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thebibliomancer · 4 years

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Essential Avengers: Avengers #211: ... By Force of MIND!

September, 1981

THE OLD ORDER CHANGETH!

Oh hey, Dazzler, Hercules, Black Widow, Moon Knight, Angel from X-Men, Yellowjacket, Black Panther, Tigra, and Hawkeye?

Are you joining Captain America, Wasp, Beast, Thor, and Iron Man as the new Avengers?

Is this going to be the next biggest roster since the Korvac Saga?

Possibly! Jim Shooter is back and he was the guy behind that story.

Jim Shooter is very back, something the creative credits make sure you don’t miss.

“Joyfully welcome back long-time star Avengers scribe, me, Jim Shooter -- ‘cause I’m writing these credits, and, also I’m the boss!”

Charming. Non-facetiously.

It has similar energy to the ol’ Stan Lee introductions. And is probably just as much a pretense. Eh.

So the story “... By Force of MIND!” starts in the Avengers conference room.

And penciler Gene Colan sure has interesting ideas what that should look like.

We’ve seen the Avengers’ conference room a couple times in various books. They tend to have a grand conference table with assigned chairs?

Look at this one from Avengers Annual #10.

Or the one just as recently as last issue #210.

Pretty big overall. Suitably grand.

But the conference room has apparently been redecorated because it looks different. The personalized chairs are still there.

But the table is puny. It looks like the Young Avengers table at Thanksgiving. Set up off to the side for all the kids. Its dinky. It doesn’t look like all the Avengers can fit around it.

Which possibly supports Captain America’s point when he decides that the Avengers roster needs to be trimmed down to only six.

All those people on the cover are going to be really disappointed to hear this.

Captain America: “The Avengers have a habit of playing for high stakes! I believe that a lean, close-knit group is better... stronger!”

Beast goofs that they’ll need explosives to dislodge him from the team.

Also, there’s a trapeze on the roof of the conference room. Why. I mean, I know why. Your acrobatic characters need to be casually acrobatic at random times or they’ll be bummed out. But also why.

Wonder Man isn’t as bothered. Even after all this time on the team, he doesn’t feel like he’s ever really belonged here doing this hero stuff.

Vision and Scarlet Witch are selling themselves as a package deal. You get both or you get neither.

Captain America gives the Avengers some time to rest and think but they’ll reconvene at 1600 for the new roster announcement.

So there’s 9 people in or adjacent to the Avengers. Thor, Captain America, Iron Man, Beast, Jocasta, Scarlet Witch, Vision, Wonder Man, and Wasp. Three are gonna have to go.

All of this possibly getting fired, gives a pretty dour attitude (except for Wasp who doesn’t seem very concerned and probably doesn’t have a reason to be. Would you want to tell Wasp that she’s fired? I wouldn’t). Beast decides to lighten things up.

By causing problems on purpose.

So Beast bounces through the crowd of Avengers, jostling them all, and stealing Wonder Man’s glasses. Who hates having his glowing eyes show.

Scarlet Witch: “What on-- !? Beast! You crazy -- !”

Beast: “Moi? Crazee? Begging your pardon, mademoiselle witch. I am merely, how you say... playful! So, like gimme some space to be a jerk in, you know? Okay?”

At least he knows he’s being a jerk??

And then he runs off with Wonder Man’s glasses, goofing all the way.

Wonder Man: “Come on, you lame-brained blue-furred buffoon!”

Beast: “Hmmf! I’ll have you know, sir, that I am a highly intelligent blue-furred buffoon. I hole a dozen PhDs! I speak fifty-three languages... but I tell you, I don’t get no respect! Wanna hear me say ‘eat my dust, jocko,’ in Latverian?”

In the face of all this buffoonery, Wasp still doesn’t really care.

She decides the done thing is to go get her hair done for the big meeting. And sure this is short notice but she’s Janet Van Dyne. She’s going to have a movie starlet’s appointment bumped for her.

Scarlet Witch reflects that maybe the reason Jan isn’t worried about the possibility of being cut is that the Avengers aren’t her whole life. She has other stuff going on. A husband. A fashion line. The fabulous existence of being Janet Van Dyne.

Jocasta comes and tries to ask Vision for advice. Even after her big focus story, she still feels like an outsider. And she doesn’t have a life outside the Avengers. So unlike her brain donor Wasp, she is very worried about getting kicked out.

Jocasta: “You’ve learned to fit in, even though you’re a robot, as I am. Please... help me to...”

Vision: “I beg your pardon, Jocasta. I am a synthezoid, not a robot! As such, I am a perfect meld of computer microcircuitry and living, synthetic flesh! In all ways I am a fully functional man! I have a wife -- who needs me now! I cannot help you with your dilemma.”

And then Vision peaces out of this conversation by flying through the ceiling. Even though he’s going to join Wanda who is in an adjacent room. Ya weird, Vision.

You’re also massively unhelpful whenever anyone asks you for advice.

This is fully the second time Jocasta has asked him for advice. At least he didn’t trash the room in an angst ‘I DON’T HAVE FEELINGS AHHHH I MISS WANDA’ tantrum this time.

Jocasta is left alone. Which basically sums up her time in this book. Poor, poor robot. She’s so lonely she goes off on an existential soliloquy right outside Vision and Wanda’s room. Which is a bit passive aggressive. But hey. Superheroes.

Jocasta: “Are you truly so much different, Vision? So much better than I? I know that my voice rings metallic... but yours is cold hollow and emotionless!”

“I have built-in sensors! I can see! I can hear! I can feel! I function well enough? Don’t I? Don’t I? What does it take to be alive?”

“Does it take warm flesh? Am I merely animated because I am made of metal? I did not choose to be what I am!”

“I am what Ultron made me! Ultron -- the evil robot nemesis of the Avengers! He made you too, Vision -- reconstructed you from a long-dead android body! Both of us rebelled against his evil! Both of us sided with the Avengers!”

“Why, then, am I less than you? Is it because you are loved... and I am alone? Ultron... loved me...”

;__;

Poor robot lady.

I do wonder why the Avengers have been so indifferent to her presence. She did come to them during a chaotic moment in the team history. Vision was based on Wonder Man who wasn’t on the team while Jocasta had to coexist with Wasp from day 1.

There’s also that while both she and Vision are angsty robots that turned against Ultron, Vision (despite his famous “even an android can cry” moment) tends to be more performative with his angsts. He sulks. He broods. He smashes furniture.

Jocasta sits quietly and sadly in the background. Makes tentative stabs at companionship but backs off without ever causing a fuss. Different socialization rules for the robot genders possibly?

The good news is that modern Jocasta has learned to assert herself a lot more. She’s been a delight in the Dan Slott Iron Man book.

Anyway. Hopefully that line about Ultron doesn’t foreshadow anything. Its going to be really dumb if Jocasta brings back Ultron because the Avengers treat her with all the attentiveness of the fridge (although she may still legally qualify as one depending on how much of the Henry Peter Gyrich’s nonsense has stuck around).

Time for a sudden, drastic tone shift!

Beast exits stage Avengers Mansion, pursued by Wonder Man.

He hides up a tree like a rocket belt isn’t something Simon has or the ability to jump hella high.

But Wonder Man takes neither of those options. Instead he karate chops the tree down in one stroke. Which is impressive but I imagine Tony Stark is going to be annoyed. That tree was part of the landscaping!

Not expecting this, Beast falls out of the tree complaining that cutting down trees is illegal in New York. Wonder Man catches him and takes his sunglasses back.

Beast: “You grabbed me! But nobody’s fast enough to do that!”

Wonder Man: “People think I’m just strong! Everybody forgets that I have instantaneous reflexes and blinding speed! To me, the world looks like its moving in slow motion!”

I feel like if Wonder Man was Actually Fast all along, he’s not been getting much use out of it, considering how often he takes dumb hits in fights.

And then Wonder Man hurls Beast into the sky.

Like. Really high into the sky.

Beast: “omigosh! omigosh! omigosh! He’s nuts! He’s crazy! He’s -- who cares about him?! I’m dead! He killed me over a crummy prank! For stealing his glasses I get to end up as a blue blotch on the street. My girlfriends won’t recognize me! I can’t look! Wait a minute! This is serious! This is for real! I’m falling at hundreds of miles per hour! Nothing can save me! I’m really going to die! Like this?! I’m going to die like this?! NO!”

Wonder Man: “Relax, Beast. You’re in good hands with Wonder Man!”

Beast: *Whuff*! You -- you caught me! But that’s like catching a bullet.”

Wonder Man: “Told you I moved quick!”

Beast: “thanks. You’re a decent guy for a common ruffian, Wondy!”

I mean, he also threw you straight up, Beast. Is it so impressive that he caught you?

But with the disproportionate response to a prank by making Beast think he’s going to horribly die, Wonder Man sort of apologizes and says he’s going to miss hanging out with Beast.

See, Wonder Man isn’t going to hang around hoping he gets to stay on the team. He’s actually decided to quit. As has been Wonder Man’s thing for a while, he just doesn’t enjoy the superhero life.

He’s always struggling with insecurity and dislike of throwing himself into deadly danger a dozen times a week.

In fact, he wasn’t too broken up when Henry Peter Gyrich kicked him off the team. Back when he got super into the idea of becoming an actor. He even said at time “If I can get used to playing roles on a stage - maybe I’ll feel more comfortable in my role as superhero!”

Except, as we saw in the Shadow Lord/Berserker two-parter, Wonder Man hasn’t gotten used to playing roles on a stage.

And we’ve seen that his Avengers responsibilities are getting in the way of his acting opportunities. So. Not a surprise he’s going to leave the team as long as the roster is being rearranged anyway.

Wonder Man asks if Beast likes that superhero life of facing death all the time.

Beast: “Frankly, I never really actually considered the possibility of dying... until a minute ago. But think of the fun, glamour and girls, Simon! This is the life!”

Wonder Man: “Is that stuff really enough for a guy as smart as you, Hank? The way I see it being a hero doesn’t make you a person any more than having power makes you a hero.”

Beast: “Yeah. But pigs make good pork chops so I’m staying!”

I’m not really sure what Simon is getting at here. I think its something about finding yourself?

As the time for the meeting draws minutes away, Completely Normal Doctor Donald Blake arrives at the mansion by cab. The cabdriver wondering what a guy like Blake is doing at Avengers Mansion. This Completely Normal Cab Driver is tempted to snoop but goes naw!

If he had snooped, he may have seen Completely Normal Doctor Donald Blake turn into the Mighty Thor and head into the mansion.

Here’s a funny thing, Thor claims that the reason why he talks to himself so much is out of protest that there’s just not enough heralds in Midgard to tell people how cool he is.

Thor: “Thus, the mortal facade is stripped away -- and thus, once again Thor treads the Earth! Thor, god of Thunder, Prince of Asgard! Thor, son of Odin! Bah! That the son of Odin must so proclaim himself -- ! Are there no heralds about? Nay... never when thou needest one! Unannounced, I enter this Earthly ‘mansion,’ poorer than the least dwelling in Asgard!”

Thor also wonders to himself that if he is chosen to take part in the new Avengers roster, will he choose to remain with them? One presumes he has a lot of Thor business going on. That’s why he left the team back when Moondragon was temping with them. She convinced him he was slumming by hanging with the Avengers.

OH. MEANWHILE. That Completely Normal Cab Driver?

He is seized by a strange compulsion. He parks his cab in an alley, takes off his clothes and -- MOON KNIGHT?

Inside, the Avengers are assembling for their meeting to find who is fired or not. Except they’ve decided to give the rinky conference room table a pass and are instead sitting around in a room with even fewer chairs and a table less conducive to holding a meeting.

Lateral move.

I’m wondering whether there was some miscommunication between writer and artist or what.

Cap tells the Avengers to find a place to sit (when there is only one visible chair) when Jarvis interrupts.

Moon Knight has shown up and demands to see the Avengers. And the automatic defenses that should have stopped him seem to have been switched off.

Moon Knight insists that the Avengers summoned him. That he was forced to come to the mansion. Which comes as news to the Avengers.

And then a whole bunch of other superheroes show up claiming that they were also forced to come here.

Hi Hercules, Hawkeye, Black Widow, Angel, Yellowjacket, Dazzler, Tigra, Black Panther, and Iceman!

So that explains the cover.

Wow, a cover that didn’t even lie!

There’s a hustle and bustle of the various superheroes complaining about being here because they had better things to be doing. Black Panther is late for a meeting to speak with the UN Security Council!

And Dazzler complains because its too cold to sit next to Iceman. And Iceman is just like ‘it be like that.’

Oh and Tigra seems to decide to get in some impromptu yoga. Don’t know what the deal with that is. But cats be like that sometimes.

Moon Knight sees all these heroes here and comes to the conclusion that this is some weird Avengers membership drive. But he is very not interested in this!

Yeah, I don’t know that a mysterious vigilante who mostly operates in the shadows would be a good match for a public superhero team.

Cough.

Iceman too is like sorry but I’m not into the hero stuff. I was on the Champions. I did my time!

So he and Moon Knight turn to leave. Iceman saying he’s going to need to find a cab and Moon Knight clearing knowing that he’s going to be picking up that fare.

But when they get near the door, the two freeze.

I realize that Iceman is involved so I mean that they suddenly stopped moving.

And they get super belligerent at each other and start fighting. With Iceman expositing about his skills. Which is normal for a comic. But seems a bit weird in the context of whats going on.

Iceman: “I feel compelled to explain how my X-Men training helped me to get the most out of my mutant ability to freeze the moisture in the air!”

And he freezes the ground under Moon Knight’s feet so he slips like a doofus.

But when he goes to finish the fight, Iceman’s head suddenly starts to hurt. Which he says is like someone else is in his head with him. He can’t think clearly enough.

While Iceman is distracted, Moon Knight throws some of his moonerangs at Iceman who blocks them. But neither can continue as the pain in their heads incapacitates them both.

Yellowjacket: “Wait a minute! I know who must be behind this! That arrogant self-styled g-- *uhh*”

And Yellowjacket freezes in place, as if in a trance.

The Avengers are concerned but Angel suddenly starts flying around the room, saying he can’t resist, he just has to flyyyyyy

Which apparently offends Tigra for some reason. Some mysterious reason. How mysterious.

Angel: “The Angel’s in the air! Watch me do my stuff!”

Tigra: “So, you think you’re pretty special, huh, Wings? Well, you’re just another bird to Tigra, the She-Cat -- and cats eat birds!”

Angel: “Sounds wild -- ! But you’ve got to catch me first!”

Tigra: “I will Bird-Man! I will -- with my nice, sharp claws! And, once I do, I’m plenty strong enough -- to tear your precious little wings right off!”

Eeeeeeeeesh. Well that’s retroactively a sore subject. Angel has his wings badly injured during the Mutant Massacre storyline and they end up amputated, sending him into a depression. And then stuff happens stuff happens, its his college roommate Cameron Hodges’ fault, Apocalypse gives Angel metal murder wings.

But in the here and now before that series of events, we must assume something similar to the sudden antagonism between Moon Knight and Iceman.

Something weird is going on and stating out loud that you’ve figured out what just gets you put in a trance.

Of course, I know what’s going on because I peeked ahead so I’ll just go ahead and tell you its M- *uhh*

Hahah, just kidding! Can you imagine, though? Anyway, its Moondragon.

She’s lurking behind the Avengers watching them watch this nonsense. They don’t notice her because she’s decided she doesn’t want them to. Until she does.

But before that, hey, time to call out Beast.

Beast: “Hey-- ! That’s not a costume! Tigra’s for real! She’s like a cat ... covered with fur -- like me! I should be thrilled, I guess... But instead, I find it vaguely unsettling!”

Look, furries can’t judge furries for being furry. Its the law.

Anyway, Moondragon lets the Avengers notice her and they turn around and go ‘oh ffs its Moondragon’ more or less.

Moondragon: “I sensed your need for order... for organization! So I returned!”

Iron Man: “What?! What right do you have to interfere?”

Moondragon: “Why, divine right, naturally!”

You may not like her but you have to admire her confidence.

She recaps her backstory a bit, including her belief that she’s Actually A Goddess of Mind. Because she was raised by the demigods of Titan and she’s super psychic.

I’m not sure how super psychic. I don’t think she and Jean Grey, for example, have ever locked horns. And Jean Grey is kind of the byword for super psychic.

She’s at least psychic enough that she gave Daredevil his vision back. I think that’s psychic?

I do wonder how Moondragon stacks up on the Grey scale. But not enough that I want that kind of dick waving contest between the Avengers and X-Men. There’s enough of that already.

So after explaining how great she is the Avengers basically react with ‘oh ffs, we did not miss this’ and ask what this has to do with this circus.

Moondragon: “Come now, Iron Man! Who better than I to bring order to the tangled affairs of this company? When last I left this august assemblage, my status was still Avenger-on-call -- meaning that I would aid you in times of dire need! I am needed now! -- And so I am here!”

Iron Man: “Swell.”

I think I’ve actually missed her advanced state of arrogance. Or maybe I’m just charitably inclined to her because she and Phyla-Vell got back together and alive in the current Guardians of the Galaxy run.

Anyway, Hawkeye has not missed her advanced state of arrogance and decides to peace out. He’s got an actual paying job to do and he’s late for work because Moondragon dragged him out here.

Moondragon tells him he can go. FOR HIS FATE LEADS HIM AWAY FROM THE AVENGERS FOR NOW!

Hawkeye: “Baldy, if you’re so hot why couldn’t you figure that out without dragging me across town?”

Good point, Hawkeye.

Honestly? I think she did it to troll you.

Black Widow and Black Panther also take off. Black Panther to his UN thing and Black Widow back to her job with SHIELD.

Moondragon doesn’t stop them. So I’m guessing their fates also lead them away from the Avengers for now. But. Why bring them? They didn’t do anything?

Moondragon, were you just padding out the numbers for a more exciting cover? Dammit, Moondragon!

Hawkeye is Hawkeye and thus extra extra so he shoots a suction cup arrow at a helicopter to hitch a ride instead of taking a taxi. And as he dangles from it, he muses melancholic about what Black Widow and he once had. And ironically, Black Widow is also thinking about him and sure that he doesn’t care for her anymore.

Womp womp.

Inside the mansion, Moondragon decides to continue, to the protests of Thor, Iron Man, and Captain America.

So she yells SILENCE! and paralyzes them, just like with Yellowjacket.

The assorted crowd of everyoen else fusses and wonders what to do but Moondragon takes charge and demands that Dazzler show her stuff.

Or rather:

Moondragon: “You use your gift frivolously... as part of a musical act! Please demonstrate!”

That’s... a way to request that, yes.

Dazzler doesn’t like her tone but decides to demonstrate anyway. Cranking her pocket radio and converting the sound waves into a dazzling light show.

Dazzler: “I.... uh. Also skate! Not much of a power, huh?”

Moondragon: “Hmm! Greater than you suspect... but i sense that your desire to be a minstrel is deep and sincere!”

Minstrel? Really? Psychics have no excuse for not knowing the right word.

I’m getting a real mixed vibe from Moondragon talking to Dazzler. Its like she’s being condescending and complimentary at the same time.

But since she senses that Dazzler just wants to do disco stuff, she tells her that she can go.

Dazzler isn’t sure whether to leave the Avengers to deal with this or as she thinks “Baldy’s rap sounds real cool but this scene is definitely tense!” but Scarlet Witch tells her it will be alright.

So Dazzler goes. “When the Scarlet Witch says go -- I go!”

Dazzler knows the score.

With Dazzler gone, Moondragon is like ‘welp lets get back on with it’ but Scarlet Witch has had it.

Scarlet Witch: “Enough! We demand that you cease this outrage! We can make our own decisions.”

Moondragon: “Can you? Some of you would choose to stay out of force of habit... or loneliness... or fear of failure in the world beyond these walls! You are children! It is far better that I choose!”

And now Iron Man has had enough. And has also had an idea.

While his body may have been paralyzed by Moondragon, a lot of his armor functions are thought activated because, hey, I don’t see a lot of buttons on him, do you?

So all he has to do is think WHOOOSHy thoughts and WHOOOSH he goes, flying through the ceiling of Avengers Mansion. For once, it is Tony Stark who destroys Tony Stark’s home.

And once he’s outside Avengers Mansion, he is apparently far enough outside her range that he can now move. And since “brainwaves are electromagnetic in nature” he turns on his built-in transceiver to emit a microwave psionic jamming signal.

Which is something that he just can do!

The effect of which is that it’ll make Moondragon “feel like she’s got static on every channel!”

Sure!

Kind of reminds me of the First Foundation’s anti-psychic defenses they made against the Second Foundation. Ah, classic sci-fi. Sometimes it teaches us things like how to fight specifically Moondragon.

Moondragon is sure that she can overcome the jamming if she can just regain her concentration but...

With psychic frequencies jammed, the paralyzed Avengers start to spring into action.

So she just puts up a force field. Projected from her spaceship in Earth orbit and activated with a remote control in her glove.

Aside from the other things I’ve given Moondragon, I’ll also give her this: she came prepared.

Moondragon: “Why must you resist me so? Why can you not simply acknowledge that you need my godly guidance? We are wasting valuable time! I have yet another group of candidates to summon... but I cannot dally here much longer!”

I really want to know who her B Squad would have been.

But with the Avengers trying to break down her force field and Iron Man swooping back in to help, Moondragon decides ‘hey fuck this actually’ and teleports away.

Moondragon: “By the braided ring! How naive... how foolish you are! Perhaps I am wasting my time on your petty affairs! All right then -- enough! Have it your way! I am needed elsewhere in the galaxy! Farewell!”

And she doesn’t die on the way back to her home planet.

I do like that she recontextualizes the scenario as being actually this is a waste of her time and she’s just throwing pearls before swine. She’s going to go somewhere that appreciates the work she’s doing out of the goodness of her heart.

She is horrible. And like with Emma Frost, I just kinda appreciate that in a character.

With Moondragon not here to force people to stay, Thor tells all the non-Avengers to fuck off. Not very gracious, Thor. They were forced to come.

Iceman leaves and reminds everyone and me that his life goal is actually to be an accountant. Something I’m surprised by every time I hear it.

He even offers to help the Avengers with their budgets or tax forms. Heck of a guy.

Angel also leaves but muses that he kind of hates to.

Angel: “I... sort of hate to leave! I haven’t really done much with my life since the Champions broke up! -- Besides hang around with the X-Men a little! I never thought about becoming an Avenger --! Maybe I ought to!”

This is the thought process that will probably lead him to form X-Factor and that road leads to Cameron Hodge and Angel becoming Archangel. Dammit, Moondragon!

Although, the X-Man I really want on an Avengers team is Cyclops. He’s so defined by being an X-Man and by being a leader of X-Men, I want to see what he does on a team that already has plenty of leaders. I want to see if he goes through a weird character transformation like Beast and becomes relentlessly chill.

Alas.

Anyway, Tigra speaks up and says “I gather that you guys weren’t really looking for new members, but now that I’m here... uh, any chance?”

Cap is dubious because he doesn’t know a thing about Tigra (except that he gave her clothes to Patsy Walker) but Hercules is like hey we all saw how she tried to beat up Moondragon, that shows she has mettle.

Plus, there are Avengers that Hercules knows nothing about, which is totally the same thing.

Hercules: “You, for instance! You are called Wonder Man, though in sooth, I know not why!”

Wonder Man: “Really? Well, I... I’m as strong as Thor... almost...”

Hercules: “Eh? What?! HAVE AT THEE, THEN!”

And then he punches Wonder Man through a wall.

God, I love Hercules.

And then he tries to wrassle him, just pleased as all get out that Wonder Man is still conscious after Hercules gave him a big punch. “What fun!”

Wonder Man is less pleased.

Wonder Man: “Why are you doing this? Why are you attacking me for no reason?”

Hercules: “Men must brawl to know one another! How better to learn the measure of a man -- ? And what greater gift can a man give another than the thrill, the glory, the joy of battle? I am a friendly fellow who would often give this gift -- but, alas, most mortals are too frail to receive it. You are not, though! You and I may batter freely!”

Hercules just wants to punch people to be friendly but poor guy is just too swole for most men. He needs a real sturdy friend to beat the shit out of.

Wonder Man squirms out of the wrassle and clocks Hercules through a different wall. As the Avengers just watch like ‘yup this is the kind of day this has been.’

Hercules is in good spirit about being clocked through a wall and decides that now he and Wonder Man are friends and that Wonder Man is truly worthy to be an Avenger.

Wonder Man sheepishly mentions that actually he was quitting to pursue a career in acting and WHY HERCULES LIKES THAT JUST AS WELL!

Hercules: “Acting? Why of late, Hercules has kept company with those mortals known as the ‘jet set.’ I know many producers and directors! Come, I’ll introduce you to them! And the women, friend Wonder Man!”

Captain America, bemused: “you meet some strange folks in this business.”

There’s an non-existent Wonder Man and Hercules Take Hollywood Buddy Comedy Book and its a crime that its non-existent.

Geez, Marvel. GEEZ.

Anyway, that’s Wonder Man gone. Out of one buddy comedy into another.

Tigra reminds the Avengers that she’s still here and still wants to be in the Avengers.

Tigra: “Yeah... uh, back to my little problem... I’ve been at loose ends for a while... and I really want to belong somewhere! I know I could cut it as an Avenger! Please?”

This time, the objection is that the Avengers just don’t have room for a new person. They were trying to pare back! Not recruit!

But Beast interjects and reveals he is also leaving.

Beast: “Wondy and I had a talk this morning that started me thinking -- and I hate to admit it, but a couple of things Moondragon said hit home! You know, I used to be a scientist! I used to have a future besides my next gag and tomorrow night’s date! I want to see if there’s anything left of Hank McCoy besides a ‘blue-furred buffoon!’“

Hank’s early character beats on the Avengers were him struggling to find what his place on the team would be. He couldn’t be the strongest with Iron Man or Thor on the team. He couldn’t be the smartest with Iron Man again, Black Panther, or Yellowjacket. Wonder Man joining the team. Wonder Man joining the team gave Beast someone to be there for and with. But mostly Beast’s tenure has been kind of... party time for him. He’s been the fun member of the team. Going out to parties and juggling multiple dates and telling jokes.

Its been a fun time for Beast but he’s not really been living up to his potential And there were times he could have become the scientist on the team again. Or helped as one. Yellowjacket hasn’t been on the team as a core member for a bit. But he stuck in his role as the team clown.

Like with Thor, Moondragon has convinced Beast that he’s been sort of slumming it with the Avengers and now he’s gotta go rethink his character.

Where does this lead him? Why, he’s going to join the Defenders! And going to try to get that non-team team more organized like a team team. Is this a good thing? I don’t know, I haven’t read a lot of Defenders! Hopefully the Defenders podcast I listen to gets to that point soon!

But Beast isn’t the only one Moondragon has swayed.

Vision and Scarlet Witch likewise announce that they’re quitting the Avengers.

Vision: “Perhaps we will not succeed in finding a place among ordinary people -- but we must try!”

So perhaps influenced as well by the conversation Wanda had with Jan where Wasp wasn’t worried about losing her spot on the team. Which Wanda attributed to Jan having a life outside the Avengers. And apparently Wanda and Vision have been afraid to try for that. Until Moondragon dunked on her for it.

Geez. If there’s anything Moondragon is good at, its getting Avengers to quit the team. She got Thor and Hellcat last time. This time she got Beast, Vision, and Scarlet Witch.

So there’s room for Tigra now but also too much room. They were aiming for six and even with Tigra, they’d only have FIVE THERES ONLY FIVE CLEARLY.

Jocasta, in the background: -saddest robot in the world-

Yellowjacket shrugs and decides to rejoin as a full-time member to get the number up to six. His research hasn’t been going great lately anyway so he has time in his schedule.

Feeling overlooked, just like last issue, which was a filler which was supposed to address the Avengers overlooking her, Jocasta decides to slink away. Just leaps out the window and runs away from home.

Jocasta: “They didn’t even notice me... didn’t count me! Was it an oversight? Or had everyone already made up their minds that I would be one of those eliminated? What difference does it make? I am nothing to them! They do not want me here! Maybe I’ll find someplace where I am wanted! Maybe I’ll find someone... who loves me!”

And where does Jocasta go from here?

She wanders the country looking for love, presumably in all the wrong places, and is seized by a per-programmed compulsion to rebuild Ultron. This leads to a big team up between the Thing, Machine Man, and her and Jocasta sacrifices herself to help stop Ultron. The Avengers hold a memorial and Machine Man attends, realizing that he had loved Jocasta.

So plus side: she does find someone to love her. Minus side: she dies and also its Machine Man.

Double plus side: she’s eventually rebuilt. Dies a couple more times. But she’s currently alive.

It’s going to turn out that this was a failure of communication.

(On the team less than a day after basically begging to join and she’s already made herself at home and is hogging the entire couch. How very cat of you, Tigra.)

Iron Man, Captain America, and Thor had decided privately to ask her to stay on as a Special Substitute Avenger, keep living in the mansion, and help out when its needed.

In the hubbub of Moondragon’s recruitment drive I guess they forgot to bring it up. I feel like its something you should have approached her with before the meeting, just to make sure she was okay with it.

Hindsight and all.

The snubbing from Vision definitely didn’t help.

Iron Man: “I hope she comes back! -- And I sure hope Moondragon doesn’t!”

Hah.

I do wonder what the initial plan going into the meeting would have been, before Moondragon took it over. What roster had Iron Man, Thor, and Captain America decided on before Moondragon talked three Avengers into quitting and introduced Tigra to the team?

I guess we’ll never knoooow.

Captain America muses that although it seems like they drove Moondragon away, she may have gotten what she actually wanted. “What if she used her mental powers subtly to influence the decisions that were made?”

And its possible because of how her speech influenced the three people who quit.

The thought just about makes Iron Man furious.

He doesn’t have time to dwell on it because the news shows up to get coverage of the last panel new roster AVENGERS ASSEMBLE! moment.

I do love a good last panel new roster Avengers Assemble moment.

And that was Jim Shooter’s first issue back. And a pretty great first issue too.

Not that the previous issues have been bad necessarily but he definitely brought a sense of fun to this issue. Even though there’s some forced fighting for those ACTION SCENES most of it is just character interactions. Even some of the pointless fights.

And like writers like to do when they take over a book, Jim Shooter draws a line in the history with a shake-up to the team roster. Reintroduces Moondragon into the book because he has unfinished business with her.

I’ve actually been reading the original Star Brand book by Shooter and the writing is night and day. Its all text text text words words words but its much punchier here. Though there are some strange spelling and punctuation choices.

Still, I’m excited to have a consistent writer back on and I’m even excited about it being Jim Shooter. I hated his first run on the book on first read and then appreciated it more the second time through. And I’ve heard interesting stuff about this upcoming run.

Psst, follow @essential-avengers. You are being mentally influenced by Moondragon to do so. Wait, this is a counterproductive self-promote. Er, like and reblog because you choose to?

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aion-rsa · 3 years

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Best Romantic Movies on Netflix

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Romance movies are not that different from horror movies. Both are incredibly hard to pull off, are heavily watched during a cold time of year, and hopefully end with every character covered in blood.

With that in mind we present to you a list of the best romantic movies on Netflix. Because romance deserves it, damn it. Virtually every song ever written is a love song but poor romance can’t get a fair shake at the movies. Whether it be a rom-com or just a straight-up soul-enlightening/crushing romance, our list of the best romantic movies on Netflix will get you back in touch with your cold, dead heart.

Set It Up

Set It Up is Netflix’s most accomplished original romantic comedy yet.

Zoey Deutch and Glen Powell star as overworked assistants Harper and Charlie. Harper is an assistant to Kirsten (Lucy Liu) the woman behind a sports media empire. Charlie works for finance maven Rick (Taye Diggs). Harper and Charlie realize that their respective workloads might lesson if their bosses were more focused on their love life and less focused on work. So they…set them up.

Set It Up is a fun, novel high-concept romance movie positively filled with chemistry on all sides.

Outside In

We embrace every kind of love on our list of the best romance movies. Sometimes that includes some questionable, and some would say “icky” kind of love. So…Outside In is a teacher-student romance. But don’t panic! It’s ok.

Jay Duplas stars as Chris, a man who was wrongly imprisoned at age 18 and who is relased at age 38. When Chris is released, he immediately meets up with his old high school teacher, Carol (Edie Falco), who was his penpal when he was in prison. He wastes little time before he declares his love for her.

Despite its subject matter, Outside In is a mature, well-handled exploration of love and what it means to love someone for themselves as opposed to what they do for us.

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

With a name as long as The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, the movie better be good to justify how many times we poor cultural commenters must type it out. Thankfully Guernsey is quite good!

Based on a book by the same name, Guernsey is a historical love story set in 1946. Lily James stars as British writer Juliet Ashton. Juliet begins exchanging letters with residents of the islands of Guernsey, which was under German occupation in WWII (so like two years before the movie starts). While there she meets the dashing Dawsey Adams (Michael Huisman) and romance begins to blossom.

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society is an excellent, watchable classical romance

To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before

Oh hey! Another Netflix original with a long title based on a book. Like the Potato Peel Pie Society, To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before is another effortlessly enjoyable romantic romp – this time of the teen variety.

Lara Jean Song Covey (Laura Condor) experiences every young person’s nightmare when private love letters to five boys she has or has had crushes on suddenly and mysteriously become public. But fear not. This is a romance movie, not a horror movie. So this sudden reveal has to go well for Lara Jean, right? RIGHT?!?

To All the Boys P.S. I Still Love You

The To All the Boys team returns for a sequel that teaches kids the harsh lesson that there’s no such thing as happily ever after! OK, so that’s a bit harsh, but To All the Boys P.S. I Still Love You does bring back its characters for another round of romantic angst.

Movies

To All the Boys: P.S. I Still Love You Review

By Delia Harrington

Movies

To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before Review: A Pleasurable Netflix Rom-Com

By Delia Harrington

Lara Jean (Lana Condor) is now officially Peter’s (Noah Centineo) girlfriend. But before they can relax and enjoy their lives together, an old flame of Lara Jean enters the frame. That’s right, John Ambrose (Jordan Fisher) is here and he wants to steal your girl, Noah Centineo.

The Danish Girl

2015’s The Danish Girl tells the story of a kind of love nearly unprecedented for its early 20th century time. Eddie Redmayne stars as artist Lili Elbe, who was born Einar Wegener and is believed to be one of the first individuals to receive sexual reassignment surgery. The film follows Lili’s journey and her love with wife Gerda Wegener (Alicia Vikander).

When Gerda asks her husband to stand in for a female subject in her painting, Einar does so and quickly comes to terms with the gender identity he’s been suppressing. The newly confirmed Lili and Gerda navigate this new dimension of their relationship and Lili continues her work as a subject for Gerda’s now very much in demand paintings.

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

Beauty and the Beast

2017’s live-action version of Beauty and the Beast isn’t the best depiction of the classic fairy tale ever but that’s ok. It doesn’t have to be. All Bill Condon’s Beauty and the Beast really needed to be was a fun little dip into nostalgia with sumptuous visuals and a believable romance. On that front, everything goes according to plan.

Movies

Emma Watson on Beauty and the Beast: ‘I’m Very Grateful That This Character Exists’

By Don Kaye

Beauty and the Beast Disney+ Prequel Series Set with Luke Evans and Josh Gad

By Joseph Baxter

Emma Watson stars as Belle and Dan Stevens is her beast. Belle heads off from her small French town to the Beast’s castle to rescue her father. What follows is Stockholm Syndrome: The Movie. But sexier. Beauty and the Beast really does look good and Watson and Stevens have just enough chemistry to make this a worthwhile romantic experience.

50 First Dates

50 First Dates has a somewhat disappointing Rotten Tomatoes score. Ignore that. It’s probably partially due to many critics’ distaste for at least one of the actors in the above screengrab. Not that they can be blamed. The presence of Adam Sandler or Rob Schneider in any comedy is rarely a good sign. In 50 First Dates‘, however, it’s not an issue at all.

50 First Dates is a legitimately funny and romantic romantic comedy. Drew Barrymore stars as Lucy Whitmore, a woman with short-term memory loss. Due to a car accident, every day she wakes up believing it is October 13, 2002. Sandler’s character Henry Roth meets her in Hawaii and the two must overcome this bizarre condition to establish a lasting relationship.

Carol

Todd Haynes, director of Carol and Far From Heaven knows longing. And if there’s an element that makes for an excellent romantic movie experience its longing. That desperate sense is baked into nearly every frame of Carol. Based on a 1950s romance novel, Carol is the story of a young photographer (Rooney Mara) and an older woman going through a divorce (Cate Blanchette) undertaking a forbidden affair.

Forbidden because, you know, ’50s. And that’s where the longing comes in. Nothing is more romantic or sexier than a forbidden romance. Carol channels that romantic energy into something mature, fascinating and heartbreaking.

Silver Linings Playbook

Silver Linings Playbook is all about how generally terrible it is to be a Philadelphia Eagles fan. OK, fine – it’s only a little bit about that. This star-studded 2012 film from David O. Russell is more about the challenges in finding love when one isn’t sure they even love themselves.

Bradley Cooper stars as Pat Solitano Jr., a young man with bipolar disorder living with his parents after being released from a psychiatric hospital. Pat is determined to win back his ex-wife and to that end enlists the help of young widower Tiffany Maxwell (Jennifer Lawrence). The two become closer as they train for an upcoming dance competition and share their respective damages with one another.

Silver Linings Playbook works because Lawrence and Cooper have a real crackling chemistry. And they both just happen to be devastatingly, almost supernaturally attractive.

Runaway Bride

From stars Richard Gere and Julia Roberts to director Garry Marshall to conspicuous usage of enormous cell phones – Runaway Bride is an intensely ’90s film. And to the rightly organized mind, that just makes it the platonic ideal of a low-stress romantic comedy.

Roberts stars as Maggie Carpenter, an alluring young woman who has made a habit of leaving multiple fiancé’s at the altar. Gere is Ike Graham, a New York columnist seeking to tell the definitive story of this “runaway bride.” Runaway Bride is a charming experience that will make you think long and hard about how you really like your eggs prepared.

Loving

It feels reductive to call Loving a “romance” movie, as its more of a historical exploration of the very real, very tragic legacy of American racism. At its center, however, the film is about love.

Loving tells the story of Richard (Joel Edgerton) and Mildred Loving (Ruth Negga), a mixed-race Virginia couple challenging their state’s law against interracial marriage in the Supreme Court. The details of the Lovings struggle for basic human rights are astonishing. Edgerton and Negga’s empathetic performances make sure the film never loses sight of the humanity at play amid all the legal drama.

Always Be My Maybe

Everyone always talks about “the one who got away”, but what about “the one who was always kind of around”? 2019’s Always Be My Maybe tells of one such story.

Ali Wong (who wrote the film) stars as Sasha Tran and Randall Park stars as Marcus Kim. Marcus and Sasha grew up next door to each other and also embarked on a brief, ill-fated relationship in their teenage years. When Sasha returns to San Francisco to open a restaurant, she discovers that romantic energy remains between her and Marcus. But is that enough to spark love in the busy, chaotic adult world?

Always Be My Maybe has a lot to say about family and growth. It also features a truly winning performance from Keanu Reeves playing…Keanu Reeves.

The Kissing Booth

There’s an interesting dynamic at play in teenage romantic comedies. Oftentimes, the worse they are, the more watchable (and rewatchable) they become. The Kissing Booth is a prime example. Based on a book by the same name from Beth Reekles, The Kissing Booth isn’t exactly celebrated for its realistic portrayal of American teenagers.

Thanks to charming lead performances from Joey King, Jacob Elordi, and Joel Courtney, however, that doesn’t really matter. The Kissing Booth is all about how one girl’s first kiss turns into an emotional minefield of teen angst. That alone is enough to support 105 minutes of pure high school drama…and two sequels!

The post Best Romantic Movies on Netflix appeared first on Den of Geek.

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suchdan-veryphil · 4 years

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Two Worlds Collide - Dan Howell Imagine Part 16

Part 15

Word Count: 2,160

Trigger Warnings: None. Lots of fluff!!

A/N: I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I have a feeling this story is coming to an end soon. I want to thank those who have read and those who gave my story notes. I hope you enjoy reading this chapter as much as I enjoyed writing it.

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*Dan’s POV*

Looking down at Y/N and Guinevere asleep on the bed filled my heart with nothing but love. I couldn’t believe that I was going to possibly miss this, and for what? A job? Kenny really helped me out by transferring me to Oxford. The nurses said that Gwen was a tiny yet healthy 2.5 kgs and a total of 16.7 cm long. Her dirty brown hair mocked mine, and Y/N has graciously passed down the plump lips that seemed to be pouting at me at all times.

Gwen squirmed in her mother’s arms, but Y/N stayed asleep so I took it upon myself to carefully steal her. My girlfriend just rolled over and yawned as she pulled the blanket up a little closer to her chin. It was like she knew that she had Gwen so she couldn’t maneuver herself, but now that she was with me, it was safe to do so. My gaze shifted to the tiny little thing in my arms that held my heart in her tiny grip.

“Guinevere, you’re our little miracle baby.” I ran my finger down the side of her pale, chubby cheek. “Momma and I have been waiting for you. I’m sorry I almost missed you. I’ll never ever let myself get that far again. You’re home, and I need to be home.” I took a deep sigh before I began to rock her slowly. “I’m going to watch you take your first steps, hear your first words. I’ll be there to help you ride a bike, and to kiss your boo-boos when you fall down because I can almost guarantee that you have your mother’s grace.” I chuckled and studied her face. She had a concentrated look on her face, even as she slept. It was as if she was taking every word I was saying and memorizing them. Even if she did, that would be okay because I intended to keep every one of these promises and then some.

She started to squirm and she stretched out her left arm and her right foot as her eyes opened and stared right up at me. She wasn’t crying, and she wasn’t fussing. It was just the two of us, and I knew that she couldn’t see me, but I could see her and it was all that I needed. I felt the tear begin to crawl down my cheek as I lifted her up closer to me and kissed her forehead softly. “I love you, Guinevere. You’re the product of absolute love and passion. I plan on raising you with those same things.” She cooed and stared up at me as she pouted her little lips at me. I couldn’t hold back the chuckle as my entire body rushed with a warm feeling. I couldn’t believe that Gwen had been in our lives for less than twenty-four hours and she already had me wrapped around her dainty little fingers.

My attention was moved when I heard Y/N speak softly. “Hey, how long have I been asleep?” She looked around and when she noticed the empty plastic bassinet, I could see her eyes widen. “Where’s Guinevere?”

“I have her, don’t worry.” I walked over and sat at the edge of the bed so that she could see the baby.

“Oh, sorry. I’m- I just... I don’t want to be away from her.” Y/N’s hand reached out and gently rolled over the baby’s knuckles.

“I understand. It’s like if we keep our eyes off of her for half a second, she’ll be gone.”

Y/N just nodded in agreement as she stared tiredly at Gwen, bottom lip stuck between her teeth.

“You can go back to sleep, love. Nobody is going to take her. It’s just us. And if the nurses take her, I’ll wake you up so you can look at her before she leaves.” I knew she was just scared. We never expected our son to not be with us, but we miscarried and that was that. She knew that anything could happen at any moment.

“I’m okay.”

I nodded my head and pressed my lips together in understanding. “Here.” Slowly, I handed Gwen over to Y/N and watched as our miracle just stared up at her mother.

Y/N smiled down at her and put her pointer finger on Gwen’s dimpled cheek. “You’re so calm now that you’re in the world but when you lived inside of me you couldn’t stop moving.”

“She was just so excited to meet us.” I watched with my face stuck in a smile. Y/N laughed a little and nodded.

“I guess so considering she never stopped squirming when she lived inside of me.” The love of my life didn’t take her gaze off of the accused squirmer. I didn’t make a sound or move a muscle. The sight before me was too beautiful and peaceful to disturb. Ask thought about it, staring at my family in front of me, I knew what I had to ask her.

“Y/N...”

She replied with a questioning hum, but she didn’t take her eyes off of our daughter. I got up and moved closer to the two of them so I could wrap my arms around both of them.

“Move in with me.” I didn’t mean for it to come out so desperately, but I was victim to my own inability to control my tone. Her eyes finally looked up at mine and she took a second to process her thoughts.

“Phil doesn’t need to be waking up at all hours of the night, Daniel.”

My heart sunk. “But you know he doesn’t mind. He wants to be a part of this. He keeps saying that he’s going to just sleep during the day so he can take the night shift.”

“I still feel like that’s too much to ask of him.” She looked up at me and tilted her head a little to the side. “But..” she took a deep breath. “What if you moved into my apartment? We’ve already got her nursery set up, and her bassinet is already by my bed. It’s ready for us when we come back. All you have to do is move your things in.”

I would’ve agreed to move into a box with Y/N, and she wasn’t wrong. It made sense for me to move in with her. I just nodded my head and leaned in to kiss her gently. “I will be sure to start packing my things immediately.”

Y/N kissed me back softly and smiled right back at me. To think I almost lost her. I never would have imagined myself as a father, but ever since Y/N told me she was pregnant with Matthew, I knew that we were meant to be parents with each other. Guinevere, our white light miracle, was the product of a great loving relationship that was no stranger to fighting for what it wanted and deserved.

We were pulled away from one another’s gaze by the tiny whining that turned to crying from our baby.

“Uh oh! What is the fuss about?” Y/N glanced at the clock and nodded. “It’s breakfast time.” With a bit of an adjustment, she was able to move Gwen into a nursing position and begin feeding her.

The noises were almost immediately hushed as Gwen latched and started to eat.

“Boobs! Oh! I mean- ah! Sorry Y/N. I thought you guys said visiting hours were after 9.” Phil closed his eyes and held a purple gift bag out towards us. With a slight chuckle, I took the bag and set it beside Y/N on the bed. She also had a smirk as she looked at Phil.

“You’re okay to open your eyes, Phil. I’m just feeding her.”

Phil popped one eye open and looked at the baby. “I’m not looking at your boob, Y/N, I’m looking at the baby I promise.”

“I appreciate that, Philly.”

“Wow, she’s beautiful.” He suddenly was whispering.

“Thank you, we agree.” I smiled and pointed to a chair in the corner of the room. “Pull up a chair. Stay awhile. She usually is done eating in twenty minutes.”

“Thanks. How are you guys feeling?” Phil took the chair and pulled it beside your bed.

Y/N bit her lip and shrugged. “I’ve felt fine. A little sore, but when I look at her, it’s fine.”

“That’s sweet. I hope you feel better soon.” Phil was a great friend, hell we named our daughter after him, but damn was he awkward.

Y/N just nodded in agreement as she stared at Gwen eating away.

“I got this for her. I hope she likes it.” Phil pointed at the purple gift bag and smiled proudly.

“Aw Philly, you didn’t have to get her anything.” Y/N said as she picked up the bag and glanced inside. “Dan, can you open it?”

I took the bag and removed the tissue paper. Inside was a purple and blue polka-dotted blanket that had Guinevere Philomena stitched in a golden thread along one of the corners.

“Oh Phil, this is beautiful.” I ran my fingers over it as I leaned over and showed Y/N.

“Phil, oh my goodness.” She teared up and sighed. “Absolutely gorgeous.” Her hand reached over and felt the soft fabric against her fingertips. “It’s the only blanket I’m going to wrap her in at home.”

“I’m glad. I know that you guys don’t want to pin her down to any kind of gender roles, so I put both colors on there and then she’s a warrior so she gets golden letters.” As Phil explained his train of thought, he leaned over to watch Gwen.

“We love you, friend.” Y/N expressed as she looked over at Phil.

Once Gwen was done eating, Phil didn’t hesitate to ask to hold her. She had fallen fast asleep with a belly full of milk and a room full of love.

Phil was stiff and still as he held the baby, making us chuckle a little. “You can loosen up, sweetie. She isn’t going to break.”

“I’m not sure of that. I don’t want to hurt her.”

I smirked and looked at my best friend. “Well, we appreciate that but you can loosen up your arms. Just support her head and you’ll be fine.”

Suddenly, he relaxed and looked over at us. If he were a Sim, he’d have a giant question mark in a thought bubble.

“Perfect.” Y/N laid back against the pillows on the bed, and I could see her eyes getting heavier.

“Love, sleep. You just had a baby fifteen hours ago and you’ve got four hours of sleep. Non-consecutive. She’ll be here when you wake up, remember?” I tried to reassure her, but I also knew she was nervous. Biting her lip, she just looked at me and sighed.

“I just-”

“No. You can’t be an attentive parent if you don’t sleep. Take a nap. Phil and I will have her.”

She sighed and nodded. “Fine. But, if she fusses please wake me up.”

I nodded and kissed her head before getting off of the bed and walking over towards Phil, pulling up a chair.

“She’s perfect, Dan. And she looks just like you already.” Phil whispered as he stared down at Gwen. It was amazing how many people loved this child so much already.

“I know. Weird, huh?” I looked down at Gwen and then back to Phil. “Hey. I uh- I have to tell you something.”

“What’s up?”

“I’m gonna be moving into Y/N’s place when we get out of here tomorrow.” It was weird for me. I lived with Phil for the majority of my adult life, and he was always with me. It was a sad feeling to think that I wasn’t going to live with him anymore.

“Yea? She doesn’t want to live with us?”

“It isn’t that. But having a baby and three adults isn’t a good idea for that flat. Plus, the majority of Guinevere’s things are at Y/N’s right now anyways.”

Phil sighed and nodded. “Well, I’ll be sad and I’ll miss you but I’m happy for you. You almost lost this, twice.”

When he said it, I felt like I had been hit by a bus for a second. “Yea, and I never thought I would get here. Having a baby, a family. Imagine Chris didn’t pull us into the whole party idea? This wouldn’t be happening.”

“You got lucky, man. But you also worked hard. It wasn’t easy. You deserve this”

Gwen started to squirm a bit, so Phil looked down and rocked her a little. “Oh please don’t cry, your mum will kick my butt.”

“Mum? Her dad is right here.”

“Yea, but Y/N actually scares me.”

I completely knew what he meant, and I didn’t blame him in the slightest bit. I glanced over at my girlfriend and smirked as I noticed she was out like a light.

“Yea. Me, too.” But in the best way.

#two worlds collide #dan howell imagine #daniel howell imagine #danisnotonfire imagine #dan and phil #danfic #amazingphil #daniel james howell imagine

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timelock97 · 5 years

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Time Never Stops

Chapter Thirteen: Look at that Bump!

Word Count: 2574

Prologue Ch 1 Ch 2 Ch 3 Ch 4 Ch 5 Ch 6 Ch 7 Ch 8 Ch 9 Ch 10 Ch 11 Ch 12

Warnings: FLUFF

(Y/F/S): Your Favorite Store

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"What can I do for you that would make today easier on you?" Tom asks while we finish up eating breakfast. Today, Dan and Phil were coming over to record a co-lab; however, I didn't tell them what we were doing today.

"There isn't anything you need to do, unless you want to set up my v-log camera in front of the fireplace so I can record my intro. Besides that, we are going to go over the game plan on what we are doing then we are headed to buybuy Baby."

I watch as Tom's eyes go wide, "Wait, was I supposed to come with you for that."

"I was hoping you would drive us," I mutter, taking a sip of my smoothie.

Tom looks sheepishly at me, "Harrison and the twins are supposed to be here in twenty minutes, they wanted to go out and practice our swings. I completely forgot you were going out today."

"Its okay, we could always Uber-".

"No, I can drive you three." He states, squeezing my hand on the table. "Hey, maybe the boys can come and join the challenge?" He suggests, as I squeeze his hand back before standing to put our empty plates in the sink.

"If you can convince the boys, I would be happy to have them join." I laugh, walking back over to him, settling into his lap, and wrapping my arms around his neck as his find their home around my waist, "As long as they take it seriously."

"I cannot say that they will, but we can hope," he chuckles, looking at me. "Why don't you go take a shower, I will let the boys know the plan."

I let out a soft hum before pressing a quick kiss to his lips. I stand carefully and grab my smoothie before walking out of the kitchen and up the stairs, Tessa following close on my heels.

After spending time taking a shower, I hop out and swipe at the mirror with my hand to temporarily remove the condensation to find my reflection looking back at me. I only glance at her in the mirror, deciding to leave the room as I squeeze my hair in my towel, walking out of the ensuite into the bedroom. I discard my towels into dirty clothes basket to be washed. I cock my head to the doorbell going off, hearing loud shouting to signal that the Holland brothers and Harrison had arrived. I roll my eyes as I brush my hair out and fluffing it around my face before walking back to the closet to figure out what to wear.

I groan as I try on a pair of ¾ length pants, they don't fit. I spend the next ten minutes back and forth trying to find clothes that do.

"Love, Dan and Phil are here." Tom calls, opening the door when her hears me groan in response. "You alright?"

I turn and look at him only dressed in just my underwear, a robe still placed over my shoulders. "I have a problem."

Tom chuckles, "What's your problem?" He is looking at me in amusement.

"None of my pants fit anymore. I didn't think I had gotten that big yet, have I?" I ask looking at him with a pout placed on my lips.

Tom shakes his head as he walks over to me, wrapping an arm around my waist before pressing a reassuring kiss to my forehead where the skin is creased. "No, love." He places a hand over my bump, rubbing his thumb across the skin, "The baby is just growing." He smiles at me before he moves to his side of the closet, pulling down a pair of gray joggers. "Why not try these, baby girl?"

I take them from him and carefully pull them on, sighing at the fact that they fit better than my own clothes. "Yay, they actually fit." I groan, letting Tom tie the strings before he places a kiss to my forehead again. "I need to ask your Mum if she will go with me to find maternity clothes because my pants don't fit anymore."

"How come you don't want me to come with you?" He asks, immediately stopping me from answering, "Nevermind, the last time I went shopping with you we spend four hours at (Y/F/S). Just steal my clothes until you do, I mean, you do that already so," he winks at me before leaning into me and kissing my lips, smiling into it.

"You are going to run out of comfy clothes," I tease, walking away from him to pull a plain black shirt out of one of my drawers and a sweater, pulling it over my head. I smile at him and tilt my head at him. "Do I look okay?"

"You look adorable." He smiles, putting out his hand for me to take. I smile back, taking it and allow him to lead me downstairs.

Once on the first floor, I smile at the guests in front of me. "My favorite people!" I tease, hugging Harrison since he was the first one I could reach.

"Wow, you say we are your favorite people but you don't hug me first." Dan pouts making me laugh.

"Says the guy who is hiding in my kitchen, most likely stealing cookies from my cookie jar." I tease, walking over to Sam and Harry who are laughing as they exchange hugs with me before I wrap my arms around Dan's torso.

"Well, Tom said you were upstairs getting ready so I was raiding your cabinets."

"Dan didn't eat breakfast before we left because we woke up late." Phil states, sitting at the table.

"Dan, oh my gosh." I giggle, letting go of Dan to hug Phil.

"Alright, enough teasing me because I didn't roll out of bed after my third alarm went off. What are we doing today?" Dan asks, walking over to Phil and I.

"Well, the camera is in the living room since we have a little more than what I had anticipated, so let's settle in there!" I turn and dance playfully into the other room, making the Holland boys laugh at me. Dan, Phil, and I settle on the couch and Tom stands behind the camera so he can start it.

"Ready, love?"

"Let me check the mics," I state, checking my laptop before I smile at him and giving him a thumbs up. "What's up guys, you're on with Timelock. As you can tell, I have the magnificent Dan and the amazing Phil here with me today!" I shoot my hands up in the air and Tom places his hand over his face to keep himself from laughing. "Today we are doing something a little different-"

"Okay, I am sorry to interrupt, but I need you to turn to the side for me." Dan says looking at me with a small eyebrow raise.

"Like toward you or toward Phil?" Dan shrugs and I turn to the side and look at him. "Okay, why am I turned?"

Dan motions toward Phil, "Tug her shirt toward you." My shirt comes tight around my stomach and Tom places his hand over his mouth, eyes crinkling in the corners. "Look at your bump! It is so noticeable. I mean, I could feel it when we hugged, but look at it."

"Is it really that noticeable?" I ask, looking at Tom who is nodding profusely, his eyes bright. "Well, uh, I guess I have more of a bump than what I was thinking, but then again I couldn't fit into any of my pants today."

"Wait whose are these then?" Phil asks as I turn back to the front.

"Uh, that should be obvious." I giggle, "Thanks, Tommy."

"Welcome, love."

"Okay, back to the task at hand. Today," the three of us start to laugh. "We are never going to get this intro done." I take a breath and take a chance and sip my tea. "Okay, okay, okay-"

"When do you drink tea? Who are you and what have you done with our (Y/N)?" Dan yells making me laugh.

"Will you hush, the tea keeps the morning sickness at bay, but I think we are at the end of that stage. It's been like a week?" I raise an eyebrow at Tom who nods. "We need to finish the intro so we can go and record the damn thing."

"Language!" Harrison calls from the kitchen.

"Shut up, Harrison!" I laugh, shaking my head, "Today!" Everyone bursts into laughter, "I just want to say what we are doing today so we can go to buybuy Baby!" I place my hands over my face, trying to cover up my giggles.

"Wait, why are we going to buybuy Baby?" Dan said with a raised eyebrow.

"If we could get back to the video, I would tell you." I tease, shaking my head. "We are going to buybuy Baby to do some shopping. You both have a 60 pound limit to find the best gift for little Holland, but there is a bit of a twist. Not only do we not know the gender, so it has to stay gender neutral, but Sam, Harry, and Harrison are going to be apart of the challenge-"

"Wait, do we buy it and give it to you, or do we show you before we check out and you guys buy the gift?" Dan asks, as the twins and Harrison come to stand behind us on the couch.

"Tom and I will buy it, but you guys get the credit for finding it." I laugh, smiling at the camera. "Well, let's grab the cameras and lets go!" I yell, pumping my hand into the air.

"Okay, camera is off." Tom states as he pulls it off the stand.

"So, what exactly are we doing?" Harry asks as he shifts the camera in his hand.

"The five of you are going to be going around the store to find a gift or multiple depending on what you want to do. That means you don't need to get anything for the baby blah blah blah because you already did blah blah blah." I state as the boys roll their eyes at my lazy explanation. "Everyone has a camera and they have to record for the hour we are there. I'll condense the video that I post. It's just supposed to be a fun competition."

"So we can't help each other out?" Sam asks, glancing at his twin.

"Nope, every man for himself." I laugh.

"Let's get going then!" Harrison yells, running out the door, all of us laughing and getting up to follow him. ~ "Harrison just walked around the corner, saw us, spun around, and sprinted in the opposite direction." Tom chuckles behind me as I search through the clothes aisle for some comfy pants.

"I saw Phil and Dan run past each other yelling that they were going to win, and then get yelled at by a security guard." I giggle, pulling out a pair of pants, "You think this'll be okay?"

"I can hold your bag while you try it on."

"I also love how we are just recording in here and no one is saying anything." I giggle, handing Tom my bag and run to the dressing room, finally happy that I had a pair of pants that actually fit. "Tom! They fit like leggings but look like jeans!"

"Aren't those jeggings?"

"No, they are thick leggings that look like jeans cause I am getting fat." I laugh, walking out with the pair of pants in hand.

"You're not fat, love. The baby is just growing. And I am pretty sure, those are still jeggings." He states with a smile, raising an eyebrow as I don't set them down on the return rack, "Gonna get those?""

"Yeah, so I don't steal all your joggers." I giggle, taking my bag from him, "And I know I'm not fat, it's just, you know how much it affected me when I was trying to lose weight. It feels like I'm backtracking even though it's not something I can change." I look at him and see the soft smile on his lips.

"You're beautiful, (Y/N), nothing is going to change that."

"You're a sap," I tease, pressing a quick kiss to his lips, "but I love it." I look at him for a minute before tugging my phone from out of the front pocket of my bag. "They have exactly ten minutes left in the challenge, so let's walk over to the rocking chairs and wait for them, yeah?"

"Yeah, let's go." Tom wraps an arm around his waist, smiling as he looks around the building at all the baby stuff. "Wow," he breaths.

"What?"

"I just, it's weird knowing that we are going to be parents. Like, don't get me wrong, I am beyond excited; even more now that the bump is making more of an appearance," Tom's hand comes to rest on my stomach, brushing his thumb against the fabric of the t-shirt. "It's weird, but I am so excited to meet them. Really excited to know who our little love is going to be-"

"Me too, Tom. I cannot wait to raise this little human with you." I whisper, pressing a kiss to his lips where soft chuckles are escaping, before sitting down in one of the rocking chairs to wait for the boys to come meet us. Tom and I rock back and forth for a few minutes until the twins come running over, baskets in hand, pushing each other playfully. "Hey, I will disqualify you if you get us kicked out."

"We won't get us kicked out." Sam laughs, standing in front of us.

"We actually talked to the manager and she laughed when we told her what we were doing." Harry chuckles, smiling at us. Eventually, Dan, Phil, and Harrison join us with their baskets in hand.

"Alright, let's look at what you guys grabbed and finish this video because I'm so damn tired." I state as Tom positions the camera so I can be seen.

"The baby can hear you, (Y/N)." Harrison teases, laughing when I try and grab his basket to tip him over.

"Hand me the basket, Osterfield, you're the first victim." ~ "Okay, how did he find the the cutest plush and softest blanket?"

"Because Haz knows that you will be using them well before the baby will." Tom laughs as he gets ready for bed in our ensuite. "I was surprised you didn't go for Dan's, the llama plush was so cute."

I laugh, balling the blanket in my lap between my hands, "Tom, did you even look in the bag from buy buy Baby?"

"No, why?" He walks out of the bathroom and over to the bag and placing it on the bed. He opens it and throws his head back, laughing. "You bought all the stuffed animals everyone picked, why?"

"They are all so soft! Little love is going to be so spoiled with all the stuffed animals-"

"And blue dinosaurs." Tom chuckles, lifting the plush out.

"Don't forget the narwhal that Phil found."

"We cannot have any stuffies on the baby shower registry." Tom states, tossing the narwhal at me, making me giggle.

"They really did a nice job though." I smile as Tom discards the bag on the floor, catching the narwhal with ease when I throw it at him and crawls in bed. He pulls me into his chest so we can sleep, his hand running up and down my bump.

"They really did." I yawn, stretching my neck to Tom pressing kisses up my neck to my jaw.

"Goodnight, love. Sleep well."

"I love you, Tom."

"I love you too, so much, bug."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Thanks for reading! Let me know what you think! Reblog and comment!

Chapter Fourteen

#cg writes #time never stops #tom holland x reader #tom holland fanfiction #tomhollandxyoutuber!reader #best friends to lovers #bestfriend!tom holland #bestfriendstoloversau #dad!tom holland

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gaybabymisfits-blog · 6 years

Note

if you want, write something about your favourite character for me? :) you don’t have to if you don’t want to okay?

This might get long and it might get angsty but it won’t be too bad I promise. Thank you for this, Jay :)

Also this is being posted much later than I intended, but things got busy with college things. Consider this my Christmas present to all of you!!!

Title: Dirty Frowns To Golden Smiles

Characters: Genderfluid!Gavin, background FAHC OT6

TW: Transphobic Slurs, Lowkey Angst (Flashback)

Word Count: 3,070

The world is an interesting place. It’s full of people of various genders, sexualities, races, and more. Life is also interesting. You’re born as male or female and most people expect you to like the opposite sex. And depending on your race, people might hate you before they even know you.

However, there’s always going to be a select few out there who don’t discriminate and are open minded. Those are the people that once you find, you stick with them no matter what. Make them your new family, let them know your deepest secrets and let them know your backstory. Let them into your life so they can make you whole again.

Before:

A young and overly excited Gavin had the whole world in front of him. He was finally accepting who he was and couldn’t wait to tell his parents he was genderfluid and wanted to be called Gavin. The lad ran home from the school yard with a smile on his face.

When he got home his parents were fighting which they never do. They saw their daughter enter the house and got even more upset. Gavin’s father turned and started walking towards him and quickly changed into some sort of monster. A fist was thrown into the wall next to the lad’s head and tears sprung into Gavin’s eyes.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing out here, calling yourself Gavin? I found your journal open on your desk this morning, and I am beyond disgusted. Get the fuck out of my house. Now!” The booming voice and harsh words echoed around the house, a place Gavin once knew to be safe now turned into a living hell.

Being that the lad was only 15, there wasn’t anywhere for him to go if he left, so he stayed in the toxic household. His mother grew distant and his father grew cold. There was no form of love anywhere. The only person Gavin had in his life was a fellow student at school named Dan. He was kind and accepting, but was mean and cold-hearted when needed.

Gavin had a bit of makeup and had gotten good at covering up the various cuts, marks and bruises his father would leave. The school had no idea of any of this, no one knew. If anyone found out, Gavin was afraid he might get killed. One day, his father walked into his room and saw all the makeup and made comments. “So the tranny decided to act more ladylike and put on makeup? About damn time, bitch.

Over the years, Dan and Gavin had become great friends and would spend a lot of time together. During their last year of school together, Dan had let Gavin stay at his house. He was the only one who knew anything about his friend’s life and swore if he ever got the chance, he would beat the living shit out of Gav’s father.

Dan also taught Gavin how to use different computer programs and Gav found it interesting and started to experiment with different things. He quickly learned how to do basic programming and soon knew how to complete complex tasks within a matter of seconds with his new skills.

Things were tight living at Dan’s house, and they didn’t quite make ends meet with a new face living under their roof. Gavin felt like he needed to help out, so he did the only thing he could think of. Late nights where he spent awake because of nightmares, he would get up and sneak outside. No one in the neighbourhood would ever expect the scrawny 18 year old to be the one stealing their cash or prized possessions.

There was one night where Gavin had managed to snag an expensive gold watch from the small brick house at the end of the street and he knew it would be worth a lot. Yet, he was so entranced by the shiny metal, he decided to keep it. No one ever questioned where it came from which helped him stay undercover.

After Dan and Gavin graduated, they went their separate ways. Dan enlisted in the military and Gavin booked a one way ticket to America with the leftover money he stole. His plan was to go to Los Santos to have a fresh start. It was a big city and no one would know his name. It sounded like heaven.

One ten hour flight later, the lad was finally in Los Santos. It was bright and hot and vastly different from his hometown in England. Gavin felt out of his element, but he couldn’t be more excited. On the plane, he heard a few passengers talkin about the rise in crime in the city. The names Geoff and Jack were mentioned briefly. He wondered who those two men were and why they were causing a scene.

And he wanted to know how to get in touch with them.

With his luck, he would never meet these people and would be stuck on the streets forever. He knew how to survive, but what if he got himself into a situation he couldn’t get back out of. He would end up dead and no one in this damned city would give two shits about the british bloke who got stabbed to death. There was one point shortly after arriving in the city where he debated just giving up on everything. He couldn’t make it on his own. He wasn’t good enough for this.

Weeks passed and Gavin had managed to find himself in an old abandoned apartment complex with a bit of cash he managed to get from pedestrians walking by. He could live like this, but he needed more. A computer would be ideal, but maybe he should think about smaller things first, like food and heat. Granted, it didn’t get very cold in Los Santos during December, but it definitely wasn’t hot.

He also needed to locate these mysterious people who seemed to be climbing the ranks faster than Gavin could blink. He was gradually making a name for himself, but he could never compete to them. Gavin needed to try to one up his previous robberies.

The gas station next the the abandoned apartment complex would be perfect to hit up, and he’s surprised he hasn’t gone there yet. Gavin grabs his knives and his black beanie he converted into a mask and heads out. It’s a quick walk over and he is feeling confident about tonight.

Except he wasn’t aware other people had plans to rob the gas station tonight.

Gavin was just planning on making it a quick thing. Go in, get the cash and some food and leave. No big deal. But these people, they went all out. One was waiting in a car outside with tinted windows. There were two other people inside, one was at the counter, twirling his moustache as the clerk filled the bag. The other was off grabbing various items off the shelves. Gavin knew he couldn’t take these people, they were too good for his skill level.

He turned on his heels to leave and came face to face with a red headed woman who quickly gave him a right hook and laughed when he fell to the ground. The last thing Gavin heard was a deep voice coming from the moustached man saying, “This is the kid, we need him to succeed. Trust me Jack.”

The next time Gavin opened his eyes, his head was pounding and he was in a foreign room. He was expecting to be tied up and get tortured for ruining their heist, but he was laying in a bed instead. The door opened and in walked the same redhead who punched him. He wanted to glare and make his face look darker than it usually was to scare her off, but he was too tired to care much about that.

“Oh, you’re awake. That’s good, thought I punched you a bit too hard out there. Sorry about that by the way. Boss’ orders. Speaking of, he probably wants to speak to you. I’ll go grab you a glass of water and see where he is.” The woman walked off again and Gavin was more confused than he was previously.

A few minutes passed and a new face came in holding a glass. He had tattoos covering his arms and a moustache which Gavin recognized from earlier. This must be that woman’s boss or something to that sort.

The man set the glass down and cleared his throat. “So, you’re probably wondering what the hell is going on here. Well, in case you didn’t know, I’m Geoff Ramsey, leader of the Fake AH Crew. You’ve previously met Jack, the redhead who kicked your ass, which was funny as dicks.”

The man, Geoff, paused and let Gavin absorb the information. These are the people he first heard about when he came here. Jack and Geoff. He’s been trying to find them for months, and they found him first. But, why him?

“Judging by your expression, you’re probably wondering why we grabbed you. We knew where your hideout was and faked a heist to take you back here to our base. Didn’t do a very good job at hiding your tracks. However, we’ve begun to catch word of your skills and as the leader, I decided to see for myself just how good you are.”

Gavin was now sitting on the edge of the bed, his thoughts running faster than he could process. Not only was he in the penthouse of the biggest up and coming gang in Los Santos, but they wanted to possibly take him in as their own.

He cleared his throat and took a sip of water. “So, Geoff, if you’ve heard about me, I assume you probably know everything about me. You, you don’t think I’m a freak?” His voice cracked and his insecurity started to seep through. He promised himself he wouldn’t let this happen but he couldn’t stop it.

Geoff had a confused look on his face. “Kid, why would I think you’re a freak? Because you’re genderfluid? Christ Gavin, just because we’re criminals doesn’t mean we’re not accepting or cruel to others because of their identities. That’s the last thing we’re worried about here. Now come on, we’re making Christmas cookies. Plus Michael and Ryan want to meet you.”

The moustached man walked out of the room and Gavin followed behind. The two made their way out to the kitchen where they found Jack and two other men Gavin could only assume were Michael and Ryan.

“Crew, this here is Gavin Free. Be easy on him, will ya? He’s fragile.” Geoff snickered after he finished talking and the younger lad reached up to punch him lightly in the shoulder.

The five of them gathered around the counter and started introducing one another while cutting out cookies. Gavin could see himself with this crew for a while and hoped they liked him enough to let him stay.

The next few days consisted of various tests to see how good Gavin’s skills actually were. Michael quickly found out to not trust this British lad anywhere near explosives. Ryan had shown the kid how to properly throw knives and where the best places were to stab someone. Jack discovered that Gavin was definitely not the best pilot or driver but it got the job done. Plus, he could easily talk his way out of a situation since no one end in Los Santos had a british accent.

Geoff’s tests were the most important ones. The leader needed to see if Gavin had any skills with computers and more importantly hacking because no one else knew how to do any of that stuff. Needless to say, Gavin was more than excited with this specific task. He had 6 hours to hack into the LSPD security system and erase the files they had on the current member of the crew.

Gavin finished within 4 hours. Geoff was more than surprised at this and debated hiring him right then and there. But he still needed to discuss it with the others. The other members held a meeting the next day and within minutes of discussing their test results decided to hire Gavin full time. Considering it was Christmas Eve, what better present than getting hired to the best crew around?

Gavin woke up on the 25th to find his room was decorated with lights and there were new clothes in the closet. He got up and made his way to the living room. When he got there, he noticed Michael and Ryan sitting on the couch while Jack was in the recliner. They were all staring at him.

“Morning loves, anyone care to tell me what’s going on here?” The lad questioned to which everyone pointed behind him. He turned around and found himself face to face with Geoff. He had his arms open and quickly embraced Gavin in a hug.

“Welcome to the Fakes, kid. We all decided you will be a great fit here, and this is your Christmas gift. Merry Christmas Gavin!” Geoff laughed and everyone else joined in, causing Gav to smile. Jack got up and handed the British lad a small case. Inside was a pair of golden sunglasses. She must’ve caught him looking at them online the other day and got them for him. The two hugged and he tried the glasses on. A perfect fit.

This was his new family. They took him in when he thought no one in this world liked him anymore. He hoped to do them well.

After:

“Gavin! Get your ass out here, boi! You’re gonna miss the news report!” An overly-excited voice yelled down the hall of the penthouse.

The hacker sighed and saved his progress then proceeded to shut down his computer for the night. After all, it was Christmas Eve and he planned on spending the night with his family. Gavin made his way out of his cave as the others liked to call it and walked out to the living room. He found his other lads on the couch with the remote in their hands.

The whole crew had been out all day on a heist that they didn’t need Gavin for so he wasn’t paying much attention to them all day. He was gathering information on the other rival crews and potential next victims.

“Gavvy, comensit! You showed up just in time for the news report!” Jeremy patted the seat next to him. He’s only been here for a few years but Gavin still couldn’t get over his overenthusiastic behaviors. Once the Lads were all settled in, the Gents filed in as well. Geoff and Jack were cuddled up on the love seat and Ryan was lounging in the recliner.

The crew focused their attention to their beloved news reporter, Jon Risinger, as he began to talk about the crimes that happened during the day. The first few mentioned were harmless robberies where the suspects had gotten caught. Gavin snorted over this.

Then came the big story of the night. Jon had started his report the same as he had done the other ones, but one phrase caught Gavin’s attention. “The Fake AH Crew is back at it again with another big heist, but this time, they seemed to have had a certain end goal in mind.”

Gavin glanced around at his family and noticed all of them were staring at the tv, smirks on their faces. He turned back to the report.

“The Kingpin and Mama Bird can be seen here at Vangelico, taking only the golden accessories. In this next shot you can see the Vagabond at Ammunation stealing all the golden plated guns and knives. The last few clips we have here are of Mogar and Rimmy Tim, seemingly in a stolen car. It looks like they took it to Los Santos Customs and sprayed the car with a gold paint.”

Risinger stopped talking for a bit to let the audience see what the Fakes had been up to all day. The last shot the news showed was of the 5 of them on top of Mount Chiliad shooting off fireworks. Gavin was getting ready to ask them what the hell they were on about today and why they did all that when Jon began to talk once more.

“It seems like these crimes were all linked together and that it was all for the crew’s Golden Boy. No one has found out why these crimes were committed but if anyone founds out any information, contact the LSPD.”

Geoff clicked off the tv and stood up. He made his way over to Gavin and dragged the lad up off the couch into a hug. No words were said but there was no need for them. Gavin was fully aware this was his anniversary of joining the crew, but he wasn’t expecting his family to do all this for him.

“Gavin, you’ve been an amazing part of this crew, this family, and most importantly, this relationship. You do so much for us and you don’t get enough credit for the work you do. We decided to do something special this year and spoil you rotten for Christmas. So, Merry Christmas Gavin. We love you.”

Gradually the rest of the Fakes joined in on the hug which quickly turned into a cuddle pile on the sofa. Jeremy made popcorn and Jack put on some classic Christmas movies for them to watch. Gavin didn’t pay much attention to the movies, but instead thought back on his life and how he had gotten to this point.

He was forever grateful for these people in his life and would do anything to protect them. Afterall, they’ve saved his ass countless times from random bar fights he got himself into. Gavin took his golden shades off of his head and placed them on the coffee table as he settled down into the arms of Ryan and rested his legs on Michael’s lap.

Gavin sighed contently as he looked at his partners sitting next to him. He was thankful to have them be part of his life. It only took him a few years, but the Golden Boy finally realized his potential and that he was loved and was worth his weight in gold.

#fahc #golden boy #gavin free #fahc gavin #fake ah crew #fahc ot6 #genderfluid gavin #tw: slurs #jayisaqueer #jay #cameron.doc #me? projecting onto fahc gav? never #cameron.ask

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soap-brain · 7 years

Text

You Always Meet Twice In Life

hey guys, it is i, bringing you no prompt fill but instead a story that suddenly demanded to be finished today!

under the cut: Pairing: Chril - Christopher Pike x Philip Boyce Rating: Explicit Wordcount: 10.150

if y’all like it (or also if not :p), there might be some additional chapters in work...

everything tag list: @bottomkirk @gumballgladiator @logicheartsoul @kagenightray @jimothyandspocko @logicallythyla @needles-and-ink @headcanonsilove @i-am-a-real-human-being @fallenpiestiel @skyeries @alanna342 @shamanship @startrektrash @lesbiantasha

chril tag list: @gracieminabox @loststarlight

The only reasons Phil'd attended the party were the free drinks and a hope to get lucky tonight. He figured he'd earned it, considering he was only a month shy of his thirtieth birthday and just got his second PhD in advanced intracellular medicine. The party is for some admiral's kid graduating, or getting a promotion, or whatever - another stuck up brat believing they deserve the world because they were born into money and status. But the event itself was alright, enough pretty young officers milling around between Starfleet's nobility, and the drinks were damn good. Whoever was paying for this must've shelled out half a starship in credits.

For Phil it's a bit weird to be among people again in a normal setting. The past months - years? eternity? - he'd divided his time between the hospital and the labs and the library, been in his apartment only for sleeping. He figures he lost some weight and quite some normal socialization skill, but see if he cares.

He flags the bartender down for another cocktail. Apple martini, god's gift to mankind. Fruity enough to be very tasty, but not masking the sting of the alcohol.

He peruses the room, trying to find a person who's just his type to take home tonight. The gently thumping base is sending shivers up his spine, and the dance floor is slowly dissolving into displays of youthful wantonness that surely scandalize the brass. Phil observes a couple for a while, both drinks in hand and hair flowing freely, and laughing, obviously having the time of their lives. They might not be his preferred gender (god what wouldn't he give for a hard, hairy chest pressing him into the mattress, deep voice panting into his ear and a cock up his ass), but damn if they don't get his blood flowing. It's definitely been too long. His heart is beating in time with the music and he's starting to tingle all over, eyes following the sway of the bodies. His pants are getting more uncomfortable by the second.

"This seat taken?" a voice straight out of a dirty fantasy asks. Phil turns around to lay eyes on the most sinfully beautiful man he's ever seen in his life, uniform sharp and utterly perfect, unruly, dark blond hair on his head long enough to pull on, and a set of lips and eyes that make his knees go weak and Phil decides that yes, that's the guy he's going to take home with him. He rakes his eyes over him slowly, noticing how the other man is built, long strong legs (perfect for wrapping around Phil's waist), narrow hips and broad shoulders with strong arms (perfect for shoving Phil face first into the mattress), and a smile that's liquid heat in Phil's groin.

"All yours." He motions to the stool.

"Oh, I bet," gorgeous says, eyes wandering over Phil's body as well, stopping at the very prominent bulge between his legs for a few long moments. Phil doesn't even bother putting himself less on display. He wants and so does the stranger.

"You come here often?" tall-and-beautiful asks with a smirk. He's a teaser. Fuck, how'd Phil get so lucky?

He's also somewhere high-ranking - Phil can't exactly make out his number of stars or the stripes on his sleeves, but he's not anybody.

"Yeah, love these parties, they let me pick up anyone with a nice set of promotions and a pretty face."

Pretty face laughs and signals the bartender for a whiskey. "So I'm here to fulfil your dirty fantasy of getting fucked by an officer, that right?"

Phil notices his hands, beautiful long fingers, perfect for several tasks, no doubt, and he leans a bit closer. "Who says I'm the one getting fucked?". It’s a tease, too - Phil is far too desperate to be the one doing the fucking.

Probably-has-a-trust-fund (come on, he has the bearing of someone who does, and he's far too young for all those pretty pins on his chest) laughs (beautifully, of course) and steals a swipe of the frosted sugar on the rim of Phil's glass, sucking on his finger far longer than necessary.

"I do." and takes a sip of his whiskey without his eyes ever leaving Phil.

There's a drop of whiskey left on his lips and Phil leans forward to swipe his tongue over it.

It's damn fine whiskey, and a damn fine guy Phil chose. A hand wanders up his thigh, stopping short of the junction between leg and torso, and Phil twitches in his pants.

"I'm Phil," he says an inch away from beautiful's lips, and the other guy grins, running his thumb over Phil's lips. Phil bites, gently. He gets a harsh inhale and an even hungrier stare in response.

"Aren't you gonna tell me what name to scream later?" he asks, letting go of the thumb.

"I'm ... Chris."

Phil snorts. "Wow, that's certainly not a fake name at all."

'Chris' rolls his eyes. "Does it really matter? I plan on fucking you until you don't even remember your name." His hand nudges a bit closer to Phil's groin and he shifts his hips forward, knees brushing his.

"Fair," he admits. "Your place or mine? I live a couple minutes down the street, so unless you've got somewhere closer ..."

"Nope. Been living shipside for quite a while now, don't even got a place down here."

"My place it is then."

They both stand up almost at the same time, and all of a sudden they're really close, close enough to smell, and part of Phil wants to press him against the bar and rub himself all over.

"Hope you've got a sturdy bed," is whispered into his ear, and Phil's dick twitches. He steps even further until they're pretty much pressed up against each other.

"Got a new one recently. You might have to help me break it in. Properly." It's a lie, but the grin on 'Chris' face is more than worth it.

"What are we waiting for, then?"

They make their way towards the entrance. 'Chris' stays a few steps behind Phil, who's ass is practically burning with the intensity it's being stared at.

The cold night air is a bit sobering, but 'Chris' immediately catches up to Phil and walks so close that their shoulders brush.

"So, Phil. What's a pretty young doctor doing on a promo party for someone he probably doesn't know?"

"How'd you know I was a doctor?"

"Oh, please. I can read insignia."

"Fair enough."

"So?"

Phil turns towards 'Chris' and winks. "I was hoping to find exactly you."

"What makes me so special?"

"You're hot."

'Chris' grins lazily. "So you're saying you were taking advantage of the party to get laid? I'm scandalized."

"Oh, I figure I earned it. Had a minor breakthrough a couple weeks ago that led to the invention of a new vaccine, and I got my second PhD today. You know, regular stuff, so I figured I more than had reason to celebrate. What about you?" Bragging is generally not nice and not Phil’s thing at all. This is an exception, because he’s sure ‘Chris’ (or whatever his name is) is into it.

"That's an impressive vita you got there," 'Chris' says and looks Phil over again. "So you're not just pretty but also intelligent?"

"That something you into? Want me to whisper microscopic intracellular biology into your ear while I fuck you?"

"You could make it work, darlin’. Thought we had agreed I was going to be the one doing the fucking though?"

Phil laughs. "Aw, I thought you were young enough to get it up more than once."

'Chris' laughs as well. "Touché."

"You speak French?"

"Nah. German. You?"

"Surprise, yes I do." Phil nudges him sideways a little to get into the entrance to his apartment building.

'Chris' whistles lowly. "Nice place. So how do I get you to talk French to me?"

Phil makes for the lifts. "J'espère vraiment que vous êtes prêt à vous embrasser dans l'ascenseur."

'Chris' catches up with him. "Fuck that's hot. What'd you say?"

"Non, rien. À peu près combien je veux que vous me baisez," he says, punching in his floor number. 'Chris' is incredibly close and, judging by the bulge in his pants, incredibly aroused. God, Phil can't wait.

"Again, no fucking clue what you said, but it's hot. Then again, you could talk about world’s most boring topic and make it the hottest thing I ever heard, no matter the language." He moves in even closer. The railing of the elevator presses against Phil's back. 'Chris' smells fantastic. There's a hand on Phil's jaw and his self control breaks, grabbing 'Chris' by the lapels of his jacket, turning him around and shoving him ungently against the wall, kissing him. 'Chris' moans into the kiss, hands immediately sliding into Phil's hair and pawing at his dress jacket. There's a thigh pushing its way between Phil's legs and he grinds against it, gasping into the kiss. 'Chris' is burning hot, tongue sliding against Phil's, deliciously filthy.

They pull away to gasp for air.

"Fuck, if you fuck the way you kiss, I definitely only ever want to be on the receiving end," Phil pants out and 'Chris' laughs.

The elevator chimes, announcing their stop. Phil pulls 'Chris' out by his jacket, immediately shoving him against the next wall to kiss him again. 'Chris' rocks his hips forward, and they both moan.

"Please tell me your apartment isn't, dunno, at the end of the hall," 'Chris' pants. Phil laughs and disentangles himself.

"Sorry."

There's a possessive hand on his ass the second he turns around. He grabs 'Chris' other hand and pulls him with him. 'Chris' manages to press fleeting bites and kisses into Phil's neck as they walk, and hell, usually Phil would rather murder people than let them mark him in such a public place. But ... damn, he wants this gorgeous stranger to mark him everywhere, wants him to do everything he ever wanted.

He fumbles the door code because 'Chris' is pressing up so hot and hard against his side, breath fanning over Phil's face whenever he stops kissing at the junction of his ear and jaw (and how does he know it's one of Phil's most sensitive places, that you can drive him wild by just stimulating him there?), and then the door opens and they fall inside, lights flickering on but all Phil can focus on is tearing 'Chris' uniform off of him.

There’s a sudden rip and the strain on Phil’s hands lessens considerably as he’s now holding a rather large piece of fabric that isn’t attached to ‘Chris‘ jacket anymore. It’s the front part, the one with all the little medals and whatnot. Holy shit. Phil is so screwed.

“Fuck, that was hot,” ‘Chris’ gasps and he’s incredibly aroused, draped against the wall like Lust herself

Phil’s still frozen in shock, so ‘Chris’ shoves him back, tearing at Phil’s dress jacket too, a bit more artfully. They stumble against the couch just as his jacket hits the floor, and Phil’s brain is back online enough that he can wrap his arms around ‘Chris’’ neck to tug him in for another heated kiss, both of them struggling with ‘Chris’’ jacket now. Then it’s gone and ‘Chris’ breaks the kiss to shove his hands under Phil’s undershirt, biting at his neck again. Phil arches his back and tugs at the dirty blonde curls until ‘Chris’ actually bites down.

His undershirt bunches up around his armpits uncomfortably, but the way ‘Chris’ all but attacks his nipples more than makes up for it, biting, kissing, sucking, licking and doing everything to make Phil gasp and press up against him. He presses a knee up and ‘Chris’ groans appreciatively, rolling his hips against it while he’s panting hot wet breath over Phil’s stomach.

“Bed. Now,” Phil orders, surging up to kiss ‘Chris’ again and push him backwards. His erection lines up perfectly with ‘Chris’’ and he rolls his hips, making his partner moan and pull him closer. There’s a hand in Phil’s hair and another one on his ass and a tongue in his mouth and the heat of another person so, so close. ‘Chris’ smells like pure male sex, tasting of whiskey. The angle changes suddenly, ‘Chris’ grunting as the couch leaves them. 'Fuck, he’s strong enough to lift me up’, Phil thinks. It’s exhilarating.

‘Chris’ carries them to the wall they started at, pinning Phil with his hips. Their trapped erections press exactly against each other. ‘Chris’ thrusts a little in time with the movements of his tongue, sending bolts of arousal through Phil. God, he could come like this.

‘Chris’ works a hand between their bodies, pushing against Phil’s dick, and he moans, because fuck, fuck, if ‘Chris’ keeps that up Phil will come in his pants and that’d be embarrassing.

‘Chris’ pulls away from the kiss, dropping his forehead against Phil’s shoulder for a moment. He’s panting, shoulders heaving, and neither of them can seem to stop rolling their hips.

“Fuck,” ‘Chris’ swears and Phil laughs, a bit out of breath.

“Yes please.”

He gets a growl and a bite to the nape of his neck, and then ‘Chris’’ hand is tugging at his pants, fumbling with the fastening, each movement another shower of sparks through Phil’s groin.

“Fuck, thought you were gonna take me to bed,” Phil pants, head falling against the wall and eyes sliding shut. ‘Chris’’ knows what he’s doing, hot damn.

“I’m gonna let you down,” ‘Chris’ pants. “And then I’m going to suck your dick until you cry.”

Phil’s legs wobble as they hit the floor again and are forced to hold up his own weight. ‘Chris’ drops onto his knees, eyes glittering and a dirty smirk playing at the corners of his mouth. He nuzzles the bulge in Phil’s pants and Phil threads a hand into his hair, trying to tug him forward.

“You better behave yourself,” the sex god at his feet growls. He tugs Phil’s pants down roughly and immediately rubs his cheek against Phil’s groin. There’s a hint of stubble that adds a wonderful rasping sensation. He raises up a bit to mouth at the clothed head of Phil’s dick, dampening his underwear.

He takes his goddamn time too, tugging Phil’s boxers off with his teeth, and when they’re finally sitting snugly under his balls Phil is teetering at the edge.

‘Chris’ sits back with the smug satisfaction of someone who knows exactly that. His hair feels good in Phil’s hand, and he keeps licking his lips, not taking his eyes off of Phil’s cock.

“Fuck, this is probably a really fucking bad idea, but I’m assuming since you’re a doc, your physicals are all good?”

He wants to blow Phil without barrier film. Fuck.

“Yeah. Yeah, of course,” Phil rasps out against the blood rushing in his ears, and then there’s a set of hands on his hips and a hot tongue running up the length of his cock and the world fades out around him.

‘Chris’ swallows him down easily, bobbing his head around Phil for a while, hitting an almost-gag reflex every single time. Phil wants to buck into ‘Chris’’ mouth but he can't move with ‘Chris’’ hands fixing him to the wall like steel bolts, so he settles for holding on to his wrist and another hand in ‘Chris’’ hair.

He pulls off with a dirty slurping sound, grinning up to Phil, wiping his saliva-slick chin with the back of his hand before going right back in, kissing his balls almost gently (and that’s a sensation Phil would definitely like a repeat performance of), licking and sucking his way up to the tip again, tongue flicking out to nudge under the head of Phil’s dick.

Phil shouts with the sudden pleasure, doubling over, both hands shooting into ‘Chris’’ hair, trying to coax him to take his dick in his mouth again, but ‘Chris’ remains stubborn.

“I take it that this was a good spot?” he asks when Phil has recovered a little, and Phil laughs.

“Fuck, yes that was a good spot. Don’t fucking do that again or I’ll come.”

‘Chris’ takes a moment, and then he grins. “Hope your refractory period is good.”

He licks his lips again and then presses against that exact spot again before quickly taking only the head in his mouth, suckling and curling his tongue under the mushroom head of Phil’s cock, pressing and probing. Phil wants to hold off, wants to last so badly.

He comes with a shout, grip on ‘Chris’’ hair tightening and his head slamming against the wall.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck,” he chants, almost delirious with how lightheaded he’s getting. ‘Chris’ laughs around his dick and pulls off, pressing a parting kiss to the head. There’s a drop of come in the corner of ‘Chris’’ mouth and he licks it off, eyes never leaving Phil’s.

‘Chris’ gets up and stretches, shirt riding up to reveal a taut stomach. Phil stumbles a bit over the pants around his ankles, but he manages to grab ‘Chris’ and kiss him thoroughly. The other man groans into the kiss.

“Bed,” Phil repeats, pulling away a little, and ‘Chris’ grins.

“Whatever you say, sweetheart.”

Phil lets go of him to toe off his shoes and shove his pants down and his shirt off. ‘Chris’ watches him, eyes glittering.

“Damn, you’re tasty,” he mutters.

Phil kicks his pants away and steps up to ‘Chris’, running his hands over his chest.

“Speak for yourself. Didn’t know a blowjob this good was even possible.” He leans in to mouth at ‘Chris’’ neck, and the other man lets his head fall sideways, breath shivering in his throat.

He goes willingly when Phil nudges him in the direction of the bedroom, hands pliant at Phil’s sides. His eyes scrunch close against the sensation of Phil nuzzling his throat, occasionally making tiny sounds. It’s a bit odd how quickly they went from tearing each other’s clothes off to almost-reverence, odd how they seem to fall in orbit around each other that quickly. For a moment it scares Phil, the implication that there’s maybe something more between them, that maybe he’ll still be thinking about this stranger in twenty years, missing him. Then he nudges ‘Chris’’ erection and 'Chris' moans, high and needy, and all rational thought is gone from Phil’s mind. He shoves the other man down on his bed.

‘Chris’ sprawls beautifully atop of it, a picture of sheer wantonness and arrogance, gold blond hair like straight out of a stupid shampoo commercial, smirk on his face. He's without doubt thoroughly and utterly aroused.

Phil runs a hand over ‘Chris’’ knee and thigh, the thick fabric of his pants not allowing him to fully feel the hot skin underneath. The shirt is a little more forthcoming, bleeding heat and ‘Chris’’ heartbeat through. Phil meets his eyes. They’re dark, fixed on Phil like ‘Chris’ wants to eat him. A bit of tongue is peeking out from ‘Chris’’ lips; they’re glistening with spit and are a beautiful, swollen red.

“I think you’re overdressed,” Phil says, heart beating fast in excitement.

“Help me undress?” ‘Chris’ has the audacity to wink.

Phil straddles him slowly, grinding his naked ass down against ‘Chris’’ crotch, and the beautiful stranger goes cross-eyed for a moment.

“Fucking stop teasing already, Phil. Please.”

Phil laughs. He’s pretty sure he could come a second time, probably a third if they take it slow, and he loves the feeling of ‘Chris’ squirming under him.

“What if I wanted to tease you until you can’t take it anymore and have your wicked way with me?” he suggests, smiling innocently.

‘Chris’ swallows and runs his hands over Phil’s thighs, up to his hips, guiding the rocking movement.

“Hell, I mean,” he clears his throat, “I wouldn’t complain, but please. Please.” He rocks his hips up into Phil, who feels weirdly powerful. There’s nothing really keeping ‘Chris’ from doing what he wants, and yet he’s still under Phil, shuddering with every roll of Phil’s hips.

Phil trails his fingers over ‘Chris’’ chest and begins playing with the buttons, opening them one after another, until he can properly admire the expanse of skin before him. He runs his hand through the dark curls and plays with ‘Chris’’ nipples. ‘Chris’ goes entirely breathy.

Phil leans down some more and mouths at the base of ‘Chris’’ neck, flicking his tongue out to taste the skin, breath fanning over ‘Chris’, who moans, high and entirely lost to the sensation.

“If you finger me,” he whispers into ‘Chris’’ neck. “If you finger me really good, almost make me come from it, make me beg for it, and if you don’t come at all nor touch yourself during it, my ass is all yours.”

‘Chris’ shudders in response, still gasping for breath. “Fuck. Fuck, yeah, fuck, I can do that, oh God, I can do that, please, please let me.”

Phil grins and slides off of ‘Chris’, watching as the other man collects himself, wetting his lips and trying to control his breathing. He sits up eventually, cheeks flushed and hair messy, absolutely fucking beautiful, and practically tears his shirt off, eyes never leaving Phil. There’s some complicated wrangling with his pants and shoes, but eventually he manages to tear off his pants. His boxers are next to go, and then his dick is slapping up against his stomach, thick, slightly curved, absolutely reddened and slick with precome. ‘Chris’ pushes his hips against nothing for a few moments, eyes shut so tightly he looks like he’s almost in pain before he opens them again and throws a look at Phil.

“Hope you’ve got lube around here somewhere,” he pants, smiling haphazardly.

Phil stretches out on the bed, presenting himself a little.

“Bedside table.” The bedside table is also where he keeps his small but distinguished collection of toys and, as predicted, ‘Chris’ gasps for breath slightly.

“So how do I get to see you use these?” he asks, turning back around to Phil. He’s got the lube, but he’s also dangling the dark blue anal beads from his finger.

Phil grins and undulates slowly against the sheets. “Mmh, you have to buy me dinner for that.”

‘Chris’ laughs and tosses them somewhere behind him. Ordinarily Phil would object (he loves those beads), but ‘Chris’ has his eyes fixed on him, lips almost curled to a snarl.

“Hands and knees,” he growls. Phil complies easily, stretching his body out and then resting in a rather sexual puppy pose.

“Shit, please tell me you do yoga.” ‘Chris’ runs his hand over the swell of Phil’s ass and he pushes back into it, purring a bit.

“And I’m naturally very bendy.”

“Fucking perfect,” ‘Chris’ mutters, licking over Phil’s spine. He shudders. This guy is proving to be an absolute bomb.

‘Chris’ teasingly runs his fingers over Phil’s hole, just the barest hint of pressure. Phil presses back immediately, and ‘Chris’ obligingly slides his finger inside. Phil sighs. Yeah, it’s definitely far, far better when it’s not your own fingers.

‘Chris’ teases almost gently, running his thumbnail over the rim. Phil groans softly into the pillow. ‘Chris’ nudges a second finger in, still so slowly and gently, curling them, spreading them, twisting on the outpull.

“Aaahh, fuck,” Phil breathes.

“Enjoying yourself?”

“God, yes.” ‘Chris’ spreads his fingers again, forcing Phil to open even further. “Fuck, your fingers are amazing.”

“Your ass is amazing,” ‘Chris’ counters, spreading Phil’s cheeks. “You really were hoping to get lucky, huh? What with the shaving and the -” He curls his fingers again and that! That was a damn close call to Phil’s prostate.

“Left,” he gasps out, suddenly a whole lot more preoccupied and unable to do smalltalk.

“Huh?”

“Do that again, but a little further left! Please!”

‘Chris’ laughs. “Why should I?” He nudges ever-so-close to Phil’s prostate again. “You’ve been pretty damn set on torturing me too, so why shouldn’t I get some revenge?” This time his fingers pass over the bundle of nerves lightning-quick. Phil gasps into the pillow, suddenly rock hard again. ‘Chris’ worms his other hand into Phil’s hair and forces his head up.

“I wanna hear those sweet sounds you make,” he whispers into his ear, biting gently at the lobe. “Wanna hear you scream while I open you for my cock.” He pulls his fingers out, rubbing at the rim for a few far too long moments while Phil pants, little whimpers in his throat.

“Please,” he gasps out through this strained throat. “Please.”

‘Chris’ kisses him and pushes his fingers back in, fast, homing in on Phil’s prostate, sending burning hot sparks through his groin and up his spine and into his toes. Phil’s head falls forward again, ‘Chris’ letting it go, and he presses his forehead into the mattress, moaning desperately.

“Again,” he demands.

‘Chris’ laughs again, the fucker, twisting his fingers perfectly over the little bundles of nerves. Phil’s toes curl and his hips thrust back of their own volition trying to fuck himself on ‘Chris’’ fingers. ‘Chris’ lets him, holding his fingers strong and steady, and Phil starts keening with every thrust. He doesn’t hit his prostate every time, but that only makes it better, little rivulets of sweat running down his back adding some extra stimulation, and then there’s the all-encompassing fire of ‘Chris’’ fingers. His partner plays with his cheeks, fingers quickly dipping down to press against his perineum, play with his balls, and stroking the inside of Phil’s thighs. Every damn thrust shakes Phil. Then ‘Chris’ starts pressing the pads of his fingers upwards, putting even more pressure on his prostate until Phil sobs, clawing hard enough at the sheet to nearly tear it. He’s on fire, every sensation on his skin extra sensation, heat pooling more and more in his gut, every thrust making him clench down. So, so close.

‘Chris’ pulls his fingers out.

Phil presses back against him, fruitlessly, until he understands.

“No… no, please! Chris, please, please.”

‘Chris’ presses gentle kisses to every processus spinosus while he very carefully lubes up his fingers again, the slick sounds contrasting with the gentle touches of his lips, and going straight to Phil’s cock. Maybe it had been a bad idea to let Chris dominate him like that, because damn, Phil needs to come now, right now, with ‘Chris’’ beautiful fingers pressed against his prostate, and then another time with his cock.

“Need to come, beautiful?” ‘Chris’ asks, right into Phil’s ear again. He shivers at the breath ghosting over his skin.

“Please. Please.”

“Think you can come a third time after that?” ‘Chris’ chest hair is dragging over Phil’s sweaty back, synapses shooting the sensation everywhere.

“On your cock?” Phil grinds back against ‘Chris’ breathlessly. “Hell yeah.”

“Good.”

Then ‘Chris’ pushes his fingers back inside, three this time, stretching Phil nicely, making him feel every knuckle. Phil whimpers as they hit his prostate, the barest hint of sensation, and it’s making him tighten up even more, the sheer anticipation.

“Hmm, I’m wondering -” ‘Chris’ murmurs, and no, no, can’t he wonder later, not when Phil is so close? “- since you probably want to sleep in this bed, was wondering whether we shouldn’t maybe get a towel.” Phil can barely understand what the fuck ‘Chris’ is talking about, because god, he wants, he wants, he wants so badly.

‘Chris’ pulls his fingers out. “Guess I’ll have to find the bathroom myself then.”

He’s back within moments, running a gentle hand over Phil’s spine.

“You stayed in position. Man, it looks like you really want to be fucked.”

Phil whines in response, trying to spread his legs even farther. ‘Chris’ tucks the towel under him, running his fingers over Phil’s twitching dick, and then his fingers are back inside Phil’s ass. Phil groans and presses back immediately. ‘Chris’’ fingers hitting his prostate perfectly.

“Come for me, Phil,” ‘Chris’ whispers into his ear, wrapping his fingers around his dick and tugging.

Phil shivers, entirely too on-edge, sensations shooting along his nerves, cock thrumming to the presses on his prostate.

“Come for me,” ‘Chris’ says again, biting his neck, and Phil does, gasping into the pillow, clenching around ‘Chris’’ fingers, body undulating with the shockwaves.

‘Chris’ pulls his fingers out, petting Phil’s rim while he starts breathing again, having completely collapsed into the mattress.

“Fuck, you’re attractive when you come.”

Phil pushes himself up and flops onto his back, still panting.

“You got damn talented fingers,” he gets out, eyes half closed. “God.”

‘Chris’ runs his hand along the inside of Phil’s thigh.

“I hope you’re not planning to nap now,” he teases.

Phil smiles blissfully. “Oh, I could.” He doesn’t need to look at ‘Chris’ to know he’s pouting, and again it’s scary how close he already feels to him. “Haven’t gotten any action in, hmm, aaaages, so what if I’m a little exhausted now?”

‘Chris’ pounces on him, biting his way up Phil’s chest and neck until he’s kissing him, harsh, nipping at Phil’s lips and forcing his tongue inside. Phil can’t help himself but run a hand up ‘Chris’’ arm, admiring the bunched-up muscles of his shoulders, strong neck. He threads his legs out from between ‘Chris’’ and wraps them around his hips instead, ‘Chris’ groaning appreciatively and nudging his pelvis against Phil’s.

“Fuck, you’re gonna feel so good.” He kisses along Phil’s jaw again, hips already subtly thrusting against his skin.

Phil wiggles, and from the sound ‘Chris’ makes he obviously enjoys it. “All yours.”

‘Chris’ guides himself in, a broken sound leaving his throat. Phil tilts his hips upwards, going a bit cross-eyed as he’s finally, finally getting that beautiful dick. He’s so full, can feel it in his throat, and he’s not even anywhere close to getting hard again.

“So tight,” ‘Chris’ gasps against Phil’s neck, shaking with holding himself back. “So fucking hot, Phil, god.”

“Baise-moi,” Phil says, grinning stupidly at the ceiling. “Viens, baise-moi, donne-moi bien.”

“I got no idea what that’s supposed to mean but please, please Phil, let me.”

“Dieu, oui, s'il vous plaît.” ‘Chris’’ dick is almost burning and Phil needs it, needs it so badly.

‘Chris’ pushes himself up, haphazardly shoving his hair out of his face. He looks obviously desperate.

“Please, please let me, Phil, oh God, I have no idea what you just said, but please.”

Phil laughs breathlessly and runs a hand through ‘Chris’’ hair.

“Yeah. Yeah, go ahead, fuck me, put me into next week, please.”

‘Chris’ head falls back onto Phil’s clavicle and then he snaps his hips into Phil, dragging his cock over seemingly every nerve ending, littering shakey kisses over Phil’s neck, hand on his coccyx, pulling his hips up further. Phil locks his ankles behind ‘Chris’’ and presses back, nails digging grooves in his scapulae, and Phil is definitely fast on the road to recovery, because every snap of ‘Chris’’ hips sends sparks up Phil’s spine. ‘Chris’ changes the angle a bit and hits Phil’s prostate dead on. Phil gasps, half in shock, bucking back against ‘Chris’, the hot slick drag of the head of ‘Chris’’ dick against his prostate becoming the center of his universe.

‘Chris’ pulls back for a moment, brushing his hair out of his face again, a wild look in his eyes. Phil winks and lets his leg wander from around ‘Chris’’ waist to on his shoulder, and ‘Chris’ grins a bit maniacally.

“Right. You’re bendy.”

“Damn right I am.”

‘Chris’ kisses the inside of Phil’s knee, suckling on the skin, and gives an experimental thrust of his hips, cock dragging perfectly over seemingly every nerve ending. ‘Chris’’ head falls back, lips opening of their own volition.

“Fuck, feel so damn good, Phil, so fucking tight.” ‘Chris’ presses in deep again, slowing down as if to savour every sensation. He runs a hand down Phil’s leg to pet at where they’re joined, press gently against Phil’s perineum, and then up again, playing with Phil’s sac. Phil gasps out a shivery breath because he’s approaching oversensitive, clenching down even harder around ‘Chris’, making him moan high in his throat and thrust again and again, slowly but surely setting Phil on fire from the inside.

“I’d love to see you ride me, move those hips, bounce on my dick, god, you’d look so fucking good, Phil, so damn beautiful.” ‘Chris’ is babbling now, clearly rapidly losing all higher brain functions.

“Then let me.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah. Just get on your back and let me have free rein to sit on your dick.”

‘Chris’ pulls out faster than humanly possible, dick slapping up wetly against his stomach, and he flops on his back. Phil grins and straddles him immediately. He’s already getting an idea on how sore he’ll be tomorrow. ‘Chris’’ dick catches on Phil’s rim before it slides through the cleft, twitching slightly.

“Actually,” Phil says and grins at ‘Chris’. “I don’t think that’s the position I want.”

Before ‘Chris’ can object Phil turns around, pressing his ass out to rub against ‘Chris’’ dick, knees bracketing ‘Chris’’ hips.

“I think you’re getting a better view like this,” he remarks coily over his shoulder. ‘Chris’ moans softly, already nudging his dick against Phil again. Phil rises up high on his knees and runs a hand over ‘Chris’’ dick, thumb dragging over the slit, before he puts two fingers inside himself, spreading his hole for ‘Chris’ to see, bending over a little.

“Oh god, please, Phil,” the other man breathes, hands having settled on Phil’s hips.

Phil puts the head of ‘Chris’’ dick against his hole, letting it rest there for a few moments before slowly, carefully sliding down, clenching around ‘Chris’.

“Fuck,” ‘Chris’ whispers, throat obviously dry. Phil grins and wiggles a little, pushing his ass out and rotating his hips a little.

“You happy back there?” He asks with a smirk.

“Fuck, yes. Your ass is so great, you could probably make a fortune selling it.”

Phil freezes for a second before he laughs, bucking his hips a little. “Wow, I don’t wanna know the kind of people you usually pick up if you expect that to work.” He lifts his hips, almost letting ‘Chris’ slip out, before slamming back down, quickly working up a fantastic rhythm that takes some pressure away from his prostate. ‘Chris’ is all whines and moans and a ton of sexy little sounds, squeezing the globes of Phil’s ass and playing with his rim, every thrust making ‘Chris’ make another sound from deep in his throat. Phil’s thighs quickly start aching pleasantly, every thrust ‘Chris’ gives back to him making another little shake strain them.

“Turn around,” ‘Chris’ says suddenly, giving a soft little whimper as Phil stops moving. “Please, turn around, I wanna see you.”

Phil pulls off and turns around, delight blooming in his chest as he sees how absolutely wrecked ‘Chris’ looks.

“Don’t tease me, Phil, please, just give it to me.”

Yeah. Yeah, ‘Chris’’d probably earned that. Phil spreads his legs some more and positions the lovely cock he's getting, and then he slides down again, spine bowing in pleasure. ‘Chris’ grabs his hips desperately, immediately trying to push deeper. Phil lets him, lets him lift Phil off and slam him down again, falling into a punishing rhythm that makes Phil see stars with every drag of ‘Chris’’ cockhead against his prostate. Phil's dick slaps against his stomach, adding to the lovely sounds of sex. ‘Chris’ is staring at him, biting his lips red, little sounds of encouragement escaping.

“Fuck, you're taking it so well, like you were made for my cock, made for taking it. So beautiful, so fucking gorgeous, Phil, wanna do this forever, fuck, yes, yes, Phil, god, please.”

Phil laughs eventually, sanity quickly slipping against the rhythm of ‘Chris’’ cock in his ass, so deep and hard. He holds on to ‘Chris’’ forearms in a desperate attempt to balance himself. He's so close he can taste it, even though it's the third one.

“God, fuck, Phil, please tell me you're fucking close, I can't - unf, can't stave it off much longer, but I want you to come on my dick, please.” He's desperate, he's obviously so fucking desperate for it. Phil wraps a hand around his dick and tugs roughly, shaking with every touch. It's too much, too much, and he comes with a quiet scream, shuddering apart on top of ‘Chris’. ‘’Chris’ gasps, swears softly, bucking his hips once, twice more, before flipping them around roughly, pounding into Phil, who blissfully takes it.

‘Chris’ groans lowly in his throats as he comes, hips snapping of their own volition, teeth buried in the soft skin of Phil's neck. Then he stills, and they both just breathe for a couple minutes.

Eventually, ‘Chris’ pulls out, dragging against Phil's painfully sensitive rim. Phil is barely even awake anymore - he registers ‘Chris’ haphazardly wiping them off with the towel, and then he's out like a light, post-orgasmic tingles delivering him into the sweetest dreams he's had for a long time.

Phil wakes up gradually, the world slowly filtering back in. He’s only aware of the presence next to him as he’s almost completely awake.

‘Chris’ is still there, the morning light that’s coming through the windows making his hair glow, which should look stupid and take the saturation out of it, but of course he makes it work. He’s lying on his side, one elbow propped up to rest his chin in his hand, watching Phil with some sort of quiet amusement.

“Good morning!”

He’s a morning person. Great.

“I would’ve made you breakfast, but then I thought you might not want to wake up to a nuclear war zone, so I didn’t.”

He’s a person who talks in the morning. Fucking fantastic.

Phil lets his face fall back into the pillow, groaning softly. What kind of caveperson talks before half a liter of caffeine?

“Not a morning person?” ‘Chris’ is obviously delighted.

“Fuck you,” Phil muffles into the pillow.

“Now, don’t be so eloquent, doctor.”

Phil wants to flip him off, but he also kind of wants to get laid again and maybe grab coffee with the guy later (and date him and kiss him every night and “how was your day, darling?”, but that’s besides the point). He’s awake enough to know that being rude might diminish his chances of seeing (feeling) ‘Chris’ in action again, and really, getting fucked into the mattress again (by the way: he’s sore in all the right places. It’d been quite a while.) is far, far better than giving in to his grumpy, morning hating self. Fuck, ‘Chris’ is talented.

“It’s way too fucking early,” he accuses no-one in particular, and ‘Chris’ giggles.

“It’s oh-nine-oh-eight.”

“My point exactly.

‘Chris’ - god, he should really ask the guy for his real name - runs a teasing finger over Phil’s spine and Phil sighs, almost dozing off again.

“Lucky for you -”. It’s hard to concentrate with the way ‘Chris’ is touching him, completely non-sexual, palm of his hand over Phil’s shoulder blades, but it feels great. “- I’m a good cook.”

“And a vegetarian.”

Phil pushes himself up to glare at ‘Chris’.

“So what?”

“I’m afraid that puts a definite damper on our great, poetic romance.” ‘Chris’ is grinning, but a tiny, hopeful part of Phil feels punched in the gut. Oh. Okay. ‘Chris’ is … decidedly not interested then. (‘And why would he be? Jesus, Phil, get a grip!’)

Instead, he sighs in mock-defeat.

“There’s also a café just around the corner, where they cater to carnivores as well. Make damn good coffee too.”

“Fantastic.”

Phil rolls on his side and observes ‘Chris’. He’s hot, of course, but there’s something else there too, a hardness like steel. Definitely not anybody.

“You never told me what you were at the party for,” he asks, a bit shy. ‘Chris’ doesn’t seem like the kind of person who likes divulging personal information.

“Eh. Same as you. Drinks, a good time, finding someone to spend the night with.”

“Which ship are you stationed on?”

‘Chris’ watches him warily. “A ‘fleet one.”

“Is Chris your real name?”

He snorts. “Yeah. No worse turn off than your partner screaming out the wrong name during orgasm because you didn’t give them the right one.”

“Right.”

“You don’t believe me.”

“No, of course I don’t.”

‘Chris’ shrugs. “Can’t help that, I’m afraid.” There’s a hint of something Phil doesn’t recognize in his eyes, dark and hard. “Look … I don’t want to, I don’t know, crush your hopes or anything, but I’m shipping out tomorrow and I’ve got a meeting this afternoon so … this is a one-time thing for me.”

Phil grins. “I know. Wish it wasn’t, ’cause hey, you’re hot and not completely stupid and a bomb in bed, too, and it’d be nice to have you waiting on me in nothing but an apron when I come home, but I guess it’s not meant to be.”

‘Chris’ laughs. “Seriously, you do not want me to touch a kitchen.”

“Oh, I don’t eat much at home. I’m more interested in the mental picture of you in a tiny apron.”

“Well, I’m much more interested in that café you were talking about.”

Phil shifts, morning erection dragging pleasantly against the sheets, and he wonders whether he can cajole ‘Chris’ into one last round of enthusiastic fucking.

“See, here’s the problem: you’re going to leave me here, all alone, with nobody to fuck me as well as you did, so I think you should put out once more. I’ll buy you breakfast.”

‘Chris’ stares at him with wide eyes before beginning to laugh.

“You have absolutely no shame, oh my god!”

Phil shrugs lazily. “Look, you’re damn good in the sack and this is probably the last time I’ll see you in my life; and once I have my assignment I’ll probably get stationed on the only ship in the ‘fleet where everyone is either ugly or female or straight or, if I, by some miracle, find someone willing to bang me, they’re probably not as good as you are. So I gotta make the most of having you in my bed.”

‘Chris’ chuckles and drags a hand over Phil’s spine, ending up with this fingers in his hair.

“Well thank you for the endorsement.” He scoots closer and bites at Phil’s shoulder. “And if we’d spend more time together, you’d find out that the way into my heart really is through my stomach.” His fingers slide lower again, pushing back the sheet draped over Phil’s ass and gently dipping between his cheeks.

“Fuck, you’re still wet.”

Phil stretches himself out some more. “Mhm. But if you go in without additional lube I’ll chop your dick off.”

‘Chris’ snorts. “Right, fine.”

He stretches out to the bedside table and grabs some, popping the cap one-handedly and lubing up his fingers. Phil moans and presses back against the intrusion. ‘Chris’ moves on top of him, and Phil spreads his legs readily, and then ‘Chris’ presses inside again. Phil buries his groan in the pillow. He’s sore from last night and of course ‘Chris’ managed to grab the heating lube, so there are a ton of sensations going on back there.

‘Chris’ settles, gasping hot breath onto Phil’s neck.

“Fuck, you still feel so fucking good, so tight.”

Phil clenches and predictably, ‘Chris’ twitches and groans.

“Come on, fuck me already.”

‘Chris’ growls and snaps his hips forward quickly, Phil crying out with the sudden sensation.

“Aah, wait a second, now where was ... “ Chris trails off and twists a little, changing his angle until shoving in again. He hits Phil’s prostate, hard and hot and heavy, and begins pistoning his hips in and out, setting heavy bites all over Phil’s shoulders and neck, strong fingers encircling Phil’s wrists and holding them over his head while he fucks into him, and fuck, that is such a turn off, technically; being absolutely mercilessly held down, completely immobile, tripping pretty much every trigger of Phil’s, but Chris makes it work. Again, the incredible amount of trust Phil puts into this stranger should terrify him, but it’s hard to think when there’s a dick so hot and hard inside of him, rubbing over all the good spots, electricity shooting up Phil’s spine and heat pooling in his gut. Every thrust nudges his dick against some creases in the sheet, wet and sticky with precome already, rough enough to feel really damn good.

Phil comes sobbing into his pillow, knocking his hips back erratically and tightening around ‘Chris’, who doesn’t stop until he’s fucked Phil all the way through his orgasm. He comes with a low moan bitten into the side of Phil’s neck.

They both pant harshly for a couple minutes until ‘Chris’ rolls off of Phil, flopping onto his back.

“Best ass in the galaxy, that’s for sure.”

Phil huffs. “Best dick in the galaxy.”

“Why, thank you.”

Phil's stomach takes that as its cue to growl loudly, and they both laugh.

“You wore me out,” Phil accuses.

“You said you'd buy me breakfast,” ‘Chris’ counters.

“That I did. Shower?”

“Alone; I doubt it'd be a particularly productive one if we'd take it together.”

“Fair. You go ahead, I'll try to find a shirt or a jacket that might fit you. Think I owe you, considering how I ripped your dress uniform. There should be a spare toothbrush in the dresser under the mirror.”

“Cool, thanks.” And off Chris goes. It feels like the first goodbye. God, Phil really hopes it won't develop into a crush. He doesn't have the time to cry after a one night stand. Well. One night and one morning.

Breakfast with ‘Chris’ turns out to be hilarious. They talk about Starfleet cadets - unequivocally agreeing that they're the worst and when they were in that age, they were nowhere near as bad. They talk about the concept for the Lancelot class, which leads them to a discussion about space depression, which leads them to astrophysics, which Phil doesn't know too much about, but thoroughly enjoys ‘Chris’’ insights on.

It's like a date, except ‘Chris’ isn't interested and will be off planet tomorrow.

Phil gets an amazingly filthy parting kiss and the loose promise to hook up again when they maybe see each other on a Starbase, and then ‘Chris’ is gone like he was never there. Phil turns around and heads home.

His bedroom smells like them and the sheets are still damp with sweat. He should probably change them. (He doesn't.) There’s also ‘Chris’’ destroyed jacket hanging over the back of the couch. Phil picks it up and inhales the smell.

It's like ‘Chris’ changed his entire life just by fucking Phil into the mattress twice.

He’s a bit late for his shift, but he hopes nobody will notice

“Well someone got laid tonight,” Martha says as way of greeting, smiling cheerfully. The elderly couple she seems to be talking to at the moment fluster immediately, and so does Phil. He loves Martha, trusts her implicitly, and if he had to name a favorite nurse he’d name her without a moment’s hesitation, and he also considers her one of his few close close friends. But that doesn’t mean that such crudeness in public embarasses him any less.

“Tell me all about him later!”

He tries to ignore her, cheeks on fire, and ducks into his office.

She shows up a few minutes later, carrying a steaming mug of coffee as an apology. He wants to glare at her and be angry so, so badly.

“So!” She scoots close to him with the chair she appropriated. “I’m incredibly happy your bad case of blue balls is now alleviated, and you have the bearing of a man who had the time of his life, not to mention a lovely looking, barely covered hickie, so it must’ve been a very special guy if you let him mark you up. Tell me!”

Phil sighs and takes a sip of his coffee. It’s scalding hot and perfect.

“He was perfect. Tall, built, gorgeous blond hair, long enough to play with, beautiful grey eyes … smart. Teasing. Great smile. Fantastic voice. Skilled fingers. A god in bed. Literally sex on legs. The second I put eyes on him I knew I wanted him.” Phil groans and hides his face in his hands.

“Oh my god, Philip. You’re in love!”

“I’m not in love, Martha, come on, I just met the guy. I don’t even know his name!”

“Wait what?”

“I just - I don’t know, I felt something with him.”

She giggles. “Yeah, from the way you can’t sit still I bet you felt something.”

He throws a stylus at her.

“No, seriously. There was something. I trusted him pretty much immediately. It was like .. not like we were meant to be or something, just … I trusted him.”

“Wow. Okay. Are you sure he didn’t slip you something?”

Phil’s mind flashes back to ‘Chris’ stealing the sugar from the rim of his glass, the only time the other man touched his drink. Could he …? But no, Phil hadn’t touched his drink after that.

“I know it’s stupid. But … there was something. I liked him.” He sighs. “I don’t know. Maybe I’ll see him again one day. Those command types get themselves injured all the time, and if I really do get assigned to a ‘ship - I don’t know, I might meet him again.”

“At the very least you got laid.”

“Yeah, and I’ll be thinking about it for the rest of my life. Man, he was fantastic.”

“Dick size?”

“Oh for - Martha!”

“What?! A girl is allowed to be curious!”

“Like I said, he was perfect. Beautiful, gorgeous, everything you could ever want. Exactly who I’d hoped to find. Mmh.” Phil pillows his head on his arms and stares into the distance. “God, he was gorgeous. And funny. We had breakfast together this morning, and … whoever he was, he was hilarious and smart and witty and I want to talk to him forever. Fuck, maybe I am in love.”

Martha snickers again. “Sounds like you had the time of your life, and some very well deserved rec time.”

“That I did, that I did …” Phil trails off, remembering the way ‘Chris’ kisses, subtly incredibly dominant, and part of Phil wants to put him in his place, make him do what Phil wants, hear him beg.

Martha pats him on the shoulder. “I gotta go back out - we’re a bit understaffed today. You enjoy your daydream. Don’t forget your rounds!”

Phil nods, still a little spaced out. He’ll never forget those eyes. Hard, but also filled with mirth, and not the quiet enjoyment Phil gets from life … something different, something more energetic. And those hands, fuck, those hands.

His first assignment is the Regulus, a heavy duty border patrol ship, some good twenty years old and more than needing a refit. The officers are more brawny than Phil imagined, hard on the edges and not too welcoming of him, even though he manages to bring the yearly fatalities down to twelve percent, which is stunning for the kind of work the Regulus does. She gets into more firefights per year than the average starship in her lifetime and due to a lack of patrol ships she’s falling more and more into disrepair, Starfleet only ever sending out new hands to restaff.

It’s … not what Phil imagined. Not what he wanted. Of course everyone dreams of being assigned to a shiny new ship, discover exciting planets and space anomalies; he knew that the reality would look quite different, but he hadn’t thought it would look so drab and dark.

He gets the recommendation for CMO onboard a deep space cruiser within two years, the Regulus’ CMO immediately fond of him, but it takes another three years until he’s transferred - back to Earth, where he waits for another eight months for his ship, the Yorktown to be completed and her captain to end their current assignment. He uses his time to complete the psychology degree he’d been working on for a while, and then he spends his time at ‘fleet Medical, reconnecting with old colleagues and friends. Martha worms out of him that yes, he had actively been searching for Chris’es to have sex with, if at all, but that he hadn’t found his Chris again, and she laughs a lot.

“You know, what if he’s your new captain? You are reassigned, right?”

“God, I hope not. And yes, I’ll be on the Yorktown, once they manage to complete her. She’s six months overdue by now.”

“No way! The Yorktown! She’s a pretty one. Starfleet’s pride and joy.”

“Yeah … can’t be worse than the Regulus.”

Martha waves a hand in dismissal. “Heavy duty border patrol vehicle that’s older than my grandma. Please. Everything is better than those.”

Phil finally gets the summons for the staff meeting three days later. Ironically, his captain is named Chris - Christopher Pike. He doesn’t bother looking up the guy’s face because hey, what even are the chances? He’s (mostly) over ‘Chris’ anyways, only keeping the memories alive for lonely nights. He might have a lot of those, so the memories are very alive, but that doesn’t matter.

When he walks into the meeting room a bit too early, all decked out in his uniform, hair not as messy as he usually keeps it, there’s only one occupant so far. He’s sprawled in the chair at the head, fiddling with a PADD, and the two full and one half stripes denounce him to be Phil’s new captain. He looks up as Phil enters the room, a lock of burnished blond hair that’s a bit longer than regulation allows falling into his eyes. His eyes lock onto Phil, and it’s different now that they’re in a professional environment and not at a party, but there’s no doubt that Captain Pike is ‘Chris’.

Phil’s heart misses a beat. He remembers Chris on his knees, swallowing down his dick; how he mouthed at Phil’s neck; the sounds he made when he pushed inside of Phil; his quiet endorsements as he watched Phil fuck himself on his dick; his face when he came.

The room is stifling all of a sudden, dress uniform choking him and what would he say anyways?

More importantly, what does he do, just walk up to the guy and say hi and pretend he isn’t hard as a rock in his pants? Beg him for a repeat performance? Just get on his knees? Fuck, Chris - Captain Pike probably doesn’t even remember!

Chr- Pike sets the PADD down with a flourish.

“Doctor Boyce! Fantastic to meet you!” He’s still all boyish grin, but he grew into those long limbs some more, put on some more muscle, voice just a hint deeper, grip on Phil’s hand sure and strong.

“Captain Pike,” he manages, dizzy with Chris’ presence.

Lieutenant Commander Number One’s entrance somewhat saves Phil and gives him a moment to breathe as Pike goes to greet her.

He doesn’t know how he keeps his head level throughout the meeting, and his entire trip home is filled with nothing but Chris. It’s not at all hard to find the resemblance between Chris and Captain Pike, and Phil wonders what he’d be like now, with almost six years more experience. He really shouldn’t think things like this about his CO, especially not his brand new CO, but he wants so badly.

A quick image search gives him tons of beautiful, beautiful pictures of Pike, and he randomly selects one to send to Martha.

She replies only moments later: So, um, surprise, but that dude isn’t just pretty damn cute, but also my new captain … surprise? I got myself assigned and we’ll see each other on the Yorktown!!

Phil stares at that message for a minute.

What?!

Yeah, I know :P

But he’s cute, isn’t he?

Martha … he’s Chris

She rings him immediately.

“That Chris?” she asks, mouth vaguely o-shaped.

“Yeah.”

“Oh my god,” she gasps. “Oh my god! What are you going to do?!”

Phil runs a hand over his face.

“Fuck if I know.”

“Does he remember?”

Does he? It didn’t seem like he did. Probably he doesn’t, since it’s been six years. Who would remember (other than a sociophobe with no considerable sex life)?

“Uh, I don’t think so… It’s probably for the better. I’m happy you’ll be on the Yorktown though!”

“Oh nononono, don’t make this about me. Phil what are you going to do? How do you even stand being in a room with the one guy you’ve been thinking about for more than half a decade?”

“Like I said, I don’t know. I probably embarrassed myself majorly in the staff meeting, and I could barely think straight or take my eyes off him. It was bad. I have no idea how to survive on a ship with him, but I can’t get a reassignment either.”

“Philip. Seriously, if you’d get a reassignment, I’d kill you myself. CMO onboard the new flagship is the best thing for your career you could think of, and it’s what you deserve. You just have to find a way to get that damn captain out of your mind.”

Phil sighs. “I know. I just … don’t know how, I feel like I’m in too deep.”

“The Yorktown is big enough and you’ll have enough work that you won’t see him too often, and I’ll do everything I can to find a beautiful young lieutenant you can focus your affections on. You’ll be fine.”

“You do realize that frat regs are still a thing? The only people on the ship that I can legally sleep with are the captain or the first officer. Because we’re the only three people of equal power, so to speak. If one of them goes nuts and the other one follows suit because they’re in love with them, the third person can stop them, and so forth.”

Martha shrugs. “Alright, bang the first officer, problem solved.”

“She’s female.”

“Oh. Well, sucks for you, um … I suppose becoming heterosexual all of a sudden isn’t going to happen?”

Phil grins despite himself. “At the very least it’d be difficult.”

“Hm. That sucks.”

It does. Because the problem isn’t that Phil found the guy he’s been lusting after for years; it isn’t that this guy is his superior; it is that he’s now even hotter than before, pure sex on legs, seemingly no memory of Phil, and Phil will have to work closely with the guy. He is so fucked.

He spends a while scrolling through the pictures of Chr- of Pike. They’re all official, so he’s in uniform and often in dress uniform. Commendation for this, Medal of Honor for that, looking always either lovely, sometimes cute, and always hot as fuck. Phil stops at one that seems oddly familiar. Christopher Pike, promoted to captain. Phil stares at the uniform he’s wearing in the picture, stares at the stardate and connects the dots. He’d picked Chris up from his own promotion party, ripped his brand new dress uniform and had incredibly hot and incredibly filthy sex with him. They’d done it without barrier film. Hell, Phil hadn’t even gotten himself checked afterwards. Starfleet’s youngest, best and brightest captain - and Phil still had the promotion dress uniform.

And it’s not like Christopher Pike is the only Pike Phil has ever heard about. There’s Commodore Pike, now admiral, who single-handedly hardassed his way to a fantastic resolution of the Beluga incident; Charlotte Pike, probably Chris’ mother, a brilliant biologist with a focus on underdeveloped humanoid species; Honorary Commander Pike, first name probably Marsha, one of Starfleet’s most esteemed lawyers; Grace and Helby Pike, twins, the best navigator-pilot team in the ‘fleet; and those are just the one’s Phil remembers ad hoc.

So he hadn’t been that wrong about Chris probably having a trust fund.

Phil sighs and sets the PADD aside. God, he hopes he can somehow make it through his service under Chris Pike without the man finding out about Phil’s infatuation. Or, heh, he’d also gladly serve under him the other way.

He glares at Phil Junior, who has been tremendously interested ever since Phil found the pictures. Well, fuck. Time to get the jacket then. Not that it still smells of Chris at all, but it has come in very … handy.

Yes, Phil is that pathetic. Ugh.

And if he’s not completely wrong, it won’t be the last time he accidentally gasps out his new CO’s name when he comes.

look at it it’s my (current) fave child!!

i hope you enjoyed it... it’ll be on ao3 uhh eventually :p

prompts are still open btw, i’m just chipping away at one of them currently, and it’s not doing what it’s supposed to, but eh. (also if you wanna shoot some spuhura my way i’d love you forever!!)

#chril #christopher pike #philip boyce #star trek #star trek aos #fanfic #my writing #my post

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sanoiro · 7 years

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There is something about Trixie Season 1

Aside from my attempt to make this a funny title and failing miserably, I would like to dedicate this post on Trixie. No real speculations until the very end mind you. Most of this post will be theory free, a bit vanilla if you like until the very end. Now due to the length, this will be divided into two posts, each covering one season. The second season will have some heavy speculation in it.

Pilot 1x01

Many have wondered about Trixie’s surname. Up until recently, Trixie in fanfiction sites was usually picked as a character, as Trixie Decker. Several have skipped that option and have put Trixie Espinosa but what does the production say? A bit tough. You see in IMDB Trixie doesn’t have a surname. That’s a big deal. At the same time if we see one of the last pilot scripts Trixie has a surname but Chloe is there as Chloe Dancer, not Chloe Dexter. Let’s all agree that Trixie is an Espinoza according to the show so far.

In the same episode, we see her as a regular 7-year-old and that is fine. There is nothing to question in the pilot aside from the fact she is vert happy to actually meet the Devil.. Yet we have to go back to the script again. In the available script online there is a detail in the elementary school which was not included in the pilot episode. There is no clear answer here if the script actually plays with Amenadiel’s presence (despite actually mentioning that) or if it goes deeper without giving out any spoilers/hints.

So yes apparently in the pilot Amenadiel drops by at the elementary school or does he? We will never know or perhaps we don’t know so far.

Moving on! Still on the pilot, many have been confused on why Trixie is obviously darkish when compared to Chloe and Dan. Thus I remind you two things. First, Kevin Alejandro has one child and he takes after his mother a lot. Beautiful kid by the way, yet this again is not explanatory to Trixie’s complexion. Yes, Kevin Alejandro is actually a fair Latino but in the original Pilot, Dan Espinoza was played by Nicholas Gonzalez. The written gruff character changed along with the actor but that benefited the show I believe. Now Lucifer was always set on him being a Douche.... Alejandro or Gonzalez. Dan Espinoza was a Douche.

If you want to watch the scenes where Nicholas Gonzalez plays Dan Espinosa in Lucifer please check the elementary scene or the hospital scene

Lucifer, Stay. Good Devil - 1x02

Lucifer meets the child again in the second episode and we also meet Molly McDowell... A ballerina by day, but a ninja-chemist by night. Who can forget Lucifer asking whether fetching is way too advanced for a 7-year-old? Still, this could have been a moment which we could all pass if it wasn’t for two little things. One Trixie meets Maze in 1x10, but why would that be interesting? It wouldn’t if Molly McDowell didn't share her surname with Celeste McDougall (The sweet smug-faced 92-year-old, deceased woman in 2x18).

Trivia: McDowell and McDougall are the same surname with just a spelling difference. Both legit by the way. The surname sans the Mc means black stranger. I’m not going to say no more aside from the fact that you already know my 2x18 ending theory.

The Would-Be Prince of Darkness - 1x03

Trixie: Mommy, did Daddy forget to pick me up? Chloe: No, monkey, I'm sure he's just stuck in traffic. Trixie: Are you doing homework? Chloe: Um, sort of. Trixie: What's the assignment? Chloe: Uh, well, I saw Lucifer do some things I can't explain. Trixie: Is Lucifer a magician? Chloe: That's sort of what I'm trying to figure out. Trixie: When Daddy gets here, maybe he can help. Chloe: Mm. Trixie: Sometimes Daddy helps me with my homework. Chloe: I'm not sure if Daddy has the answers to these questions. Trixie: Why don't you just ask Lucifer? Chloe: Because if he's a magician, then he won't reveal his secrets. So I have to find out on my own how Lucifer does these things that I can't explain. Oh, that can't be him.

In episode 3 there is nothing I can really tell you although Lucifer found Chloe’s phone somehow. Okay so I’m not going to blame the kid here but for a future reference, which I’m not going to explore in neither post I’ll just highlight the: When Daddy gets here, maybe he can help. Aside from that imagine if Chloe did ask him. We would have had out revelation scene perhaps ages ago.

Manly Whatnots - 1x05

I’m just going to leave this here with only one note. This child is perceptive on where this was going...

Sweet Kicks 1x06

In this episode, Trixie does not make an appearance but we Chloe mention’s her

Lucifer: It's wonderful, isn't it? Uh, when do I get my own gun?

Chloe: I wouldn't trust you with my kid's lightsaber.

Of course, I don’t read much into this. After the double references from Lucifer about the Jedis and speaking in the speech alteration device saying: Detective, I’m your father” We can say that this is just a funny reference and yet something bothers me when I try to pass it as such. Yet what we do know now is that both Lucifer and Trixie are HUGE fans of Star Wars.

Wingman 1x07

No appearances nor is she is mentioned in the episode.

Et Tu, Doctor? 1x08

In here we will just pick the nod towards Neil Gaiman and not the first one at least until 2x05. In the end of the episode, Chloe teases Dan that Trixie persuaded him to read her that book about a sneezing panda, five times... The book is actually called Chu’s Days Board written and all we can tell about it is this:

Seriously now that was an adorable reference but what I’m going to leave you here is that Chu also visits a circus... Just saying if you picked that up. If you didn’t I’m not going to tell. It’s kind of a spoiler after all.

A Priest Walks into a Bar - 1x09

No appearances nor is she is mentioned in the episode.

Pops - 1x10

This episode is an iconic one for both Trixie and Maze. A small kid enters a bar and is served a stiff drink by a demon while she tells what ales her.

I’ll try to get the Uber ride ordering pass, as we all know that the kid is way too smart and move on to the Bar scene.

When Maze asks her why she is searching for Lucifer all she says is that he cheers her up. Here she steals the show of course but we cannot claim to have anything deep in here aside from one tiny fact. That kid was able to befriend the Devil and a Demon in less than a minute. Lucifer punished her bully while Maze did what seemed logical to her. Offered her a free drink. That I would guess goes a long way in her book. So let’s admire again how she can make friends with celestial being so easily. And a question here... Do we consider Maze to be a celestial being? Well until 2x13 then.

St. Lucifer - 1x11

No appearances nor is she is mentioned in the episode.

#TeamLucifer - 1x12

Lucifer: But since you're up, I have some questions for you. Trixie: Right. Lucifer: Are you adopted? In other words, are you sure the Detective is your mother? Could she be from somewhere else? Does she have any special powers? Trixie: Uh-uh. Lucifer: What about any markings? Scars, on her back perhaps? There's some chocolate cake in it for you. Trixie: want cash. Lucifer: Oh. (chuckles) I like your style. Trixie: All right. Mommy does have a scar. Lucifer: Oh? Trixie: On her butt. From when she got bit. By the Kraken. Lucifer: Right. Not the direction I was going for, but what's this Kraken that you talk of? Chloe: My mom's evil Chihuahua.

The spawn moved from chocolate cake to cash. In season 1 we have seen that Trixie can manipulate her parents pretty well but that applies for you average 7-year old pretty easily. At this point, I could ask... What if Trixie is the one adopted here? Yes, we have nothing to back that up and it would be a real bummer for me so I hope it will never happen in the show but it was something that I wanted you to keep in mind just in case. Sometimes I also wonder this. We have several opinions on why Lucifer is connected to Chloe. Some say it’s because Lucifer might have been sent to protect her and he has done that. Others claim that Lucifer just stumbled on Chloe’s path and she was destined for something far away from Lucifer. Who knows at this point? Now just take this point of view. What if Lucifer did not stumble on Chloe but on ultimately on Trixie? As we will see in Season 2 the lines are blurred a bit and therefore I wonder if Dad wanted Lucifer to play Guardian Devil at some point by playing even step-dad as well? The above semi-theory is a bit farfetched but I would have welcomed it. Even more, if my headcanon was real but that’s for another post... Perhaps even the next one about Trixie in Season 2.

Take Me Back to Hell - 1x13

In this episode, we have the chilling kidnapping of Trixie by Malcolm. The funny thing here is that although Trixie adores Lucifer since the first time she sees him, something we cannot blame on Lucifer’s charm, she doesn’t like Malcolm.

As we saw in the pilot Lucifer doesn’t have the same effect on children like he does in adults. Their gender doesn’t matter and although I believe he can draw out their desires, he cannot make them be as enamoured with them as adults can be in his presence. Perhaps that is why he is afraid to be near them. He has no power over them and we can attest he has some control issues. Back to Trixie, what we learn from this episode is that the child can distinguish real evil. Perhaps she can even sense divinity in some extent but that’s a talk for season 2. What we will keep from this episode is that Lucifer saves Trixie and Chloe, in a sense, he bargains his life for two people, not just one as we the Deckerstar fans usually assume.

Also when he reunites with Chloe and Trixie Lucifer hides his bloody shirt. In a similar move like the one in a pilot when he stops Dan and Chloe’s bickering, he instinctively protects Trixie. The similarity between the two scenes always makes me think that we have more to see from Trixie when it comes to her relationship with Lucifer. Yet only time will tell

The End of Part 1

This post as I said was mostly plain and explored Trixie in season 1 with no major theories or speculations. I have some heavy stuff for Season 2 as you know....

#there is something about Trixie - Sanoiro #lucifer theories and speculation #the next post will be up in a few days perhaps #I spent over two hours on this

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preserving-ferretbrain · 5 years

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Retribution Fails

by Dan H

Saturday, 26 June 2010

Dan did not like Retribution Falls~

A little personal history: the original title and subtitle for this article were “Still Up In the Air – Dan Hemmens is ambivalent about Retribution Falls.”

Then over the course of writing this article, I came to realise that while I really enjoyed reading the book (I finished it in two sittings over two days), in retrospect I found large parts of it cheap and annoying, and found myself increasingly unable to defend its hideous gender-fail. I also found out that this thing had been shortlisted for the Arthur C. Clarke award which made me frankly despair, because if this is the best SF has to offer then the genre really is fucked.

So yes, this started out more balanced than it ended up. Short version: the book is quite fun, extremely faily, and not all that well written. Judged as a low-investment romp, it’s alright. Judged as a nominee for a prestigious award, it needs to be killed with fire.

Oh, and spoilers, for those that care.

Anyway, Chris Wooding's Retribution Falls is generally billed as a “steampunk western” although as recent discussions here at FB show, neither term is really well enough defined for this label to have much meaning. Speaking personally, I didn't get much of a western vibe from it, but that's possibly because Kyra and I have been neck deep in Deadwood and therefore I have trouble getting the real “Western” feel from something where people aren't yelling “cocksucker” every two minutes. Or it could be the fact that since it's primarily set onboard a ship, and concerns itself almost exclusively with pirates, it fits more into “pirate” than “cowboy” in my personal cataloguing system. Although actually this is all so much pettifogging since the whole distinction between “fantasy,” “steampunk,” “western,” and “pirate yarn,” can be neatly avoided by treating the whole thing as part of that (now obsolete) genre the “adventure story”.

So yes, Retribution Falls is an adventure story. It concerns the crew of the airship Ketty Jay as they develop from a ragtag group of ne'er do wells into a properly formed and fully functioning crew.

The crew (who are all neatly introduced by means of in-character introductions to one of the viewpoint characters in chapter two) are as follows: Darien Frey, hot lothario captain; Pin, stupid pilot; Harkins, cowardly pilot; Silo, silent technician and obligatory brown person; Malvery, the drunken doctor; Crake, the tormented daemonist and Jez, the new navigator who is also, for what it's worth, the only woman on board. I'm pretty sure I've remembered everybody, and if I've forgotten anyone they're probably highly forgettable.

I'm going to come back to gender issues in a bit, but I'm going to start by pointing out that having one female character out of seven is the worst possible option. Zero out of seven, and you have a setting in which women don't fly airships, which is absolutely fine. Put in exactly one, and you suddenly have a society where women are apparently perfectly accepted on the setting equivalent of the Spanish Main, but never the less you've only got one in your crew. Zero is a better number than one in this situation is all I'm saying.

But like I say, I'll come back to this later.

Anyway, the crew are hired to board another aircraft and steal a cask of gems, for which they will be paid fifty thousand ducats. This too-good-to-be-true job offer turns out (surprise surprise) to be too good to be true. Which results in the crew blowing up an airliner and having to go on the run from both the legitimate military (the “Coalition”) and a variety of scoundrels and bounty hunters that want to hand them over to various interested parties.

So far, so swashbuckling, and it is indeed about sixty percent rollicking good fun. Unfortunately it's then twenty percent tedious exposition, ten percent sloppy writing, ten percent sexism.

Anyway, where to begin:

You Can't Take the Sky From Me

A lot of comparisons have been made between Firefly and Retribution Falls, and this might be a good time to say that much as I find Whedon annoying, and as much pleasure as I take in questioning the man's uber-feminist image it's worth admitting that he does about a million times better than a lot of other writers out there. Sure, Mal Reynolds may have a rampaging case of nice-guy syndrome, and might treat Inara like dirt, but by comparison to Wooding, Whedon deserves every Equality award he's ever got. Which is good, since he's clearly going to keep on getting them.

But I digress.

Superficially, Retribution Falls is a lot like Firefly. It's even got an on-the-run aristocrat with a girl in a box. Structurally, however, it's a lot more like Lost or Heroes.

I'm going to digress again. One of my favourite things about Heroes is the fact that I once read an interview with Tim Kring, in which he admitted that he neither knew nor cared about the history of the superhero genre, and that his main inspiration for Heroes was the way in which Lost (and here I confess to paraphrasing) cynically manipulated its audience by doling out tiny pieces of information about members of its large ensemble cast over the course of the series. He just thought that this was a fantastic structure for a TV show.

Retribution Falls works very much the same way. The first three or four chapters are taken up with fast-paced introductions to the cast, which more or less go like this:

“Hello, I see that bullet wound you had healed mysteriously fast”

“Yes, it is, mysterious isn't it?”

“I know, I noticed it because of something that happened in my past”

“Your past? Gosh, might there be something mysterious about it?”

“Why yes, you'll find that most members of the crew have something mysterious about them.”

“Wait, we've just heard news that we're being followed by the dread pirate Trinica Dracken!”

“The dread pirate Trinica Dracken you say! Gosh, mysteriously I think the captain may have some kind of connection to her, in his past. His mysterious past.”

“Gosh how mysterious!”

It's not quite that bad. But it's almost that bad. Although it's not necessarily that bad that it's that bad, because this really does make the whole thing quite readable. Yes it's shoddy and manipulative, but the thing about shoddy, manipulative tricks is that they work. Show me a character with a mysterious past, and I'll be unable to put the book down until I've either found out what that mysterious past is, or convinced myself that I'm never going to. Therefore if you give me seven characters, each with their own mysterious past, and give me the background on one every four chapters then you can pretty much guarantee that I'll be reading until one in the morning.

Of course the downside of this kind of strategy is that in-the-moment readability comes at the cost of after-the-fact satisfaction. Few and far between are the occasions on which I've discovered a character's secret backstory and not found it some combination of trite, predictable, and implausible. It's like popcorn, utterly compelling but at the end all you're left with is a faint cardboardy aftertaste.

Structure and Story Issues

The book is certainly readable, and mostly fun, but there are times when it bogs down in tedious exposition. This would be bad enough if it was just your classic “as you know, your father, the King...” dialogue, although there is an awful lot of it – people in this world seem to spend an inordinate amount of time having conversations in which they explain the basic causes and consequences of wars that happened a couple of years ago, the equivalent of people in the real world saying “of course after the Al-Quaeda bombings in 2001, the American government launched a series of military actions throughout the Middle East, beginning by attacking the Taliban who at that time were in control of Afghanistan...” over their morning coffee. Unfortunately, as

other reviewers

have pointed out, the same principle is applied to little things like character development.

The key offener here is Darien Frey himself, the vagabond captain of a vagabond crew, guiding his motley band of reprobates to high adventure on the open skies. The emotional thrust of the book, such as it is, involves Frey learning to take responsibility for his role as captain, and to learn respect and affection for his crew (and perhaps for other people in his life as well).

The problem with this is that our only insight into Frey's emotional state is what the book tells us Frey's emotional state is. We are told early on that he does not value his crew, and that he considers himself a bit of a loser. We are told later that he does value his crew, and that he's pretty much okay with himself, and has accepted the responsibilities that come with his position as captain. The problem is that – with the exception of a couple of clearly signposted set-pieces - we see no appreciable change in his behaviour, or even his attitude. The man who leads his crew the a doomed attempt to plunder the Ace of Skulls at the start of the book is not discernibly different from the one who spearheads the attack on Retribution Falls at the end. Both ultimately involve Frey risking his ship and his crew, without their knowledge or consent, in pursuit of a large reward which he has little reason to expect receiving. The fact that the first attack is doomed and the second succeeds has everything to do with narrative structure and nothing to do with Fray's leadership choices.

To put it another way, Frey spends the first half of the book chiding himself for his selfishness, indolence, and pisspoor leadership skills. By the end of the book he has stopped chiding himself for all of these things, but has failed to show any actual change in his behaviour. Which creates the impression that all of his growth and development over the course of the book has served only to make him less self-aware.

member of the twitterati

sums this up all very succinctly as “The Heavy Handed Adventures of Captain Uttercock”.

In many ways, the book reminded me of

The Last Five Years

. I spent so much of the book going “this guy is a cock, am I supposed to think this guy is a cock, I must be supposed to think this guy is a cock, but nobody else seems to think this guy as a cock except his psycho bitch exes, but this guy is clearly a cock...” that it wound up being remarkably intrusive. I had no problem with the other unsympathetic characters (Grayther Crake the daemonist, for example, is clearly a judgmental asshole, but he's obviously supposed to be a judgmental asshole so I understand how I'm supposed to react to him) but with Frey I always felt like my perception of his flaws was always slightly to one side of the author's perception.

For example, the book opens with Fray and Crake captured by a gang lord (here Wooding gains points for starting with some action, and loses them immediately for having the action be completely unrelated to the rest of the story). The Gang Lord threatens to kill Crake unless Fray gives him the ignition codes to the Ketty Jay. Fray of course refuses, and Crake has a massive chip on his shoulder about this throughout the whole book. Then later in the book, Trinica Dracken (evil pirate bitch-queen – incidentally I'm using the word “bitch” a lot in this review, for reasons that should become clear later) captures them again, and makes the same threat, and this time Fray gives her the codes, thus causing a big sign to appear saying THIS IS CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT.

That particular element would have been more effective but for two things. Firstly, it was so telegraphed it lost all its impact – Crake spent the entire freaking book saying “hey Frey if that EVER HAPPENS AGAIN you'd better give over the damned codes, m'kay.” Secondly, refusing to give up the codes was absolutely the right decision.

Consider. You are being held captive by a psychotic bastard who is only keeping you alive because you have information they want. Your only chance of survival is to not give them the damned information. If you do give them the information, chances are they'll kill all of you anyway. In this situation, giving up the codes is certainly understandable, but it's also completely stupid.

This was broadly the interpretation I was assuming the Doctor was driving at when, after Crake complained that the captain almost let him get killed, the Doctor insisted that no, Frey was a good man who would never let his crew down. I thought, in fact, that they were going for a kind of Mal Reynolds effect – making the captain good but not nice, the kind of man who would always do the right thing, even if that meant letting somebody die for the good of the ship.

Turns out this wasn't what they meant at all. Clearly, giving up the codes to the psychotic maniac was supposed to be the right decision, which is why it's CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT when Frey does it later, so when the Doctor says he's a good man he just kind of means – I'm not sure. That he might be a selfish, whiney, borderline amoral dickhead but at least he wasn't actively malicious?

The only reading I can really support for Frey's character development over the book – as in the only reading which I think the author and the text expect you to take away from it – is that Frey is a good man deep down, but lacks the confidence to act on that goodness. He is, I think, supposed to be afraid of getting too close to people and it is that fear which we are supposed to see as his great weakness, not the fact that he chooses to act on that fear by treating people really unacceptably badly. To draw yet another comparison which will require me to link my own articles, it's rather like Tanis Blacksword in

Banewreaker

- Tanis as you might recall murdered his wife in a jealous rage, and perhaps I'm being a prude, but to my mind the key problem here is not the fact that he flew into a jealous rage, but the fact that while he was in it he murdered his freaking wife.

Wooding seems to be under the impression that Darien Frey is a good man who sometimes allows his insecurities to get the better of him, and seems to see the book as chronicling his battle to overcome those insecurities. I read Darien Frey as a gigantic asshole, who sometimes uses his perfectly forgivable insecurities as an excuse to treat people like shit.

Women

Probably the most illustrative example of this dissonance in Frey’s personality is in his reaction to his ex-fiancée, Trinica Dracken.

We are first introduced to Trinica as a terrifying pirate, a ruthless, ass-kicking queen of the skies. We learn fairly early on that she has some kind of connection to Frey, and I initially had high expectations for their reunion. To fully explain the reasons behind this, I’m going to have to go into some detail about Frey’s behaviour up to this point, so bear with me.

Throughout the book it has been clear that Frey has a history of treating his romantic partners like dirt. It is clear also that part of the reason he treats his romantic partners like dirt is that gorgeous women constantly throw themselves at him. Not only throw themselves at him, but throw themselves at him and actually fall in love with him, and then stifle him with their smothering girlness.

For example, when Jez – the new navigator – shows up in chapter two, Frey observes that he’s glad she isn’t too attractive, because if she was he’d “be obliged to sleep with her.”

How exactly is the causality supposed to work on this one? Does he mean that if she was more attractive he would want to sleep with her, in which case it wouldn’t be an obligation really, would it? Or does he mean that if she was more attractive she would want to sleep with him? In which case what, does he think that unattractive women don’t have libidos? (I suspect the answer to that last question is probably “yes” actually). At the time I took the most charitable reading, which is that this is evidence of Frey being a self-deluding cock who isn’t capable of owning his sexuality, and that over the course of the book he would come to realise this.

Then about halfway through the book, he has to infiltrate an Awakener (think Catholicism meets Scientology) stronghold in order to find one of his many former conquests and – if you’ll pardon the phrase – pump her for information. It’s a single sex institution and he spends most of the time while he’s infiltrating the building fantasising about all the nubile, sex-starved young women he’ll find in here. I’ll say here that I actually found his fantasising perfectly reasonable, because again I read it as evidence that Frey is a bit of a prick, and was quite pleased when it became clear that his infiltration wasn’t going to end in spankings and baby-oil.

Then he meets his ex (whose name I shall look up when I get home), who kicks him in the head (because she r strong wimminz!) and has a go at him for leaving her in a nunnery for two years, despite having promised that they’d always be together. Frey then has this long, self-justifying internal monologue about how you had to lie to women because if you didn’t they’d only go and find somebody who did lie to them (because you see women want a man who says he’ll be with them forever, and men just want sex, and there is no overlap whatsoever – no men are interested in commitment, no women are interested in straight-up fucking) and that it therefore wasn’t his fault. Then of course he lies to her again, they have sex and she tells him everything he wants to know, and he promises to come back for her which he of course has no intention of doing. But you have to lie to women, so that’s okay.

So anyway, by the time Trinica Dracken shows up on the screen Frey’s pick-up-artist bullshit is wearing pretty thin. Up to this point, however, I was honestly expecting Trinica Dracken to turn the whole thing on its head. I was expecting this to be the one relationship in his whole sorry past that had actually been a partnership of equals, a woman who instead of clinging to him with doe-eyed devotion had been strong and confident in her own right, whose relationship with Frey had been tempestuous and remarkable. I expected the love of Frey’s life to be a woman who had a ship of her own, a crew of her own and a life of her own. It wouldn’t have justified his acting like a dickhead ever since, but it would at least have explained it. I know that this strays into the realms of

counter-factual criticism

but my intent here isn't to say “Trinica Dracken should have been different” but rather “I had a number of false impressions about what Trinica Dracken would be like, that led me to read all the sexist bullshit in the book more favourably than I might have otherwise.”

Here, for what it is worth, is a summary of what Frey's relationship with Trinica Dracken is revealed to have been like:

Trinica Dracken was the daughter of a wealthy industrialist for whom Frey worked. When they were both in their late teens, they fell in love. Trinica was a lovely sweet girl with long hair who wore white dresses, Frey was much as he is now. Eventually, the relationship had gone wrong. Here is Frey's description of it:

In the early months he'd believed they'd be together forever. He told himself he'd found a woman for the rest of his life. He couldn't conceive of meeting someone more wonderful than she was, and he wasn't tempted to try. But it was one thing to daydream such notions, and quite another to be faced with putting them into practice. When she began to talk of engagement, with a straightforwardness he'd previously found charming, he began to idolize her a little less. His patience became less. No longer could he endlessly indulge her flights of fancy. His smile became fixed as she played her girlish games with him. Her jokes all seemed to go on too long. He found himself wishing she'd just be sensible

Okay, leaving aside for the moment that Frey's analysis of what went wrong with his relationship boils down to “the bitch wouldn't keep her mouth shut” note that here his dissatisfaction with Trinica stems simultaneously from (a) the fact that he starts to see that she isn't the perfect fantasy figure he thought she was (he “idolizes her less” which in sane-person world is a good thing in a relationship) and (b) the fact that she still displays many qualities of the fantasy figure he wants her to be (her “girlish games” and her “flights of fancy”). You've got to feel sorry for the girl, because I seriously don't know how she was supposed to please this arrant cocksucker.

It gets worse. Obviously Frey takes the sensible and mature attitude to being in a relationship with somebody for whom you feel manifest contempt, which is to agree to marry her, get her pregnant, and leave her at the altar. He does, of course, admit that this was sub optimal. Here is his magnanimous and painful admission of culpability, which represents a significant moment in his growth and maturation:

His love for her had been the most precious thing in his life, and she'd ruined it with her insecurities, her need to tie him down. She'd made him cowardly. In his heart he knew that, but he could never say it.

This? Seriously Chris Wooding? This is Frey's big moment of self-realization? That he was wrong to let her make him stop loving her? Not, say, wrong to be an emotionally abusive asshole? Or that he was wrong to abandon his pregnant girlfriend on their wedding day? Oh no, his great fault, his great flaw, is that she made him cowardly?

A fairer man might point out at this stage that Trinica does at least call him on this, the fact that he's always blaming his problems on everybody else. The problem is he doesn't stop doing it, but the book treats him like he has.

Anyway, Frey abandons Trinica, leaving her pregnant in a world where, it is strongly implied, a woman who has a child outside wedlock is basically ruined. This results in Trinica attempting suicide, which results in her having a miscarriage. Which results in Frey spending the next ten years hating her for murdering their child.

Of course here again, Frey has a Big Character Development moment, when he realizes that while he is totally justified in hating Trinica, because she totally did murder their child, he has to accept that he is also partly responsible for her murdering their child, because he allowed her to make him cowardly, so that when she attempted suicide (which, let us be clear, was also cowardly) he didn't get back in time to save the day.

To put it another way, Darien Frey's character arc ends with him confronting a woman who he emotionally abused to the point at which she tried to kill herself, and forgiving her for it.

Up until his reunion with Trinica, Frey comes across as a feckless, self-absorbed cock. His interactions with his former love, far from making him more sympathetic, instead reveal him to be a judgemental asshole. He accuses her of murdering their child – an accusation neither Trinica nor the text challenges. He calls her a coward for attempting suicide – an accusation which the text treats as factual. And of course he has a great deal to say about her appearance:

Her skin was powdered ghost-white. Her hair – so blonde it was almost albino – was cut short, sticking up in uneven tufts as if it had been butchered with a knife. Her lips were a red deep enough to be vulgar

Ironically, of course, this actually makes her sound totally awesome (although where the fuck does he get off judging her choice of lipstick – I'm sorry Darien, is your ex not looking virginal enough for you? Well fuck you you misogynistic shit). But just in case we don't get that her new badass look is bad m'kay we get the following exchange during their next meeting:

”How'd you get this way Trinica?” he said. He raised his head and gestured at her across the gloomy study. “The hair, the skin...” he hesitated. “You used to be beautiful.” “I'm done with beautiful,” she replied

Because of course after she attempted suicide (sorry, I mean “murdered her unborn child” - her life is not, after all, important here) she tried to run away on an airship, but she was captured by pirates who gang raped her. And of course she responded to that by making herself UGLY. Because it is made very clear in the text that She Was Raped Because She Was Beautiful. Incidentally, despite being “through with beautiful” she still wears lipstick, and apparently a particularly vulgar shade of it, if Frey is any judge. I can't be sure, but I'd have thought if you were going down the “I shall make myself ugly so people won't rape me” route you'd avoid lipstick entirely. Then again, maybe Wooding knows something I don't.

And of course Frey's reaction to the whole thing is:

He didn't pity her. He couldn't. He only mourned the loss of the young woman he'd known ten years ago. This mockery of his lover was his own doing. He had fashioned her, and she damned him by her existence.

So ... your ex girlfriend, the former love of your life shows up, and tells you that she's spent the better part of the last ten years getting beaten and raped by a series of pirate crews until she'd eventually clawed her way into a position where she finally had a modicum of security, and all you care about is the fact that she's no longer the innocent little girl you fell in love with? The innocent little girl who you fell in love with but also treated like shit, wanted to get rid of, impregnated and abandoned? You can't spare one second to think about anything except how her present situation reflects on you.

Die in a fire you smug, self-centred little fuckstain.

Umm, there's a fair amount more fail in the book, but I'm really not sure I can go on. Suffice to say that the only other female characters in the book of any significance are Jez the navigator, whose contribution to the climactic confrontation is to whore herself out to a mid-ranking Naval officer (and she doesn't even get to do it on page) and Bess, the golem that Crake created out of his eight year old niece, who he stabbed to death while possessed by a daemon. Crake occasionally angsts about allowing the crew to use Bess (who it is strongly implied can feel pain) as portable cover in firefights. This does not stop him from doing it repeatedly.

Fantasy Rape Watch

Number of Named Female Characters: 4

Of Whom Protagonist's ex Lovers: 2

Of Whom Dead: 2

Of Whom Rape Victims: 1

Of Whom Murdered By Viewpoint Character: 1

Causes of Rape and Sexual Abuse, by Attribution in Text

Nature of Violent Culture: 0%

Nature of Patriarchal Society: 0%

Decisions Made Freely by Rapists: 0%

Beauty of Victim: 100%

Consequences of Rape and Sexual Abuse, by Importance as Judged by Text

Emotional Distress to Victim: 0%

Physical Injury to Victim: 0%

Emotional Distress to Victim's Ex-Boyfriend: 25%

Victim No Longer Physically Desirable to Ex-Boyfriend: 75%

Who Suffers as a Result of a Woman's Suicide Attempt, by Attribution in Text

Her: 0%

Her Unborn Child: 70%

Her Boyfriend: 30%

Who Suffers as the Result of the Murder of an Eight Year Old Girl, as Judged by Text

The Eight Year Old Girl: 20%

The Murderer: 80%

Ways In Which An Intelligent, Talented Woman, Who Has Superhuman Strength And Is Nearly Invulnerable to Physical Damage Could Attempt To Rescue Her Companions At Short Notice

Steal a Ship and Mount a Rescue: 0%

Sneak into Execution and Mount a Rescue: 0%

Prostitute Herself: 100%

My Level of Surprise That This Book Was Nominated for the Arthur C. Clarke Award:

30%

My Hope For the Genre, Taking This Book As a Standard:

0%Themes:

Books

Sci-fi / Fantasy

Minority Warrior

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~Comments (

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http://alex-von-cercek.livejournal.com/

at 20:16 on 2010-06-26Holy shit.

I don't even have anything else to say. Just...holy shit.

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http://furare.livejournal.com/

at 20:48 on 2010-06-26Wow. That just *is* a world of fail, isn't it?

Focusing just on the "you murdered our child" bit for a minute, it's uncomfortably reminiscent of

something I read recently

about men who want to make abortion all about them, a terrible tragedy foisted on them by the actions of an evil woman. I know a suicide-induced miscarriage isn't exactly abortion, but I think Frey's reaction comes quite close to theirs. Made me wonder if it was possibly intentional - the parallel seems quite obvious to me.

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Arthur B

at 22:49 on 2010-06-26

Focusing just on the "you murdered our child" bit for a minute, it's uncomfortably reminiscent of something I read recently about men who want to make abortion all about them, a terrible tragedy foisted on them by the actions of an evil woman. I know a suicide-induced miscarriage isn't exactly abortion, but I think Frey's reaction comes quite close to theirs. Made me wonder if it was possibly intentional - the parallel seems quite obvious to me.

It's an analogy that jumped out at me too. At the very least, if performing an act that leads to a miscarriage is regarded by Frey as murder, then abortion has to come under that category for Frey's views (and the text's views, it seems) to be even slightly internally consistent. And "men's rights" morons do seem to like portraying abortion as a crime against fathers, and to blame women for everything that men do wrong in a relationship.

Out of interest, how do books get nominated for the Clarke award?

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Dan H

at 23:11 on 2010-06-26

I know a suicide-induced miscarriage isn't exactly abortion, but I think Frey's reaction comes quite close to theirs. Made me wonder if it was possibly intentional - the parallel seems quite obvious to me.

I think that's fair, there's a rather skeevy implication that she deliberately attempted suicide *in order* to induce a miscarriage *in order* to get at Frey.

Because Women Are Evil.

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http://furare.livejournal.com/

at 12:59 on 2010-06-27Because she couldn't have wanted to kill herself because she couldn't deal with the disgrace *he* left her with? I'm not trying to undermine her autonomy by saying it's his fault she slept with him; however, it's unquestionably his fault that he abandoned her at the altar. So surely, by his own logic, if she had succeeded in committing suicide, he would have murdered her. (Just kidding, I can see that Frey's "logic" serves no purpose other than to make sure that he is not genuinely to blame for anything.)

One slightly off-topic thing I feel the need to say is that I Have Had Enough of anything - books, magazine articles, people - who claim that women all want romance and/or commitment, while men just want sex. A lot of women actually want sex, and some of them are actually willing to admit that they're not looking for candlelit dinners or long-term commitment in exchange. Actually, "in exchange" is the problem, isn't it? It implies that sex is something you have to compensate a woman for if she "gives" it to you.

And seriously. If a guy I was dating told me that he wanted to "be with me forever", I would probably laugh in his face. And then try to scrape him off my leg. I don't mind commitment in and of itself, but that sort of declaration fucking terrifies me. But then, I've come to the conclusion that when pop culture talks about "women" and "what women want", they are almost never talking about me. It's like I don't exist or something.

To bring this comment back to the book under discussion, I think it's a real shame that the author squandered a potentially awesome character by treading tired old ground. I mean, a woman who's a badass airship pirate captain! That has so much potential - a character fantasy-reading women might enjoy and identify with. If she wasn't defined almost entirely by what men had done to her. Kind of typical for the genre, though, isn't it.

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Niall

at 14:38 on 2010-06-27

Out of interest, how do books get nominated for the Clarke award?

The Clarke Award is administered by a body called the Serendip Foundation. Each year, they arrange a panel of five judges: traditionally (that is, for pretty much the whole of the Award's thirty-year existence) two of these have been nominated by the British Science Fiction Association, two by the Science Fiction Foundation, and one by A. N. Other invited body, which at present is SF Crowsnest.com, and has been the Science Museum and various other groups. Around this time of year, the Chair of the judging panel writes to UK publishers inviting them to submit books for consideration. Any science fiction novel published in the UK in the relevant calendar year is eligible; the Award does not define "science fiction" or "novel", that's left up to publishers and to the judges to debate. The judges read all the books. They may ask the Chair to contact publishers and request that other titles are submitted for consideration.

The judges then meet in February (ish) to select a shortlist of six. The shortlist is announced in March or April. The judges re-read the books they shortlisted, and meet in April/May (for the last few years, it's been at the start of the Sci-Fi-London film festival) to select a winner.

Basically, it's the Booker Prize process, although I think that in the case of the Booker the Chair is a full member of the panel, and in the Clarke they're a facilitator, appointed by Serendip to run the judges' meetings but not having a vote themselves. Other differences: publishers aren't limited to submitting only two titles, as they are in the Booker; and judges are typically asked to serve for two consecutive years (not all on the same schedule, so there's some refreshment and some carry-over from year to year).

The other titles shortlisted this year were Yellow Blue Tibia by Adam Roberts, Galileo's Dream by Kim Stanley Robinson, Spirit by Gwyneth Jones, Far North by Marcel Theroux, and the eventual winner, The City & The City be China Mieville.

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Niall

at 14:40 on 2010-06-27Oh, and the judges for this year were Jon Courtenay Grimwood and Chris Hill for the BSFA, Francis Spufford and Rhiannon Lassiter for the SF Foundation, and Paul Skevington for SF Crowsnest.

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http://alex-von-cercek.livejournal.com/

at 16:36 on 2010-06-27

Hell, Trinica sounds like the only interesting character in the book. In fact, the book that would be interesting to read would be titled "Kill Frey" and it would be about Trinica Dracken crossing off names from her Death List.

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Dan H

at 21:10 on 2010-06-27

Actually, "in exchange" is the problem, isn't it? It implies that sex is something you have to compensate a woman for if she "gives" it to you.

I believe this is an attitude which I've heard succinctly summarized as "women have sex, men want sex." And yeah, it's kind of a problem. It creates this notion that sex is something that men are supposed to get out of women by whatever means society deems acceptable, which leads to all sorts of nasty places.

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Melissa G.

at 22:31 on 2010-06-27

I totally forgive you for off-topicness because I am so sick of that attitude too! It's so annoying and gender box-y.

But I have to say that I'm even more sick and tired of this attitude:

Because it is made very clear in the text that She Was Raped Because She Was Beautiful.

Because that is such utter BS and a total misunderstanding of what rape is and why it happens. Rape is about power, not desire or lust or being unable to control oneself because the other person is so beautiful. It's so disgusting and irritating to see rape twisted into something where the guy just can't control himself because she's so damn hot. Come on, who could blame him? And then, that brings you to the "She should be flattered he raped her; he could have any woman he wants" mentality. Just...no.

Apologies for going slightly off-topic myself, but that mentality about rape is a huge rage button of mine. Especially since I recently seem to be reading scripts (for my job) of movies where violence against women seems to be the most used plot point for the male character to do anything.

Women in Refrigerators

, anyone?

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Dan H

at 22:55 on 2010-06-27

And then, that brings you to the "She should be flattered he raped her; he could have any woman he wants" mentality. Just...no.

Which might be an apposite moment to bring up the scene fairly early in the book when the characters are attacking an information-broker's hideout, and the guy's pet whores are holed up with shotguns worried that the band of armed psychos who just burst in might, y'know, rape them.

But fortunately Frey reveals that it is he, the hot man from earlier. So he can't be a rapist, because he is hot!

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Melissa G.

at 23:20 on 2010-06-27

So he can't be a rapist, because he is hot!

::facepalm:: That's right, hot guys can't be rapists, and ugly girls can't be rape victims. I mean, who'd want to rape them? They're ugly. And rape is just about how hot a girl is. Really, it's the ultimate compliment!

Sigh. The fail just hurts sometimes....

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http://alex-von-cercek.livejournal.com/

at 23:22 on 2010-06-27You know, taken 100% and entirely out of context, the interchange of

could actually be a snappy wisecrack on the lines of those typically delivered by pulp heroes or, say, Sam Spade. You know what, I think we should all ignore the context, Trinica is an awesome character without it.

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Dan H

at 23:28 on 2010-06-27

Sigh. The fail just hurts sometimes....

To be very slightly fair, I should add that I'm only presenting one of several possible readings. It's possible that they decide to trust him because they recognize him from earlier, for example, but mixed in with all the faily stuff about beauty it bugged me.

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Melissa G.

at 01:55 on 2010-06-28@Dan

That's true, but there's still a sigh on my part at rape-fail in general because I've heard that kind of mentality and attitude expressed far too many times. Especially in conjunction with celebrities who get accused of rape. >.< So the book may get a pass, but society does not. ::shakes fist angrily at society::

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Wardog

at 09:26 on 2010-06-28I was going to read this ... now I am not.

I am depressed.

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http://furare.livejournal.com/

at 11:06 on 2010-06-28Oh hell, don't get me started on the rapefail. I didn't touch it in previous comments because it kinda makes me too angry to write coherently. Let's just say I've read an awful lot about rape in recent weeks and months, and I am sickened by the attitude Melissa mentions with respect to rapist celebrities. I guess the assumption that a celebrity could "have any woman he wants" is pretty damned insulting, too. Sorry, but I don't sleep with guys who act like they're doing me a favour just by noticing me.

And on the general subject of rape and rapefail - it is really aggravating that blog posts on rape are *always* commented on by someone claiming that the real victims of rape are men who are unfairly accused. Because women love "crying rape" and having their sex lives, choice of clothes and conduct at the time in question, and a million and one other things scrutinised. I would not be surprised if an awful lot of retracted accusations were actually due to the fact that investigation of the crime makes the victim feel like they were at fault.

Regardless, "false" reporting occurs in 2-8% of cases, which is about the same as an awful lot of other crimes. (Rape apologists carry round a 41% false report statistic that was taken from a fatally flawed study done in the 70s, rather than the most recent FBI statistics, because it's the one that makes them look right.) But then, issues that largely affect women - like rape and domestic violence - have to be invaded by men telling us that MEN are the victims here, that rape is a stick evil women use to beat MEN and why are we still talking anyway SHUT UP.

So yeah. Novels - and anything else written by anyone ever - that put the blame for rape on anything the victim did or is, rather than the decision made by the rapist to rape her, are things I have no patience with at all. The fact that rape is seen as the victim's fault in real life makes it really far from okay to say that in a novel. Unless you're trying to make the point that your viewpoint character is a misogynistic shit - but I don't think that was the intended reading here.

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Melissa G.

at 01:14 on 2010-06-29

Oh hell, don't get me started on the rapefail. I didn't touch it in previous comments because it kinda makes me too angry to write coherently.

Ditto for me. It's gotten to the point where every time rape shows up in a book/show/movie/what have you, I tend to roll my eyes and then start to judge harshly. Usually it just seems like the writer thinks "What's the most traumatic thing that could happen to this girl? Oh, I know! She gets raped." Or even worse, "What's the most traumatic thing that could happen to this guy? Oh, I know! His girlfriend/wife/mother/daughter/sister gets raped." It just ends up seeming unoriginal and lazy - not to mention the possibility of epic fail.

I do just want to plug something that I was really impressed with as far as how it handled rape and incorporated it into the story. And surprisingly, it's a comic book! It was Ultimate Elektra - a short mini-series type deal. I actually thought that the rape was handled realistically and was meaningful to the story; it all felt like something that could really happen. I'd love to know if anyone else read it and what you thought of it.

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Arthur B

at 01:49 on 2010-06-29

It's gotten to the point where every time rape shows up in a book/show/movie/what have you, I tend to roll my eyes and then start to judge harshly.

Same here. I started to read

The Heart of Myrial

by Maggie Furey a while back, and at first it was silly but basically harmless fun.

Then there was a bit where some peasant woman gets raped by bailiffs to establish two things: that their employer is a rotter, and that the guardsmen who show up and summarily execute the rapist they catch in the act are basically good people who we should cheer for.

I stopped reading at that point.

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http://ignisophis.livejournal.com/

at 15:03 on 2010-09-14A friend of mine recently recommended this book to me. I read it, really enjoyed it and recommended it to my friends, one of whom pointed me to this review. Which is full of things I disagree with, so I thought I should post to explain why.

Judged as a low-investment romp, it’s alright. Judged as a nominee for a prestigious award, it needs to be killed with fire.

Surely a book should be judged on its merits, or lack thereof? Nominations for the Clarke Award have very little to do with quality, and shouldn't your issues with its shortlisting be a matter for a review of the Clarke Award and/or its judges? After all, I doubt Chris Wooding wrote it specifically with the Clarke Award in mind.

I don't agree that zero female crew would have been better than one - it gave me the impression, not of a setting where "women are apparently perfectly accepted", but of a setting where there is very strong social pressure against women entering that line of work. Given the sexism inherent in the rest of the setting, positive discrimination in the crew's gender ratio would have changed the whole focus of the story.

I had a different reading on all of this. For me, part of the appeal of the book is that almost all of the information we have is told from the point of view of a character who is, not to put too fine a point on it, a horrible self-deluding wreck of a human being, damaged by the consequences of his own actions and continuing to damage both himself and those around him. Considering the timescale of the book, I think any genuine change in his behaviour would be too rushed to be plausible. Instead, we see a change in his internal attitude and intentions which will maybe lead to a future change in his behaviour, and till then he's faking it until he can make it. We've spent the whole book being shown how much he wraps himself in delusional self-justification and I don't think there's ever much of a change in its level, just in its form and motives and likely consequences.

I did find it extremely effective, and honestly didn't know which way Frey would jummp. Firstly, Crake's earlier harping on about it did telegraph that a similar situation would probably happen again but could have just been to add weight and consequence should Frey have handled it the same way. Secondly, to my mind it was the right decision not to give the codes the first time, but the right decision to

give

the codes the second time - Macarde just wanted the information, the ship and a bit of revenge, whereas Dracken primarily wanted Frey and the crew and had a good reason to kill Crake; to her the information and the ship were just a bonus. Which is why I didn't think we were meant to think that giving up the codes the first time would've been the right decision.

This is a reading I completely disagree with. If this is the case then why, on the third-to-last page (after Frey has done some heroic things and finally started to bond with his crew), does the author feel the need to remind us of all the horrible things Frey has done? The impression I get from the text is that Frey is a horribly flawed man, but that even horribly flawed people can have some redeeming features, can occasionally do good things despite themselves, and can strive to be better.

I'm always reluctant to claim knowledge of an author's mind, but here in particular I think you're doing Wooding a great disservice. Particularly as Wooding never tells us what he thinks, only what Frey thinks.

because you see women want a man who says he’ll be with them forever, and men just want sex, and there is no overlap whatsoever – no men are interested in commitment, no women are interested in straight-up fucking

For me this was one of the cues that Frey's thought processes are not an authorial voice. He may think about it that way, but the one sex scene in the book has the woman taking the initiative and displaying a greater sexual appetite.

Causes of Rape and Sexual Abuse, by Attribution in Text Beauty of Victim: 100%

According to testimony of said victim, possibly in order to give herself security by thinking that she's safe from rape now that she is attempting to present herself as being far from beautiful. Attributed by a character within the text rather than the text itself.

Consequences of Rape and Sexual Abuse, by Importance as Judged by Text Emotional Distress to Victim's Ex-Boyfriend: 25% Victim No Longer Physically Desirable to Ex-Boyfriend: 75%

Who Suffers as a Result of a Woman's Suicide Attempt, by Attribution in Text Her Unborn Child: 70%, Her Boyfriend: 30%

Both according to the viewpoint of Frey, who as we've already established is a horrible self-centred git. Judged and attributed by a character within the text rather than by the text itself.

Who Suffers as the Result of the Murder of an Eight Year Old Girl, as Judged by Text The Eight Year Old Girl: 20%, The Murderer: 80%

Again, this is according to the point of view of the murderer, not judged by the text itself.

Ways In Which An Intelligent, Talented Woman, Who Has Superhuman Strength And Is Nearly Invulnerable to Physical Damage Could Attempt To Rescue Her Companions At Short Notice Steal a Ship and Mount a Rescue: 0% Sneak into Execution and Mount a Rescue: 0% Prostitute Herself: 100%

Jez is somewhat stronger than she would be as a human, can heal from a knock to the head and a flesh wound and is a decent shot, but this hardly makes her anything like invulnerable and it certainly doesn't make her some kind of superhero. The prostitution did irk me, but I mostly saw it as a comment on the way in which she was coming to see herself as an inhuman monster, and an acknowledgement that she was intelligent enough to realise she couldn't have pulled off either of the first two options on her own.

Overall, I think the heart of our disagreement over the book comes down to a preference for or against didacticism. It's something I strongly dislike - I want stories which present interesting situations and complex flawed characters then leave me to make up my own mind about them. Which don't try to insert authorial comment into the mindset of a flawed and potentially unreliable viewpoint character. Which present a sexist and corrupt society as what it is, without feeling the need to explicitly lecture the audience about it.

Judging from your review, particularly those percentage breakdowns at the end, you want a story in which the text and the author tell the audience what they should think of the horrible things that happen and the horrible things the characters do?

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Arthur B

at 15:43 on 2010-09-14Dan said:

Frey spends the first half of the book chiding himself for his selfishness, indolence, and pisspoor leadership skills. By the end of the book he has stopped chiding himself for all of these things

ignisophis said:

Instead, we see a change in his internal attitude and intentions which will maybe lead to a future change in his behaviour

How does going from "I'm quite bothered by my behaviour" to "I'm OK with my behaviour" make it

likely that he's going to change?

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Dan H

at 16:07 on 2010-09-14

Overall, I think the heart of our disagreement over the book comes down to a preference for or against didacticism.

I don't think it has anythign to do with that. Didacticism is one of those irregular adjectives. You're being Didactic, I'm just presenting things as they are. He has an agenda, I'm telling a story.

It's something I strongly dislike - I want stories which present interesting situations and complex flawed characters then leave me to make up my own mind about them.

So do I. Retribution Falls does neither of those things.

Your interpretation of Frey - as a flawed and complex but ultimately sympathetic character, that despite the horrible things he does he is always striving to be a better man - is exactly the one which I complain that the book was forcing down my throat.

Which don't try to insert authorial comment into the mindset of a flawed and potentially unreliable viewpoint character.

Authorial comment is *absolutely* necessary when you're dealing with a flawed and potentially unreliable viewpoint character. Otherwise how do you know they're flawed and potentially unreliable?

Which present a sexist and corrupt society as what it is, without feeling the need to explicitly lecture the audience about it.

You're presenting a false dichotomy here. You seem to believe that the options are "present a sexist and corrupt society in an uncritical and shallow manner" or "lecture people".

I'd also point out that /Retribution Falls/ does not, in fact, present a sexist and corrupt society. It doesn't really present a society at all. It's an adventure novel, it pays no attention to the way its setting would or could actually work. What you take as "presenting a sexist society as it actually is" I take as "just being sexist".

This is what I don't understand. The text *does* tell us what to think about the horrible things that happen, and the horrible things the characters do. It's extraordinarily heavy handed in that regard. Frey's interaction with Trinica is a good example. In the article I quoted the following:

This is telling you exactly how to feel, and exactly why you should be feeling it. Frey did a Terrible Thing in running out on Trinica, and we are supposed to condemn him for running out on her, but recognize that he has accepted responsibility for it and grown as a result. That's what allows you to interpret Frey as a "complex and flawed character".

Frey is only complex and flawed if you interpret his character in exactly the ways the book (very directly, very heavy-handedly) tells you to interpret his character. Otherwise he really is a dickbag with no redeeming features whatsoever and that's not an interesting character to read about.

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http://ignisophis.livejournal.com/

at 16:58 on 2010-09-14

Your interpretation of Frey - as a flawed and complex but ultimately sympathetic character, that despite the horrible things he does he is always striving to be a better man

But that's not my interpretation of Frey. That's how you think the author wants us to interpret Frey. My interpretation of Frey is that he's a flawed and complex and almost entirely

sympathetic character, who doesn't strive to be a better man until we're approaching the end of the book - and even then the motives for his striving are suspect and its eventual outcome uncertain. I don't sympathise with him, but I do pity him, and despite his being a git with virtually no redeeming features I do find him interesting to read about.

Authorial comment is *absolutely* necessary when you're dealing with a flawed and potentially unreliable viewpoint character. Otherwise how do you know they're flawed and potentially unreliable?

From an evaluation of their narrative.

You're presenting a false dichotomy here. You seem to believe that the options are "present a sexist and corrupt society in an uncritical and shallow manner" or "lecture people".

If you're going to rewrite what I say, please don't put quote marks around it! Or at least, use quote marks but put some editorial square brackets around the altered text.

"He didn't pity her. He couldn't. He only mourned the loss of the young woman he'd known ten years ago. This mockery of his lover was his own doing. He had fashioned her, and she damned him by her existence." This is telling you exactly how to feel, and exactly why you should be feeling it.

This is our disagreement in a nutshell. You think that excerpt is telling the audience what to feel and why they should feel it. I think that excerpt is telling the audience what

Frey

feels and why he thinks

he's

feeling it. What you appear to read as an objective narrator uncritically describing Frey's reaction in what we are meant to take as reasonable terms, I read as subjective narration by a selfish and dysfunctional viewpoint character speaking in the third person.

I think it's a deeply unhealthy way to feel, and would agree that the book deserved to be killed by fire if it suggested that the audience

was

meant to feel that way about Trinica's condition. Fortunately, I don't think it is.

Is not the definition of a didactic reading of a text the belief that the text is telling us what to do and why we should do it?

And in response to Arthur:

How does going from "I'm quite bothered by my behaviour" to "I'm OK with my behaviour" make it more likely that he's going to change?

If he was genuinely bothered by his behaviour beforehand then he'd have made an effort to change it. I see the transition as going from "I shall self-flagellate about my failings while using my awareness of them to convince myself that tryin to change would be pointless" to "I have failings, but I am making an effort to change". How genuine and lasting that effort is has yet to be seen.

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Dan H

at 17:50 on 2010-09-14

My interpretation of Frey is that he's a flawed and complex and almost entirely unsympathetic character, who doesn't strive to be a better man until we're approaching the end of the book

I think we're using the word "sympathetic" differently. I'm using it to mean "has qualities with which you can sympathize" whereas you seem to use it to mean "has no flaws".

You see Frey as flawed, complex and almost entirely unsympathetic but (presumably) with some redeeming features (you suggest as much in your previous post). Again this is *exactly* the interpretation I believe the text is pushing for.

The problem I have with Frey isn't that he's unsympathetic, it's that he's unsympathetic *in different ways to the ones the text cares about*.

From an evaluation of their narrative.

Which you would do how? I mean seriously how do you know a narrator is unreliable without some clue that comes from outside their narration?

I think it's a deeply unhealthy way to feel, and would agree that the book deserved to be killed by fire if it suggested that the audience was meant to feel that way about Trinica's condition. Fortunately, I don't think it is.

Umm ... I'm a bit confused here. What about the way Frey feels about Trinica's condition are we supposed to disagree with? How do *you* feel about Trinica's condition and how do you think it's different, and how do you think the text supports that feeling?

The book clearly explains to us that Frey had a responsibility to Trinica, that by running out on her he shirked that responsibility, which caused her to attempt suicide and lead to the death of their child, and ultimately to her getting raped and becoming the Dread Pirate Dracken. Frey feels guilty for shirking this responsibility. What about this interpretation do you think is incorrect? How do you think Frey is mistaken here?

Is not the definition of a didactic reading of a text the belief that the text is telling us what to do and why we should do it?

Umm ... yes it is. I read the book as extremely didactic, and dislike it because I consider it to be didactic. You seemed to think that my problem was wanting the book to be *more* didactic, when in fact I want it to be *less* didactic. The book as it stands tells us exactly how to feel about everything in it.

Again, that's exactly my problem and once again, your interpretation of the text lines up exactly with the interpretation I believe the text is telling me to have.

Frey's big flaw, as dictated by the text, is that he runs away from his responsibilities. That is the flaw he spends the book dealing with, and that is the flaw he overcomes at the end when he realizes that he has a duty to his crew.

Frey's real flaw is that he believes everything is about him. The thing is that it *really is*. This isn't a matter of perception, every single person he meets is willing to risk everything to either help or harm him. Even Trinica's suicide attempt was *about Frey* and she freely admits that it was about Frey. This isn't unreliable narration, this isn't the subjective viewpoint of a flawed character, this is how things actually are in the setting.

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Arthur B

at 20:44 on 2010-09-14

Which you would do how? I mean seriously how do you know a narrator is unreliable without some clue that comes from outside their narration?

To be fair, you can do it without outside clues. Gene Wolfe did it quite well in

Peace

- if you take the narrator at his word it's about a nice old man reminiscing about his life, but if you pay attention to the bits where he contradicts himself, glosses over something, or is clearly omitting something you realise that he's a horrifyingly evil person. (To pull a fuzzily-remembered example out of thin air, a particular character just plain disappears partway through the story after a fairly tense conversation with the narrator, and it's only later when he casually mentions possessing a piece of property that most definitely belonged to her that you realise he probably killed her - and if you go back and revisit the scene in question you can put together a fairly good idea of how he did it and how he disposed of the evidence.)

Not that that's necessarily what's happening in Retribution Falls. And I do agree that you do need the contradictions and omissions and whatnot in order to give textual support for interpretations that directly contradict the narrator's own assessment of things. The more internally consistent and solid a narrative is the less wiggle room you have for challenging the statements in it, after all.

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Dan H

at 13:44 on 2010-09-15But that's still a metatextual clue - Wolfe clearly included the reference *specifically* to allow for that interpretation, which is sort of my point.

I'm not saying the text has to stop and say "just so we're clear, the narrator is lying to you here" but it is actually very clear what *is* just viewpoint and what *isn't*. It's like people who will argue that Star Wars is shot from "Luke Skywalker's Viewpoint" and that the Empire might not be evil at all. It's not a legitimate reading of the text, and it displays a fundamental misunderstanding of how viewpoint works in fiction.

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Arthur B

at 14:01 on 2010-09-15Well the other difference is that

Peace

is very much delivered from the narrator's viewpoint - it's all spoken in the first person. It's not Wolfe writing in the third person who tells you that the narrator has the vanished girl's stuff, it's the narrator himself not managing to keep his story straight.

Of course, the other big argument against the "it's OK because he's an unreliable narrator" take on

Retribution Falls

is that as far as I can tell it's written in the third person, which would mean you can't firmly say that the narration is from Frey's point of view. The argument that the narrative voice isn't "subjective narration by a selfish and dysfunctional viewpoint character speaking in the third person" seems to me - unless there's textual support for it somewhere - to be a bit of a leap, when the default assumption in most books is that the narrative voice is objective, omniscient, and impersonal. I'm sure there's been books written in the third person where the narrative voice is in fact subjective, unreliable, and personal, but you'd expect to be tipped off to the fact if that's what you're meant to take away from it.

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Niall

at 14:16 on 2010-09-15

the default assumption in most books is that the narrative voice is objective, omniscient, and impersonal

Say what? No it isn't. I wouldn't even say it's the default assumption in most books written in the third person. In fact, I'd say that in contemporary fiction, an objective, omniscient, impersonal narrative voice is rare.

The specific paragraph being debated above is limited third person. Every sentence is grounded in Frey's subjectivity. For me to read it as an objective assessment of the situation, it would have to stand further outside him: "Frey didn't pity Trinica. It wouldn't do any good. The only thing to do was to mourn the loss of the young woman he'd known ten years ago..."

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Arthur B

at 14:46 on 2010-09-15

Say what? No it isn't. I wouldn't even say it's the default assumption in most books written in the third person.

OK, checking the wikipedia article on narrative modes I see that I've been sloppy about my terms and not used them especially correctly (though I note that over the entire sweep of literature the third-person omniscient has totally been the most commonly used so ya boo sucks :P).

For me the narrative voice came off as impersonal - the very fact that it's the third person seems to point in that direction, for starters. But I'm assessing that on a fairly limited selection of quotes, and I'd need to read a lot more to work out whether the narrative voice is meant to take an over-the-shoulder perspective where it follows Frey but doesn't necessarily condone or identify with him or whether it's meant to be Frey.

This is all, of course, secondary to the question of whether the reader is meant to sympathise or condemn Frey. And the thing is, the various attitudes he expresses, which both Dan and ignisophis agree are problematic, are common enough that I can easily imagine many readers reading the book and thinking "Yeah, that Frey guy's totally got it right - my ex's abortion was all about me too!"

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Arthur B

at 14:48 on 2010-09-15(Also I'd argue that the third-person omniscient has maintained a greater foothold in SF/fantasy than it has in other genres thanks to the influence of Tolkien in fantasy, and various brick-sized multiple-viewpoint novels of the Alastair Reynolds/Peter F. Hamilton variety in SF.)

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Niall

at 15:00 on 2010-09-15

I'd need to read a lot more to work out whether the narrative voice is meant to take an over-the-shoulder perspective where it follows Frey but doesn't necessarily condone or identify with him or whether it's meant to be Frey.

To be pedantic, I'm less interested in whether it's

meant

to be one or the other, and more interested in what it

, if only because we can't know the former and can meaningfully debate the latter. So: I think

Retribution Falls

is basically over-the-shoulder with occasional slips which come about because, when it comes down to it, Wooding is not a particularly impressive writer on a sentence-by-sentence level. It doesn't help that, as you say, the prose has a fairly unexciting default voice, neither strongly

the character it's following nor strongly

not

of the character it's following. Still, I didn't experience the book as didactic in the way that Dan did.

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Niall

at 15:05 on 2010-09-15Do you know, it's so long since I've actually read Tolkien that I can't remember what his narrative is like, but I wouldn't characterise Hamilton as third-person omniscient. From what I remember, even if he follows multiple characters, he sticks pretty tightly to a single character within any given scene. So I'd say he's multiple third-person-limited, and reserve third-person omnisicient for books like

Middlemarch

, where there is a single narrator that wanders between characters whenever it feels like it.

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Arthur B

at 15:05 on 2010-09-15

To be pedantic, I'm less interested in whether it's meant to be one or the other, and more interested in what it is, if only because we can't know the former and can meaningfully debate the latter.

But there's no objective test which will conclusively prove it's one or the other, if it's a borderline case; all we can do is see what it seems like to us, and consider what prompts the text are giving us (the latter of which is what I meant by "meant").

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Arthur B

at 15:07 on 2010-09-15

Do you know, it's so long since I've actually read Tolkien that I can't remember what his narrative is like, but I wouldn't characterise Hamilton as third-person omniscient. From what I remember, even if he follows multiple characters, he sticks pretty tightly to a single character within any given scene.

Yeah, but he'll regularly set up situations using the technique where the characters who are going into a particular situation know much less than we do, because the narrative voice has clued us in to stuff that's been going on which the current viewpoint character doesn't know about. The overall point is to give this helicopter overview of what's happening on a stage covering half a galaxy, which no one character can get a clear picture of but which the narrative voice seems to be showing us as we travel around in its company.

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Wardog

at 15:18 on 2010-09-15I'm with Niall on this - I think it is rare to find books where the narrative voice objective, omniscient and impersonal. Otherwise everything would sound like it was written by Henry Fielding. Most third books have conscious POV shifts, usually between chapters or between scenes, as you move between characters or else are specifically situated as being the perspective of a specific character - the Harry Potter books, for example.

Where it gets difficult is locating the overlapping subjectivity of character and author - and, by author, I mean the hazy figure present in the text, not the person giving interviews to the media.

Sorry to randomly tangent, but this discussion reminds me the discussion about

Sisters Red

over at The Book Smugglers. Essentially Ana condemns the book for its victim-blaming and honestly slightly unhealthy attitude to certain types of girls - later the author inadvisable rocks up in the comments to claim s/he has been misrepresented since the unhealthy victim-blaming stuff was all from a unhealthy character's POV.

Unfortunately "it's okay, it's a bad person saying it" becomes difficult it is very often implicitly supported by the structures of the book itself. to use the Sisters Red example, what you have is a damaged character expressing an offensive viewpoint, the same viewpoint echoed by a less damaged character not two pages later AND a world in which the offensive viewpoint is LITERALLY true. In the world of Sisters Red, girls who dress, look and behave a certain way are, in fact, targeted by predators. Whereas the "dress up pretty will get you raped" mindset is actually not only untrue (since the majority of rapes are committed by people who knew the victim, not strangers jumping on beautiful girls who go clubbing in short skirts) but a control strategy to keep women feeling vulnerable and dis empowered.

To return to the book in question, the issue, I think, is not with Frey's viewpoint itself but with the way the narrative as a whole functions to support it, rather than condemn it. I mean Frey views women in a completely obnoxious but the behaviour of every woman in the text actually reinforces the fact he's right to treat them as he does - I mean everyone he sleeps with, apparently falls madly in love with him and wants him to settle down and twu wuv with her. It doesn't matter how much pseudo bad-assery you paint onto a female character if *her entire life* revolves around a dude then Frey is, in fact, exactly right to view women as clingy, fragile and emotionally demanding.

The whole "He had fashioned her" line is grossly offensive - not least because, in the text, it is actually true.

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Arthur B

at 15:33 on 2010-09-15

Most third books have conscious POV shifts, usually between chapters or between scenes, as you move between characters or else are specifically situated as being the perspective of a specific character - the Harry Potter books, for example.

OK, I've tended to think of multiple viewpoint books as being objective/omniscient/impersonal because the narration isn't exclusively associated with one viewpoint, and gives you an overview of what's going on which no single character actually enjoys - so it averages out as being objective-ish and omniscient-ish and impersonal-ish when you take the book as a whole, but I'm obviously doing great harm to the terminology there so I'll stop.

Though that said, if the main character's ideas are never actually challenged by anything they encounter in the world, it doesn't matter much where the narrator's sitting does it?

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Melissa G.

at 17:35 on 2010-09-15

Though that said, if the main character's ideas are never actually challenged by anything they encounter in the world, it doesn't matter much where the narrator's sitting does it?

That's pretty much my problem with the "But the narrator is unreliable/a bad person so it doesn't matter if their POV is offensive" argument. If you want us to accept that the POV is in an unreliable person's hands, we needs clues in the text.

A good example of it being done right, imo, is Lolita. I don't particularly *like* Lolita, but Nobokov actually did a pretty stellar job of writing from the POV of a pedophile while still providing us with enough textual clues to be able to interpret Humbert Humbert's behavior and mindset as destructive and wrong. It's very subtle and not concrete evidence - hence all the controversy surrounding that book - but I truly believe we're not meant to view Humbert Humbert as *right* in what he does. Lolita displays characteristics of a sexually abused child, for example. Humbert Humbert doesn't pick up on this, but the reader can.

Anyway, back to the original point, I think if a writer is going to have an unreliable narrator or a morality effed up narrator, the text outside the character needs to display at least *signs* that they are effed up and unreliable. If the world bends to their viewpoint, I don't think there's any way that defense works. They are just being proven right, in that case, which is basically what people have stated above, and I agree with.

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Dan H

at 18:40 on 2010-09-15

I think you're right that the specific paragraph is a bad example, but I think part of the confusion here is that people seem to be misunderstanding precisely what I find offensive about Frey's reaction to Trinica and the way it is grounded in the text.

People are focusing a lot on the "didn't pity her" line which is actually the line in the whole thing I find *least* offensive. Pity is a patronizing emotion, and what offended me most about Trinica wasn't the lack of sympathy in the text, it was the lack of *respect*.

As Kyra points out, what's really offensive about the whole thing is the second line: "This mockery of his lover was his own doing. He had fashioned her, and she damned him by her existence." What is offensive about this line is not that Frey thinks that way but that the text really does provide strong evidence that he is *right* to think this way.

Frey's *entire* arc (as ignisophis observes) is about going from making excuses for his flaws, to facing up to them and taking responsibility for them. In this context, his taking responsibility for Trinica's condition is presented as both right and correct, and a step on his emotional development towards a better and more complete person. Similarly he *takes responsibility* for his part in the loss of their child, accepting that his cowardice in running away from Trinica was comparable to her cowardice in attempting to take her own life. These are all *personal revelations* which are presented as *unambiguously positive and correct*.

To lay it out clearly, this is a list of things which I consider to be facts about Trinica Dracken which (a) are what Frey believes, (b) are the canonical truth of the setting and (c) are deeply offensive.

1. Trinica attempted to kill herself because Frey left her. Unambiguously true, he admits it, she admits it.

2. Trinica's attempted suicide was motivated partly out of a desire to hurt Frey. She says specifically tells Frey that "I wanted you to know what I had done".

3. Trinica's decision to kill herself was cowardly. Frey believes this, the text does not challenge it, and Frey is presented as developing emotionally when he compares his own cowardice to Trinica's.

4. Trinica's attempted suicide was worse because she was pregnant. Again Frey believes this and the text supports it. Again, Frey's emotional growth comes from his recognition that he *shares* in Trinica's moral culpability for the death of their child.

5. Trinica is a tragic figure. A lot of the argument about what is and is not Frey's PoV seems to come down to the question of whether it is right that he "does not pity" Trinica. What is most certainly *not* subjective, or simply a result of Frey's distorted viewpoint, is that Trinica is *worse off* as a capable, independent Pirate Captain than she was as a nineteen year old china doll.

These are all genuinely, deeply offensive to me - particularly point 3: "suicide is cowardly" is one of the most repugnant ideas to go unchallenged in popular opinion, and a text that repeats it without condemning it reinforces it.

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http://ignisophis.livejournal.com/

at 20:42 on 2010-09-16

I think we're using the word "sympathetic" differently. I'm using it to mean "has qualities with which you can sympathize" whereas you seem to use it to mean "has no flaws".

"I'm [tautology] whereas you [are ridiculous]"? Heh.

In this context I'm using 'sympathetic character' to mean 'a character in whose circumstances I could potentially see myself having similar reactions and making similar choices'. To make it clearer with some examples, in this particular book I find Crake, Harkins, Jez, Malvery and Silo sympathetic. I find Frey and Pinn unsympathetic. Trinica Dracken I find to be about half-and-half.

I mean seriously how do you know a narrator is unreliable without some clue that comes from outside their narration?

I think Arthur and others have already addressed this point. To be clear, I don't consider Frey unreliable in his recounting of facts but I do consider him unreliable in the way he judges and presents those facts. Not due to explicit cues in the text, but by evaluating his judgements and presentations in relation to my own experiences of the real world, in the same way as Melissa suggests the audience is meant to pick up on aspects of "Lolita".

I'm a bit confused here. What about the way Frey feels about Trinica's condition are we supposed to disagree with? How do *you* feel about Trinica's condition and how do you think it's different, and how do you think the text supports that feeling? The book clearly explains to us that Frey had a responsibility to Trinica, that by running out on her he shirked that responsibility, which caused her to attempt suicide and lead to the death of their child, and ultimately to her getting raped and becoming the Dread Pirate Dracken. Frey feels guilty for shirking this responsibility. What about this interpretation do you think is incorrect? How do you think Frey is mistaken here?

As others have said, it's probably not the best idea to get overly hung up on this one paragraph. But to answer your questions...

As you say, one of Frey's big flaws is thinking that everything revolves around him. This is a perfect example. Yes, Frey shirked that initial responsibility, and he is right to feel guilty for doing so - but not so much for the fact that he did so as the manner in which he did so, which is never something he questions because as is stated elsewhere in the text he believes women

need

to be lied to. The crucial error is his assumption that each step led inexorably to the next, as if his initial flight toppled the first in a line of dominoes. The causal links are there but it's not a simple case of "If A Then B", at each step Trinica had a choice in how she reacted and there were multiple other influences on that choice besides the previous steps - such as the culture, her family and the pirates who captured her.

I read the book as extremely didactic, and dislike it because I consider it to be didactic. You seemed to think that my problem was wanting the book to be *more* didactic, when in fact I want it to be *less* didactic. The book as it stands tells us exactly how to feel about everything in it.

My point is that the didacticism doesn't lie in the book itself but in your reading of it. I don't consider it particularly didactic, and Niall appears to agree with me. Furthermore, your review rarely gave me the impression of wanting it to be less didactic - instead you are constantly railing against the book for telling you the wrong things, and rather than not telling you anything you seem to want it to tell you different things: that suicide is not cowardice, that rape is not motivated by beauty, that the person who suffers most in a murder is the victim.

Again, I think you're seeing things in the text that aren't there. For a start, I disagree that that

the way things are in the setting. The first two NPCs we meet, Macarde and Quail, most definitely

aren't

willing to risk everything to help or harm him. After that, most of the focus Frey draws isn't because of who he is but because of what he represents; to the Century Knights and society at large the killer of the prince who was the nation's sole heir, to Duke Grephen and his allies a threat to their conspiracy. The only people willing to risk anything for his sake (besides his crew) are Trinica Drecken and the Thades, all three of whom have solid motives for doing so.

what offended me most about Trinica wasn't the lack of sympathy in the text, it was the lack of *respect*. As Kyra points out, what's really offensive about the whole thing is the second line: "This mockery of his lover was his own doing. He had fashioned her, and she damned him by her existence." What is offensive about this line is not that Frey thinks that way but that the text really does provide strong evidence that he is *right* to think this way.

As I explained above, I don't think the text does provide strong evidence that he is right to think that way. Frey believes it, because he thinks everything is about him, but the reader hopefully has enough awareness of the real world to know that life doesn't work like that. I think part of the problem here is that Trinica is also a dysfunctional and psychologically damaged person, about which I shall go into more detail below.

1 & 2: (a) and (b) hold. But I'm not sure why you're taking offence? People find many reasons to attempt suicide, and it seems odd to take offence at somebody being psychologically vulnerable. (Tangent: The physiological changes brought on by pregnancy are well known to have an effect on mood, a brief google suggests that some people claim natal depression can cause an increased suicide risk while others claim there is a reduced suicide risk during pregnancy; I don't have the knowledge or inclination to properly search and evaluate the medical literature on the subject, but it's entirely possible Wooding didn't do his research properly either and happened across a study claiming an increased risk?). It's not as if the text suggests she was morally or intellectually justified in attempting to kill herself in that situation or for those motives, which is something I could support taking offence at. These are the interactions of two deeply dysfunctional people, and I see them presented as such.

3: (a) and (c) hold, but I think it's a considerable leap to go from "not challenged by the text" to "the canonical truth of the setting". To my mind, your wanting the text to explicitly challenge and condemn this belief of Frey's also counters your claim that you want the text to be less didactic as opposed to just differently didactic.

4: (a) and (c) hold, and it's possible that Trinica believes it as well. But it's only a canonical truth in the sense that certain characters in canon believe it, as with (3) I think there's a difference (at least in fiction) between not explicitly challenging or condemning a viewpoint and presenting it as a valid and objective ethical judgement.

5: Aristotle defined a tragic figure as someone whose misfortune is brought about by some error of judgement. So yes, I agree that Trinica is a tragic figure and that (a) and (b) hold. But I'm not sure what it is about Trinica being a tragic figure that you find offensive?

Whereas I do find it offensive that you characterise her nineteen year old self as a "china doll". We aren't given that much detail about her life at the time but we do know that she was a wealthy heiress and trained pilot capable of romancing Frey against her family's wishes, convincing Frey to say he'd marry despite his reluctance, and even after her suicide attempt and miscarriage able to steal some money and fly off alone in a small aircraft. Yes she was emotionally vulnerable enough to fall obsessively in love with Frey and attempt suicide when he left her standing pregnant at the altar, but to me the rest of that sounds fairly awesome, not particularly badly off and not particularly "china doll" like either.

Whereas she then spent years being raped and abused, stuck in a situation where she had to use her sexuality as a tool for survival and advancement and a culture where violence and murder are commonplace, then remaining in that culture while denying her sexuality and attempting to present herself as something undesirable. Laying aside the fact that despite the way it's glamorised by fiction and cultural mythology piracy is actually rather horrible, her position as a pirate captain may be capable but whether it's more independent than her early life is a position open to much debate. It's also a position in which I'd say that she possesses a lot more 'public agency' but a lot less 'personal agency', and one which I see as reinforcing and perpetuating the psychological damage she's suffered. So yes, I do think she is a great deal worse off.

A lot of the argument about what is and is not Frey's PoV seems to come down to the question of whether it is right that he "does not pity" Trinica.

I think that's in large part due to the choice of example paragraph!

"suicide is cowardly" is one of the most repugnant ideas to go unchallenged in popular opinion, and a text that repeats it without condemning it reinforces it.

I'd find it really intrusive to have an explicit condemnation, and I think the text does challenge it by showing that Trinica is most definitely not a coward.

To close, I just reread the last chapter of the book and noticed something I didn't before this discussion. When Trinica has Frey (and his crew) at her mercy she lets him go with the following dialogue, which I think stands by itself:

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http://ignisophis.livejournal.com/

at 20:44 on 2010-09-16Oops, missed a blockquote closure in my comment, hope the site admins can edit to make it a bit more readable?

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Arthur B

at 22:05 on 2010-09-16

To be clear, I don't consider Frey unreliable in his recounting of facts but I do consider him unreliable in the way he judges and presents those facts. Not due to explicit cues in the text, but by evaluating his judgements and presentations in relation to my own experiences of the real world, in the same way as Melissa suggests the audience is meant to pick up on aspects of "Lolita".

But doesn't this mean that you end up disagreeing with Frey's assessment of his world because you don't buy into his preconceptions and biases, whereas someone who did share his preconceptions would just find them reinforced?

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Niall

at 09:02 on 2010-09-17Arthur: possibly, but (a) I'd be willing to bet that there's no way to write about a character like Frey that a person like Frey wouldn't find a way to sympathise with, (b) Even if you could find a way to make this hypothetical person-Frey find character-Frey unsympathetic, I would imagine they'd just dislike the book rather than be challenged or changed by it, and (c) I don't think it's literature's job to be concerned with the reactions of a hypothetical person-Frey.

I expect to get some disagreement here on (c), and to an extent I'm going to immediately walk it back, because I think that what is missing from ignisophis' analysis -- while I am broadly more in agreement with his reading than Dan's -- is a sense of a structural argument. Trinica's psychological vulnerability isn't offensive just because it's there, it's offensive because there isn't a broad enough range of female characters in the novel for it to seem exceptional, and because there isn't a broad enough range of characters in the sf and fantasy genres for it to seem exceptional; that is, it plays into prevalent and damaging stereotypes.

I would prefer that stories not do that, he said, with heavy understatement. But that's because of how

react to it, not because of how I worry other people might react to it. I don't think it's sustainable, and I do fear that it's arrogant, to pronounce on the latter.

As I say, I agree with much of the rest of ignisophis' response to Dan's five points, particularly

I think it's a considerable leap to go from "not challenged by the text" to "the canonical truth of the setting"

. Absence of endorsement is not endorsement of absence, and as I've already said, I didn't feel shepherded towards one interpretation as Dan did. (In fact, where the female characters are concerned, I was more bothered by Jez than by Trinica (or Amalicia), pretty much because I didn't believe what I was told about Frey's exes -- to build on ignisophis' point, I think the "straightforwardness he'd previously found charming" is a clear hint that young Trinica was

not

precisely the delicate flower Frey imagines her to be -- whereas we get Jez's point of view.) At the same time,

Retribution Falls

is not a good enough book that I want to die in a ditch over it. Also, I'm now late for work. Oops.

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Arthur B

at 09:52 on 2010-09-17

Arthur: possibly, but (a) I'd be willing to bet that there's no way to write about a character like Frey that a person like Frey wouldn't find a way to sympathise with, (b) Even if you could find a way to make this hypothetical person-Frey find character-Frey unsympathetic, I would imagine they'd just dislike the book rather than be challenged or changed by it, and (c) I don't think it's literature's job to be concerned with the reactions of a hypothetical person-Frey.

Ah, but my problem with ignisophis's analysis isn't just it lets people who already agree with Frey off the hook, it also isn't especially helpful for people who already agree with Frey.

If this really is a book the reader has to resort to things that they already know and believe to cobble together an interpretation, which is what ignisophis appears to be saying, then the book isn't really bringing anything new to the table. It's not opening their eyes to another way of looking at the world because it's just asking them to resort to theirs, it's not putting forward any new ideas so much as throwing out facts for people to whip into shape using their own ideas, it's not communicating anything meaningful because the reader finds no meaning or message which they didn't already completely believe in when they picked the book up.

This is something which is, to borrow Dan's terms from the start of an article, alright if you're just talking about a low-investment romp but is troubling if it's something that gets shortlisted for an award. Major landmarks of the SF genre - or any genre, or fiction in general - need to do something more than just saying "Meh, I dunno guys, what do you think?"

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Niall

at 10:18 on 2010-09-17Philosophy-of-awards as well as philosophy-of-reading, eh? It's like you're deliberately

trying

to distract me from work... :-)

I was surprised to see

Retribution Falls

on the Clarke shortlist, I think a lot of people were surprised, there were plenty of books I would rather have seen shortlisted, and had it won, I would have been upset for pretty much the reasons you outline. That said, part of the reason I was surprised was that books like

Retribution Falls

-- by which I mean adventure novels -- just don't get shortlisted for the Clarke very often. And in principle, I would like a definition of "the best science fiction novel of the year" to be able to include really good adventure novels, which do after all make up the bulk of what gets published as sf. So there was an extent to which I was happy to see it on the shortlist, even though I think it's pretty disposable, because it represents an assertion that this sort of thing

can

be the best sf has to offer, and because when reading the six shortlisted books in quick succession, it was a change of pace.

I would be interested to know what people make of

The Fade

, Wooding's previous novel, which I read several years ago and much less attentively than I read

Retribution Falls

, but which I remember as significantly more interesting (and better) on some of the issues we've been discussing here. I'm also quite tempted, now, to pick up the RF sequel

Black Lung Captain

, just to see how things pan out...

Also:

Absence of endorsement is not endorsement of absence

That doesn't actually make any sense at all, does it? Just forget I typed it, stick with what ignisophis wrote.

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Niall

at 10:19 on 2010-09-17

really good adventure novels, which do after all make up the bulk of what gets published as sf.

That is, adventure novels make up the bulk of what's published as sf. Really good adventure novels, sadly, seem to be thin on the ground.

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Arthur B

at 11:14 on 2010-09-17

And in principle, I would like a definition of "the best science fiction novel of the year" to be able to include really good adventure novels, which do after all make up the bulk of what gets published as sf.

Oh, I think there are books that qualify as classics of the genre that basically boil down to being adventure novels - like anything Jack Vance ever wrote. But ideally your pure adventure novel should say "Hey, I'm a pure adventure novel, I'm not trying to say anything profound", which is at least a positive statement, rather than being an abstention from making any kind of statement at all.

(Of course Dan would argue that Redemption Falls doesn't abstain from making any kind of statement at all, but I'm not tackling that so much as I'm taking issue with ignisophis's stance that you can work out how the book is intended to come across by resorting to your own personal knowledge and preconceptions rather than anything in the text.)

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Melissa G.

at 17:53 on 2010-09-17

I'm taking issue with ignisophis's stance that you can work out how the book is intended to come across by resorting to your own personal knowledge and preconceptions rather than anything in the text.)

I see what you're saying here (I think). To bring it back to my original example of Lolita, the only people who will find Humbert Humbert offensive and creepy and wrong are the people who already think "pedophilia is bad". Any pedophile reading the book is likely to walk away thinking, "Yes, exactly, he totally gets it!" The smart, non-pedophile reader will vilify Humbert Humbert, whereas a creepy child-molesting reader is likely to vilify Lolita, that damn little cocktease.

The book does require people to come to it with the preconception of "pedophiles are creepy and wrong", and honestly most people do. Unfortunately for "Retribution Falls" (and I've not read it so I'm just going on what the article/comments have said), most people do not come to a sci-fi novel with a preconceived notion of feminism and an expectation of strong females characters because, as Niall said, it plays into "dangerous stereotypes". These tropes exist so strongly in SF/Fantasy that it's more difficult to assume that the reader will know not to take Frey's attitude as how we are meant to view the world. Granted, this gets into "assuming your reader is an idiot" which can be even more infuriating, but I think this might be what some people are taking issue with. Correct me if I'm wrong. :-)

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Sister Magpie

at 18:25 on 2010-09-17I don't want to weigh in on Retribution Falls since I haven't read it, but I remember Lolita as having a few moments where Nabakov seemed to make it clear that Humbert was wrong too. For instance, doesn't he get sick when he catches sight of Quilty watching Lolita innocently playing with a dog and obviously perving on her, as if he's looking at himself from the outside? And one thing I do remember is one passage where Humbert is describing their happy life together and almost accidentally talks about Lolita crying herself to sleep at night.

The book is mostly in his pov but iirc Nabakov had a real history of writing unreliable narrators so that became a central idea of the book. Pale Fire has a seemingly insane person writing notes on a poem, Despair (I think it was?) is a novel about a guy who finds his exact double...except only the narrator actually thinks they look alike. I'm not sure if this author has the same interest?

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Dan H

at 22:03 on 2010-09-17

I don't want to weigh in on Retribution Falls since I haven't read it, but I remember Lolita as having a few moments where Nabakov seemed to make it clear that Humbert was wrong too

Humbert Humbert is fairly unambiguously wrong in Lolita. This is what I really don't get about "viewpoint" arguments - it's entirely possible for a book to be written from the point of view of a character and still be critical of that point of view.

Heck, Retribution Falls does this with its other viewpoint characters. Crake's chapters are full of his comments about how awful and common everybody else is, but it is extraordinarily clear from the way the book is written that we are supposed to disagree with him.

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Dan H

at 23:28 on 2010-09-17

In this context I'm using 'sympathetic character' to mean 'a character in whose circumstances I could potentially see myself having similar reactions and making similar choices'.

Umm, then you're using a very weird definition of "sympathetic".

I *sympathized* with Humbert Humbert. I wouldn't marry a woman just so I could fuck her daughter.

To be clear, I don't consider Frey unreliable in his recounting of facts but I do consider him unreliable in the way he judges and presents those facts.

But his judgment of those facts is reinforced by the way other people behave and what other people say about him.

. The crucial error is his assumption that each step led inexorably to the next, as if his initial flight toppled the first in a line of dominoes.

Except that there is no evidence in the text that he is incorrect, and quite a lot of evidence in the text that he *is* correct.

My point is that the didacticism doesn't lie in the book itself but in your reading of it.

I think "didacticism" is actually the wrong word to use here. The book is *heavy handed*. It tells you very clearly and explicitly what to think about things. It's not a subtle text.

Again, I think you're seeing things in the text that aren't there ... The only people willing to risk anything for his sake (besides his crew) are Trinica Drecken and the Thades, all three of whom have solid motives for doing so.

But don't the crew, Trinica, and the Thades together represent all of the viewpoint characters and most of the incidental cast. Who's left to not give a damn about him, other than the Century Knights?

I really, really don't understand what you're saying here. You seem to be saying that because something is not true in real life, it should not matter if it is presented as being true in a book, because people will know it is not true in real life? That's *fairly clearly nonsense*.

Fiction, whatever fandom may believe, operates off a set of conventions which are not the conventions of reality. When a character reaches a conclusion as part of an arc which is *all about* their growing sense of personal responsibility and self-awareness, it is *ludicrous* to suggest that the conclusion is meant to be wrong.

Real life doesn't figure into it. I know that black people aren't subhuman monsters, does that mean that

On the Creation of Niggers

should not be interpreted as saying they are?

1 & 2: (a) and (b) hold. But I'm not sure why you're taking offence? People find many reasons to attempt suicide, and it seems odd to take offence at somebody being psychologically vulnerable.

It's offensive because it reduces Trinica to a commentary on Frey. It's offensive because it reinforces Frey's claim to have created Trinica which you've just insisted that the text doesn't reinforce. It's offensive because it contributes to the massive amounts textual evidence that Frey is actually basically right about both Trinica specifically, and about women in general.

If Frey wasn't a misogynist dickbag who believed women were fundamentally weak and needy, it wouldn't have been so much of a problem that the love of his life was fundamentally weak and needy. I might add that while people attempt suicide for a variety of reasons "in order to induce a miscarriage, in order to upset their ex boyfriend" is seldom one of them. Again it makes Trinica sound like a horrible, vicious, hysterical shrew and that's *not* Frey's viewpoint, that's what she's *actually like*.

I genuinely don't understand how your mind works here.

So Frey makes a statement: Trinica's suicide attempt was an act of cowardice. This statement is presented as part of his emotional development, and is reinforced time and again in the narration.

What you seem to be doing is letting your preconceptions from outside the text colour your ability to see what is *actually there*. Frey's beliefs are never challenged, therefore they are facts within the context of the text. That is how fiction works.

No. There isn't.

What the characters in a text believe is what is true in that text, unless there is some other evidence *within* the text that the characters are mistaken.

The Chronicles of Narnia are not about a world where superstitious people mistakenly worship a lion. Star Wars is not about a group of terrorists attacking the legitimate government of the galaxy. Twenty-Four is not a scathing attack on the War on Terror. Harry Potter is not about a manipulative headmaster tricking a selfish idiot-boy into killing himself.

That is not how fiction *works*.

Broadly speaking, what I find offensive is the fact that she's a woman in a refrigerator.

Whereas I do find it offensive that you characterise her nineteen year old self as a "china doll".

Since every single piece of imagery we get of her nineteen year old self is one of fragility and vulnerability, I stand by my phrase.

All of which are infuriating, offensive stereotypes.

The notion that women can only get on in the world by "using their sexuality" (whatever the hell that means) is a myth which fits in *exactly* with Frey's brand of misogynist bullshit. Notice we're never actually told how Trinica got to be captain, only that she "used her sexuality" and of course because she's a WOMAN and therefore has MAGIC WOMAN POWERS that's enough. Because apparently a group of people who will happily rape the shit out of you will also be totally awed by the mystery of your womanhood.

Trinica's entire backstory is founded on rape myths and misogynist bullshit. It is *impossible for her to exist* in a world in which a bunch of offensive, apologist bullshit about rape, sexuality and sexual power are not canonically true.

I'd find it really intrusive to have an explicit condemnation, and I think the text does challenge it by showing that Trinica is most definitely not a coward.

When?

Trinica is totally a coward. She's weak, pathetic and trapped. Hell you say as much yourself when you talk about how much worse off she is now than when she was an heiress. She's totally broken by everything that happens to her and transparently has nothing left to live for. She does dangerous shit, but that's because she's effectively dead already.

You don't think maybe that was just a cheap cop-out to avoid having yet *another* improbable escape?

Whatever she says (after all, aren't you the one who insists that what characters say can't be taken at face value) her *entire life* still revolves around Frey. Her *entire purpose* in the book is to provide Frey with something to angst about.

She's an awful, stereotypical, insulting character.

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Niall

at 09:50 on 2010-09-18

Crake's chapters are full of his comments about how awful and common everybody else is, but it is extraordinarily clear from the way the book is written that we are supposed to disagree with him.

Can you pin down what the difference is? Ideally, I guess, with examples, which specific sentences you think make clear we're meant to disagree with Crake, the ones that are missing from Frey's chapters. I feel like we're getting a bit lost in the generalities, at this point.

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Alasdair Czyrnyj

at 01:04 on 2011-06-18Well, I've started on Dan's old copy of this book (Thanks again for shipping it to me!), and right now I'm in broad agreement with his assessment of Capt. Cockspank. I've read stuff that's worse than this (I'm looking at you, Stephen Hunt and George Mann), and I give Wooding credit for avoiding the creepy ultraviolence those guys like to delve into, but RF is really a shallow book. I've haven't run into Trinica yet, but I've got past Frey's encounter with Amalicia at the convent, and that whole sequence was pretty sophomoric.

Actually, this whole thing has started me wondering about how George Macdonald Fraser managed to make Flashman as much of a pig as Frey and still be a fun character to read about. Right now I'm juggling between Flashman's self-awareness, the fact that his transgressions always come back to bite him in the ass, and the simple fact that he's actually funny and has a brain or two in his head.

(On a side note, the story has me wondering yet again how vulnerable the "air pirate" pseudosubsubgenre is to technological progress. Most of the stuff I've seen never seems to stray much beyond the 1920s and 1930s tech-wise, so I'm wondering if this is a fantasy realm that can't survive in an era of radar, missiles, and jet engines. Hey, I'm a child of alternate history. This is how we think, dammit!)

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https://me.yahoo.com/a/0txE6GYMzdiwjPOqDTwLdeHMvOdijS5Jm1c-#9995a

at 05:52 on 2011-06-18

On a side note, the story has me wondering yet again how vulnerable the "air pirate" pseudosubsubgenre is to technological progress. Most of the stuff I've seen never seems to stray much beyond the 1920s and 1930s tech-wise, so I'm wondering if this is a fantasy realm that can't survive in an era of radar, missiles, and jet engines.

It's probably possible, but you'd run the risk of jumping straight from "air pirates" to "space pirates" toting lasers that can vaporise half a mile of woodland countryside in the blink of an eye.

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https://me.yahoo.com/a/0txE6GYMzdiwjPOqDTwLdeHMvOdijS5Jm1c-#9995a

at 10:34 on 2011-06-18

It's probably possible

I meant to put in "to write a novel featuring air pirates in a modernistic setting" right after that. Sorry, bit of an oversight on my behalf.

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https://profiles.google.com/Iaculoid

at 12:38 on 2011-06-18You could probably take some cues from modern pirates, like the ones operating off the coast of Somalia. Our hypothetical air pirates would probably fly fast, stealthy, and heavily-customised craft up-gunned from civilian marques and 'liberated' from their country's collapsed military, forcing down every cargo plane and airliner that enters their airspace and ransoming off their crew and payloads to the parent countries.

All you'd need is a slight advance in aircraft technology and its general commercial availability, as a matter of fact.

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Arthur B

at 13:57 on 2011-06-18

All you'd need is a slight advance in aircraft technology and its general commercial availability, as a matter of fact.

Perhaps not even that. Posit a Cold War era proxy war in which the US or Soviets armed one side with an air force... let the proxy war (and the superpower funding) die off with the end of the Cold War, and have all of these planes sat there with nobody especially keen on asking for them back (because that'd mean admitting the superpower's level of involvement in the war) and no effectual government to take charge of them. Throw in a bunch of fighter pilots owed a heap of back pay and with families to clothe and feed and protect in the anarchy that the war has left behind.

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https://profiles.google.com/Iaculoid

at 16:46 on 2011-06-18Indeed so. You'd even see several piratical conventions return with the aid of modern technology, like flying under false colours. Instead of, say, baiting in pirates with a lumbering freighter hiding a company of heavily-armed marines on board, you'd see stuff like military fighters using radar-reflectors to disguise themselves as juicy, tempting commercial aircraft.

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Alasdair Czyrnyj

at 01:11 on 2011-06-21Wow, you guys are all way more creative about modern air piracy that I am. I've toyed with the idea once or twice, but I just ended up decided that the precision machinery/know-how needed to keep modern planes going would be too much for a pirate outfit to afford. (Then again, I've rarely wondered about where airship pirates get their hydrogen/hydrogen knockoff, so maybe I'm being too close-minded here.)

Anyway, I've finished the book, and I've got to agree with the general consensus. I personally found that Frey's arc essentially read as a transition from a self-centered asshole to a self-promoting asshole (a.k.a. The Kirk09 Character Arc). I personally found Jez the most interesting character, though I felt she needed a meatier role (perhaps in a better book than the one she got stuck in).

One thing really irked me though, and it's something I haven't seen any other reviewers pick up on: the pilot Harkins. In the one chapter where he gets to be a viewpoint character, his interior monologue makes it clear that he's suffering from a pretty severe form of PTSD. And yet, his main purpose in the book is to be mocked for his "cowardice."

Not cool at all.

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https://profiles.google.com/Iaculoid

at 22:25 on 2011-06-21Yeah, I think that if you're disputing modern air-pirate concepts on grounds of realism (particularly Arthur's very down-to-earth redundant-pilots scenario), then you probably need to ask yourself some serious questions about why there weren't vast fleets of corsair zeppelins floating above London in the '20s.

In fact, I'd say that some old Cold War-surplus jets in a camouflaged airbase actually seem easier to operate than some fancy pirate airship. Could be wrong, though - my experience with airships is... less than exhaustive.

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http://ruderetum.blogspot.com/

at 09:03 on 2011-06-22I would think it is a question of familiarity. Airships have that air of classy obsoleteness about them, everybody knows they're not very practical as weapons of war and perhaps that whole slow ballooniousness makes them seem easier to supply and operate. Jet fighters on the other hand are well known as deadly and hugely expensive machines which require the financial capabilities of a nation state or a huge corporation to keep in the air. You also get the feeling that even if an airship has its problems, if it is filled and operational, it's quite autonomous; for example zeppelins flew to South America and back on a pleasure cruise. So a rogue airship, if it was armoured or whatever, could supply itself from the country side or land for a stop in different places, whereas a fighter needs a separate ground crew and all those facilities to remain operational from one day to the next.

So, airships could be more mobile basewise and thus it adds to the romance?

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Vermisvere

at 09:45 on 2011-06-22Perhaps the airship could serve as a mobile base and lift-off point for the jet fighters - sort of like a modern-day aircraft carrier, only airborne. Throw in some anti-aicraft turrets to be manned by the crew against hostile jets and airships and you've more or less got your pirate airship of the future.

In short, a militarised version of

this

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https://profiles.google.com/Iaculoid

at 14:18 on 2011-06-22Well, that'd certainly deal with the problem of having fixed, vulnerable airstrips on the ground for the military to demolish (though they'd best hope it's capable of landing planes of any size, or they'll still need somewhere to force their captives down onto). Plus it would serve as a convenient shorthand for 'hey, aircraft technology is really cheap and easy to use now!'.

Depends on how high-tech you want your air-pirates to be, I guess. Either daring, desperate wash-outs on a shoestring budget, or organised, brutally efficient criminals who are practically running a major corporate enterprise.

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http://ruderetum.blogspot.com/

at 14:21 on 2011-06-22Or an upgrade on

this

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Steve Stirling at 05:18 on 2011-07-13

I'm going to start by pointing out that having one female character out of seven is the worst possible option. Zero out of seven, and you have a setting in which women don't fly airships, which is absolutely fine. Put in exactly one, and you suddenly have a society where women are apparently perfectly accepted on the setting equivalent of the Spanish Main, but never the less you've only got one in your crew. Zero is a better number than one in this situation is all I'm saying.

-- not saying the book is good on male-female relations, but this bit is pretty accurate with respect to much of history. In other words, there -were- women pirates on the Spanish Main. Not many, but they existed, both in male disguise or 'disguise' and, still more rarely, as women.

And there was a well-known woman who became a captain in the Russian cavalry during the Napoleonic Wars, and was allowed to stay on by special order of the Czar after she was 'found out'.

The usual attitude was, inconsistently:

a) "everyone knows" that women are too weak, fragile and vulnerable to do this (for various values of 'this'), but;

b) Cynthia/Alice/Whoever is a good troop and we don't tell the Captain about her because she's hauling her weight and we need her, and besides she'd kill anyone who blabbed, like she did Frank.

In other words, women were present, but rarely; they weren't accepted, but could occasionally push their way in, with guile, luck, great ability and incredible determination.

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Michal

at 06:10 on 2011-07-13There's only one thing I thought when I saw that cover:

Airship Pirate!

#Ferretbrain #Retribution Falls #Chris Wooding #Minority Warrior #Dan H

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