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batrogers · 2 months

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"Feral" Tropes

For Clarity: I have written pretty much every single trope on this list at some point or another myself.

(Yes, including extremely ill-advised arson, non-verbal and illiterate Link, needs help with his hair, and spends weeks in blood-stained clothes.)

These can be funny tropes, dark tropes, ironic tropes, heartfelt tropes, and cathartic tropes.

[Art of my Minish Cap Link, by @l3ominor]

Why do people find “Feral” link so polarizing, then?

I’m gonna go over what makes a fantasy, character agency (or deliberate lack thereof), and – because I’m AO3 trash forever, and because I think it’s the most useful thing here – tagging.

It's also like 2000 words, whoops.

I’m using “feral” here to say that Link is positioned as either failing to adhere to expected social norms, or positioned as outside them. Social norms are part of civilization: a structure of rules and expectations that are positioned as the “height” of human social achievements. Meeting them makes you a good, normal person who is respectable and respected; failing them can make you anywhere from imperfect to exile to enemy.

“Civilized” is a moving target that’s defined by others. Anyone, at any time, can be constructed as a failure just because someone wants to do that. Similarly, other features – like slavery and war crimes – can be considered “civilized” because that’s just what the dominant power does. Being “civilized” isn’t inherently good; it’s also not inherently evil. Civilized social rules also include stuff like charity, hospitality, and similar social welfare stuff.

Basically both “Civilized” and “Feral” can mean whatever you want them to mean, but there are some common ways it goes wrong.

Again. I have written 90% of these in various ways. These are not inherently wrong; the frustration often arises from presentation and lack of clarity, which I’ll address below:

The first is infantilizing the character, creating them as helpless.

Wild can’t bathe himself and doesn't see the point in being clean; he doesn’t do anything with his hair. He’s so dumb he eats rocks; he'll eat too much or anything at all, and he has no objection to being treated like a child. He doesn’t know language or how to read or write. If transmale, he doesn't understand his period and thinks he's dying. He was literally raised by a wolf. He can't do anything right. It's presented as fair and just to pin him down to clean him, because he cannot do it himself.

The fact the wolf is supposedly Twilight, who should be striving to get him to other hylians is irrelevant. Real youth react to their period thinking they’re dying, but this is associated with literal children, particularly ones raised completely ignorant of their own bodies and of sex.

The second is othering them, treating them as antisocial.

Other people react badly to him; he has no manners, he smells; he never tells anyone what he's doing. He's afraid of other Hylians; he's indifferent to them, and wants nothing to do with them. He doesn't understand how to function in a group. He'll wander into a trap carelessly, and drag others with him in pursuit of something pointless.

In the case of Hyrule, he lives in a cave and this is strange, bizarre, and horrible, rather than a thing that is in the actual historical record and is a dry, temperature controlled and easily protected place to sleep.

The third is to make them dangerous, a savage thing.

He solves his problems by lighting things on fire, uncaring of the damage done. He bites and growls when upset. He'll kill a monster with his bare hands; he'll show up in town covered in blood and filth.

He's an abomination; he's literally not human at all.

IIII

Probably you read that list and had checkmarks going off in your head. I like that one; I don’t like that one. People never do that right; I’d handle this way better if only—

Good. It’s a fun list of things that can be good, if done to your taste.

A lot of these touch into disability tropes; some edge into racialization ones. A lot are dehumanizing. People have a lot of feelings about both, good and bad, and feeling your way through it by writing is normal, expected, and okay. You do not deserve to be punished for writing something “bad” while trying to understand what you like. Many of these fall under care-taking tropes: someone needs help, and they feel awkward asking so they just want someone to step in and “Fix it” without the humiliation of having to ask.

That’s fine. But if you want to change it up: let Link ask. Let him reach out. Let him initiate the help. There’s a very different feeling when someone pins Wild down to clean him, versus when Wild works up the courage to ask “Can you help me?”

Because yeah, brain damage is complicated. He could have just about any struggles you imagine, but what can be frustrating for others seeing this, over and over, is that he’s treated like a permanent child or an animal. He always will need taken care of; he always needs someone to step in. It is right and just to force him to submit to care against his will...

He never has anyone ask if they can help him, either.

How much sweeter can the care be when he’s willing? When he initiates? When he has agency in his own treatment? Because too many people who need help are not given that choice. Some readers are turned off because the force is all too real, and all too painful to see reflected in what they came to for escapism. One person’s care-taking fantasy, is another’s real life trauma.

Escaping society and it’s pressures is also a fantasy, one of independence and freedom all its own but again, a major feature here is choice. Does Wild have choice? Does Hyrule? Is this presented as of course they don’t belong, or as a reasoned decision, or as a result of being driven out by real violence from others?

All different stories. All different fantasies.

And being the agent of violence is a fantasy, too. “Burn it all down” is a valid emotion (I write variations on it myself, although not this one.) Think of “Kill Bill” and “Fury Road.”

But with an ostracized, feral Wild there is the reflection of real violence against the marginalized communities whenever they express frustration or rage at their treatment. The wrong person being dangerous can get them killed. Of course this is polarizing.

Ironically, this category includes the one trait that Wild displays in the Linked Universe comic that didn’t make the feral list: emotional dysregulation. He loses his temper; he lashes out. He gets upset and jumps the gun... but it’s not cute, it’s not pretty, it’s presented very well in canon (Warriors is frustrated with him, but not seriously angry.) But it doesn’t suit the feral take, because it’s too mild for the violent fantasies, and too adult and human for the innocent ones.

IIII

My first advice about writing this is to be more clear about your tags. Spoilers are always a thing people worry about, but some things can be improved with clarity, and conflict over “bad writing” is one of them. “Feral” Link can mean literally any combination of the above, but those are all wildly different things. Narrowing down what happens in your fic into more specific tropes will both help people who want to read what you write to find it, and help people who will be upset avoid it.

It just common courtesy. I tagged a recent fic “Drunk arguments”+ “Politics” because that argument could go a lot of ways. Someone who’ll read political nonsense may not read sex and may not read crack. It doesn’t say anything but the subject matter, and it doesn’t need to: the question of whether this will turn into politics or sex is a way to direct people in or away according to their taste.

Is this required? No. People make mistakes or have bad days or just don’t want to, and don’t deserve punishment for it. But it’s a tool at hand to filter your readership to better match you, one you shouldn’t disregard.

If you want to adjust how you write, frequently the aggravating factor is in the presence (or deliberate absence) of agency, and in evoking sympathy over pity. There’s also a way to balance traits in just like, the general sense of making the story more complex: nobody is one thing.

For an example from my own projects, I write my version of Minish Cap Link combined with the first Four Sword game. The second time he used the Four Sword changed him into something not-quite-human. But even prior to that, he was non-verbal and skittish; he bit and hissed, he has visible injuries on top of the later changes. I have two fics that present two different ways to frame much the same event: he gets upset and lashes out, and legitimately terrifies the people around him.

In one story, he is restrained. The people doing so are treated as villains for it; you see his fear and panic, and Zelda’s rage over his treatment. In the other, he is calmed by another of the Links, and even in an outside perspective it is made clear that Minish is reassured, relieved and desperate for comfort once his fear has passed – and he trusts the person who talked him down (who did not hurt him) to give it now. He doesn’t have to “behave” to be treated as human, but I also don’t have to make him act “normal” to do so: the framing of how he’s treated by others does it. He’s also clean, well-kept, polite, sweet when he’s calm, and playful.

Similarly, because I have multiple characters who are all non-verbal to varying degrees, I can get away with a lot of variety. I can make one a total bitch, and I don’t have to worry that he’s going to be “bad” representation because if people don’t want a bitchy non-verbal character to relate to, there’s two others to choose from. Balancing a “feral” trait with a mix of signals creatures a nuanced character that isn’t just a ball of Whump.

(Although again: nothing wrong with a ball of Whump if you’re in the mood for it. I have my balls of Whump fics, too.)

Some of the other weird things can be done as just misunderstandings: Is Link eating rocks because it’s polite to join the gorons? Did he realize he was weird and could eat rocks as a child and now does it to joke around? Does Hyrule get to be exasperated at the others pitying his cave? Letting the weird be weird but legitimate can be fun, or even funny: Hyrule lets the others sleep cold in tents while he’s warm inside.

Readers get tired of one-note characters no matter what they’re like. I’ve heard the same complaints about “Dad” Time as I’ve heard about “Feral” Wild, and about Twilight. The fix isn’t to throw out what you like; it’s to build it up into something more. It will never be to everyone’s taste, but you can have a dirty little gremlin who, no matter how inhuman they may seem, is still treated like a person.

Dehumanization is far too prevalent in the world right now, and a lot of us desperately need somewhere to escape it.

Now I’m gonna go write me some fluffy Wild asking for hair brushing. After spending all week chewing on this, it sounds like a fun challenge.

#Linked Universe #Hello it's me again #but people did ask #this is opinion not prescriptivism #LU Wild #LU Hyrule #Zelda fanfic #BOTW #TOTK #disability tropes #disability in media #dehumanization in media

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banannabethchase · 1 year

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A PROMPT: the following opening lines:

Nick smiles at him. He's pleased. He's pleased, so Adam is pleased in turn.

Back to Your Heart (also on AO3)

Adam runs into Nick in the hotel gym, and is too scared to initiate a reunion. Fortunately, Nick doesn't share the same fear. Rated M for brief boner reference.

Thank you to @sarahcakes613 for being a menace and creating a new ship that makes me go !!!!. I technically did the prompt, just a little backwards. As I am known to do.

Mini Playlist (this fic is fluff so the music is too): Back to You - Selena Gomez Back to Your Heart - Backstreet Boys Ever After - Marianas Trench Here (In Your Arms) - Hellogoodbye

In retrospect, a late night gym run is probably not as unique an idea around a bunch of wrestlers as Adam thinks it is. He notices Nick the second the door swings open, but Nick, focused on himself in the mirror as he does bicep curls, doesn’t even react. He’s got headphones in. It might be enough for Adam to pretend everything is normal.

He gets himself on the treadmill to try and get out of the eyeline of Nick. But, unfortunately, there’s a mirror here, too. And their eyes meet in each other’s reflections.

He watches Nick’s eyes widen in recognition, and Adam waits for the panic. For him to run out of here, maybe throw a weight at Adam. Something.

Nick’s gaze softens to a smile, though. He continues his reps, and Adam has to look away, his heart beating too intensely for just the treadmill.

Nothing happens for long enough that Adam can get in the zone. He’s focused on his audiobook, for how long he couldn’t guess, until he feels a gentle hand rest on his arm. He jumps, but the hand doesn’t move.

“Hey,” he hears, over the narrator of Devil in the White City. “Can we talk?”

Adam pulls his headphones out and, after a split second of hesitation, stops the treadmill. “You gonna yell at me?” he asks. He tries to fake a laugh, to make it sound like a joke, but the noise that comes out of him only makes his discomfort more obvious.

Nick shakes his head, the wisps of hair that had fallen out of his ponytail framing his face. “No,” he says, and it’s genuine. “Never, Adam.”

A spark of hope runs across his shoulders. “Let me – I gotta get off the treadmill, don’t want to slip.”

Nick steps back and lets Adam step onto the floor. “What’s up?”

“Matt and Kenny have been so – I don’t want to do this anymore.” Nick’s speaking faster than Adam’s ever heard. “I don’t want to pretend you don’t matter, and I don’t want to pretend you don’t exist.” His eyes get a little desperate. “Please. I don’t care what they think. I need you back.”

The hope spreads throughout Adam’s entire body. “You – really?” He falls to sit on the weight bench, the hope taking him out at the knees. “I don’t want to cause problems.”

“We all caused problems,” Nick says, stepping closer to Adam. “It’s time to be adults and move past it. I can’t pretend you aren’t – I can’t act like I don’t love you anymore.”

Adam experiences a brief bout of insanity at those words. His body acts without thinking as he reaches out and pulls Nick down to him, to press his lips against those so familiar he’s missed for so long.

Nick doesn’t fight, doesn’t move away, just leans in and kisses back. He hasn’t changed – still rests a hand on Adam’s shoulder, still takes a sharp breath in when Adam slides his tongue between Nick’s lips, still plays with the hem of Adam’s tee shirt. Nick pulls back after a few seconds, gazing down.

Adam looks up at Nick, hesitant. He’s a little more scared than he expected, more concerned. And then Nick smiles. It feels like tasting magic.

“Oh,” Nick says, “Oh, thank God.”

He dives in again, crawling into Adam’s lap like they aren’t in the middle of a hotel gym, like they aren’t both professionals with a reputation to uphold. Adam wraps his arms around Nick’s back, sliding one hand up to thread into Nick’s hair and hold onto much of him as he can. Nick sighs against his lips, and Adam can taste that smile. The weight bench isn’t ideal, too narrow.

“Will you come up to my hotel room?” Nick murmurs against Adam’s lips. His hips twitch, and Adam gets a thrill when he realizes Nick’s already hard, just from this. He’s doing good. For the first time in years, he’s making Nick happy, making him feel good. It makes him want to be Nick’s forever.

“Yeah, of course,” Adam says, tucking some of those lose strands of hair behind Nick’s ear. “Anything you want.”

Nick smiles at him. He’s pleased. And Adam is pleased in turn.

#HangNick #Hello it's me again #Writing another Hangman ship again #It's Sarah's fault this time not mine #I hold no blame for this #in which Sara writes #wtf i like wrestling now???#anxious millennial dreamboat #Nick Attrackson

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