out,” he remarks, bringing the cigarette up to his lips. Light from the fire gets trapped in the smoke and travels up through the dark air as he exhales.

“You’re gonna ruin your lungs if you keep doing that, Zeke,” you joke.

He chuckles again, “So she’s pretty and caring. Guess I’ve lucked out.”

You feel a little heat rush to your cheeks. This innocent, flattered, puppy-love feeling: you hadn’t felt this way in years. You really wish you could just brush it off, it wasn’t something you were used to. Instead, you let your mind wander for only a second - it would be a nice pastime to have a summer fling with someone in this forest. You were more than tempted. It would get your mind off of the impending doom you tended to feel in chaotic times like this. You could live a bit for once.

And the beautiful man in front of you could be the perfect candidate.

“Hmm, it’s convenient that you think so,” you reply, crossing your legs.

“Convenient? For you, or for me?” he questions. “Looking to get something out of your time in this forest, Captain?”

You pause. He’s bold. “Depends… what about you?”

Zeke lifts the book up slightly in his hand and flips it over to examine its withered back cover, “Not sure, maybe I’ll finally experience whatever this book is talking about. Something so desirable I could cheat my way into heaven with it.”

No. His tone wasn’t your imagination.

“I have a feeling you’ll end up being the prince that has to deal with someone else’s fuck-ups instead,” you laugh.

His lips curl back into a smile as he starts to laugh with you. “Doesn’t sound out of character,” he replies.

His pretty blonde hair ruffles a bit as the wind picks up. And shit - is that wind bitter. The miniscule fire wasn’t doing it’s best to warm you. You notice your limbs are shaking, too much for your jacket and hands to conceal. Zeke surely notices too, he’s been eyeing you this whole time after all.

“Here,” Zeke offers, pulling a thick corduroy coat off of the back of his chair.

“No, no. You should wear that. I’m alright,” you protest, rubbing your hands over your arms vigorously to try to stop your shuddering.

Zeke gets up from his seat anyway and crosses the gap between the two of you. You look up to him once he’s standing over you, embarrassed. Two big hands drape the hefty fabric over your shivering shoulders. You immediately feel warmer as your body heat gets trapped underneath it.

“Thanks,” you mutter, pulling on the jacket to adjust it on your arms.

The wind still howls as Zeke goes back to his metal chair. He sits down casually, taking another drag of his cigarette as his eyes move back to you, lingering on you gently -- like he feels satisfied or nostalgic. Your features looked so beautiful in the faint orange light of the fire, as the only focal point in his vision while darkness clouded everything behind you. He couldn’t help but stare.

“I do mean it,” he says as he exhales, “that you’re pretty.”

His words hang there for a moment. They wait for you on a hook, persuading you to take his bait. So he could reel you in.

“Trying to flatter your superiors huh? Well that’s one way to get what you want,” you retort.

“Who says you’re my superior, Captain Reader?” he jokes.

You laugh at him.

“Don’t take this the wrong way,” you begin, “but I’ve never seen you around before. Are you from another branch of the military?”

Zeke pauses, letting out a huff of air.

“You know, with a reputation like yours, one would think you’d know your enemies a little better.”

Your face drops from a smile that rested high on your cheeks to a shocked, open-mouthed glare. You’re frozen. Why didn’t you assume…

“You’re the other Jaeger…” you trail off.

Zeke brings the cigarette back to his mouth and flips his book back open in response.

You stare down into the fire, unsure of what to do or say next. You were mortified. Maybe saying nothing was the answer - you’d already dug yourself into a hole by flirting with your prisoner. And damn, did Zeke deliberately let you. He knew who you were. He wanted you to feel this way. He led you on.

Who was supposed to deal with your fuck-up now?

You stand up, keeping your eyes on the ground.

“Goodnight, Zeke,” you say quietly, dropping his coat onto the chair.

You move quickly through the dark air that nips at your ears, back to the safety of your tent.

***

“Don’t go off and be an idiot,” Levi warns.

You assure him you wouldn’t, pouring a big glass of wine for yourself with a smile spread across your face.

Levi had been more than reluctant to let your soldiers bring this wine, but you’d done some convincing. This forest had been boring for the past few days. Laughing over a few drinks would be a sure way to liven up the crowd. You were just excited to finally get a taste of this Marleyan wine that everyone had been raving about.

You hadn’t seen Zeke since that night three days ago. Unfortunately, you couldn’t get him off of your mind. Partially because you were horribly embarrassed. And angry. You couldn’t believe you’d walked into his trap like that, practically offering yourself to him as a subject to humiliate. You were sure he’d enjoyed every bit of it.

And the other reason you couldn’t get him off of your mind…

He was a bit gorgeous. And you loved the way he talked to you, how it made you feel. Even though your time with him was so short, you secretly wanted more. You cursed yourself for thinking about him like that after all the harm he’d done to the Scouts. All of it made you sick - it was wrong, it made you feel like you had dirt on your hands.

But what if you tried to talk with him again? Just to sort your feelings out. Then you could be free to forget about him. This time, you would control yourself. You knew who he was now, and what it meant to be speaking with him. You were allowed to speak with him, you just had to be careful if you were going to proceed. None of you could trust him.

But the curiosity was still killing you.

You swirl the wine around in your glass as you dig the toe of your leather boot into the soft ground - trying to decide.

Anxious feet move below you before your mind is ready for them to, back toward Zeke’s tent.

It was nearly sundown, and beautiful purple rays beam through the forest, shattered from full display by hundreds of tree branches. The air was warm tonight, so there would be no need for Zeke's jacket again.

Once you see his camp, you notice he’s back in the same chair again. He’s still reading that torn-up book, this time with a pencil in his hand. He scratches little notes onto the pages here and there.

He looks up once he hears the familiar sound of your boots. The eyes behind his circular lenses scan you, lingering on the glass in your hand. You wonder if you should have brought him one.

“Hi, Zeke,” you say softly, making your way to the chair across the empty fire pit.

“Captain, thought I’d never see you again,” he says, a false excitement stuck in his voice.

You keep swirling your wine around in its glass, waiting for it to air out so you could take your first sip. It smelled divine, so fruity and fresh, in contrast with the earthy smells that the forest gave off.

Zeke looks up to you over the top rims of his glasses, unimpressed. You raise your glass to your lips, almost ready to tilt it back and let the chilled, burgundy wine rush into your mouth.

“That’s sluggish if you,” he remarks.

You pause, letting the cool glass linger on your bottom lip.

“What?” you bark, pulling the glass from your mouth.

He looks back down at his book, “No Marleyan strategist - or any good strategist for that matter - would drink in front of their adversaries. It makes you look sluggish.”

You just gape at him. He’s probably having fun while trying to irritate you. Two could play.

You put your arm out in front of you and flip the glass over, pouring the wine onto the wet dirt below. It splashes up onto your boots as it streams from your cup and runs down to spill into the fire pit.

“Happy?” you grumble, tossing the glass into the dirt. “Probably shitty wine anyway, considering you two come from the same place.”

He snickers, “Not quite. I was hoping you’d just hand the glass over.”

You regretted trying to talk to him now.

“Fine,” you sigh, getting up from your spot and turning back toward your tent. “Keep scribbling in your stupid book.”

“Actually, I was writing the two of us into the story.”

You’re sure he’s just pushing your buttons further - trying to lay another trap for you and capture you in another awkward moment of infatuation. But his words cause you to pause in your steps for a second.

“And what are we doing?” you question.

“We just cheated our way into heaven.”

“Creep,” you grumble before continuing to walk.

***

You hadn’t gone near that wine since. You had a grudge against it now, it completely ruined the mood last time you saw Zeke. But it had sure lightened the mood for everyone else, probably a little too much. Everyone except for Levi, of course. It was nearly impossible to change his mood.

In the meantime, you were still victim to unwarranted thoughts of Zeke in your head. This almost felt like a schoolgirl crush, how he bullied you a bit. This was more like torment, actually, considering you were trying to get him out of your head. But it didn’t change the fact that you liked what you saw.

Lately he was always reading that book and jotting down notes in it. And he rarely left his little corner of the campsite except for when he went on walks sometimes. You’d admire him from afar, careful never to let your eyes meet with his.

You’d take the images of him now burned into your brain back to bed with you, and stare up to the dark tent ceiling above. You’d fantasize about what it would have been like to meet Zeke in another life. One where the two of you weren’t enemies trapped on two different sides of a war. Where you didn’t feel guilt for your interest in someone who had jeopardized you and your comrades. Where the two of you were free to know one another.

You couldn’t pinpoint what kept driving this involuntary curiosity you felt towards him. It was tiring, honestly. But you wanted his company. Maybe you just wanted company in general -- it's not like you got along with him or anything.

Should you fix that? Did you even want to fix that? Would a peace offering be doing too much?

He did mention he wanted your glass of wine…

So one night, you cave. And you march over to the wooden cart that held dozens of cases of wine, an empty glass for Zeke in hand. You’re shocked to see only four measly bottles remain, laying on their sides in the only wooden case left. You could have sworn the shipment was full only a few days ago, but this camp had been set up for weeks now. Everyone here must be just as bored as you were, and several times more thirsty.

You pry open a cork and pour a few inches of wine into the glass, stopping to waft the crisp aroma into your nose. The air tonight was crisp too, it was cooler than it had been in recent days. You were adamant about remembering a jacket this time. The journey to Zeke’s tent feels long under the moonless sky. Hesitancy, followed by regret, pools into your brain as the dim light from his campfire comes into view.

Grow some balls, you’re convincing yourself that all of this means more than it really does. You’re bringing him a glass of wine for God’s sake.

There’s still time to turn around though… you could just finish the glass on your own. Out of range for him to bully you for it.

But he’s sitting there so prettily. He has his boots up on the rocks surrounding the fire pit, careful not to burn their soles in the flames. His blonde locks are pushed back slightly, giving you more room to look at his smooth face. And he’s certainly not busy, just reading his old book. Maybe he still had some compliments left for you despite all the bickering you two had done. Maybe he-

“Haven’t tried any of that ‘shitty’ wine yet, have you?” he questions. You hadn’t even noticed how close you are to him now. You’d gotten lost in him on the way.

“No…” you grumble, “it's for you. A peace offering.”

You stick your hand out. He receives the glass, lifting it up to examine it before taking a big drink.

“Ah,” he breathes, clearly satisfied. “It’s disgusting, Captain. Really.”

You stifle a laugh. “Everyone else seems to think so too. It’s all nearly gone.”

“Hmm,” he says, taking another sip, “None for you, I guess. Might as well just let it run out.”

“I think I will,” you mock, turning away from him to go sit in your chair,

The sizable fire Zeke had put together tonight was quick to thaw the chills on your arms. You really didn’t need your jacket after all, and opted to lay it over the back of your chair. The two of you sit there in silence for a while, taking in each other’s presence, observing the dying light in the forest.

Zeke looks at you eventually. Your eyes instinctually dart away.

“What made you want to come see me again?” Zeke asks.

You frantically search for an answer. You need to be careful.

“Boredom,” you reply flatly.

“You think so?” His attitude is back to how it was the first night you’d met. He’s engaged, focused, yet comes off so casual laying back up against his seat like that. He enjoys toying with you, like a cat to its prey.

Be careful.

“Don’t like my answer or something?”

That wasn’t exactly careful.

“No. You’re just not being honest.” He breathes that last word out like he needs to get a rise out of you, then he nonchalantly takes another drink while he waits for you to respond. Your mouth is open the slightest bit; you’re nervous, angry. He’s in your head now. He was reading you like that overused book of his.

“Then what do you want to hear from me?” you question. There’s thankfully still a false calmness in your voice.

“Just the truth. It’s not that complicated.”

You were sweating in front of this fire now. What was the truth? That you were interested in him? That you wanted nothing to do with him?

Be honest.

“I guess I just like your company,” you admit. Your eyes fall to the rocks lining the fire pit.

***

The discussion became pleasant after that, surprisingly. You guess you just needed to own up to how you felt. Your admittance caused some of the anger and tension tugging between the two of you to subside. The conversation was calm, collected, bouncing around from subject to subject: from the book, to life in Marley, to life in Paradis, to your occupation, and back to the book. Most of it was uneventful, but you liked that. It made it easy to pretend you were talking to him on the first night again, before you found out who he really was.

You left his camp with a giddy smile on your face. You’re on your way back to your tent now, after saying your goodbyes to Zeke. It was late, and you needed to be up early to have an important conversation with Levi. And god forbid he found out about any of this business between you and Zeke. Even though nothing was serious, it would come off unprofessional. And rightfully so.

You’re so lost in thought by the time you’re opening your tent door that you didn’t realize your arms were cold. The jacket you brought was probably still hanging off the chair at Zekes fire pit. It would look suspicious if you left it there and one of the other soldiers happened to see it.

You go back quietly, careful not to let anyone hear your footsteps. A couple of scattered thoughts weave their way into your head on your journey - what if this was another ploy of his? An attempt to get you back where he wants you, this time late at night. But how could it be? You were the one who left your jacket there. If anything, this was your own attempt to lead yourself back to him. Did you want him that badly… deep down?

When you reach your chair, you find it to be empty. You check around its sides, back, and underside - no jacket in sight. Out of the corner of your eye, a sliver of light shows from under the tarp serving as Zeke’s tent door. He’d probably noticed it and taken it inside with him after you’d gone home.

Halfheartedly, you meander to the tent door. You tap on it once the limited glimmer of light from inside touches the toes of your boots.

“Zeke? Do you have my jacket?” you whisper, still flicking the tarp to get his attention.

No answer.

Cold air stings your exposed skin as a draft swoops down through the camp. You also were wary of any observers that happened to be out this late at night. There was no telling what it looked like you might be doing outside his tent at the moment. The more uncomfortable you became out here, the more impatient you got.

“Zeke!” you hiss, whipping your head around your shoulder to double check your surroundings.

Still nothing but silence on the other side. Had he fallen asleep already?

The urge to pull back the tent door hits you. It would only take a moment to retrieve the jacket, then you’d be on your way.

Once again, making this a bigger deal than it really is.

But that didn’t matter. It felt like a big deal. That’s what every situation that involved him felt like. A big, complicated, multidimensional deal.

Be careful.

That wasn’t the answer either. Being careful was a good tactic when it came to strategizing your next moves in war. It was sometimes rendered useless when dealing with love. This was out of your control. And that was ok. That was what compelled you toward him - the mystery, the rush.

Let go.

You grip the tarp, it crinkles under your stiff fingers as you pull it back. A rush of warm air hits you, along with the light of a few oil lamps. And Zeke… shirtless. Sitting on his unmade bed with your jacket in hand.

The sight of his sculpted body in front of you sets a nervous, unprepared spark off in you, causing you to shut the door fast and stumble inside. And all at once, there you were - back in Zeke’s grasp. You accepted that wanted to be there.

“My jacket... ” you say, staring hard at the fabric in his hands, trying to avoid eye contact with his bare chest.

He stands up in silence and comes to your side, raising the jacket up once he gets real close to you. Oh no, he’s draping it over your shoulders again, slowly this time around, taking his time to stare into your puppy dog eyes. Dammit - the hot cheeks, the butterflies, the embarrassment. All of it was back now, in an instant he had you feeling like puddy in his hands. The two of you stare at each other as his hands adjust the jacket around you, stopping to play with one of the buttons on the front.

“You’re forgetful,” he mumbles, still focused on the button on your chest. His tone is sweet and quiet, a small smile appears out of one corner of his mouth.

You weren’t breathing, or thinking. Just looking down innocently at the hand that was so close to you.

“I’m not… normally,” you say quietly.

Zeke’s hands move to grip each side of the front of your jacket gently. His eyes move up from the hands placed on your jacket, and back to you. To your lips. You part them at the realization, swallowing the lump that suddenly appeared in your throat.

He shifts further in towards you, tugging on your jacket the slightest bit.

One cohesive thought rises up in the blankness of your brain. You want to kiss him.

The urge was mutual. Your lashes flutter against your cheeks a few times before you shut them, turning your head slightly to the right. Zeke follows your lead. You feel warm fingertips touch your chin and guide you to his soft pair of lips. His other hand abandons your jacket and comes down to meet your waist, slowly sliding to the small of your back. You melt into his touch, pulling yourself in closer. Chills go down your neck at the sensation of being in his arms, at his mercy. It feels so right, so warm and gentle. You want to keep going - so bad. You want him to hold you, touch you, kiss you harder.

But only for a moment.

You pull away once the guilt hits your core, gently touching your fingers to your lips.

Zeke stares at you, his eyes a bit wider than normal. His arms have gone limp at his sides without having you to occupy them any longer. You can tell there’s something on the tip of his tongue, something that might save the situation and bring your lips back to his. You didn’t want to hear it.

“It’s wrong. This is all wrong,” you say, backing up into the tent door behind you.

You think of the war. You think of your duties. You think of who Zeke really is. Any fluttering in your stomach was gone now, instead it was filled by tinges of regret.

“You’re right. It is,” he responds. He walks back over to his bed and sits on the quilt ruffled at its end. He runs a hand through his hair as he turns his head away from you. “I figured you’d be smart enough not to kiss back.”

You were almost too shocked to notice how much his words burned. Your mouth hangs open as your eyes squint at him a bit. Emotion courses through you as your mind crashes down from the high you were just on. You needed out of this tent.

You grip the tarp resting against your back and fling it open. You felt lost, speed walking away from Zeke’s tent and toward the center of camp. The night concealed the confusion on your face, but only for a minute. A fire glows near your tent, lighting up your surroundings - its Levi. You try your best to avoid him, changing your course to avoid his eyes.

“What are you doing awake, Reader,” Levi questions dully.

You don’t let out any response other than stopping in your tracks.

“Is everything... alright?”

“I just,” you search for anything appropriate, any excuse for your apparent distress, “don’t like being in this forest.”

You both go quiet for a moment, listening to the snapping of thin branches in the fire.

Levi breaks the silence, “That’s actually what I was going to mention to you tomorrow. The MP’s need you for something. I was going to give you the choice to go back, or stay here.”

Going back. Maybe that was the right answer you’d tried so hard to find.

***

You shove all of your belongings into your suitcase early the next morning. It didn’t take you long to decide you needed to abandon this mission. Nothing between you and Zeke would ever work out, and your feelings for him were only a burden to everyone here, and yourself.

You lug your bags to a horse and cart that had been set up for you, tossing them over the cart’s walls and into the back.

Climbing up into the front seat, you notice a gift waiting for you - that overused book. Zeke must have finally figured out how to fake his way into heaven.

You decided to read some of it on the way back.

Zeke sure had written his own story inside of it. All of the notes he’d scribbled in the margins were in another language, presumably from Marley - a secret story you’d never get to understand. Only for him to know.

***

You heard news of what happened in the forest a few days after you arrived home. You couldn’t process it at first, instead you just sat in disbelief and denial. Then the ‘what ifs’ set in. What if you had stayed? Maybe you could have stopped Zeke from doing all the damage he decided to cause. The tear-filled anger set in after that.

There was only one chapter of his book left now. You felt disgusted looking at it, a reminder of everything you’d felt for him. You needed to sit yourself down and get through it so you could finally throw it away - and finally forget about him forever.

You come to the final page. It was intended to be blank, a sort of protectant between the ink on the last page and the back cover. But instead, there’s a penciled in note. From Zeke.

His writing in your language was messy and shaky. You assumed he could read in your language, but may not be practiced in writing in it. This was probably the first message he’d ever written in it. All for you.

—

Dear Captain Reader,

I tend to avoid feeling guilty for much. I probably won’t feel guilty for everything I’m about to do to your soldiers in this forest.

I did feel guilty, however, when I saw your beautiful face that night you found me alone in the forest. And then I realized you were caring, brilliant, and a strategist that was far smarter than I was.

Well, this was my attempt at strategizing.

Pulling you in and then pushing you away. I hoped the guilt and confusion would make you leave. Make you think you were unfit for the assignment, too distracted by me. Heartbroken, even. Anything to get you out of here.

Now, I’m not too sure there will be anyone to rescue you. I won’t be able to again. Take care of yourself. Stay sharp.

I hope you enjoyed the book. I was really never a fan of the ending.

Zeke

—

Author's Note:

Dear anon: You gave me a lottt of free rein with this one, so I hope it was ok ●﹏● (and not too angsty and complicated lol. You said they kinda hate each other but theres chemistry and I just ran with it. Oopsies.) This was one of my favorite fics to write, ever, I think! I had a lot of fun with the dialogue especially. Thanks so much for the request, and thanks to everyone else for reading! Lots of love - Shep :)

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ailuronymy · 3 years

Note

do you think every disabled character in wc is handled poorly? i understand theres def some cases of ableism but at the same time when i hear ppl say that its usually bc the disabled cat wasnt able to become a warrior due to their disability. and i feel like ppl forget, that not everyone irl CAN do what they want after they become disabled. ex. someone wants to be an athlete, but their legs have to be amputated. a cat like briarlight esp i feel is p realistic and could be a source of comfort

Hello there, thank you for writing in. I’m going to reply to this question with a series of questions I think are a bit more useful, given what you’re trying to ask me. I hope that’ll clarify what is a deeply complex, multilayered issue.

Do I think Erin Hunter handles anything in the series “well”? Not really. I don’t have a high opinion of the work of the collective and, broadly speaking, I think every right note they play, metaphorically speaking, is an instance of chance rather than effort, skill, or intention. Stopped clocks are right twice a day, mediocre writers will sometimes do something cool by accident, similar principle. That’s not to say Erin Hunter hasn’t ever done anything on purpose--just that overall the underlying drive of the series isn’t so much quality as it is quantity, and speed of production, and it shows.

Do I think Erin Hunter puts any significant research into how they portray disability? No. I do not think it is a priority for this series. They’re not trying to make a meaningful work of literature, or capture a realistic experience of disability, or tell especially impactful or thoughtful stories, or even make a particularly good or coherent fantasy world. Warriors is a specifically commercial product that was commissioned by HarperCollins to appeal to a particular demographic of drama-loving, cat-loving kids. It’s not really trying to do anything but sell books, because it’s a business, so the text in many ways reflects that. They’re not going for disability representation, in my opinion. They’re including disability in many cases as a plot-point or an obstacle.

Do I think this means that people can’t connect to these characters and narratives in meaningful ways? No. Often I say that a work is completed only when it is read. Before that point, it doesn’t have a meaning: a reader finishes the work through the act of reading, and interpretation, and filling in the spaces and resonance of the story with their own values and experiences. When people talk about subjectivity, this is what they are talking about. What this means in the context of disabled characters in Warriors is that these characters and their stories can be multiple, conflicting, even mutually exclusive things at the same time, to different people, for different reasons.

Do I think characters have to be “good” to be significant to someone? No. I think genuinely “bad” (i.e., not researched or poorly researched, cliche, thoughtlessly written, problematic, etc. etc.) characters can be deeply meaningful, and often are. Ditto above: for many people, and especially marginalised or stigmatised people, reading is almost always an act of translation, wherein the person is reading against the creative work of the dominant culture in a way that the author likely didn’t intend or didn’t even imagine. There’s a long documented history of this in queer culture, but it’s true for just about everyone who is rarely (or unfairly) represented in media. Disabled people often have to read deeply imperfect works of fiction featuring disability and reinterpret them in the process--whether to relate to a kind of disability they don’t experience themselves but which is the closest they’re offered to something familiar, or to turn positive and meaningful what is intended as narrative punishment, or simply to create what’s commonly called headcanon about “non-disabled” characters who echo their personal experiences.

Do I think everyone has to agree? Extremely no. As I said before, people will actually always disagree, because all people have different needs and different experiences. What can be interpreted as empowering to one person might be very othering and painful for another. There is no “right” answer, because, again, that is how subjectivity works. This is especially true because marginalised communities are often many different kinds of people with different lives and needs brought together over a trait or traits they share due to the need for solidarity as protection and power--but only in a broad sense. It’s why there is often intracommunity fighting over representation: there isn’t enough, there’s only scraps, and so each person’s personal interpretation can feel threatening to people whose needs are different. You can see examples of this especially when it comes to arguments over character sexuality: a queer female character might be interpreted as bisexual by bisexual people who relate to her and want her to be, while being interpreted as lesbian by lesbians who also relate to her and want her to be like them. Who is correct? Often these different interpretations based on different needs are presented as if one interpretation is theft from the other, when in fact the situation is indicative of the huge dearth of options for queer people. It becomes increasingly more intense when it comes to “canon” representations, because of the long history of having to read against the grain I mentioned above: there’s novelty and, for some people, validation in “canon” certainty. And again, all of this is also true for disabled people and other stigmatised groups.

Do I think this is a problem? Not exactly. It is what it is. It is the expected effect of the circumstances. Enforced scarcity creates both the need for community organising and solidarity and the oppressive pressure to prioritise one’s self first and leave everyone else in the dust (or else it might happen to you). The system will always pit suppressed people against each other constantly, because it actively benefits from intracommunity fighting. Who needs enemies when you have friends like these, and so on. A solution is absolutely for everyone in community to hold space for these different needs and values, and to uplift and support despite these differences, but it’s not anyone’s fault for feeling threatened or upset when you don’t have much and feel like the thing that you do have is being taken away. It’s a normal, if not really helpful, human response. But until people learn and internalised that the media is multifaceted and able to be many things at once, without any of those things being untrue or impacting your truth of the text, then there will be fighting.

Do I think my opinion on disability on Warriors is all that important? No, not really. I can relate to some characters in some moment through that translation, but my opinion on, say, Jayfeather is nowhere near as worthy of consideration than that of someone who is blind. I don’t have that experience and it’s not something I can bring meaningful thinking about, really. That’s true for all these characters. If you want to learn about disability, prioritise reading work about disabled rights and activism that is done by disabled people, and literary criticism from disabled people. And as I mentioned above, remember that community isn’t a monolith: it’s a survival tactic, that brings together many different people with disparate experiences of the world. So research widely.

Finally--do I think there’s only one kind of disabled narrative worth telling? No. For some people, a disabled character achieving a specific, ability-focused dream is a good story. For other people, a story that acknowledges and deals with the realities, and limitations, of disability is a good story. The same person might want both of those stories at different times, depending on their mood. That’s okay. Sometimes there’s power and delight in a fantasy of overcoming seemingly impossible obstacles and defying all expectations. Sometimes there’s value and catharsis in a narrative that delves into the challenges and grief and oppression experienced because of disability. There’s no one truth.

To round all this off, I’m going to give my favourite example of this, which is Cinderella. I think it’s a great and useful tool, since for many it’s familiar and it’s very simple. Not much happens. In the story, she is bullied and tormented, until a fairy godmother gifts her over several nights with the opportunity to go to a royal ball, where she dances with a prince. The prince eventually is able to find Cinderella, due to a shoe left behind, and they are married. In some versions, the family that mistreated her are killed. In others, they’re forgiven.

Some people hate the story of Cinderella, because she is seen as passive. She tolerates the bullying and never fights back. She does every chore she’s told. She is given an opportunity by a fairy godmother, and she doesn’t help herself go to the ball. She runs from the prince and he does the work to find her again. Eventually, she’s married and the prince, presumably, keeps her in happiness and comfort for the rest of her life.

For some, this story is infuriating, because Cinderella doesn’t “save herself”: she is largely saved by external forces. She is seen as a quintessential damsel-in-distress, and especially for people who have been bullied, infantalised, or made to feel less capable or weak, that can be a real point of personal pain and discomfort.

However, for some others, Cinderella is a figure of strength, because she is able to endure such hostile environments and terrible people and never gives up her gentle nature or her hope. She never becomes cruel, or bitter. She is brave in daring to go outside her tiny, trapped world, and she is brave to let the prince find her. She doesn’t have to fight or struggle to earn her reward of happiness and prove her worth, because she was always deserving of love and kindness. The prince recognises at once, narratively speaking, her goodness and virtue, and stops at nothing to deliver her a better life.

Depending on the version, the wicked family disfigure themselves for their own greed--or are punished, which for some is a revenge fantasy; or Cinderella forgives them and once again shows her tenacious kindness, which for others is a different revenge fantasy.

The point? Cinderella is the same character in the same story, but these are almost unrecognisable readings when you put them side-by-side. Which one is right? Which one is better? In my opinion, those are the wrong questions. I hope this (long, sorry) reply is a set of more useful ones.

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auburnflight · 3 years

Text

Jeanne, Vanitas and Agency

From the little I’ve dipped my toes into it, the VnC fandom seems pretty heated regarding Jeanne as a character. In drastic situations, I’ve seen accusations of misogyny based solely on someone’s comments on their feelings about Jeanne... a single character. And while yes, critiques can certainly be rooted in misogyny (must women be strong all the time? must they be submissive?), I think it’s important to consider not just the character herself, but how the story treats her and why we’re making the critiques we are.

Given that points of view in the fandom are so polarized, I’m going back to canon--to the text itself--to orient this essay. In particular, I’m going to focus on the point of agency--the freedom to make one’s own decisions about one’s self and one’s course of action. This goes beyond just Jeanne’s background as a borreau, trained to fight and follow orders. Agency is also consequential in her relationships with other characters and with the story as a whole.

(Content warning for discussion of abuse dynamics, and brief mentions of sexual assault.)

It’s natural to start off with Jeanne’s first appearance in the story: alongside Luca, she’s introduced as a new agent of conflict with Noe and Vanitas’s budding alliance. In fact, she is the one who initiates the physical altercation with Noe and Vanitas, while Luca is still trying to talk them into giving him the Book of Vanitas:

Aesthetically and conceptually, she’s introduced as an active element of the story. At this point, the “forced kiss” scene during the initial fight seems more like a fluke, a comment on Vanitas’s personality (and willingness to do despicable things to get what he wants) rather than Jeanne’s.

That brings me to why I found it so jarring when colored art of her that was subsequently revealed: that agency fell away to portray a visually more passive air.

In the existing full-color art we have of Jeanne, she’s more static in her environment, looking towards the viewer but with a face that looks rather blank, even meek. Specifically I want to point out this wallpaper, which I obtained from the official site fairly early on in Vanitas’s serialization (December 2016), in contrast to another piece of official art that was released of Noe and Vanitas with Memoire 11, around the same time:

In both cases, the characters are posed intentionally, rather than actively doing something. And, they’re aware of the viewer’s gaze to some extent. However, Jeanne has her back turned to the viewer, and her expression is more idealized and ambiguous. Meanwhile, Noe and Vanitas are rather assertive: their expressions are more intentionally focused, and they seem to know their situation in the artwork. Jeanne is simply passive, very nearly objectified.

...Yeah, maybe this is just my art background speaking. But I also notice something similar happening in other official colored pieces of Jeanne, such as the cover of volume 4.

By this point in the story, lack of agency has become an even more significant element in Jeanne’s character arc: we learn that she’s been cursed. Not only is she unable to speak of the curse, it’s also in direct opposition to one of her primary character motivations, to protect Luca and those she cares about. Due to her uncontrollable urge to kill and drink blood, Jeanne fears that she’ll unintentionally hurt the very people she’s trying to protect.

Jeanne’s involvement with Vanitas also unfortunately comes with a sacrifice of her own agency. Seeing that she’s been cursed, Vanitas demands that she drinks blood from no one but him in exchange for keeping her secret. He further establishes her sense of reliance on him by promising that if he ever does see her lose control, he’ll kill her (so that she doesn’t harm Luca). Whether he’s simply a smitten 18-year-old who doesn’t yet know how to conduct healthy relationships, or whether he’s crafty and intentionally drawing Jeanne in further--or even whether it’s a mix of both--this idea of Vanitas’s control over her is reflected in the cover art for volume 4.

At this point, considering the literal events of the story, Jeanne’s passiveness is not only visual, but symbolic. In this illustration, Vanitas’s hand is grabbing Jeanne by her bow, and functionally by her neck: she’s being dragged along against her will, with little means of escape. And she looks at the viewer with a surprisingly similar expression to the previous illustration: one that communicates little say in the situation.

This matches up with their literal relationship in the story itself. Knowing she’s cursed, Vanitas is establishing her exclusive reliance on him, in exchange for keeping important secrets from others with whom she’s close (i.e. threatening to drive a wedge into their relationship). He’s already pushed himself upon her physically with clearly no warning or enjoyment from her. Yes, he’s been kind. And when Dominique trails Vanitas and Jeanne on their date, she notes that Jeanne is “terribly weak against any sort of kindness.” But in spite of some more “cute” and candid moments, the overall dynamic between Jeanne and Vanitas is far from genuine kindness. Returning to how Vanitas garnered an edge over her in their initial fight--with taunting, carefully chosen words--I would phrase it more as that Jeanne, a borreau trained to kill and inexperienced with matters of feelings, is particularly susceptible to emotional manipulation. (There’s more than a little irony in this internal comment from Jeanne, at the beginning of her date with Vanitas:)

Jeanne’s relationship with Vanitas becoming important isn’t, in isolation, inherently an issue. In most cases, it’s fun to see how a character who usually appears unshakeable is rounded out when we see them at their more vulnerable times. What makes me feel squicked out and worried on Jeanne’s behalf is how it’s executed, considering how it works in opposition to how she was introduced as a character, and how Jeanne and Vanitas’s relationship harkens back to known dynamics of abuse.

In other words, my discomfort is not at Jeanne herself for falling for Vanitas and his tactics. It’s at how she’s introduced with a promise of agency in her own story, and that agency is subsequently taken away in how she’s portrayed in official art, and in plot points as the story progresses. It’s at how their relationship begins to fall into a harmful template perpetuated by rape culture, where a man forces himself upon a woman at first, but she is shown to eventually enjoy those advances even when unwanted. I had high hopes for Jeanne as a character developed with her own agency, motives (and yes, for cool fight scenes that WLW like me can admire), and so far, Vanitas’s effect on her has threatened to overshadow these. This is where I think sections of the fandom throwing accusations back and forth of each other being misogynistic, on the grounds of criticizing Jeanne and her relationship with Vanitas, fail to see the wider issue.

Of course, eliciting this sort of discomfort may even be the whole point. Jun Mochizuki is known for putting her characters through tragic and painful situations, and her previous work Pandora Hearts is rife with unstable, imbalanced, and otherwise less-than-perfect relationships. But even without this background knowledge, a decisive scene that convinces me of the intentionality of this purpose is one I’ve written about before: Jeanne’s internal fantasy as she’s left unattended by Luca and loses herself in a storybook.

Here, Jeanne fantasizes about being the agent in her own story, a position that, the art reminds us, is often occupied by a male character such as a prince. Ultimately, this progression looks innocent and could serve to remind us of Jeanne’s more vulnerable, innocuous side. But including it here in the story could also serve as foreshadowing, a contrast to what Jeanne’s situation is like for her in reality. (If you want to read more on this panel specifically, my analysis is in the source link of this post!)

Essentially, critiquing Jeanne as a character requires more nuance than simply judging her individual characteristics. It’s necessary to also take into account the way that the story treats her and her relationships with others and other forces in the story. Not just is she allowed to be soft and emotional, but what consequences does this have for her, and how do the story elements lead the reader to feel about her being soft?

Personally, I think she’s very likeable as a character--her situation just seems unfair, and I feel like she deserves so much better than Vanitas and his schemes. I mean, she could easily destroy him with her gauntlet, and he knows it! But, then, it’s Jun Mochizuki. We should probably expect to be feeling pain and pity for her characters. Still, the relationship between Jeanne and Vanitas has always kinda rubbed me the wrong way, and I think this pretty much sums up why.

#vnc #vanitas no carte #the case study of vanitas #vanitas no shuki #aki likes analyzing things

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bamf-jaskier · 3 years

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Here and Queer: The Witcher

Hi, I’m Aaliyah, and this is Here and Queer, Canon Queerness in The Witcher books.

I already started this series by talking about Ciri here. Her relationship required a fair amount of analysis because it began nonconsensually but continued for months after the fact and spanned three books so there was quite a bit to cover.

However, while she is the main character there are other characters who are also queer in the books including Triss Merigold, Philippa Eilhart and Geralt himself!

Let’s jump right in by talking about our first queer character: Triss.

She is explicitly confirmed as Queer in Blood of Elves during this internal monologue:

As far as her erotic life was concerned, Triss Merigold had the right to consider herself a typical enchantress. It had began with the sour taste of forbidden fruit, made all the more exciting by the strict rules of the academy and the prohibitions of the mistress under whom she practised. Then came her independence, freedom and a crazy promiscuity which ended, as it usually does, in bitterness, disillusionment and resignation.

Then followed a long period of loneliness and the discovery that if she wanted to release her tension and stress then someone who wanted to consider himself her lord and master – as soon as he had turned on his back and wiped the sweat from his brow – was entirely superfluous.

There were far less troublesome ways of calming her nerves – ones with the additional advantages of not staining her towels with blood, not passing wind under the quilt and not demanding breakfast. That was followed by a short-lived and entertaining fascination with the same sex, which ended in the conclusion that soiling towels, passing wind and greediness were by no means exclusively male attributes.

Finally, like all but a few magicians, Triss moved to affairs with other wizards, which proved sporadic and frustrating in their cold, technical and almost ritual course.

Sounds here like Triss enjoyed her relationships with women but the forced heteronormativity of society caught up with her. This actually hits quite a bit for me as Triss states that her relationships with men seemed lacking after she had relationships with women.

Of course, there is also this scene in The Tower of Swallows:

The brilliant beam of light, broken by the diamond, flashed on the surface of the mirror. Yennefer stretched out both hands and began chanting a spell. The blindingly bright light reflected and concentrated into a fog. Soon, a picture began to emerge. The image of a room whose walls were covered with colorful tapestries.

A movement at the window. And a troubled voice. “Who? Who's there?”

“I'm here, Triss.”

“Yennefer! That you? Gods! How did… Where are you?”

“It does not matter where I am. Do not block the image, because the picture varies. And take away that candle, it’s blinding.”

“Right. Of course.”

Although it was late at night, Triss Merigold was wearing neither lingerie nor her work clothes. She wore a dress for going out. As usual, high-collared and closed.

“Can we talk freely?”

“Of course.”

“You're alone?”

“Yes.”

“You're lying.”

“Yennefer…”

“You are deceiving me, brat. I know your face; I know you too well. It’s the same look you had when you started sleeping with Geralt behind my back. Back then, you put on the same sheepish, innocent mask that I see on your face now. And it means the same thing now that it meant back then!”

Triss was red. Philippa Eilhart appeared in the window next to her, dressed in a dark blue men’s jerkin. “Bravo,” she said. “As usual, quick. As usual, perceptive. As usual, hard to grasp and understand. I am glad to see you in health, Yennefer. I am happy that your crazy teleportation from Montecalvo did not end in tragedy.”

Gonna be very honest here, as someone who has had to hide their girlfriend when a friend or parents walks into your room, that is exactly how I read this scene. Yennefer saying Triss has the look on her face of someone who just got laid? Philippa coming out of hiding and calling Yennefer perceptive? The fact that when Yennefer first called Triss didn’t let her see what was going on and then appeared fully dressed after blocking the image? I don’t know about anyone else, but I read this as Yennefer catching Triss and Philippa together romantically.

However, even if you don’t buy this scene as explicitly showing a relationship between the two of them, Triss is still queer as well as Philippa.

From Time of Contempt:

“So it is!’ said Marti Södergren, leaning over and wrinkling her nose, after which she picked up a goblet and looked at the traces of crimson lipstick on it. ‘Ah, Philippa Eilhart. I should have known. Who else would have dared to do something so brazen? That revolting snake. Did you know she spies for Vizimir of Redania?’

‘And is a nymphomaniac?’ risked the Witcher. Marti and Keira snorted in unison.

‘Is that what you were counting on, fawning over her and flirting with her?’ asked the seductress. ‘If so, you ought to know someone’s played a mean trick on you. Philippa lost her taste for men some time ago.”

Another Philippa scene from The Tower of Swallows:

Philippa Eilhart was in a short nightgown with thin straps, and her face and neck had traces of lipstick. Assire, with a great effort of will, contained an expression of displeasure. Never, ever, will I understand this. And I do not want to understand.

“Can we speak freely?”

Philippa’s hand made a sweeping gesture. And she surrounded herself with a magic sphere of discretion.”

Answering a telecomm with lipstick all over ur neck is such a queer power move and honestly Philippa might be manipulative but damn the energy she exudes.

As well as Philippa and Triss, there is the infamous bath scene with Geralt and Borch from Sword of Destiny:

“Let’s make merry!’ Three Jackdaws leant across the table and slapped Téa on the backside. ‘Let’s make merry, Witcher. Hey, landlord! Over here!’

The innkeeper scuttled briskly over, wiping his hands on his apron.

‘Could you lay your hands on a tub? The kind you launder clothes in, sturdy and large?’

‘How large, sir?’

‘For four people.’

‘For… four…’ the innkeeper opened his mouth.

‘For four,’ Three Jackdaws confirmed, drawing a full purse from his pocket. ‘I could.’ The innkeeper licked his lips.

‘Splendid,’ Borch laughed. ‘Have it carried upstairs to my room and filled with hot water. With all speed, comrade. And have beer brought there too. Three pitchers.’

The Zerrikanians giggled and winked at the same time.

‘Which one do you prefer?’ Three Jackdaws asked. ‘Eh? Geralt?’

The Witcher scratched the back of his head.

‘I know it’s difficult to choose,’ said Three Jackdaws, understandingly. ‘I occasionally have difficulty myself. Never mind, we’ll give it some thought in the tub. Hey, girls. Help me up the stairs!”

Now, there’s a lot of people who read this scene and say: hey now, Geralt didn’t actually sleep with Borch. They just slept with two women. Together. In a bath. Now, I don’t know about any of you, but when four people are naked in a bath together all having sex it’s not a situation where you can say no-homo bro and call it a day.

Also, you know, there is this line later on in Sword of Destiny:

“Véa, already mounted beside Téa, waved.

‘Véa,’ the Witcher said, ‘you were right.’

‘Hm?’

‘He is the most beautiful.”

Of course, this is in reference to Borch’s dragon form but considering the last person to call Borch beautiful was Véa who slept with him...well. Geralt is at the very least open for a variety of sexual situations.

Finally, there is Sorel Degerlund in Season of Storms who says this about Ortolan, the elderly mage of the town:

“As you’ve doubtless observed,” continued Degerlund, “I have exceptional looks and women have been known to call me an ephebe. I’m fond of women, indeed, but in principle I didn’t and don’t have anything against homosexuality. Under one condition: if it is to be, it must help me to advance my career.

My physical intimacy with Ortolan didn’t demand excessive sacrifices. The old man had long passed both the age limit for capability and desire. But I did my best for people to think otherwise and believe he’d utterly fallen for me.

Believe there was nothing he would refuse his gorgeous lover. Believe that I knew his codes, that I had access to his secret books and notes. That he was giving me artefacts and talismans he hadn’t previously revealed to anyone. And that he was teaching me forbidden spells.

Including goetia. And if previously the great men and women of Rissberg had disdained me, now they suddenly began to esteem me. I had grown in their eyes. They believed I was doing what they themselves dreamed of. And that I was achieving success.”

So this is a very minor character who only appears in one adventure but he is queer. Well, to clarify he is queer for...career advancement? Honestly I have no idea if asaps is trying to make a statement here or if he was writing this and thought to himself: what if the mage was queer but only in order to advance his career? Sounds fun, let’s do it.

So overall, there are queer characters in The Witcher, from Ciri to Triss to Geralt to Philippa to guy who is gay to advance his career in Season of Storms. There are likely other minor characters I might have missed, so feel free to add them!

I hope to see these characters as queer in the show and it’s really nice to have this type of representation in fantasy, especially a series such as The Witcher. And yes, there are a number of problematic tropes and issues this writing can stumble into but it is still nice to see a variety of sexualities, especially in the main characters such as Ciri and Geralt.

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havenoffandoms · 3 years

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All That I Cannot Have (Eskel/Geralt) (NSFW)

Based on Kashimalin’s 50 Types of Kisses prompt list.

Prompt: "Deep kisses where they have their hands tangled in each other’s hair to pull them closer."

Pairing: Eskel/Geralt

Content Warning: breeding kink (Geralt), bottom Eskel, top Geralt, possessive Geralt, nipple play

Read on AO3.

Most people who meet Eskel for the first time - people like Triss, people like Jaskier, people like Ciri - describe him as serious, quiet, calm and potentially a bit shy, even a little intimidating with the scars running down his face and curling his lip in a permanent snarl. Geralt knows better, though. No matter how well people claim to know Eskel, they’ll never be on par with the century of shared trauma that Eskel and Geralt went through together, first as friends, then as brothers, then as lovers. It’s not like Eskel isn’t serious, or quiet, or calm, and occasionally shy around people he doesn’t know well. He can definitely seem a bit intimidating when he wants to be, but what witcher isn’t?

All Geralt is saying is that there is so much more to Eskel’s personality, aspects that Eskel either wouldn’t dare show to a stranger in public, or aspects that only Geralt notices after over a century of knowing Eskel intimately. At times Eskel can be quiet and shy, and to use Lambert’s phrasing, as stiff as a bookkeeper in a body cast. He wasn’t always like that, though. A century of walking the Path, of being spat on by contract givers and chased out of villages by having stones thrown at him, a century of people not bothering to hide their disdain, and fear, and disgust for Eskel and his kind, was bound to take a toll on anyone eventually. Even Eskel, who used to be so playful and full of mischief. Even Eskel, who would willingly get himself into trouble to make Geralt laugh.

Eskel has changed over the century Geralt’s known him - and that was always bound to happen, Geralt presumes - but one thing that never changed was Eskel’s bleeding heart and the inherent goodness inside of him. If anything, his big heart only grew bigger and softer over the years. Geralt admires that about him. Even though the Path has wiped away all of Eskel’s childlike playfulness, there are times when Eskel’s mischief comes back with a force, usually when he finds himself around children. Geralt will never forget the first winter he brought Ciri back to the keep. Once she had warmed up to Eskel’s presence, he would goad her into action every time, giving her ideas for pranks to play on Lambert, Vesemir and Geralt, of all people.

Turns out that sharing Eskel’s bed every night during winter did not grant Geralt immunity from Eskel’s prankish machinations. If anything, it used to make him Ciri and Eskel’s prime target.

There are times, when it’s just Geralt and Eskel in their shared bedroom, when Eskel’s playfulness truly comes to shine. Nobody else knows just how adventurous Eskel can be in the bedroom, nor how bratty he can be when he decides to test Geralt’s patience. Not that Geralt wants anyone to ever witness Eskel like this - not like this, completely debauched and reduced to a whimpering mess. That is a sight reserved for Geralt’s eyes exclusively, as he’s made it known multiple times in the past when Eskel would tease him about letting someone walk in on them.

Nobody gets to see Eskel like this, not if Geralt has a say in this.

Tonight is not that kind of night, though. Tonight is different, and Eskel somehow subconsciously knows that Geralt craves a different kind of game. Geralt and Eskel have retreated to their bedroom after celebrating Ciri’s coronation as Empress of Nilfgaard. A big day for Geralt’s pup… well, not so much a pup anymore, is she? She’s all grown up now, no longer the fiery little she-devil that the wolf witchers trained, but a grown woman. An empress. Geralt didn’t think Ciri’s coronation would make him feel so damn emotional, but it did, because it means that he’s now officially lost her. She’s officially left the nest, and she has exactly no obligation to visit Geralt now if she doesn’t wish to.

Tonight, Geralt needs something different from Eskel, a game they’ve dabbled in on past occasions, but one that Geralt and Eskel both had to be in the mood for. He knows it’s weird to want this - not that Eskel would begrudge him this need, not his dear Eskel, who’s never once judged Geralt based on what he enjoys in bed. It’s weird to feel this need as a witcher, of all things. Or perhaps the fact that Geralt and Eskel are witchers is precisely the reason why he craves this kind of activity in bed.

“Are you sure you want this?” Geralt asks one last time as he drops his forehead to Eskel’s, and lets his hand roam over the flat expanse of Eskel’s abdomen, “say the word, and it stops now.”

“I want this,” Eskel whispers back, his tone growing impossibly softer as he leans into Geralt’s touch, “I want you, whatever way you’ll have me.”

“Hm. Safeword.”

It’s a request, not a question. Geralt won’t proceed until he’s certain that Eskel is aware that he has a way out if he needs Geralt to stop. Eskel huffs out a small laugh which falls just short of teasing. It sounds almost fond, in fact.

“Wolfsbane.”

One of the herbs used in the Trial of Grasses, the smell of which Eskel has come to hate with a passion over the years. Geralt nods, pleased with his lover’s cooperation, trusting Eskel to use his safeword if he feels at all uncomfortable with what’s about to happen. Geralt takes a composing breath and snakes one hand at the back of Eskel’s head, where he buries his long dextrous fingers in the soft brown mane and tugs him closer into a hungry kiss.

"I love you," Geralt breathes between them, gently biting down on Eskel's lower lip as he breaks their heated kiss, "so much."

Eskel whimpers, his body arching needily at those words. Geralt smirks, knowing just how worked up Eskel gets over hearing the three magic words. Geralt presses a final, chaste kiss to his lover's lips before sinking lower. His hands squeeze the soft layer of fat that covers Eskel's hips and abdomen. If Geralt closes his eyes, he can almost pretend that Eskel's winter blubber is not just the result of the hearty meals and Cintran ale he's been enjoying as of late…

A possessive growl rumbles deep in Geralt's throat as he nuzzles the dip in Eskel's hip. He splays his fingers so that they cover most of Eskel's belly, pretending that the sound of his lover's accelerated heartbeat belongs to someone else, to something growing inside Eskel's belly… Geralt isn't delusional. He knows that even if witchers weren't infertile, he and Eskel could never have children of their own. Not biologically, at least. Geralt knows that, and he knows that this kink of his is ridiculous.

And yet, here they are, and Eskel looks so willing to indulge Geralt’s fantasy. Geralt simply can't help it.

"Geralt?" Eskel's rough baritone is the only thing that keeps Geralt from spiralling. That, and his lover's hand gently cupping his face in a silent demand to look at him. Geralt complies easily, seeking reassurance in the familiar amber orbs. "I can hear you being mean to yourself in your head. Stop that."

"You don't think I'm…" Geralt swallows thickly as he musters the courage to finish his sentence. "Weird?"

A fond smile, one that falls just short of sad, graces Eskel's lips. He shakes his head and cards his fingers tenderly through Geralt's hair.

"I'm glad you feel comfortable enough around me to show this side of you," Eskel assures him, "but if it doesn't feel right, we can stop. This should feel good for you, not make you feel ashamed."

Geralt knows that his lover wouldn't lie to him about this, nor would Eskel pretend to be fine just for the sake of getting Geralt off. That has never been how their relationship worked. Contrary to Eskel’s reputation as being a people-pleaser, even Eskel has his limits. It's all the reassurance Geralt needs before he fully surrenders to this unusual urge of his.

"Don't wanna stop," Geralt grates, his voice rough with desire, "gonna fill you up with my pups before the night is over."

Eskel’s reaction is instantaneous. The high-pitched keen that tumbles past his lip goes straight to Geralt’s cock, which gives a twitch of interest in response. Geralt’s fingers glide reverently over Eskel’s abdomen, followed closely by his lips as Geralt scatters feather-light kisses over the twitching skin. Eskel arches into the touch, whispering a string of curses under his breath as he does so. Geralt lets himself drift further and further into that corner of his mind reserved for nights like this one, into that corner that longs to breed Eskel and see him grow large with Geralt’s pups.

Geralt’s lips travel back up of their own accord until his mouth latches onto one of Eskel’s nipples, pulling a startled gasp from his lover. Geralt presses the flat of his tongue against the areola and gives the sensitive bud a tentative suck. If Geralt concentrates hard enough, he can imagine how Eskel’s milk would taste, sweet and warm and filling. Eskel nearly bucks him off then, but Geralt’s steadying hands on his lover’s hips brings Eskel’s twitching under control. Once his lover has relaxed into the mattress and gotten used to Geralt’s suction, Geralt brings one hand up to cup Eskel’s other pec, squeezing the meat of it between his calloused fingertips. Eskel’s tits - so firm, but layered with a softness that Geralt adores - look so inviting that Geralt cannot resist temptation much longer. He switches sides, barely giving Eskel a moment’s respite before latching onto the other nipple and resuming his gentle ministrations.

“Ger’lt… gonna-”

That is all the warning Geralt gets before he feels Eskel’s cock twitch and spill hotly between his and Geralt’s body. The thought that Geralt made Eskel come just by focusing on his nipples has no business making Geralt’s cock twitch in the way it does. He pulls away from Eskel’s sensitive nipple with a wet ‘pop’, flicking his tongue at it one last time. Eskel looks dazed, maybe a little bit shocked at himself even, but Geralt is quick to wipe the insecurity he sees reflected in his lover’s eyes with a hungry kiss.

“Fuckin’ love your tits, Kel,” Geralt growls between two heated kisses, “love how soft they feel under my hands, love how sensitive they are… they look so full already. They’ll get fuller once you’re heavy with my pups.”

Eskel makes a choked noise at that. He throws his head back against the pillow and lets out a needy little mewl, Geralt’s name falling from his lips like a prayer or a plea. Geralt smiles wolfishly at the sight.

“Would you like that, sweetheart? Would you like for your tits to fill with milk until they’re nice and heavy for me? Bet you’d be leaking so easily, too. That’s okay, though,” Geralt leans in to capture Eskel’s lips in another sloppy kiss, “because when that happens, I’ll lap it all up and relieve you of the pressure. Wouldn’t you like that?”

“Fuck, Geralt!”

While Geralt is now firmly in the right mindset, he knows that Eskel won’t engage with him as much when they’re playing this game. Eskel is enjoying himself, that much is clear, but he doesn’t feel the same need to breed - or, in his case, be bred - as Geralt. Eskel’s pleasure comes from having Geralt’s attention focused solely on him, and having Geralt whisper soft praises about Eskel’s body. That’s fine, Geralt thinks to himself as he reaches for the slick he stored away in the bedside table, so long as Eskel is getting something out of this too, even if they’re both getting different things out of this game.

Geralt gets to project his fantasies onto his lover, while Eskel gets to be worshipped by Geralt. A win-win situation if Geralt’s ever seen one.

“You still good?” Geralt rasps just as he pops the cork of the vial open with his thumb. Eskel nods jerkily in response, his chest heaving with the force of his panting.

“All good. Need you, Wolf, please!”

And how can Geralt deny his lover this when Eskel begs him so sweetly? The night is just beginning.

#the witcher #geralt of rivia #geralt z rivii #geralt the witcher #the witcher geralt #witcher geralt #eskel #the witcher eskel #eskel the witcher #witcher eskel #eskel x geralt #geralt x eskel #eskel/geralt #geralt/eskel #gereskel #geskel #eskralt #havenwrites #kiss prompts

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pantstomatch · 3 years

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I love your writing, and (the cliche, it burns) one day I'd like to publish too. But a lot of things have changed since the last time I was confident in trying to do this, and I wondered if you would talk about the process (getting an agent, that sort of thing) if you're comfortable and have the time. It's also cool if you privately respond, if you'd prefer, I'm just trying to figure out how to get started again? And so many tips are "publish on Amazon!"

Thank you!!!! Okay, so here’s the thing. I’m probably not the best person to ask about this, because I’m actually really bad at being published, but I can tell you some stuff that I’ve learned? That might be helpful? I ended up being long-winded, so (if tumblr works right here) everything is under the cut...

1. Querying!

So in general, querying sucks balls. Like… it’s probably the worst thing you’ll ever have to do. You’re gonna want to research what agents are looking for the kind of stuff you want to write or have written. Some are looking for certain genres or what they think is marketable, and you want to send your query to someone who’s open to what you have, or it’s a waste. Most likely the agency website or the agents “I’m looking for…” page or whatever will give you specific instructions on what to include in your query email - how the subject should be written, what they’re looking for, how many pages of your manuscript they want to see, how to attach it to the email and in what form, and if they want a synopsis of your novel. Some agents use Query Manager, which is basically a form you fill out and attach all the things they want, and you can go back in and edit it and it’s a nice way to keep track of your query. Next, they’re gonna (hopefully; some just never respond) either say no thank you very politely, or ask you for the full manuscript. Most of these agents will also give you a general timeline for a response, and if they’re open to a nudge from you or not. After that, they’ll either say no to the full manuscript, or welcome you aboard!

Most places allow you to send multiple queries out for the same work, meaning they’re not “exclusive,” except within their own agency. If they ask for a full manuscript, but before they get back to you, another agent has snapped you up, they’ll want you to let them know so they don’t waste their time on it. Occasionally, if they want to see your full manuscript, they’ll ask for you to not send the full manuscript to someone else until they’re done, or for you to tell them if someone else is looking at the full manuscript. You can also change your mind! You can email them and let them know you’ve decided to pull the novel out of consideration, maybe if you think it needs more editing.

I have never successfully queried. I found the whole thing demoralizing, and I did my first contract on my own, without an agent. This is something I don’t recommend because I had to figure out a lot of confusing shit on my own that I still don’t fully understand. And it also made me doubt my writing after the fact, because agents don’t give a shit if you’re already published, they’re focused solely on whatever you’re presenting them with. And then after that, I figured if I got another book out of my current editor, would I want to present that to the people who already didn’t like my writing? I have an agent for another project I’m working on, and the only reason I have her is because someone introduced us and told her I desperately needed help.

1a. So you found the agent(s) you think you like!

Other than the instructions/guidelines written out by the agency/agents that you’re interested in, you’re gonna need the most complete and fully edited version of your novel in hand. If they ask for your full manuscript, you absolutely should not say it’s not done. Make sure it’s finished, and preferably edited, before you send your query in. If they ask for a synopsis, hard pass. Ha ha ha, just kidding. No, really, arguably, this is going to be the hardest thing to write. A synopsis will suck your soul out of your body and make you weep blood. The only thing worse than querying is writing a synopsis for that query. I have never written a synopsis that I didn’t think was utter shit. I hate them.

Querytracker is a cool place to look up agents that you want to query and see how responsive (and nice) they are. It took me a little bit to figure out the abbreviations, though.

2. Pick your genre carefully

Unless you are a best selling author, they are never ever ever going to let you change genres. I mean, maybe if you wrote under a different name. Maybe. But they’ve bought your book based on how they think it will sell, and they’re going to want to sell you, too, and genre jumping is usually a no-go. This is, basically, one of the biggest things I hate, and one of the greatest things I love about fanfiction, that I can write whatever the fuck I feel like writing. So, you know, make sure you really really really want to write about what your first book is going to be about, because you’re going to be writing about that forever. And I don’t mean just YA vs New Adult vs Adult, although you need to take that into account too. I mean if you’re writing about high school regular kids, you probably can’t write about supernatural high school kids. You can’t write about high school kids in space. You can only write about regular high school kids. So.. think sci -fi vs fantasy vs historical vs contemporary, etc.

3. I hope you don’t hate people!

Do you want to go to a bookstore and talk in front of a crowd? Do you want to go to cons and network with other authors? Do you want to call up publications and volunteer for interviews? Do you want to talk about your books with strangers? Because I sure don’t. Publishing houses do the bare minimum of publicity for you for your book. First book, they’ll probably help set up some store signings. Going forward, if you weren’t proactive the first time around, they’re probably not going to do anything. If you’ve got some really good advance reviews, they’ll do ads. They’ll probably do the rote social media posts. But basically, you’re going to have to advocate for your book. You’re going to have to create your own brand. You’re going to have to make swag and send it out, call up bookstores, post constantly about it on twitter, buddy up to other authors, go places where you can network. And I will tell you that all of that is my nightmare. I don’t want to do any of that. I don’t like meeting new people. I had several panic attacks leading up my book signing, and the book signing itself was pretty bad. I’m just… not good with people. And, honestly, at my age, I don’t want to be any better. All it does is give me stress and hives, and to get over that I’d really really have to want to do it.

4. Personal perks?

Editors! I’ve worked with two awesome editors, and it’s amazing having someone to tell you how to fix things in a way that makes sense. By far, one of the only perks of being published for me. I absolutely don’t know for sure, but I always got the feeling that they expected more push back from me with their suggestions, but nope. I was open to everything, and that’s probably why the books worked so well, because editors absolutely know what they’re doing and only want what’s best for the book.

Holding a solid book of my work! Always awesome to hold that first book in your hands, with the beautiful cover work and everything. The fact that other people can read it and know it was me who wrote those words only counters that by about a half.

Money! Advances vary drastically, but, listen, the money kind of made the panic attacks worth it. A little.

5. Advances and royalties

The things I’ve read about advances is that too little, and you might think they have less confidence in you, and too much and you’re panicking about selling, because if you don’t earn out your advance, there’s a chance they won’t want to invest in you in the future. Generally, the way they work is they offer you a contract with the amount they are willing to “advance” you. This is basically saying, we think this book will give us this amount of money, and this is your share of that amount of money. You earn this out with royalties. When you sign the contract, you will get a certain amount of money, usually half of your offered advance. When you deliver the finished manuscript, after your editor and you have gone over it and it’s been approved, you’ll get the other half. A two book deal would be split into 4 parts, and you’d get the first 2 parts for signing the contract (1/4th for each book), the next part for the first finished manuscript, and then the last part for the second finished manuscript, generally after the first book is already published. After that, you won’t see any money until your royalties reach the amount they already paid you in advance. Unless otherwise negotiated, you’d get a royalty check twice a year. Your earnings from January to July would be sent to you in October, and your earnings for July to December would be sent to you in April. Since any books sold to bookstores and online stores can be returned to the publisher if unsold, they will usually “hold back” a certain amount at first, to make sure you’re really earning that royalty. Royalty statements themselves are a hot mess and I’ve never been able to read them, which is also a good reason to have an agent. An agent will get your money sent to them, make sure it’s the correct amount, take their cut, and then send you a check from them.

6. Self publishing

Okay, I know nothing about self publishing, but I don’t think there’s anything wrong with it if you have the right support system (ie editors). If you’re going to have to do a lot of the marketing yourself anyway, I don’t see how this is much different. Biggest thing would be the upfront cost, and making sure you make that cost worth it. Independent author S Usher Evans has some good advice for self publishing - Sush’s worked very hard at it, and started her own publishing company. Also, @qwanderer might be a good resource, I think they use Lulu, which is a really cool self publishing site.

Uhhhh, so that’s a lot of info and also not a lot of info, so please feel free to ask me anything else, and I really hope I haven’t made this harder for you to get started ha ha ha. I think the best thing to do is to figure out what you want to write and write it and just… go from there. If you really love what you have, someone else is going to love it, too.

And if anyone’s had a different experience or thinks I got something wrong or has more/better advice for @heyninja, let me know!

#heyninja #replies #publishing advice #my two cents #writing

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cihrp · 3 years

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Vampire Bloodlines

All vampires have the same general strengths and weaknesses as outlined in the teaser, as well as what will be on site. However, each vampire belongs to a specific bloodline of the writer’s choosing. The only caveat is, unlike witches where their lineage may produce different ways to tap into magic, if a vampire is a Sol vampire, their progeny will also exclusively be a Sol vampire, etc.

Sol Vampires Vampires of the Sun

additional abilities - able to walk in the sun without the detrimental effects and mortality that plagues other vampires, fireproof as another boon that sets them apart in defense than their fanged kin, and are able to become invisible to the eye via light-bending, so a light source will always be needed.

additional weaknesses - they become dehydrated faster and as such, they need to drink/feed more frequently than any other bloodline, as well need regular exposure to light to recharge. without it, they will become weaker and weaker to catatonic until they are able to re-energize from its source, natural or not.

Venenum Vampires Vampires of Poison

additional abilities - their bite may temporarily paralyze a person for up to one (1) hour (if they choose to secrete that particular toxin in it), are able to shapeshift into one (1) venomous creature based on ancestral genetics (of the writer’s choosing), and can cause a madness or illness in individuals who are repeat targets through their bite, either caustic to the mind or the body if the same victim suffers through their sting.

additional weaknesses - they are only able to use their paralytic toxin once every twenty-four (24) hours for it to replenish and with the new physiology of their bloodline, they are unable to withstand vampire blood that is not their own, including from their own sire/progeny bond. it will make them sick, the severity of which is dependent upon how much is taken in.

not necessarily a ‘weakness’ for the bloodline, per se, but these types of vampires are often targeted by the black market for the incredible and destructive use of their venom.

Psychicae Vampires Vampires of the Mind

additional abilities - they are telepathic vampires that are able to read the minds of others but how much information they are able to gleam depends on the strength of will of their target, they are able to pull memories from the person they drink, taking their time to find a memory if there’s one in particular that calls to them, and after being bitten by a vampire in this bloodline, a person is unable to lie for up to twelve (12) hours as their saliva holds what is essentially a supernatural truth serum that is only excreted through a bite.

additional weaknesses - using their abilities can result in agonizing migraines if they pull too many thoughts or memories from a person or stay too long in another mind and every time they take a memory from a person (as this is optional for them to do while feeding), it replaces one of their own personal memories. too many or too impactful of a memory may leave them disoriented as their mind replaces the knowledge, writing over their catalogue already kept.

Iratus Vampires Vampires of Acrimony

additional abilities - able to project mental or physical pain onto their target, live on the least amount of blood than other vampire lines but are able to drink the most, and can drink any blood available to them, even those toxic and venomous to vampires on a whole. this unique palate to rip through anything they wish also includes getting sustenance through other vampires’ blood even though it would do nothing for anyone outside this bloodline.

additional weaknesses - they’re usually more temperamental than other lines, blood boiling so much it might warm them if it could, and as such are often thrown into fits of rage as well as mentally corroded their psyche as they go mad over time and become violent, hostile forces. additionally, they have no reflection of any source and like anger, one never knows when one may creep up on them.

Sentire Vampires Vampires of the Sensuous

additional abilities - they have the power of suggestion in which they are able to project a proposal into the mind of their target, the euphoria from their bite lasts longer than other bloodlines sometimes lasting up to twelve (12) hours but the effects dull from fantasy to a happy high as it runs its course, and they are able to change the emotional state of one (1) selected target through touch, meaning if someone is sad, they are able to change that to happy, angry, etc.

additional weaknesses - when changing the emotional state of another, they take on the emotion they switched from their target. so in the earlier example of changing someone’s sad emotion to anything else, they will absorb that sadness as their own. additionally, if their suggestion is reliant on the willpower of the target and is limited to what they do or do not consider irrational. if they are able to find any line to rationalize it, they will typically comply, but if the suggestion fails, it’s likely their target will feel irrationally (or rationally) more upset with the rebuke than otherwise.

#crownedinhorns #cihrp #site buzz #vampires #species #updates #bloodlines

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night-unfurls-its-splendour · 3 years

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Bridgerton & Selective Justification: A Rant

With a Particular Aside in Which This Author Questions if There Isn't a Double Standard at Play in Televised Historical Fiction.

Ok so the other day i posted complaining about how ludicrous the "Will Daphne marry Prince Friedrich?!" Plotline is to me and i referred to Daphne as a "commoner". I got two comments on that post of people saying Daphne *isn't* a commoner because she's a Viscount's daughter. I did respond but I'd like to go a little more in depth into it my thoughts on why this plotline verges on abject silliness to me, based on my (i will freely admit) *limited* knowledge of British aristocracy and the source material itself.

So if anyone reading this has a more detailed knowledge of the Peerage and how it relates to Bridgerton please correct me I'm eager to know more.

So to start out my understanding of the pecking order goes like this:

DUKE/DUCHESS = Highest ranking title in the peerage. Often bestowed on important members of the Royal family not in direct line for the throne. Worth noting is the fact that a Duke in British peerage is different than a Continental Duke. On the European Continent title Duke/Grand Duke can be associated with sovereign rule of an independent state, which has never been the case in England. Dukes and Duchesses are addressed as "Your Grace"

MARQUESS/MARCHIONESS = English equivalent of Marquis/Marquise. Very high ranking in the peerage, closely related to Earldom, but more important since it has it's roots as the title of border (marcher) lords instrumental in a country's defense.

EARL/COUNTESS = Referred to as a "count" everywhere else. The difference is the heavy germano-scandinavian influence on early medieval England. "Earl" is derived from the Nordic term for what could be considered a chieftan. Earls being only slightly lower in rank than a Marquess could be very rich and very important. The Earldom of Northumberland was one of the richest in 16th century England.

Now at this point we start to get into the lower peerage.

VISCOUNT/VISCOUNTESS = Addressed as "The Right Honourable". Viscountsies in England tend to almost exclusively be secondary titles held by Marequesses and Earls and passed down to their sons. Any son of a Marquess or Earl is a Viscount. The oldest son inherits the title of Earl plus all subsequent lands estates and incomes. The younger sons could also be viscounts wherever there are titles enough.

BARON/BARONESS = lowest rank of the peerage.

BARONET/BARONETESS = The only British title that doesn't land you in the peerage, the rank of baronet is (as I have heard it described) the barnacle on the bottom of the British aristocracy. It's basically a weird limbo between a Lord and a Knight that was invented by King James I in 1611 primarily as a way to jack up taxes so tbh its kind of a joke.

So Daphne's brother Anthony is a Viscount. He inherited this title from his father which likely means that their father was a second son. As you can see from this ranking list I just did, in marrying Simon, Daph married up. Way up. Not unsusual, given that her family has money and is well regarded.

Now clearly Bridgerton works differently than ACTUAL Regency England. Here, APPARENTLY if you just make a good impression on the Queen she takes a VERY PERSONAL interest in your life and she will marry you off to whatever Foreign prince she's related to who happens to be visiting. But here's where it's a bit wooly for me because there are two different contexts for the term "commoner" in England. I think we all pretty well know how the European Royal marriage market worked up through the 19th century, since we all like to make fun of them being inbred. Because there's a bit of a hang up not just about "Royal blood" but also Diplomatic marriage.

In the context of people with titles or peerages being nobles/aristocrats and any one without being a commoner then of course, Daphne is a noble. HOWEVER the context in which I used it in my previous post was ROYALS vs NOT ROYALS. It's perfectly acceptable to refer to someone not of Royal Blood as a commoner. In my replies I used Elizabeth Woodville as an example of a commoner. Now she DID marry a royal (Edward IV) and of course this was a few hundred years before Bridgerton would be BUT EVERYONE thought Edward was crazy for marrying her and she was not well liked because she was seen as at worst a gold-digger and at best an upstart. It was not only an uneven match but a purely domestic one which cut of England from potentially politically critical strategic foreign marriages. This is how royalty worked.

Naturally the strategic aspect of marriages was *slightly* diminished in the nineteenth century, but not really and it was still considered extremely important. Usually a young royal looking to get married was doing so at their family's behest and had a pre-determined pool they more or less HAD to choose from. Marriage to commoners of course DID happen. It was called "Morganatic Marriage". Prince Augustus of Prussia had a morganatic marriage to a Polish aristocrat. One of Charlotte's own sons, Augustus Fredrick, had TWO morganatic marriages which kept him away from court because his wife could not be recognised due to their having married in defiance of the Royal Marriages Act of 1772, which requires all members of the British Royal family to obtain the monarch's consent before marrying.

So I posed the very realistic question of "how would this choice to marry Daphne affect the Prince?" I don't know how morganatic marriages were looked on based on Prussian law but it seems likely, especially since Prince Friedrich is the direct heir that this marriage would have caused problems and i find it doubtful that Daphne would ever find herself addressed as "Princess".

I know that Bridgerton is fiction and that in being fiction it is pardoned for not following courses that would be realistic in actual history. But at what point does "it's fiction" become an excuse for sloppy execution of world building?

The show takes the time to explain to the viewer (in one of the precious few moments of actual exposition) why there are black aristocrats [because the king married a black woman and things changed - which JUST IN CASE anyone is wondering, no Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz was not in any meaningful way "bi-racial" irl, based on the research I've done.] With this kind of deviation from history in a Drama that does, without any official caveats in the marketing, claim to be set in England in 1813, the writers recognised that this needed to be qualified. And in qualifying it, they justify it. They take it beyond fiction into fantasy, but it is justified.

The reason they recognised it had to be justified is because they know that most of the viewers know this is not how it went in history and would hold them to account. So why isn't more care taken to qualify the Liberties taken with the REST of Recency Society?

They talk repeatedly about "Coming Out" into society, particularly regarding Eloise. And Eloise wears her hair down and wears shorter skirts because she's still considered a child because she isn't out. But the IMPORTANT, PRACTICAL parts of not being "Out" are COMPLETELY IGNORED. She and her younger siblings are OUT at SOCIETY EVENTS. CONSTANTLY. Eloise speaks when not spoken to. She speaks DIRECTLY TO THE FOPPING QUEEN (TO WHOM SHE'S NEVER BEEN PRESENTED, BUT I GUESS IF YOU'RE DaPhNe BRiDgErToN's sister you can do whatever you want). There are BABIES at BALLS in this show. For a story that's trying to sell you on the Strrrrrrictures of RRRegency Societeh they're TOTALLY NOT INCLUDING MOST OF THOSE STRICTURES except when the plot demands it.

Why, I ask, is this? Perhaps it is pure ignorance on the writers part. They don't qualify it because they don't know rules like this existed. In which case its just bad, sloppy writing.

They do know about it and ignore it and don't bother to qualify it with a "Oh Daphne a match with Prince Friedrich is so advantageous how marvellous Prussia has recently accepted Morganatic Marriage ahahaha" because they think we a) don't know or b) don't care and ITS STILL SLOPPY WRITING. Which hey, most Bridgerton fans who swallow any swill where hot people catch feelings probably don't care, but that doesn't mean its not careless writing and it doesn't make it NOT condescending. Never write DOWN to your audience.

This show approaches (but by a hair's breadth doesn't reach) REIGN levels of bad in terms of historicity. And the writers of Reign, like the writers of Bridgerton never claimed to be making an authentic representation of history. But perhaps it's because BTon only has 2 actual historical figures (one of whom is SO UNRECOGNIZABLE from her historical counterpart in countenance and personality that they might as well have just made a composite character - "How much can you change a thing before it isn't that thing anymore?") Or perhaps it's the inclusivity shield but it seems like Bridgerton is getting a lot more leniency than Reign did.

The pass I see given to Bridgerton is "its frothy fun" (and yeah okay these costumes are worlds more realistic to the claimed period than Reign was even with the jacked up, flat bustlines) BUT. SO. WAS. REIGN.

I don't even like Reign but I do think there's a double standard here and I would like to know why.

#thoughts on bridgerton #regency #historical fiction #questionable writing choices #bad writing #Bridgerton #daphne bridgerton

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