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qqueenofhades · 3 years

Note

Hi. You made a post a couple of days ago about how queer historical fiction doesnt need to be defined only by homophobia. Can you expand on that a bit maybe? Because it seems interesting and important, but I'm a little confused as to whether that is responsible to the past and showing how things have changed over time. Anyway this probably isn't very clear, but I hope its not insulting. Have a good day :)

Hiya. I assume you're referring to this post, yes? I think the main parameters of my argument were set out pretty clearly there, but sure, I'm happy to expand on it. Because I'm a little curious as to why you think that writing a queer narrative (especially a queer fictional narrative) that doesn't make much reference to or even incorporate explicit homophobia is (implicitly) not being "responsible to the past." I've certainly made several posts on this topic before, but as ever, my thoughts and research materials change over time. So, okay.

(Note: I am a professional historian with a PhD, a book contract for an academic monograph on medieval/early modern queer history, and soon-to-be-several peer-reviewed publications on medieval queer history. In other words, I'm not just talking out of my ass here.)

As I noted in that post, first of all, the growing emphasis on "accuracy" in historical fiction and historically based media is... a mixed bag. Not least because it only seems to be applied in the Game of Thrones fashion, where the only "accurate" history is that which is misogynistic, bloody, filthy, rampantly intolerant of competing beliefs, and has no room for women, people of color, sexual minorities, or anyone else who has become subject to hot-button social discourse today. (I wrote a critical post awhile ago about the Netflix show Cursed, ripping into it for even trying to pretend that a show based on the Arthurian legends was "historically accurate" and for doing so in the most simplistic and reductive way possible.) This says far more about our own ideas of the past, rather than what it was actually like, but oh boy will you get pushback if you try to question that basic premise. As other people have noted, you can mix up the archaeological/social/linguistic/cultural/material stuff all you like, but the instant you challenge the ingrained social ideas about The Bad Medieval Era, cue the screaming.

I've been a longtime ASOIAF fan, but I do genuinely deplore the effect that it (and the show, which was by far the worst offender) has had on popular culture and widespread perceptions of medieval history. When it comes to queer history specifically, we actually do not know that much, either positive or negative, about how ordinary medieval people regarded these individuals, proto-communities, and practices. Where we do have evidence that isn't just clerical moralists fulminating against sodomy (and trying to extrapolate a society-wide attitude toward homosexuality from those sources is exactly like reading extreme right-wing anti-gay preachers today and basing your conclusions about queer life in 2021 only on those), it is genuinely mixed and contradictory. See this discussion post I likewise wrote a while ago. Queerness, queer behavior, queer-behaving individuals have always existed in history, and labeling them "queer" is only an analytical conceit that represents their strangeness to us here in the 21st century, when these categories of exclusion and difference have been stringently constructed and applied, in a way that is very far from what supposedly "always" existed in the past.

Basically, we need to get rid of the idea that there was only one empirical and factual past, and that historians are "rewriting" or "changing" or "misrepresenting" it when they produce narratives that challenge hegemonic perspectives. This is why producing good historical analysis is a skill that takes genuine training (and why it's so undervalued in a late-capitalist society that would prefer you did anything but reflect on the past). As I also said in the post to which you refer, "homophobia" as a structural conceit can't exist prior to its invention as an analytical term, if we're treating queerness as some kind of modern aberration that can't be reliably talked about until "homosexual" gained currency in the late 19th century. If there's no pre-19th century "homosexuality," then ipso facto, there can be no pre-19th-century "homophobia" either. Which one is it? Spoiler alert: there are still both things, because people are people, but just as the behavior itself is complicated in the premodern past, so too is the reaction to it, and it is certainly not automatic rejection at all times.

Hence when it comes to fiction, queer authors have no responsibility (and in my case, certainly no desire) to uncritically replicate (demonstrably false!) narratives insisting that we were always miserable, oppressed, ostracised, murdered, or simply forgotten about in the premodern world. Queer characters, especially historical queer characters, do not have to constantly function as a political mouthpiece for us to claim that things are so much better today (true in some cases, not at all in the others) and that modernity "automatically" evolved to a more "enlightened" stance (definitely not true). As we have seen with the recent resurgence of fascism, authoritarianism, nationalism, and xenophobia around the world, along with the desperate battle by the right wing to re-litigate abortion, gay rights, etc., social attitudes do not form in a vacuum and do not just automatically become more progressive. They move backward, forward, and side to side, depending on the needs of the societies that produce them, and periods of instability, violence, sickness, and poverty lead to more regressive and hardline attitudes, as people act out of fear and insularity. It is a bad human habit that we have not been able to break over thousands of years, but "[social] things in the past were Bad but now have become Good" just... isn't true.

After all, nobody feels the need to constantly add subtextual disclaimers or "don't worry, I personally don't support this attitude/action" implied authorial notes in modern romances, despite the cornucopia of social problems we have today, and despite the complicated attitude of the modern world toward LGBTQ people. If an author's only reason for including "period typical homophobia" (and as we've discussed, there's no such thing before the 19th century) is that they think it should be there, that is an attitude that needs to be challenged and examined more closely. We are not obliged to only produce works that represent a downtrodden past, even if the end message is triumphal. It's the same way we got so tired of rape scenes being used to make a female character "stronger." Just because those things existed (and do exist!), doesn't mean you have to submit every single character to those humiliations in some twisted name of accuracy.

Yes, as I have always said, prejudices have existed throughout history, sometimes violently so. But that is not the whole story, and writing things that center only on the imagined or perceived oppression is not, at this point, accurate OR helpful. Once again, I note that this is specifically talking about fiction. If real-life queer people are writing about their own experiences, which are oftentimes complex, that's not a question of "representation," it's a question of factual memoir and personal history. You can't attack someone for being "problematic" when they are writing about their own lived experience, which is something a younger generation of queer people doesn't really seem to get. They also often don't realise how drastically things have changed even in my own lifetime, per the tags on my reblog about Brokeback Mountain, and especially in media/TV.

However, if you are writing fiction about queer people, especially pre-20th century queer people, and you feel like you have to make them miserable just to be "responsible to the past," I would kindly suggest that is not actually true at all, and feeds into a dangerous narrative that suggests everything "back then" was bad and now it's fine. There are more stories to tell than just suffering, queer characters do not have to exist solely as a corollary for (inaccurate) political/social commentary on the premodern past, and they can and should be depicted as living their lives relatively how they wanted to, despite the expected difficulties and roadblocks. That is just as accurate, if sometimes not more so, than "they suffered, the end," and it's something that we all need to be more willing to embrace.

#history #medieval history #queer history #meta #long post #anonymous #ask

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courtlyharlequin · 4 years

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Hey!! I was wondering if i can have a candied rose frappuccino with floyd please. Thanks 😊

Sugar Addict

Warning(s): mild spice, lowkey spicy ending

A/N: I went feral. What is plot? I ended up writing more than expected. Also, I was too lazy to proofread so I apologize for my horrible grammar. Feel free to correct me! I should probably get a beta reader...

Context: This is an AU. Yes, a coffeeshop AU, but some things are different. These characters are aged up and NRC is actually a college.

It was unexplainable, this feeling. Twilight. The sun was setting. Traffic ensued streets as people poured out of work and into their vehicles, all with one destination: home. But for you, home was the last place you wanted to go. You were a student who did not need to fret over something like a job. You had the convenience of asking for a ride or traveling by foot to reach local destinations not far from your oh so prestigious school. At this moment, at twilight, you were experiencing the convenience of the latter. Well, a normal person would not call it a convenience. These days made taking a stroll an absurd pastime. But right now, it was both a convenience and a pastime. The roads were clogged by a massive sea of cars. Your nose crinkled at the stench of gasoline. Choosing to traverse by foot was more pragmatic. You were in a rush as well. Your destination might close any minute now!

From the inside of any of the vehicles on the street, you were akin to a hooligan. A scrambling, mad hooligan. Not only were you running in the opposite direction of where these cars were going, you were also running as your life depended on it. Therefore, you were a crazy person who was running into the city suburbs at a somewhat late hour rather than going home. Mothers in said vehicles shook their heads in dismay, praying their children were safe at home. But, you could not care any less. Night Raven College’s headmaster was very lenient on curfews and was susceptible to bribery if all else fails. But to be fair, your destination was not something to be frowned upon. It was something to laugh at, really. The place you were so desperate to get to was none other than a café.

More specifically, Café Rosé . Cheesy, chessy, yes, you were aware. The café was notorious for their supposed love potion of a latte, but you weren’t coming for that. You wanted to try their Candied Rose Frappuccino. You were a lover of all sweets; You could never live with yourself if you didn’t try it. Of course, this coffee shop was not going anywhere nor was this beverage a limited one. You simply were in the mood for it. It was craving, a whim, a last minute decision.

You sighed heavily, leaning against the café’s exterior walls. With one deep breath, you pushed the rose-tinted glass door open. The chime signaled your entrance. You braced yourself for a barista to question your hazed, flushed state… but it never came. Still heaving, you scanned the shop. You made your way to the counter to check for employees in the back room.

Thud!

“Hey, Shrimpy! Café’s closed,” a voice glowered.

You spun your heel, making eye contact with a barista with a disheveled appearance– his aquamarine hair was slightly unkempt, his tie was unraveled and dangled loosely around his neck, dress shirt unbuttoned down to the point where his collar bone was exposed with his sleeves rolled up which furthermore accentuated his lean yet muscular figure. It was all too much to take in. He put his weight onto the nearest table. Ah, the thud came from a chair he just stacked… but nevermind that-!! The moment he moved into that position, he exposed a bit of his cleavage. Hot damn he might be lean at first glance, but he was built like a Greek god. This should be illegal! A barista should not be dressing– let alone be looking– like that. Everyone would suffer from a cardiac arrest from such a heartthrob! You quickly averted your attention to the café’s schedule.

“The business hours sign says you guys close at seven. It’s six fifty-two right now,” you said, holding up your phone.

“Close enough. Get lost.”

He walked over to you suavely, leaning over you and against the door frame to flip the open-closed sign over so that it’s closed side faced the streets. It was meant to be a gesture of mockery and intimidation, but holy hell… you were flustered more than anything. He was tall from afar but up close he was huge!! You even got a better look at his chest. Well defined, if you don’t say so yourself. Wait–

You shoved him back, “Not even for a to-go order?”

“Nope. Don’t feel like it.”

“But you’re not closed yet!”

“But I don’t wanna,” he whined.

“Why?”

“What?”

“I asked you ‘why’?”

“Can’t you just come back tomorrow and let me call it a day? I’m tired.”

“That’s not an excuse.”

“I ran all the way here just to get something–”

“Should’ve done it earlier,” he shrugged, returning to his chore.

“Okay. Fine. Is there anyone else here to serve me? Since you’re too ‘tired’?”

“Sorry, Shrimpy, but they all went home.”

“Ugh! Don’t call me something that makes us seem so familiar. I’m not that short anyway...” you huffed.

He snickered, walking behind the register, “Alright then, Shr-im-p-y~! What would you like to order that you just had to come in at the last minute today?”

While you were relieved he gave into serving you a drink, the way he enunciated your unwanted nickname was irksome.

“I’ll have one Candied Rose Frappuccino.”

“Oh thank god it isn’t that latte.”

“You mean the Rosé Latte?”

“Mhm,” he hummed, loudly tapping on the cash register, “Everyone has been flocking here and only ordering that. I’m so tired of making the same order everyday.”

“Sorry, I’m not into hot beverages. Just a person who likes sweets.”

“Cute,” he cooed, handing you your receipt.

You watched as he messily wrote “Shrimpy” onto your cup.

“Can I get your name?” you asked.

“My name?”

“Yeah.”

“What for?”

“Somehow you’re slowly becoming my favorite barista.”

Partially a lie, partially the truth. He was your favorite because he was so fine. You only wanted his name in case you ever decided to write a review on your bitter first meeting with him or if you came across the manager. Petty, yes, but it annoyed you that much.

“Floyd, Floyd Leech,” he grinned.

You checked the receipt and sat down at the barstools in front of the barista’s worktable, watching him intently as he began to work on your order. Well, half your attention was actually on his hand movements. Your mind was having an internal battle about how shameful you were to fantasize about his back muscles, mentally undressing him. The fact that there were only you two in the coffeehouse did not help either. The silence, at its surface, was calming, but, at its core, it was awkward. With the occasional clinks of utensils and the sound of coffee being brewed and blended into a frappuccino, the lack of noise left your mind to wander.

“Just because he’s good looking does not make up for the fact that he was rude,” you chided yourself.

Floyd cocked his head: “Hey. What are you staring at?”

He looked behind him as if there was actually something of interest. You saw your drink in his hand. He held it close to his chest, withholding it, waiting for your answer.

“Oh? Um.. nothing? I was just zoning out. I’m tired from running all the way here.”

“Shrimpy’s no fun,” he pouted.

“My name is (y/n), not Shrimpy.”

“You’re short, jumpy, and huggable like a shrimp~”

“I am not that short!”

“Oh-!!! You remind me of Goldfish. You both get so mad for some reason,” he laughed.

“Listen here–”

The barista took a swig of your order. He didn’t take the dome-shaped lid out. He didn’t even drink it with a straw. He just… straight up… put his lips on the lid and drank the contents from the rim. You halted your rant, appalled by his audacity.

“You talk too much, Shrimpy.”

In this total silence, someone, if there were someone here, would have heard your sanity and patience snapped.

“Listen here, Floyd Leech. That was awfully rude of you. Actually, from the beginning, you were so rude! From getting into my personal bubble to calling me names when I told you to stop. And now you drink my order? And right in front of me too?! So, so, rude-!!! I just–”

“Wow. What an expansive vocabulary you have,” he glared, twiddling with the collar of his shirt and somehow exposing more of his collarbone.

You leaned over the counter, reaching for your beverage, heat traveling up your cheeks, “I’m not done yet! Just because you’re hot does not mean you can dress like that and automatically get a free pass to do these things! Do you have any idea how distracting that was?? Now–wHAAA!!”

You pounced at him. Your toes hung on the edge of the barstool, your left arm wrapped around Floyd’s neck, and your right arm stretched out in an attempt to reach the drink in Floyd’s hand. Much to your annoyance, he raised it higher than you could ever hope to reach. If he took anymore steps back, you would most likely flop onto the barista’s side of the table face-first. With the drink in his left hand, his weight (and yours) was shifted onto his right arm which conveniently propped itself against the countertop behind him. You wondered what people on the road thought when they saw what was going on inside the café.

It was early evening with a decent amount of cars on the street before the storefront. Nearly twenty minutes since you came into the café and here you are– without your order, curfew approaching steadily, and no sign of getting your frappuccino anytime soon. Instead, you were sprawled across the counter, a test of your flexibility and modesty.

“I didn’t really think Shrimpy was this bold, this naughty,” Floyd chuckled.

Ah shit. Your anger got the best of you. Your verbal filter was removed and all of your thoughts slipped past your conscious and common sense. His sly grin did not help at all. Your close proximity enhanced your blush. The way you clung onto him caused his shirt to slide off his left shoulder and with the position you were in, you had a front seat to all his glory. What a sticky wicket this was.

“I just wanted something sweet to drink,” you panted, fisting his shirt in your petite palms, frustration washing over you.

You were on the verge of tears. Floyd sighed, lowering the cup just a bit, and took a few steps back as he carefully let you slide onto the barista’s side of the counter. However, your beverage was still out of reach.

“You’re such a snowflake,” he mumbled.

You clung to him, still, using him as leverage to reach your order, “Am not. This wouldn’t have happened if you just let me have my coffee!”

“You mean this hell of a sugary confection??”

“Yes? I mean I wouldn’t know because I haven’t even tried it yet,” you grunted, jumping at it like a fish trying to catch the bait.

“Oi, (y/n), can I kiss you?”

That was the first time he used your actual name instead of “Shrimpy” ever since you met. You would rejoice, but the following words were out of the question. His tone made it sound more like a demand than a request of consent.

“Excuse me?!”

“You wanted to try the drink right?”

“Yes, but it’s right there in your hand! So if you would just let me have it, I’ll stop annoying you!”

“The taste is lingering in my mouth. It’s so sweet. I wanna get rid of it…”

“Get some water.”

He squeezed his right arm around your waist, bringing you closer to his face, “But I want to kiss you~!”

“Well, since you drank out of it, if you let me have it, then we can have an indirect kiss!”

The temperature of the coffee shop was just unbearable at this point. And worst of all, this was self-inflicted. You didn’t have to tolerate him. Frankly, you should have left the moment he told you the café was “closed”. You didn’t have to pounce on him and end up in this painstakingly uncomfortable position either. Moreover, you were sweating from embarrassment from your suggestion. An indirect kiss! That was such a childish thing to fret about and here you were, regretting your own words.

“That’s no fun,” Floyd said, taking another sip of your frappuccino.

“Hey–mmpff!!”

Despite how he manhandled you thus far, he kissed you very tenderly. His lips were soft, warm even. As much as you wanted to push him back and scold him for taking away something as precious as your first kiss, you couldn't. Everything just… felt right. Your grip on his shirt loosened. Before, you held them in your palms in anger, a way of intimidation, a sign to show him that you weren’t going to back down even if he was teasing you with no mercy. But now, you held Floyd’s collar to close the space between you two. You were this close to each other, but it wasn’t close enough.

You gasped as he nibbled your lip. Floyd took it upon himself to invite his tongue over to your wet cavern. A sugary substance flooded your taste buds. Ah… he never swallowed your drink.... Not that it mattered. You gulped it in one breath, continuing on with your tango of tongues. If Floyd wasn’t supporting your waist, you might’ve melted away into this temporary bliss. You momentarily broke away from him to catch your breath. The distance between you two was barely five centimeters. He growled lowly, taking two steps forward, pushing you towards the bar. He smashed his lips against yours, a clear sign for you not to do that again. A fire lit in his eyes. Floyd hungrily bit your bottom lip, earning a whimper in response. Without breaking away from your mouth, only turning his head to take you at a different angle, he hoisted you up and set you and the beverage down on the countertop. Now, with both hands free, he cupped your cheeks. You responded by wrapping your legs around his waist and grabbing his wrists, drawing away his hands.

“W-Wait…” you exhaled.

“...did you not like that?” he cocked his head.

“No... No… I liked it… I liked it a lot… I just… S-Slow down…”

Floyd reached for the ends of your hair, twirling with the strand, “Take your time…”

Perhaps it was purely the heat of the moment or lust, but you judged him too soon. In this brief period of time, he was being considerate of you. He traced your figure with his eyes, grinning from ear to ear at your bruised lips, bright pink from the dozens of kisses he gave you. You were just as disheveled as he was.

“...More..”

“You sure?”

“I’m thirsty,” you pouted.

Floyd let out a chortle before sipping your coffee, “Alright, then Shrimpy.”

You prepared yourself for yet another rough session. Before he took your lips, he smoothed back his hair, revealing his forehead. The gesture caught you off guard thus you stiffened as he brushed his lips against yours. By gods, it was as if he wasn't even trying to be provocative. Was it possible for someone to be this seductive without actual effort? At this rate, you were going to miss curfew..

“Floyd…” you moaned, intertwining your fingers with his as he pushed you down onto the counter.

“I’ll be gentle, don’t worry...”

“Floyd… No… T-There’s people watching-!!!”

“So?”

“Does that not bother you?!”

“Not when they’ll know you’re mine~”

You sat up, “I’m a bit too shy for that. A-And I would like for my first time to be private…”

You left the last part trail off in embarrassment, fiddling with his necktie which somehow managed to stay on his person despite everything that just happened.

“Oh? Is Shrimpy a virgin?” he teased.

“So what if I am?!”

“Nothing. Just thought a cute Night Raven College girl like you wouldn’t be since you were really good~”

He earned himself a playful smack on the shoulder to which he responded with a sarcastically scoff. This was so unfair...

“How did you know that I went there?”

“Hmm must be because of the shirt you’re wearing underneath that hoodie,” he said, feigning innocence.

Oh. He’s the perceptive type. You didn’t think much of his ministrations (other than them being tantalizing). It seemed that he took note of every detail about you. At this point, you were crimson as a tomato.

“Also, because I go there as well,” he snickered.

You smacked his shoulder once more.

“I’ve never seen you before.”

“Different years, probably.”

“Maybe..”

“Also, I’m always stuck at the Mostro Lounge so you can find me there,” he winked.

“Ahhh! Stop doing that!”

“Doing what?”

“Giving me two answers and mixed signals.”

Floyd tilted your head upwards and pecked your lips, holding you as if you were a figure of glass: “What about this is mixed?”

“You were terribly rude before… and you probably just want someone to bed with for the night,” you puffed your cheeks.

How your body was betraying you… Your legs were still wrapped around his waist and the fervor was not going to dissipate anytime soon.

“I’ll have you know that I’ve had my eyes on you for a long time, (y/n).”

He raised your hand and pressed a chaste kiss on each individual knuckle.

Oh god. Your heart couldn’t bear it anymore. The way your name rolled off the tip of his tongue made honey taste like summer– hot, overwhelming, but still something to look forward to.

“Since when?” you exhaled.

“Since your first visit to the Lounge.”

He switched to your other hand, continuing the ritual.

“I’ve only been there once.”

“You were such a cute Shrimpy that I couldn’t forget about you~”

“That can’t be right–”

“You just have to accept it!”

“It doesn’t make up for how you treated me before.”

He placed your hands on his cheek, “Sorry, Shrimpy. The scent you released was too irresistible.”

Instinctively, you sniffed your clothes, “I don’t smell anything.”

“It might be just an eel thing*, then. But just so you know, I’ve been trying to find you for a while now. I’m so happy that I did. You’re mine now, Shrimpy. Your smell is intoxicating,” he cooed, leaning closer to your ear, “It makes me go feral~”

You squealed at his sudden remark, unable to regain your composure. Your words melted into gibberish and murmurs as you buried your face into his chest once more.

“You’re such a creep,” you whined.

“You don’t mean that~”

“I don’t…”

“We should get going before curfew though. Help me clean up, will ya?”

“Okay.”

Floyd planted a kiss on your forehead, “Thank you, Shrimpy.”

That nickname wasn’t as obnoxious as it was before, huh.

“I’ll reward you once we get to my room,” he snickered over his shoulder as he left for the back room.

Wait– WHAT?!?!?

“H-Hold on-!!”

“Relax, Shrimpy, ’m not gonna do anything to you… not yet, anyway. I’m just sayin’ in case we don’t make it before curfew. Azul needs me for Mostro Lounge tomorrow, he has no choice, but to let me in. If anyone can convince the headmaster, it’s probably him,” he gave you a thumbs up.

“Good to know. But… I’ve been meaning to ask about Mostro Lounge and this café. If you work for Azul then why work here too?”

“He doesn’t pay me. I’m just helping out of obligation.”

“What? How come?”

“He’s my friend?”

“You sound unsure.”

“You made it sound like I’m gullible,” he laughed, stacking the last of the chairs.

“Well? Shall we go, Shrimpy?”

You took his hand without hesitation. This feeling– it was addicting. You only knew him for a less than a day, but it felt right. It felt meant to be... as if you were soulmates.

Bonus:

“Oya? Floyd, what happened to your back? There’s scratches all over it. Are you alright?”

“ s’nothin’, Jade. I just… had a fun night~”

“Please. You and (y/n) were so loud. Please reserve those kinds of activities for somewhere more private– not a dormitory with thin walls,” Azul chided.

His brother’s eyes widened, but he didn’t question it any further. Jade curtly closed his gym locker and headed out towards the field.

Azul followed in suit with a huff.

* Note: Female moray eels release an odor in order to attract males to mate with them

#twisted wonderland #twst #twisted wonderland imagines #twst imagines #twisted wonderland oneshot #twst oneshot #twisted wonderland x reader #twst x reader #floyd leech x reader #event fic #cafe rose event #mild spice #god help me

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fe-semi-decent-scenarios · 4 years

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How do the BL students cope with missing their s/o? (like they're on a mission or something and won't be back for a long time) Bonus points for including how they react to seeing them again lol. Congrats on the big 100 btw

[Thank you! This is a little late but I was amazed to see so many people reading these posts.I’m pretty proud of this one.I wrote this as a ‘first time they’re apart’ kind of scenario. Hope it is to your liking! :3]

Dimitri:

Karma really does bite, and boy does it do so hard

More often than not it is Dimitri leaving you behind for missions. Being the leader of the Lions meant that he was stationed at almost every important battle. Sometimes you’d join, and others the professor would decide to have someone else take up arms. No biggie, you know? He never complained since it guaranteed your safety.

He didn’t even think of the possibility of a role reversal. One where you’d be sent out while he’s left behind. Up until now he was always by your side, but Manuela knew his limits better than anyone. She insisted he take the month off to rest.

Once again, no biggie. He’d much rather be productive but with some convincing he easily gave in. Everyone departed for the monthly mission and he decided to invest some of the extra time on his hands into an evening with you

He was about to search for you, but then memory did it’s job.

“Ah, that’s right. They departed with their battalion this morning...”

Dimitri wasn’t used to the silence of an empty Monestary. Was it always this hollow when the army was deployed? There were some people, yes. However most areas appeared almost lifeless.

It brought up some unpleasant memories to say the least. Ones of a dusk castle, strangers on every corner, empty dinner tables, and cold nights spent staring up from his balcony.

The time he spends without Dedue glued to his side is full of reflection. Once he’s trained, eaten, studied up, etc. He’ll stroll around the monastery and think of what his life has become

How fragile the peace is. How much longer will it last?

He wanted to talk with someone. The silence was deafening and he wished for a distraction before the voices made their appearance.

They did.

He wished for you to come home. Despite the voices screaming that he had no right to long for your comfort, the desire still remained.

Was it the same for you when he’d depart? This...lonely?

He hoped not.

Since when had Dimitri become assimilated to the daily nonsense that was his life?

Dedue had caught on to his highness’ feelings instantly. Dimitri was more reminiscent than usual, and often his walks would take him to your room. He wouldn’t enter, just look at the door as if expecting it to open. He wasn’t one to talk of the past as it made him uncomfortable, but sometimes Dedue would catch him smiling at nothing. It was a welcome change to have happy memories.

When you come home it’s as if Dimitri has a new aura. Well, maybe not entirely but he has a more solemn look in his eyes when they meet yours. He spends the first day being caught up on politics with the Professor and Seteth, but for many nights beyond the return he seeks your company

He wants to hear your voice. The one he craved for when the silence became intolerable

“I’ve returned my beloved, would you care to tell that story from the other night again? I know it has only been one day but I would love to hear it.”

Dedue:

Time alone with you was already a rarity, so your complete absence didn’t dieter him as much as one would think. Dedue’s schedule rarely has a slot for free-time, and so the days pass on like seconds

As long as there is no specific reason to worry then he refrains from doing so. Dedue genuinely believes in your strength and capabilities so he won’t needlessly fret over nothing. He has his own duties to attend to just as you do.

However, this doesn’t mean he feels nothing on the matter. Others can gossip about him all they want but his nationality doesn’t define his personality. Not that he cares, since his stone exterior hides signs of weakness

Let’s get this straight: he does miss you. While not in surplus, your time together is precious to him. He notices how your seat is empty during lessons and meetings. He unconsciously checks the training hall’s door during his regime, impatiently waiting for you to pop in and say your daily ‘hello’. He’s painfully aware of the extra pair of gardening gloves in his tool pail. Dedue knows that you are gone and it has an impact.

He just ignores it. Dedue knows that when duty calls it must come before personal issues. Even if there is no contact between you two, he would rather no letters than one relaying distress

If his highness asks about his feelings Dedue’s replies are short and curt. He does not wish for any worry or pity.

One small sign that Dedue is off-put is that he becomes forgetful. It’s something only those who know him well can pick up on. For example: he won’t bring any writing utensils to a meeting. To a stranger this is a common mishap that happens to everyone. Only people who know Dedue well will see that someone as responsible as him wouldn’t forget something so minute

Another is the short sighs he lets out. Nothing drawn out or dramatic, just quick puffs of air through the nose- kind of like a huff. They’re very difficult to catch and are a habit when he feels impatient or restless

The day you come home isn’t a large extravaganza. Prince Dimitri accompanies him to greet the returning troops, but it doesn’t take a wise man to see that he mainly came for moral support. You were his friend as well, and he also wanted to see Dedue happy.

When you come into sight Dedue approaches as if it’s a normal day. Your appearance is a bit too worn-down for his liking, and he says so. He asks if the journey went well, and whether it did or not he gives a minuscule smile

If you return it he’ll pat your head. A welcome home, if you will

“Come. Let us speak of the time we were apart. I would like to hear of your travels”

Felix:

Simple solution. Whenever Felix feels as if he’s missing your presence he’ll go find you.

Oh wait

He can’t lmao

It doesn’t hit him how big your role is in his life until you’re forced to be apart. All it took was a few days for Felix to feel like something was missing

At first he’s in denial. What is he, a child? A grown man doesn’t need someone to lean on, or keep him company, or check on him...or to give him encouragement......make him laugh....listen to his problems............okay. Maybe he does.

At the beginning he seems put together but gradually as the days go on Felix becomes socially intolerant. The only person he wants to talk with is you, and you’re not there. Anyone else can buzz off or they’re getting snapped at

No one says anything either. Sometimes you can’t when the only solution is so far away

Felix works extra hard when you’re gone. No one’s there to force much needed breaks onto him. From morning till dusk he’ll train and only stop for meals.

It’s his distraction. Every time that familiar pang shows up the training dummy gets another slice

What’s happened to him? He was never so dependent on another person. Yeah, he has people that he cares about but their presence was never a necessity in his life

The pain only intensifies as he thinks of what you’re doing, the dangers you’re facing, other (men/women) making you smile-

Oh....Oh no. Dear god he’s in love que the dummy’s head being sliced off

He’s waiting in your room on the day you get back. You’ll walk in to see him reading at your desk, only for the book to snap shut when you open the door

A bit roughly he’ll pull you in for a hug. Not too tight, if you wanted to escape it you could

“Look. I’ll only say this once so you better listen...don’t leave for that long ever again. If you have to then I’m going with. No arguments”

Ashe:

He’s fine. It’s okay. Ten days in and life goes on, you know? Today he played with some of the stray cats in the monastery like he normally would. The only off part was that he forgot to bring fish treats, normally you’d do that.

Then he ordered some sweet buns for dessert after dinner; it was his usual order on your rare dates. Those days you’d snatch one but this time they were all his

He had them in the garden with some mint tea and watched the sun set. The last time he did that you decided to braid his hair while he told bad puns about his patchy facial hair fiasco. This time he viewed in tranquil silence

Later in the evening he practiced archery to unwind. Lately Caspar agreed to be his training partner with you gone. He’d collect the arrows shot and help reposition the targets. You would normally do the same and in turn Ashe would wake up extra early to help you in the morning.

At night he curled up in bed with “Loog and the Maiden of Wind,” picking up from where he left off. It was easy since you had given him a copy with a built-in cloth bookmark for his birthday. He loves it to pieces.

Please come home When his eyes began to feel heavy he tucked it under his pillow for the day.

Under the covers he shifted to get comfortable, and just like every night he ended up cuddling one of his pillows

How much longer

He closed his eyes

....

..........

What was taking so long? The professor never mentioned that the journey would take weeks? There haven’t been letters either...

Where are you? What are you doing? Do you miss him? Are you eating properly? Are you sleeping right? He should have asked Seteth to let him accompany you. Are you on your way home? Should he go ask? No, it’s late. Asking now would be a bother-

He misses you so much. No amount of time spent absorbing himself in different hobbies makes the discomfort in his chest go away. Everything reminds him of you.

When you come home he’s front and center at the gate. The professor had taken pity on the boy (courtesy of Flayn’s plea) and arranged his schedule to be free all day. He spent it chatting with gatekeeper until troops appeared in the distance

The moment you’re in sight he’s skipping down the stairs and greets you with the warmest embrace. The second you pull back he’s peppering kisses on your cheeks.

“You’re back! I’ve missed you so much I can’t even begin to explain. Let’s go eat dinner and you can tell me all about the trip”

Sylvain:

Is it weird that with you gone Sylvain actually begins to be a productive human being?

He spends the newfound spare time at the stables with the horses, or helping with chores around the monastery. Very rarely is he found goofing off

Weird. Most would expect him to let loose considering how you have him on a ‘ball and chain,’ as he puts it

So???? How come he chooses now to be responsible.

Simple. He only acts rebellious to get a rise out of you

Just kidding lol. Only partially

While he does get a free show out of your nagging, it isn’t the reason he behaves like that. Neither why he’s suddenly ‘turned over a new leaf’

Sylvain highly respects you. Not only do you work hard but you’re also one of the most genuine people he knows. He’ll never say it to your face but before he loved you Sylvain looked to you as a role model. He never could have imagined that someone with such an authentic set of emotions would become his partner

He also puts you through hell with all the trouble he gets in. Anyone else would have ended the relationship by now with so many FALSE rumors of adultery on his end. Yet you never gave up on him.

In short, you’ve stood by him through thick and thin. From daily mess ups to the more deeper problems. You’ve been a major pillar that he leans on.

So that’s what he’s going to be for you. While you’re away he’s going to pick up the slack and make sure there’re no messes waiting for you to come home to

Just him and maybe a few snide jokes. You know, a couple of dramatic whines about all the trouble he went to in making sure your room stayed clean

Sometimes it gets difficult to turn down the invites from his peers, but he holds strong. The change is so drastic that Byleth even jokes about sending you away more often.

He takes it with a grain of salt. They’d never exploit their students like that and he knows it

When you arrive home he’s waiting patiently in your room. In one arm there’s a blanket and in the other a feather duster c’mon he has to make this believable

“Well there’s the (man/woman) of the hour. Do you realize the horrors that I’ve endured these past weeks? I cleaned this room EVERY DAY. You owe me big time!”

Sylvain demands that for all the worry, strife, and hard labor you put him through; he deserves an afternoon nap with his partner. Will you let him slack off?

Annette:

Busy, busy, busy!!!

She has so many chores to get done, books to read, people to talk to, and songs to sing

She hated to say goodbye, but eventually you’ll come home. This isn’t like before. You’re not like him.

Annette trusts you

She loves you

While you’re gone she’ll think of all the things you can do together when you get back. What’s a better way to use the time, right?

She 100% plans to blackmail you into treating her for lunch. How could you leave her behind to watch over everyone by herself? So cruel...

There are mild worries that fill her heart. Thoughts on your health for one. Whether you’re skilled in faith or not it doesn’t matter to her.

She kind of wishes that the professor scheduled her to fight as well. However, things were better this way.

Annette will make sure you have somewhere wonderful to return to

She even writes a small ‘welcome home’ jingle! Anything to bring out your smile

People will occasionally ask how she’s holding up. After all, if Annette doesn’t worry about herself then of course others will do it for her.

And yeah. Sometimes it does get rough. She’s human and naturally her partner means the world to her. Who the hell would be okay with sending their loved one away?

It’s just that if she isn’t optimistic than who will be. Who’s going to give you encouragement when you need it most? Isn’t that what being a couple is about? To have faith and believe in each other?

That’s why she’s okay. She’ll sing those fear demons away and take comfort in knowing you’ll come home with everyone else

And when you do she’s there with a few of your favorite flowers. She’ll congratulate you on a job well done whether the battle was a win or lose, and literally force you into her dorm to talk the hours away.

“Welcome home! I had plenty of time on my hands while you were away so I wrote a small song...i-if it’s okay then can I sing it for you? I promise it’s not about tasty cakes this time haha!”

Mercedes:

The daily church hymn lifts her spirits. Mercedes’ devout faith is what supports her during moments of weakness

You’ve probably guessed this, but every day you’re in her prayers.

Not that you weren’t before, but now she spends a little more time mulling over possibilities of danger. Some extra blessings couldn’t hurt either

She does find her thoughts trailing over to you often as well. Not anything negative but instead the happier memories. Saying goodbye was a rough blow when realization hit that your return date wasn’t definite

Alas, the goddess will protect you. Mercedes steels herself to be patient and invest her energy into more productive things

Mercedes is sort of like the big sister of all her friends. The doting type. Without you around she has all this pent up affection, and the lions get the blunt end of it

They’re an outlet that she uses to distract herself from not having you around. Not that they necessarily mind it (maybe Felix but he’ll get over it)

The time she’d spend with you is used to bake for the monastery children, or help with chores. She uses it wisely and also works on some of her own hobbies.

You may or may not find some well-stitched embroidery on your socks. She goes all out and even offers to help mend Dimitri’s battle-worn cape. That thing needed a literal miracle to return to it’s former glory

Life isn’t much different aside from your lack of presence. With each day she finds herself looking forward to your return, and occasionally she’ll inquire with the professor about it. Mercedes is known for her patience, and it truly is a virtue in many cases. Definitely in this one.

When note of your future return arrives she can’t help but smile. If allowed she’ll ask to read the letter of notification herself and will do so with incredible focus. She’ll clutch one hand to her chest in relief before giving it back and leaving to return to her duties

and so it goes until your return. She might not be able to come meet you at the gate, but at first sighting she’ll engulf you in an embrace.

After a once-over for any injuries, she’ll insist that you have tea together. Hell, Mercedes would be happy if you two could just chat together on the nearest bench. There’s so much to talk of and now you two have all the time in the world

“It’s so nice to see you again! Oh my...it feels like forever since I have seen you smile. I almost forgot how contagious is is haha”

Ingrid:

If it was up to Ingrid than she would be positioned right at your side. You two work well as a duo both on and off of the field. The army would benefit from your skills being magnified as a team

She also wouldn’t have to deal with this ungodly sense of dread in the pit of her stomach. Don’t misunderstand- Ingrid isn’t the protective type. She trusts in your capabilities both as a fighter and person. It’s only that being away for so long is a rarity, and she needs time to adjust.

She’d just have to trust in the other people stationed at your side to do what she can’t

If she knows any of them personally then Ingrid 100% approaches to ask that they watch your back

That takes care of any worry, but not of the crack in her daily life

Ingrid has much on her shoulders. Her family, Fargeus’ future, her friends, what food’s being served in the dining hall, if it tastes good or not, the church, the ‘flame emperor’, and you of course.

She’s also the type of person who likes uniformity: a schedule. You’re a part of that and being so far disrupts it. She’s afraid that her personal emotions will tap into her ability to fulfill her duties

Everyone else assures her otherwise. Ingrid is known for always giving 110% so a while of just 100% is no big deal. She is allowed to be human

She’s allowed to miss you. Her friends assure her of it

She’s allowed to worry. There’s no need to sear shut her fears. After losing Glenn...well, it’s understandable.

She’s allowed to ask for news updates. The professor has encouraged this.

She’s allowed to go in your room if she needs alone time. You said so before leaving.

However, Ingrid doesn’t allow herself those comforts until days after your departure. When you said goodbye it unsettled her stomach in more ways than one. It took some time to sort through her emotions while still maintaining her responsibilities

It took everything for Ingrid to move on from the past, and this experience set in a sense of gratitude for all that she’s been given. It also was an opportunity for her to reminisce over what she has lost, and still has to do.

Needless to say, when you return Ingrid has gained a newfound confidence and comfort in not having a set schedule for life. Everything has always felt as if it needed to be rushed, but meeting you wasn’t something she had planned nor sped into. Spending some time to focus on her own personal goals aside from the ones preset for her before birth aided in Ingrid coming to terms with that.

“Hello. It’s been so long that I hardly recognize you! What? It’s a joke!...Yes, I know how to tell jokes- hold on this is supposed to be a heartfelt reunion so don’t ruin it!”

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shitpostingfromthebarricade · 3 years

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@themandilorian tagged me to answer fic questions! Thank youuuuuuuuuu, I love doing these. <3

how many works do you have on AO3?

Christ, 84 plus the Witcher crackfic I wrote under my incredibly subtle pseud.

what’s your total AO3 word count?

388,267, though I have a fic that'll probably be hitting 70k before it's all said and done that'll be going up ... before November? So 450k soon.

how many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

Uh, depends how you count fandoms. Realistically, just one (Les Mis), but according to the fandoms view I also technically write for Untitled Goose Game and 19th Century CE France RPF. And Witcher.

what are your top 5 fics by kudos?

The View From Here (aka the balcony fic)

Define "Dating" (my second to oldest published fic ft Enjolras trying to take Grantaire out on dates and Grantaire in severe denial)

Early Mornings, Late Nights (the one where Grantaire wakes up early and Enjolras stays up late)

By the Glory of the Sun (amnesia AU ft horny Grantaire)

Rainy Days (kidfic ft calls from the principal and no kid)

do you respond to comments, why or why not?

I dooooooooo. <3 I spend so much time creating these fics and inventing details and backstories that never make it to the light of day, so I love having an excuse to talk more about the story and process. Also, I just love hearing from y'all? Of course I'll respond???

what’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

Ah, hm, several of those, angst was my specialty for a long while. It still sometimes is, but it was, too. Maybe The Lies We Tell Ourselves in the Dark? Prague is just sad the whole way through, same with Enjolras's Prayer and The Tempest. His Love Letter also starts more innocuous and gets sadder.

have you ever received hate on a fic?

Not including most responses to Empereur's Mercy (<3), not really?

I do know that one fic wasn't particularly well-received, but that's because it was a fic I wrote directly in response to someone being an asshole in a friend's comments and didn't include the context for privacy reasons. The fic was a very pointed response with lots of quotes from the other person, but without having seen the original conversation it can be easily interpretted as a general criticism, so I see why people weren't thrilled.

do you write smut? if so what kind?

Not really. There has been one glaring exception (What Greater Thing is There?), and another will be up soon-ish, but any smut I ever publish with either be exclusively to advance the plot or as pure crack.

have you ever had a fic stolen?

If you count those apps that were hosting peoples' fics without permission, yes, but otherwise no. I've been very lucky in that way.

have you ever had a fic translated?

HeavenlyGift translated Define "Dating" into Russian!!!

have you ever co-written a fic before?

It's not published yet, but thecandlesticksfromlesmis and I are about to hit three years (17 Sep, I think?) co-writing the fic that inspired All That's Left of Us!

what’s your all time favorite ship?

Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh ... I dunno. I'm not sure. Valjean & Cosette (ampersand is platonic)? Courfius? Whatever those two funky lesbians in Sailor Moon have going on? Anne and Gilbert? Fantine and A Fucking Break?

what’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

I recently decided that I'm going to revisit my Giant Fic and make an effort to finish it even though my HCs don't align anymore!! Otherwise, I have a ton of ideas and kinda WiPs that could be finished but probably won't be simply by merit of there being so many. The one that comes to mind as being one that my HCs grew beyond before I could do more than outline it is the bodyswap fic with Combeferre and Grantaire that would have needed to be written from 3 PoVs and would have come out to probably ... 40k? A lot of effort for something I only ever had about 16k worth of interest in.

what are your writing strengths?

I think banter, pacing, and (when I choose to) worldbuilding.

what are your writing weaknesses?

Anything involving physical affection. @thepiecesofcait is always the first to point out the absolute hoops I don't even realize I put myself through to avoid writing physical contact. I've been trying to expand my horizons, but also consider: I could not.

what are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

INCREDIBLY contextual. I think if it's the PoV character, you write what they understand: if they do understand the language, write it in the language of the rest of the fic. If they don't, don't put words that they can't understand, just say "[person] says wome words in a language [PoVC] doesn't understand." If the other person is throwing in slang or swearing or something alongside the common language, it makes sense to put it in the other language verbatim, but that's mostly because it's one of those things where even if the PoV character can't understand the exact word, they can probably figure out the meaning with context clues.

Also, of course, a good pun may require language swapping. Gotta have it.

If you do feel compelled to keep it in the original language, though, I would say to figure out linked footnotes so the reader can see the meaning immediately if it's important enough to include. This often breaks up the flow of the story/conversation, though, so use it wisely.

what was the first fandom you wrote for?

Definitely Les Mis, although 7yo Shitposting loved daydreaming about a slumber party with all of the Disney princesses talking about palace life and their husbands and such. (I still have not seen Wreck It Ralph 2, but the trailer fulfilled every single childhood dream of mine.)

what’s your favorite fic you’ve written?

This is like asking my to choose a favorite child??????

I'm still extremely proud of en l'Année 2014, but as I started listing the other fics that still spark joy for me, it's occurring to me that my favorite fics are ones where I got to explore new character dynamics and relationships eg Courfius, Fantine & Marguerite, Valjean & Cosette, Ep & Gav, Javert's backstory in the Web Series AU, etc.

Tagging @starkey, @serinesaccade, @thelibrarina, @annabrolena, @lesbianjolllly, and anyone else who wants to do this!

#tag game #personal #writing #this was really really fun and I am so happy I got to do it #even if I did it instead of getting ready for work WHOOPS

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remmushound · 3 years

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Curse of the Clans part 20! @scentedcandlecryptid @selfindulgenz @rottmnt-addict

It took a while, but eventually Raphael was able to find his way using Tang Shen’s instructions. He was glad that she wrote it down, otherwise he would’ve gotten lost long ago. The map brought Raphael across the entire length of the Hidden City, far beyond the area Bishop had chosen for him, to the very ends of the space. He arrived at a massive, metal wall spanning what must have been hundreds of feet above his head; it was too high for Raphael to be able to see the end of it. Staring up, he felt an overwhelming sense of insignificance in such a big, open place.

“Wow…”

The mutant walked into a wall. He stumbled and almost fell, and only when he looked for the source of his collision did he realize it wasn’t a wall at all. He stood facing a chest; a massive, broad chest with muscles chiseled and defined from years of work. His eyes slowly followed the length of the body upward, until he found a small head staring down at him, flashing yellowed fangs and glowing, predatory eyes down at him.

“Can we help you?” The guard growled.

We? Raphael looked around and soon found a second guard, just as big and just as angry.

“Whoo—“ Raphael waved his arms in a panic as he backed up as fast as he could to put some distance between him and the giants. “You’re big! Real big! Are you the council?”

“No.” The other guard said, nodding toward the long hallway behind him that looked like something out of a horror movie. “They’re through there.”

“Uh— okay.” Raphael smiled and breathed out a laugh to try and block out his anxiety; it didn't work. “Can I just eh… squeeze past ya then—?”

The guards moved in tighter to protect the hallway. Raphael walked right into them and was quite promptly forced back.

“Hey, I gotta get through there—“ Raphael tried.

“The council isn’t currently taking any visitors.” The first guard said.

“Especially not without an appointment.” The second guard almost growled.

Raphael backed up again to give himself and the guards some space. He eyed them up, trying to find any source of weakness or vulnerability in the massive yokai. If they had any, they certainly didn't have it on display, and they didn't seem happy to be being eyed up by such a smaller creature. Raphael swallowed. He really wished Leonardo was there; he was always a better judge of character than Raphael was.

“H...how does one eh… get an appointment?” Raphael asked, standing up a little straighter.

“There’s a wait list.”

“Wait list?” Raphael tilted his head.

“Yeah.” The other guard said, “Current wait time is five years.”

Raphael felt his heart drop into his stomach. “Five years? No no no no, I only have two weeks!”

The left guard smiled, almost seeming to savor Raphael’s fear. “I don’t know what to tell you. You can’t just skip the line.”

“I… but I need…” Raphael felt like crying, but he didn't let himself. That would only make the guards even happier, and Raphael didn't want that. Maybe this was some sort of test? Surely he couldn’t be expected to get a blessing without earning it! He just had to fight his way through!

Raphael grabbed his tonfa and gave a flip for show. The guards tilted their heads, and when Raphael charged them with a loud cry, they didn't move from their placement. Even as Raphael brought his tonfa down upon them, they neither flinched nor cared nor moved. After a short moment of Raphael striking them repeatedly, one of them pressed their hand against Raphael’s head and forced him back out of range so he was only hitting air.

“Are you done yet?”

“Depends: Can I go through?” Raphael asked.

“No.”

“Then no!” Raphael growled and started to swing once more, to the greater annoyance of the guards.

“What’s going on?” A new voice, quizzical and deep, echoing down the hall.

“Hello?” Raphael called down the tunnel, getting as close to the opening as he could against the resistance of the guards. “I’m Hamato Raphael—ah—“ The guards pushed him back, but Raphael charged forward again, “I need to talk to you!”

The guards shoved him. Raphael stumbled and fell, the shockwave shooting through his body though the pain was very minimal. It was mostly just frustration that plagued him, and he couldn’t help but growl in the direction of the guards.

“We already told you—“ One of the guards began to say.

“Let him pass.” The voice came once more.

The guards seemed dumbstruck. They looked back at the tunnel as if they couldn’t believe what they were hearing, and then they looked back at Raphael with eyes of pure rage. Raphael didn't bother trying to hide his smug smirk as he made his way past them, the two of them parting to let him through but still scowling as he passed. The tunnel was dark and had an ominous chill to it, with a sugary, strawberry smell growing so strong that Raphael could taste it.

The tunnel wasn’t as long as Raphael had initially expected. There are hallways in his lair longer than this one, but not nearly as open. In fact, it seemed more like a long room than a hallway. Then it opened into a much bigger room illuminated in gold. Look at he might, Raphael couldn’t locate any source where the light could be coming from. It seemed to just exist on its own. He didn't see anyone, so he ascended the steps that and, after a long upward journey, soon found himself on a large platform. Beyond the platform all he could see was a seemingly endless, dark abyss. He gulped and stayed as close to the center as he could; he tried not to look down anymore, and so instead he looked up. That’s when he saw them.

Heads. Three heads, with scowls and glowing gold eyes and mouths hung just slightly open, the lighting not unlike a fireplace lit in a dark room.

“Woah…” Raphael gasped softly.

“Why are you here?”

Raphael couldn’t tell which head had spoken. None of their mouths moved when the words were being said, and none of them showed any indication of even knowing Raphael was there. It was almost like Shelldon was in his early days before Donatello gave him the expressions feature.

The moment Raphael could find his breath, he used it to explain his predicament to the trio. The heads listened silently; at least, Raphael hoped they were listening. He really didn't want to explain it again. He was never any good at explaining things in detail, and another sad pang pulled at his heart. That was Donatello’s expertise.

“So…” Raphael finally let himself breathe again, picking up his tonfa and offering it to the lead head. “Are… you the king?”

“I might be.” The voice belonged to the lead head no doubt, even if his mouth still wasn’t moving. “I can try to assist.”

“Place your tonfa on the ground and turn around.” A second voice, more feminine and soft; one of the other heads.

“And under no circumstances may you look.” A third voice, deepest of the three. “We will tell you when you may turn around.”

Raphael did as he was told, placing the tonfa as close to the edge as he dared move them and turned his back to the trio, keeping his eyes screwed shut. He flinched and tensed as he heard a loud noise that was almost enough to deafen him, like something Raphael might expect to hear in Donatello’s lab. An ugly sound of grinding metal that made his teeth chatter and gave him a shiver down his shell. The sound didn't last for long, but it was long enough for Raphael to know he never wanted to hear it again. After that, it was oddly silent.

Silence was never a good thing. Silence meant that his brothers were up to no good, or that they were in danger, or that he was alone. Raphael learned to fear silence, and though he tried his best to obey the request of the head, anxiety started to bubble in his chest. What could they be doing that they didn't want him to see? A ninja should never turn his back to anyone he just met! Was this another test? A test of patience? Raphael didn't have much of that. He had to look. No— no he wasn’t allowed to, he had to resist. But what could they be doing?

His eyeridges creased. He held his breath trying to get rid of the thoughts that plagued him. He couldn’t look, he wasn’t allowed! He wasn’t allowed to look!

Raphael opened an eye and glanced behind him, just for a second before his eye snapped shut again. But it was too late, and he had seen what they didn't want him to see. He didn't even know what it was! Something long and slimy, like a tentacle. Something Raphael would expect to see on an octopus or jellyfish, except lined with short spikes along the ridge of it. Pink and gooey like a chewed-up wad of bubble gum reaching for his tonfa!

Raphael had to wait several more minutes before he was finally addressed.

“You. Looked.” The lead head spoke in his thunder voice.

Raphael’s mouth went dry. He turned quickly to the lead head, breathing heaving and giving a bow to try and fix the mistake he had made. “I—I’m sorry—“

“YOU. LOOKED!” The voice boomed a powerful anger, and the walls and ground of the room vibrated his rage.

“IM SORRY!” Raphael cried again.

“LEAVE!”

With the last word gave a powerful hurricane of wind that forced Raphael off of his feet. He grabbed his Tonfa as they tried to fly away from him, and he was tossed through the reverberating air all the way back through the hallway and out past the guards.

#council of heads!#what could they be?~

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dwellordream · 3 years

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“Daughters’ skirmishes with mothers cut close to the bone, working the borders of identity often blurred by shared location within the home. With their responsibility for the reproduction of domestic roles, mothers lay centrally in the line of command over the lives of their daughters. Of course their authority was shared power—power that originated with wages earned by husbands and fathers.

Traditional patriarchy had been in decline for some time in the late nineteenth century. Without land to disperse, fathers had been losing their authority over their sons’ destinies, and as they moved to cities and took up work outside of the home, fathers were less and less involved in the delegation of work within the home. But in fundamental and important ways, they still ruled.

Those responsible for advising girls on their role in life reminded them of their continuing need to curry favor with fathers —and with reason. The Victorian patriarch could appear unexpectedly, thwarting plans, making pronouncements, breathing moral fire. Yet he was not always successful in these less and less common rulings. When opinion at home had congealed elsewhere—particularly when mothers and daughters agreed—the Victorian patriarch could find his authority hollow. Especially as daughters matured from childhood and found their lives inscribed with the expectations of gender, fathers receded from the line of command, expecting of their daughters, as they did of their wives, not obedience but domestic ministration.

Fathers’ familial responsibility for daughters translated into responsibility for guidance in two particular arenas beyond the walls of the home. Men were responsible for supervising their daughters’ academic education and for assisting them in their studies in religion. This responsibility is well communicated in the kinds of gifts bestowed by fathers on daughters on birthdays—prayer books, writing books, pens, dictionaries, atlases, library subscriptions. Fathers’ responsibilities for higher duties were reflected in their stern communications with daughters at midcentury. Agnes Lee received letters re- inforcing the importance of studies from her father, Robert E. Lee, in the 1850s when she was away at a female seminary.

He took issue with a bit of exuberant homesickness: ‘‘I must take you to task for some expressions in your letter. You say, ‘our only thought, our only talk, is entirely about our going home.’ How can you reconcile that with the object of your sojourn at Staunton! Unless your thoughts are sometimes devoted to your studies, I do not see the use of your being there.’’ It was often fathers to whom daughters recited lessons, and whose words of commendation were particularly meaningful. Fathers’ responsibilities for their daughters’ educations represented a vestigial authority for a family’s competency in the world—and continued when responsibility for other aspects of daughters’ lives had receded.

The same was true, though to a lesser degree, for fathers’ responsibilities for daughters’ souls. Kathryn Kish Sklar has written powerfully about the intertwining strands of patriarchy and evangelical culture which bedeviled Catharine Beecher’s quest for a conversion experience early in the nineteenth century. As mothers took up their newly won roles as moral exemplars, they supplemented but did not replace fathers as the guardians of familial faith. Robert E. Lee encouraged his daughter’s relationship with God as well as her studies, and his daughter wrote back a shy profession of faith, offered to her father as to one to whom it was owed: ‘‘I have something to tell you which I know will make you very happy. It is, I believe both of your daughters are Christians. I am sure Annie is, and O Papa I am resolved to doubt no longer that there has been a great and blessed change wrought in my wicked heart.’’

Though absent from the day-to-day dealings of the household, fathers’ interest in the state of their offsprings’ souls extended to the their moral training as well. Margaret Tileston’s diary, which included financial accounts, also included a moral accounting with her father. ‘‘I told Papa of a lie I told him about a week ago, last Tuesday or Wednesday.’’ It was in such a grave consciousness of his paternal responsibility for the character of his daughter that Albert Browne wrote a long letter to his daughter Nellie as she was preparing to leave school, ending with the admonishment that ‘‘a true christian woman, should make it a religious duty, to blend gentleness and dignity, as to win love, and command respect.’’ Albert Browne had no doubt of his authority over his daughters’ transition to womanhood, just as over other family matters.

…The conservative Ladies’ Home Journal in 1895 attempted to re- affirm masculine authority in what must be seen as a reactionary challenge to feminized domesticity. In reasserting ‘‘The Father’s Domestic Headship,’’ the Reverend Charles H. Parkhurst, D.D., acknowledged a ‘‘great deal of domestic reciprocity’’ but pronounced that ‘‘the husband and father is the point of final determination.’’ He sought an analogy for the moral authority of hus- band and wife in anatomy: ‘‘The bone and sinew of character will probably be a quotation from the father, and the delicate tissue with which it is over- laid will as likely be a bequest from the mother.’’ This late-century contrast between the strong force of paternal dictum with the more diffuse ‘‘tissue’’ of the maternal presence acknowledged a long-standing reality—that absent fathers would need to make their authority felt concisely in worded dictates, rather than through the steady example of a more present maternity.

By 1895, however, when Parkhurst was writing, he was in many ways too late. His assertion of masculine hegemony in the household was regressive— and claimed an authority for fathers in their daughters’ lives that they could not count on. Those girls in the postwar years most likely to reveal their dependency on paternal dictates—for instance, the reformer Jane Addams growing up in the late 1860s and Mary Thomas away at school in Georgia in the 1870s—used their fathers as live models of correct conduct with good reason, for both their mothers were dead. If daughters empowered by the increasing moral authority of their mothers were beginning to feel free to challenge paternal prerogative, fathers themselves showed, over the nineteenth century, a diminishing sense of identification with their daughters.

Fathers like Robert E. Lee and Albert Browne took seriously their paternal responsibility for providing guidance to their maturing daughters, but that guidance often required setting a new form of reference—the inscribing of gender on girls defined previously by their status as children. Albert Browne’s advice to Nellie intended to prepare her for that new station. He reminded her that leaving school would require that she end her time as a ‘‘mere’’ schoolgirl to take her part ‘‘in the drama of life’’ as ‘‘a true woman.’’

Doing so would mean surrendering part of her genetic inheritance, and becoming only part of who she had been. For Browne admonished his daughter to emulate her mother’s qualities of ‘‘mildness and amenity, love and kindness,’’ so ‘‘as to temper and subdue any unruly and unamiable tendencies which may have come to you from your Father.’’ This gendered lesson, of course, was a distancing one which signaled the attenuation of a relationship as well as a stage of life.

Girls who had been accorded the freedom of childhood by fond fathers found this withdrawal of paternal identification to be painful. Writing in the late century, Mary Virginia Terhune recounted such a moment: ‘‘I have now before me the picture of myself at ten years of age, looking up from the back of my pony into my father’s face, as in the course of the morning ride we daily enjoyed together.’’

They had been conversing about politics, and the child had offered an apt analysis. ‘‘My comments called up a smile and a sigh. ‘‘ ‘Ah, my daughter! If you had been born a boy you would be invaluable to me!’’’ Terhune recalled the sense of destiny. ‘‘I hung my head, mute and crushed by a calamity past human remedy or prevention. There is a pain at my heart in the telling that renews the real grief of the moment.’’

Terhune had been taking advantage of a latitude granted to Victorian children of both sexes; she observed that some of ‘‘the finest women, physically and mentally,’’ were ‘‘famous romps in their youth.’’ Such girls, she noted, ‘‘during the tomboy stage lamented secretly or loudly that they were not their own brothers; regrets which were heartily seconded by much-enduring mothers and disappointed fathers.’’

Literary historians have observed that the 1860s saw the emergence of a new literary type—tomboys—who, as Barbara Sicherman has observed, were ‘‘not only tolerated but even admired—up to a point, the point at which they were expected to become women.’’ The extension of the rights to romp and play to girls confirmed their identity as children, a state that often ended surprisingly and arbitrarily, with fathers’ rejections.

Terhune’s memory of paternal humiliation recalls from earlier in the century young Elizabeth Cady [Stanton]’s realization that she could not remain the confidante and paternal protégé she had been as a child. In her perhaps mythic retelling of the tale, that youthful epiphany produced a sense of injury and injustice which would help to fuel the woman’s rights movement itself. Both Stanton and Terhune gained their sense of betrayal from the contrast between their spirited childhoods and their sense of gendered destiny descending to restrict them in their teens.

Mary Virginia Terhune concluded with an admonition to fathers which gave them responsibility for this curtailment of aspiration in the world: ‘‘Your girl wants to help her father and to be of use in the world. Make her feel that a woman’s life is worth living, and that she has begun it. Do not brand her from the cradle, ‘Exempt from field duty on account of physical disability.’’’ For both Stanton and Terhune, it was a shock to discover that life ‘‘as a romp,’’ ‘‘as a half-boy,’’ in fact as a Victorian child, was only temporary, conditional. Their fathers, who often had invited their daughters along in their common round, withdrew that invitation as they approached maturity.

By later in the century, urban fathers were often absent from the beginning of their daughters’ lives, working in shops and offices away from home. When Louisa May Alcott commented on this new order, as she did most pointedly in An Old-Fashioned Girl, she depicted the father of her modern family as absent, ‘‘a busy man, so intent on getting rich that he had no time to enjoy what he already possessed.’’ In a later passage, he ‘‘had been so busy getting rich, that he had not found time to teach his children to love him,’’ neglecting both sons and daughters. His son he ordered ‘‘about as if he was a born rebel,’’ and was always ‘‘lecturing him.’’ His daughters, however, he let ‘‘do just as they liked.’’

By today’s accounting, the Victorian father was notable for the extent to which he assumed and discharged a role as paterfamilias. However, that brief moment (if there ever was one) when fathers presided supremely over a small, nurturant family was in decline as soon as it was constituted. The movement of men’s labor outside of the home also removed them from their role as the preeminent guide and adjudicator of their daughters’ conduct. As women challenged men’s domestic authority, so did men increasingly abdicate, letting go of prerogatives they were not in place to oversee.

Girls remained dependent on fathers, however, a condition that their increasing participation in the labor force would diminish but never erase. Conservative advice givers made it their business to remind girls of this status. Multiple authors in the Ladies’ Home Journal, starting with the Journal ’s editor, Edward Bok, urged on girls their responsibilities to practice as apprentice wives in their ministrations to their fathers. ‘‘Helping her father to remember his daily engagements, seeing that his accounts are properly balanced, following his personal matters—all these things enter into the life of a girl when she becomes a wife,’’ Bok wrote.

A girl should not imagine ‘‘that her father represented a money-making machine, bound to take care of her and give her a good time,’’ the Journal ’s columnist Rush Ashmore added. It was the daughter who owed her father a good time. She should remember that it is ‘‘her honor to be his daughter’’ and greet him with a smile. ‘‘He who is out in the busy world earning the bread and butter doesn’t want to be met with complaints and cross looks; he wants to be greeted with a kiss, to be entertained by the mind which he has really formed by earning the money to pay the teachers to broaden and round it, and to be able to look at the bright, cheery girl, neat in her dress, sweet in her manner and ever ready to make merry those who are sad.’’

Increasingly teenage daughters’ approaches to fathers, like those of their mothers, focused on the interaction of two separate worlds. Advisers’ exhortations that daughters should be affectionate and ‘‘pet’’ their fathers rather than ‘‘obey’’ them suggested the ways in which the family had become an arena of intimate exchange rather than hierarchical responsibility. Increasingly fathers did not induct their growing daughters into adulthood but instead looked to their daughters to offer them an escape from that world.”

- Jane H. Hunter, “Houses, Families, Rooms of One’s Own.” in How Young Ladies Became Girls: The Victorian Origins of American Girlhood

#history #gender #american #victorian #jane h. hunter #how young ladies became girls

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subrapture · 3 years

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It appears it's time to post this again, for the newcomers and the curious.

THE OLD GUARD, HISTORY, ORIGINS AND TRADITIONS.

By Guy Baldwin M.S.

Guy Baldwin, M.S. a Los Angeles psychotherapist, served as International Mr. Leather and Mr. National Leather Association during 1989-90

While reading a recent interview with Brian Dawson, I came across some of his comments about that '0ld Guard' In the leather lifestyle. Although I used that label in a piece I wrote almost three years ago, I only recently realized that there was a strong likelihood that large numbers of leather guys don't quite know for sure what the phrase, '0ld Guard' really means. I'm sure that I have never seen a description of the style (and it is a style, so I want to offer one now. I have carried my own '0ld Guard' card in my wallet right next to my Selective Service Registration card (draft card) for long enough that I probably qualify to offer what follows so, here goes...

First, a bit of historical perspective will be more helpful than you might guess. '0ld Guard' is really a misnomer - a misapplied name - for the earliest set of habits that jelled by the mid- to late 1950s in the men's leather community here in the U . S. It is very important to remember that the modern leather scene as we now know it first formalized itself out of the group of men who were soldiers returning home after World War ll. (l939-1945).

For many gay men of that era, their World War ll. military service was their first homosocial experience (first time being thrown together mostly in the company of other men for significant lengths of time), their first time away from their growing up places, and their first experience of male bonding during periods of high stress. War was (and is) serious business; people died, buddies depended on each other for their lives, and the chips were down. Discipline was the order of the day, and the nation believed that only discipline and dedication would win the war and champion freedom: (Ever notice the especially strong patriotic feelings that happen at leather events?)

Anyway, these gay war veterans learned about the value and pleasure of discipline and hard work in the achievement of a noble purpose. They also learned how to play hard when they got the chance for leave time. Indeed, military life during wartime was (and is) a mix of emotional extremes born out of sure knowledge that one could literally be 'here today, and gone tomorrow. ' Lastly (for these purposes), the gay vets had the secret knowledge that they fought and served every bit as well as straight soldiers, and this information strengthened their self-esteem. All of these things came to be associated with the disciplined, military way of life as it existed during the wartime years.

Although not all gay men of that time served in the military, those who didn't were exposed to the military attitudes through their contact with the vast numbers of military men who were everywhere to be seen and cruised both during and immediately after the war years. In any case, all these things greatly influenced the shape of masculine gay sexualities. Mars

Upon their return to the States about 1946, many of the gay vets wanted to retain the most satisfying elements of their military experience and, at the same time, hang out socially and sexually with other masculine gay men. They found that only in the swashbuckling motorcycle culture did such opportunities exist and so the gay bike clubs were born. It was here that they found the combination of easy camaraderie, the stress and thrill of real risk taking (the riding), and the masculine sexuality that they had known during their military days.

Since one can tell who is and is not in the military only when uniforms are worn, these gay men unconsciously (in most cases) transferred their loyalties to their own uniform-the leather gear of bike riders with a few paramilitary touches thrown in. Club insignia often recalled hose insignia of special military units: Thunderbolts, Warriors, Blue Max, and Iron Cross to name only a few. Club members would exchange their insignia with members of other clubs in friendship; christening rituals were transferred from tanks, ships and airplanes to motorcycles and piss was substituted for champagne; the military dress uniform hats became the leather bike caps-all these elements were just as had been during military service.

Incidentally, during the war, the soldiers would often put on skits for their own amusement. Since women were not allowed at the front, some of the men would play the parts of women by doing a kind of mock dress-up (as in one scene from 'South Pacific'). Later, this tradition would be expressed in 'drag' shows during bike runs. So, masculine men pretended to be pretending to be women-not truly 'drag' at all. (lt. still happens in a few places.)

In any case, being in the military also meant following lots of rules. And just as in the military, there were (unspoken) rules about what you did and did not wear, how you handled your personal affairs, who you could and could not socialize with and more. All this was overlaid with a kind of ritual formalism just as in the military. Those men who were really into dominance and submission, SM, or leather sex tended to take these rules rather more seriously than those guys who simply thought of themselves as butch. The butch ones wore just enough leather to be practical when riding, and those into the exotic sexualities tended to wear more gear than necessary to signal this fact about themselves, but they all hung out together in the same settings. As you might guess, in some cases, any particular person might be into both riding and the exotic sexualities.

Just as an aside here, before and during the war, kinky folks seeking to identify each other would sometimes defensively ask, 'Do you play the mandolin or the saxophone?' to discover which of them was the masochist or the sadist by the first letter of these instruments. All this while wearing street clothes! The creation of a butch subculture by the gay vets began to allow people to specialize their sexual interests in a way that had been impossible earlier. Prior to this development. it was not apparent that there were very many ways to be gay.

The bike clubs and the bars where they hung out became the magnets of their day which attracted those gay men who were interested in the masculine end of the gay spectrum, but it was the leather men who defined the masculine extreme at that time. (Nowadays, we know there are many ways to be masculine.) This meant that those who had an inclination to kinky action pretty much felt compelled to explore kink in the context of the leather SM scene since it was the only game in town. If motorcycle riding or black leather itself was not 'your thing', that meant one felt obligated to visit the hang outs and look and act the part as much as possible to find one's way into the inner circle of those who looked like they knew something about the exotic sexualities. This meant finding out what the rules of inclusion were (how can I be included?) in order to gain access. To some extent, all this is still true because the attitude still prevails that the 'uniform'' indicates experience and social access to the Knowledgeable People.

And so, the Scene became EX-clusive rather than IN-clusive, meaning that the people in the Scene understood the rules and tried to keep outsiders out-to exclude them. An outsider became defined as anyone (butch or not) who did not have a primary interest in and experience with the exotic sexualities or at least an interest in motorcycles. (This excluding attitude was probably also reinforced by guilt about being kinky.)

I know that this combination of kinky men mixed in with motorcycle riders may sound a bit odd now, but that's how the Scene worked and, to some slight extent, still does. All through the 80's, with the emergence of kinky organizations and specifically leather/SM events, the motorcycle riding community and the kinky leather community have grown apart such that now those in one group are pretty much ignorant of or indifferent to the events happening in the other.

This growing separation is more true in larger cities which have the numbers of people that are necessary to support each of these two communities, each with separate needs and agendas. Consequently, many old and venerable bike clubs have experienced a drop in membership and some have disbanded altogether.

But for the most part, kinky people have segregated themselves out from the riders as the process of erotic specialization has continued. Generally, the riding community seems not to have minded this development perhaps because many of the members of riding clubs are either turned off or embarrassed by the erotic visibility of the kinky crowd "Birds of a feather". But for this discussion, it is noteworthy that many of those kinky people retained the paramilitary trappings, manners and attitudes of that early, core group of returning World War ll. gay vets.

Most importantly, these features of the military mind-set joined with inky interests and became erotic in and of themselves became fetishes. These men then were the original '0ld Guard', and so it will come as no surprise that their quasi-military rules of inclusion and exclusion still influence kinky society today.

So what exactly were the (unspoken) "Old Guard' rules? Here are a few of the more important ones that had prevailed by 1970:

About Attire

Always wear boots, butch ones, and preferably black.

Always wear a wide black leather belt plain, not fancy.

Never mix brown leather with black leather.

Never mix chrome or silver trim with gold or brass trim.

Long pants only, Levi's or leather, and no shorts.

Chaps indicate more commitment than Levi's, and leather pants more commitment than chaps, especially when worn consistently.

Leather Jackets must have epaulets (bike riders excepted).

Head gear is reserved for Tops or experienced or heavy bottoms only.

Bottoms may not own collars unless a particular Top has allowed that bottom to be the custodian of the Top's collar. A bottom wearing a collar is a slave, and belongs to the owner of the collar who, presumably, has the keys. Other Tops are not to engage a collared bottom in conversation, but other bottoms may do so. Should such a relationship end, the collar must be returned to the Top.

Never touch the bill of a bike cap, including your own.

Never touch another man's cap (or head gear) unless you are very intimate friends or lovers.

Keep studs and other decorations to a tasteful minimum unless they happen to be club insignia.

Never wear another man's leather unless he puts it on you.

Leather, other than boots and belt, must be 'earned' through the achievement of successively challenging 'scenes.'

Wearing gloves is reserved for heavy players, glove fetishists or bike riders.

Always indicate SM preference, only with keys left or right.

If you are cruising seriously, wear the keys out; if not seriously, tuck them in a back pocket. Always indicate strictly leather sex or 'rough sex' interest by wearing no keys at all.

Those who 'switch' are second class players and not to be taken as seriously because they haven't made their minds up. If you must switch, do so in another town.

'Full' leather is reserved for after 10:00 P.M. only and only with 'our own kind'.

Respect the public by wearing less of it during the day--don't frighten old ladies (l did once by accident), or anyone else for that matter.

About Socializing and Cruising:

Experience in the Scene determines social seniority (Top or bottom) , not age, not size, not amount of leather worn, and not offices held in organizations, awards received or titles won.

Tops and experienced bottoms should be accorded higher respect and deference unless and until they behave rudely--all are expected to observe rules of social courtesy-bad manners are inexcusable and can lower one's status in the Scene (thereby reducing access to the Knowledgeable People for information or play),

Real Leathermen keep their word: they do not borrow or lend money; they conduct their affairs with honor and integrity-they don't lie.

Preliminary social contact should be on the formal side.

'Senior Persons' (Top or bottom) are not to be interrupted when in conversation.

Experience being equal, Tops lead the conversation.

Junior Tops defer to Senior Tops and Senior bottoms in social situations.

Junior bottoms defer to all others in the Scene but not to outsiders.

When walking together, bottoms walk half-a-step behind and to the left of Tops with whom they are involved or playing.

It is up to the Top or the experienced bottom to extend a hand to invite a handshake. (All touching is highly restricted during initial contact between strangers.) NEVER over-indulge in drugs or alcohol in public, or otherwise attract scornful attention to one's self--to do so brings dishonor on the men in the Scene,

Tops should always have the first two opportunities to make verbal or physical contact,

The more submissive one is, the less direct eye contact one makes-glance frequently at or stare at His boots only when cruising; less so in non-sexual conversation. The more dominant one is, the more direct the eye contact is unless there is no erotic interest (cruising only).

Men in the Scene do not discuss (or write about) the Scene with outsiders. All men in the Scene must be able to spot outsiders with the 'right stuff' and be ready to facilitate them into the Scene after they indicate sincere interest.

None of these rules are taught or explained to anyone except by innuendo, inference, or example.

Erotic technical information is only shared among peers.

Maintain formal and non-committal relationships with those outside the scene; avoid contact with feminine men. Women are not allowed although Senior People may occasionally have intellectual or brief social relationships with the occasional qualified kinky woman, but only in private.

Very few men maintained full compliance with all these rules all the time, and some, flatly refused to follow rules they personally objected to. But, to be included one was expected to follow at least most of these rules most of the time. Also, confusingly, there was some variation in some of the rules depending on what city you happened to be in at the time. The list above is not complete although it conveys the sense of the style.

Understandably, a certain stiffness surrounded the men who followed these rules, just as a certain stiffness surrounded the military men of the era. Those who sought inclusion had the challenge of finding a relaxed and easygoing way to follow rules. However, this required considerable social skill and many kinky people lacking those skills (or patience ) simply gave up and accepted a frustrated role on the fringe.

As time passed, there were more and more guys in their twenties whose early sexual development had not been influenced strongly by contact with the military. Therefore, they lacked the early raw material with which to fetish-ize the military features of the '0ld Guard' leather/SM scene. Still, they needed information and experiences to help shape the urges of insistent kinky longings.

These people were essentially without resources until the establishment of kinky organizations brought about new educational opportunities that were not bound by '0ld Guard' rules.

Consequently, there is a lot more support now for new people coming into the leather/ SM scene who have other ideas (non- military) about what is hot. Long hair, rockers with wild designs on their jackets, road racing bikers with brightly colored leathers, leather faeries, skinheads, women and others now are found on turf once dominated by the '0ld Guard' system'.

So, '0ld Early Guard' or perhaps thought of as 'Early Guard" or perhaps 'First Guard' because that style makes sense given the erotic influences that shaped the inner lives of the men who were coming of age sexually at that time. The Old Guard made some real contributions and made some real mistakes, and still does both.

It is more useful to understand than to criticize. And, perhaps most importantly, what the Old Guard did for the development and expansion of kinky life and butch gay male sexuality can best be appreciated against the backdrop of what had existed earlier--not much of anything!

But remember this, as long as we have a military, and a paramilitary police system, and as long as that military has traditions of initiation, ritual, inclusion/exclusion, honor and service, there will always be an '0ld Guard'. Its size and influence in the leather/SM scene will probably always be proportional to the role played by the military and other paramilitary organizations in society-larger following wartime and smaller during peace.

I thought maybe you'd like to know.

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hanniballecter-pleaseeattherich · 4 years

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Hey, I noticed you reblog a lot of writing resources here! I've been trying to find good advice on building complex, 3D characters for stories, but can't seem to find one. Have you by chance came across some good stuff in the topic recently?

Hey :)

So, um, tbh, I didn’t find a lot of character writing resources either, but I’ll try and share what I personally do. I’m really bad at giving advice, but I’ll just try and make a list of things that help me. And English isn’t my first language, so please forgive me if the brabbling is sometimes hard to understand, I can try to clarify anything that might be confusing.

1. Use real People. I find it a lot easier to write a charakter, if I have a real person I can base them on. Like, two of my protagonists are based on girls I was friends with a few years ago and I knew them really well, so it was easy for me to use them as kind of ��starting points” for my characters, if that makes sense.

2. Backstory. A lot of the ways we feel and think about things and most of our behaviorisms come from how we grew up, how we were raised, how we were treated and taught to treat others. A lot of reflexes are trained on by situations we saw ourselves in often, for example: My main character has had a lot of weapons training in her past, and her occupation was very dangerous, so her natural instinct upon meeting someone new is to assume they might be dangerous and look for hidden weapons, make a list in her mind, how they might be able to triumph over her and how she could use her strenghts to defend herself. Same thing with new places. She always checks for exits, flight routes, possibly weaponized interior, stuff like that. That’s something a normal person would most likely not do, but it’s her life, it’s automatic with her. An abused character might react strongly to loud voices or a specific kind of energy that reminds them of situations of their past, they might fall back into patterns of apoligizing and making themselves small and disappearing.

3. Know their motivation. I know this is what every guide says, but I found it to be true. And I personally find that you always need three goals: First, their ultimate inner goal, which ties directly to their backstory, upbringing, early trauma. The ultimate inner goal is what your character NEEDS most of all, and they might not even know it. It’s personal, primal feelings. They might need to feel validated all the time, so they’ll do anything in any situation to achieve that goal - maybe even subconscious. They might need to feel powerful, so they surround themselves with people who admire them and look up to them and they might even provoke situations, in which those people have to fight about them (I had a friend like this, and boy, it was exhausting - but she doesn’t know she’s a powerhungry bitch XD). Other possible ultimate inner goals might be feeling loved, loving someone, feeling accomplished, feeling better than everyone else (this shows deep rooted insecurities) etc. Secondly, their ultimate goal. This is the goal your character wants to achieve over the course of the story. In a romance novel that might be “getting the romantic interest”, in a dystopia it might be “destroying the government”, etc. Try to always tie your ultimate goal to your ultimate inner goal on some level. We are humans, we only fight, if things are personal. So even though your goal might be “destroying the government”, it must be rooted in something deeper, like the NEED for freedom, or love, or whatever the government supresses. And lastly, their situational goal. This is the only thing that changes from scene to scene. That’s the thing writers give you advice about. Every character has to want something small (or big) at any point in the story. And your situational goal has to always support your ultimate goal, and, ultimately (haha), your ultimate inner goal, too.

4. There are no inherently good and inherently bad traits. Make lists or don’t, whatever works for you, but if you do make character trait lists, don’t separate them into positive and negative. Every trait is just a trait, and if it’s good or bad or just neutral depends entirely on the situation, the extremity and the usefulness of said trait. A bossy person can be a commanding asshole or a great leader. A soft person can be a rug for people to step on or a nurturing, loving presence, etc. Also: All traits influence each other and change over the course of a story. Just, my personal advice: Don’t get hung up on TRAITS. Develop your character’s basics and they’s develop their own lives and personalities soon enough, as long as you’ve laid the ground work. (My character’s questionnaires look entirely different than the characters actually became.)

5. Stereotypes. Characters, even complex and 3D ones, are more easily conceptuated and you can avoid similar characters, if you base them on stereotypes. Give them roles, one major trait, that defines them, and a fear or weakness (weaknesses can also be strengths, depending on the context, see point 4, so see to it that you don’t choose a “weakness” for your character that’ll never actually make them weak.) If you’ve chosen the role, the major trait and the weakness and have a good backstory and know their goals, I promise your characters will overwhelm you with their complex inner lives and you won’t know what to do with yourself or how to convey all those details they’ll reveal to you. So just try to capture and decide on their essence, all the exterior will come from them.

6. Relationships. Your characters will never show all their sides and facettes without the right people to bring them forth. Character relationships and dynamics are the thing I enjoy most about character-centric books. Try to really concentrate on how your characters behave when they’re with a specific other character and keep in mind, that we all behave very differently in different contexts.

I hope this was helpful, it’s very late and I’m incredibly tired because I just wrote a very annoying chapter (that’ll hopefully bring joy to the reader but it sure brought a lot of pain and tears to me because writing it was fucking impossible) and it might be possible that all of this is just gibbersih - just tell me if I need to clarify something or if it’s all bullshit XD

Good luck with writing your 3Dimensional characters!

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therojul · 4 years

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The Daily Habits of Great Minds: Lessons From Nietzsche, Kant, Tesla, Darwin, Einstein And Hemingway

by- Thomas Oppong

I have always wondered what great minds do daily — the tiny details that help them achieve their goals and purpose? Do they strive to read or work a certain number of hours a day? How much impact does their downtime have on their work? What do they think about in solitude? And why do some of them devote a lot of time to their work, while others spend very little but still achieve more?

Mason Curry’s book Daily Rituals: How Great Minds Make Time, Find Inspiration And Get To Work has answered a lot of my questions. The path to greatness is paved with habits, routines and rituals.

The one true lesson of the book, says Currey is that “there’s no one way to get things done”. Still, some patterns do emerge.

Great Minds Stick To A Predictable And Stable Routine

Extraordinary minds start their day on purpose.

Aristotle said, “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” Routine provides a sense of structure and familiarity. You wake up with a sense of ownership, order, and organisation of your life.

Routines are the secret weapon of great minds and have been for centuries. Many thinkers do what they do with iron regularity.

It’s how they function at their best without thinking too much about daily structures for high performance. Habits and routines free our brains from continual small decisions, so we can easily do our best work.

Poet W.H. Auden recommended a routine approach to better work:

“Decide what you want or ought to do with the day, then always do it at exactly the same moment every day, and passion will give you no trouble.”

A lot of highly productive philosophers and creative minds depend on predictable daily routines as a safe place for work.

Friedrich Nietzsche, a German philosopher who became one of the most influential of all modern thinkers was an early riser and spent a lot of his time alone at the peak of his career — mostly by choice.

In his book, Friedrich Nietzsche: A Biography, Curtis Cate wrote:

“With a Spartan rigour which never ceased to amaze his landlord-grocer, Nietzsche would get up every morning when the faintly dawning sky was still grey, and….work uninterruptedly until eleven in the morning.”

“He then went for a brisk, two-hour walk through the nearby forest or along the edge of Lake Silvaplana (to the north-east) or of Lake Sils (to the south-west), stopping every now and then to jot down his latest thoughts in the notebook he always carried with him.”

And Nietzsche worked — a lot. He used almost the same routine to focus on writing, reading and understanding ideas. His schedule was disciplined, consistent, but a lot of wandering and thinking.

He once said, “All truly great thoughts are conceived while walking.”

Immanuel Kant, an influential German philosopher and one of the most influential philosophers in the history of Western philosophy was also a man of stable routine. Here’s his schedule according to Manfred Kuehn, the author of Kant: A Biography:

“He got up at 5:00 A.M. His servant Martin Lampe, who worked for him from at least 1762 until 1802, would wake him. The old soldier was under orders to be persistent, so that Kant would not sleep longer. Kant was proud that he never got up even half an hour late, even though he found it hard to get up early. It appears that during his early years, he did sleep in at times. After getting up, Kant would drink one or two cups of tea–weak tea. With that, he smoked a pipe of tobacco. The time he needed for smoking it “was devoted to meditation.”

“His lectures began at 7:00, and they would last until 11:00. With the lectures finished, he worked again on his writings until lunch. Go out to lunch, take a walk, and spend the rest of the afternoon with his friend Green. After going home, he would do some more light work and read.”

A life without a daily routine or structure is so much more draining mentally, physically, and emotionally than you can ever imagine!

Without a routine, life just sort of happens to you. The day either gets wasted as you try to decide what to do, or you find yourself tangled up in the wants and needs of everybody else. Routines help you achieve your goals.

Benjamin Franklin asked himself each morning (at 5 am), “What good shall I do today?”; every night before bed (around 10 pm), “What good have I done to-day?”.

He used this habit to help him focus on his most important priorities. What’s your answer to the question What good shall I do today ?

Charles Dickens famously took three-hour walks every afternoon, and what he observed informed his writing.

Ludwig van Beethoven also took long walks after lunch, carrying a pencil and paper with him in case inspiration struck.

Ernest Hemingway tracked his daily word output on a chart “so as not to kid myself” he said.

Not only do routines and rituals allow you to do more, but, as with all daily structures, they simply give your life more rhythm, order and even pleasure.

Marie Curie, a renowned scientist and known for her huge contribution to the fight against cancer was literally described as a “mad scientist” or a “maniacal worker” because of how insanely interested she was by what she was doing.

Nikola Tesla , who made dozens of breakthroughs in the production, transmission and application of electric power maintained a rigid schedule.

He used to walk about ten miles a day, thinking through ideas for new inventions — the habit eventually becoming something of a compulsion.

“As a young apprentice in Thomas Edison’s New York office, Tesla regularly worked from 10:30 in the morning until 5:00 the following morning,” writes Curry.

History’s great minds knew the relevance of stepping away from work every now and then to think, make better connections and ponder over existing problems.

Studies have shown that regular downtime (taking breaks on purpose) boosts alertness, energy, productivity, creativity, and mental focus.

Although Charles Darwin followed a rigid schedule, he made time for contemplative walks.

While working on his famous theory of evolution, Darwin took daily walks to think, and most importantly to observe and notice nature. Walking the same route each day from his house, through shady woods Darwin referred to this as his ‘thinking path’.

Albert Einstein played the violin to take a break and think about his projects. claiming that it was in some ways an extension of his thinking and that it helped him to solve tricky problems.

Einstein apparently slept contentedly for up to 10 hours a night, on top of which he’d take several naps during the day.

Modern life, increasingly defined by unpredictability can be stressful. A productive routine can provide the anchor of predictability you need to function at your best. Pablo Picasso once said:

“Our goals can only be reached through a vehicle of a plan, in which we must fervently believe, and upon which we must vigorously act. There is no other route to success.”

History’s greatest minds optimised their daily lives to get on top of their games. Routine was their secret weapon. Daily routines help us make time for what matters most to us.

Daily practice is a game-changer for your life and career — but it pays to review it once a while to find out what works and what doesn’t. That way, you can keep doing more of what works whilst wasting less time on unproductive tasks and activities.

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tejkohlifoundation · 4 years

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Tej Kohli: Profile Of A Technologist

Tej Kohli is a philanthropist who is well known for his worldwide mission to eliminate corneal blindness from poor and underserved communities by 2035. In 2006 he sold a company that he had founded just seven years earlier as part of a high value sale. The company specialised in online payment gateways for high risk sectors and also in the acquisition, turnaround and trade sale of online gaming properties. Since this 2006 liquidity event Tej Kohli has been actively engaged in building the not-for-profit Tej Kohli Foundation.

Tej Kohli is also an impact investor focused on artificial intelligence, robotics and biotechnology ventures that have the potential to drive positive human impact. His impact investments include proprietary technologies that have the potential to have a transformation impact in a variety of applications. Ventures backed by Tej Kohli are engaged in activities ranging from resolving the treatment gap that leads to poverty-driven blindness through to solving the logistical challenges of organ donation and even using machine learning to dramatically increase the efficiency of plastics recycling.

Tej is a father to two teenagers and has been married to his wife Wendy for over twenty years. He is a keen esports fan and an unashamed supercar enthusiast. He is also an avid ballroom dancer who has competed in international events. Tej Kohli regularly shares his thoughts and wisdom in a series of #TejTalks blogs and is an active user of social media.

Here we find out more about the colourful technologist…

What is #TejTalks?

Tej Kohli - #TejTalks is where I share my thoughts and also important information about the things that matter to me or which have captured my attention. I blog using Medium and I also post a lot on Twitter and Facebook. I am not that well known and I am not a public figure, so I do not have much of a platform elsewhere. The beauty of place like Medium and to a lesser extent Twitter, is the ability to make unmediated connections with experts.

The Tej Kohli Foundation for example, is entirely depending on forming new partnerships and coalitions all around the world to solve big challenges. So #TejTalks is a great place to zone in onto some of the constitute parts of those challenges or the underlying factors that are causing them, and to connect and share ideas with relevant experts. A huge proportion of corneal blindness for example is a poverty-driven ailment, and so you cannot solve it without also looking at the underlying causes of poverty. Female inequality also plays a big role in poverty blindness, and so recently I have been learning and blogging about that too.

You recently published ‘Rebuilding You: The Philanthropy Handbook’. Why?

Tej Kohli - My own approach to philanthropy has been heaving focused on rebuilding people and communities around the world. And one of the things that I have learned on that journey is that in becoming a philanthropist you cannot simply become a kinder and more benevolent version of yourself. You also need to behave differently, think differently and change your outlook. I wrote ‘Rebuilding You’ as a guide for others who want to use their wealth for good, so that they can avoid some of the common pitfalls and have a greater impact more quickly.

I have organised the ‘Rebuilding You’ handbook into key decision areas. Each area will enable would-be philanthropists to combine some of my experiences with their own to synthesise new ideas about how to define a brand of philanthropy that will best achieve their goals.

What is the biggest lesson that you have learned during your career?

Tej Kohli - I am about to turn 63 and I have led a rollercoaster life. People often tell me that my life story would make a great movie, but I tell them that if it was a it would do badly it because the story would not seem believable! I made a single youthful mistake in 1988 that I have regretted ever since and which I still feel great remorse for. I think what that taught me is that sometimes the important thing is to know what not to do.

At the same time if you want to achieve something you need to aim higher and go further than almost every other person is prepared to go, and if you start young like I did, it is inevitable that you will make some mistakes. I feel bad for young people these days as so much of their lives are recorded and documented online. I counsel my kids and their friends to aim high but also to be very careful as any indiscretion could follow them forever.

But the biggest lesson I think I have learned is that you will always have your critics and not to let them detract from what you are doing. It’s best not to give them the satisfaction of allowing them to diminish who you are and what you are doing. The best thing to do is to simply keep going, keep doing good, keep giving back and keep helping others.

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What for you have been the key moments in your life?

You know my mother is 86 now and if I am anything in life then I owe it to her. She has always been there for me and that consistent love and support has been more important to me than any particular moments, except of course for the birth of my son and daughter. I had my children quite late in life, but my kids are by far the thing that I am most proud of.

In terms of my career, my first job after graduating in Electrical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology was installing tachometers. I was installing at a facility owned by Rabocomtel and realised that I could design a process controlled which would significantly increase the efficiency of their facilities. It’s a long story, but ultimately, I was able to pitch the idea to the CEO who placed a big order with the company that I worked for. That gave me my first real affirmation of my desire to become an entrepreneur.

When the company that I launched in 1999 reached $100m of turnover was also a key moment for me too. It affirmed my belief in what was possible, and we quickly expanded to employ hundreds of software developers and began buying and turning around companies too. And obviously when that company was sold in 2006 it was a life changing moment.

You graduated in from the Indian Institute of Technology with a degree in Electrical Engineering. Do you still consider yourself an engineer?

Tej Kohli - Today I would call myself a technologist, but I think that to be an engineer you now need to be a technologist and vice versa. It was 1980 when I graduated in Electrical Engineering and ‘technology’ as we know it today did not really exist. The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) remains today one of the top educational institutions in the world and it has become famous for the problem-solving abilities of its engineers.

When the COVID-19 crisis hit in 2020, India found itself with a catastrophic shortage of ventilators, but within weeks engineers at IIT had created a low-cost ventilator that could be manufactured using off-the-shelf parts. They made their design open source so that local manufacturing companies could turn their resources to manufacturing ventilators, which they did. That is an elegant example of engineering and technology coming together.

In 2018 my alma mater conferred their Distinguished Alumnus Award upon me for serving society at large through my work at the Tej Kohli Foundation. That made me proud because part of what we do at the Foundation is to deploy technology to solve human problems.

Who has inspired you most in life?

Tej Kohli - The late Kofi Annan was by far the wisest and most inspirational man that I have ever met. But from a more practical perspective, as obvious as it may sound, I greatly admire Bill Gates. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation approach to philanthropy has set a high standard to which all other philanthropists can aspire. The way that Bill Gates defined very specific objectives and then intensively targeted vast resources into both grassroots activities and also major scientific innovations, has been a big source of learning for me that has continually motivated and inspired me to do even more. Bill Gates achieved so much in business and then used that success to achieve so much for others that like me he has almost had ‘two lives’. His example is a wake-up call for any human who has accumulated wealth to consider how they might use that wealth for the betterment of their fellow human beings.

I am also greatly indebted to Michael Milken. His story resonates strongly with me because Milken got ‘tripped up’ by his prodigious early success, but then made a colossal comeback and focused on using his success to help others. Today Milken is one of the biggest funders of research into prostate cancer, and the results are incredible. In 2004 Fortune Magazine called Milken ‘The Man Who Changed Medicine’. Milken shows that it is possible to move on from past youthful mistakes and rebuild yourself for the betterment of other people.

You have been at the helm of the Tej Kohli Foundation for well over a decade. When did your philanthropic ambitions start?

Tej Kohli - It was my wife Wendy who started off our journey into philanthropy when in 2005 we sponsored a group of disabled children in Costa Rica. By 2005 we knew that a sale of my company was imminent, and we wanted to have something new to put all of our energies into. The group of disabled children that we committed to help had varying levels of disability, and our job was to make interventions that would improve their lives. Some had such severe disability that they would need permanent care for the rest of their lives. At the opposite end of the spectrum, with our support one young girl eventually attended college in the USA.

That same year my wife Wendy launched the ‘Funda Kohli’ project by establishing a series of free canteens in Costa Rica, which is where she is from. The canteens are still operational today more than fifteen years later. They feed hundreds of school age children for free every single day to make sure that they have the nutrition and sustenance that they need to thrive.

But today you are best known for your mission to end corneal blindness by 2035, where did that mission come from?

Tej Kohli - In 2010 I was invited to fund donor corneal transplants at Niramaya Hospital in India. There is no history of blindness in my family and corneal blindness is not something that I had known a huge amount about before then. Nowadays I consider myself something of an expert. I was present in 2010 as the recipient of a corneal transplant that I had funded - a 50-year-old man who had been blind for decades - had his bandages removed. The man was able to see his wife and grown up children for the first time in decades.

That was a life changing moment for him and also for me and was my affirmation that having enjoyed so much rapid success in the late 1990’s and early 2000’s, I now wanted to use that success to eliminate corneal blindness. I felt it was my calling.

Another one of the reasons that corneal blindness resonated so strongly with me is because it is at its heart it is a poverty driven ailment. 75% of corneal blindness is either preventable or treatable. But when it is left untreated, it impedes the ability of entire families to become economically successful in communities that are already impoverished. NGOs do not reach a majority of the remote and rural communities in India. In communities that are underserved for healthcare provision due to their remoteness or poverty, there is a huge treatment gap.

The other challenge with corneal blindness, is that because it’s not life threatening, it attracts less attention than some other global health issues. But the social and economic impact of restoring someone’s vision is immense. It changes families forever. That’s why I became determined to make a difference. And by 2015 I was funding so many corneal transplant operations at Niramaya that a bigger facility was needed.

Is that when the Tej Kohli Cornea Institute project was started?

Tej Kohli - The Tej Kohli Cornea Institute in Hyderabad was the biggest project that the Tej Kohli Foundation had ever embarked upon. It opened in late 2015 and by November 2019 it had welcomed more than 223,404 outpatients and completed more than 43,255 surgeries.

People living with corneal blindness or visual impairment in India were often living in total poverty and in some instances could not even afford the train fare to travel to see a doctor, let alone to pay for a complex corneal transplant operation. We treated anyone referred to the Tej Kohli Cornea Institute for free regardless of who they were. It meant that we were able to help people who had been economically ‘shut out’ from the life changing treatment.

There was one girl who was the same age as my daughter whose vision was so poor that she was nearly blind. I was visiting Hyderbad and met her just after she had received her corneal transplant. She gave me a big hug and I couldn’t help thinking how I would feel if this was my daughter. After that I couldn’t stop thinking about how many others like her were still out there. Knowing that I could help them felt like a big responsibility that I wanted to rise to.

The focus of the Tej Kohli Cornea Institute is in India, but you haven’t lived in India for many decades. What is it that keeps your focus on India?

Tej Kohli - ‘First world’ problems are invariably the ones which it would be relatively expensive to solve. By contrast, high rates of poverty mean that many developing countries are plagued by diseases that it would cost the ‘first world’ comparatively tiny sums to control. In 2018 India commenced the world’s largest experiment in Universal healthcare when the Government granted 500 million people the entitlement to free health insurance overnight.

This will mean that those living below the poverty line in India will no longer have to pay for hospital treatments that would until now have pushed them into crippling debts. But whilst on the surface this is a hugely positive step forward, too much optimism entirely ignores the fact that it will still take many decades and billions of dollars to bring all of India’s healthcare systems up to the equivalent standard of that in the West. Until then, highly pervasive treatment gaps will continue to permeate the poorest communities.

My own focus on India as a philanthropist actually has nothing to do with my own heritage. Unfortunately, India is an epicentre of poverty-driven corneal blindness, and so it is the obvious place for us to be in our mission to combat this form of blindness, the vast proportion of which is either avoidable or treatable. But closing the treatment gaps is about more than money – it is also about logistics, resources, education, knowledge, cultural understanding and having a deep reach into communities. Does my heritage help with this? Yes, a little.

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But in 2020 you announced that you were going to shift your focus away from these direct interventions in favour of finding cures. Why?

Tej Kohli – What has always been abundantly clear from the beginning is the sheer magnitude of the task of closing the corneal blindness treatment gap. I have always felt that official data is incomplete and so in reality there could be ten million people in the world living needlessly with corneal blindness. Most of them are in remote and rural communities across many different countries speaking different languages and with different systems in place.

You simply cannot eliminate corneal blindness by relying on transplantation surgery. Transplantation is too expensive, too complex and too inaccessible for most of the people who need it. The only way to eliminate corneal blindness by 2035 is to bring to market a novel solution that is affordable, scalable and accessible in all circumstances. What you need is a solution that can be applied by ophthalmologists or nurses without surgical intervention.

Finding that ‘universal’ solution is not something that we have just embarked upon: we have been working on it for years and today we have our own intellectual property which we have developed ‘in house’ as well as sponsoring the projects of third parties at major institutions. To begin with we tried to synthesise new corneas from yeast and then later from peptides. We were able to create them, but the rejection rate was too high, and neither solution would have removed the need for invasive sutures and expensive surgery.

It took until 2019 before we achieved a breakthrough when we created a proprietary regenerative solution, which in theory, could be applied using a syringe and cause the cornea to ‘regenerate’ and repair itself. Subject to regulatory approvals, this ‘universal solution’ is now years rather than decades away and could be relevant to more than one third of people with corneal blindness.

The “major institution” where you are sponsoring projects, is that Harvard Medical School?

Tej Kohli – Actually the Tej Kohli Cornea Program resides at Massachusetts Eye and Ear in Boston, which is a teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School. It is Harvard professors from the Department of Ophthalmology who lead the research that we sponsor at Mass. Eye and Ear, but our donations do directly to the hospital and it is they who administer the spending.

I donated $2m in 2019 to support the development of innovative technologies to improve medical diagnoses and treatments of corneal blindness. That money is going toward two major projects, one being similar to our own in-house project, and the other utilising nano string technologies to aid early diagnostics and preventative treatment. The funds are also used to provide seed funding to projects that address unmet medical needs in ophthalmology. In my mind the first $2m is just the start and we will do more together in the future too.

In 2019 we also inaugurated the Tej Kohli Cornea Institute UK Centre of Innovation in the United Kingdom. The Institute is building a research network to bring scientific expertise together and is also harnessing the best of British innovation to bridge the corneal blindness treatment gap in poor communities by awarding grants to UK-based technological and scientific projects. Decisions are made by an advisory board of UK experts in Ophthalmology.

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Recently you returned to your earliest days of feeding children by launching food support programs in the UK. Why?

Tej Kohli - in the Spring of 2020 the world was plunged into a global crisis due to the Coronavirus. The pandemic required an emergency response of immediate interventions to alleviate individual human suffering. We had for a long time been formulating plans for how we could get involved in the mission to combat holiday hunger in the UK. When the crisis hit we had to bring those plans forward and play our part in supporting the local community.

The Tej Kohli Foundation partnered with community groups to create capacity to deliver 100,000 cooked meals each week to any charities or volunteer groups who need more free food to distribute into their local community. We also created the ‘YouCube’ box, a youth-focused food initiative that aims to ‘repackage’ food provision as an off-the-shelf initiative that existing charity and volunteer groups can adopt to combat hunger in their community.

Now the Tej Kohli Foundation aspires to use the organisational memory that has been developed during this period and the deep community connectivity of the scheme to combat ‘holiday hunger’ amongst children.

You also donated $100,000 toward the development of a vaccine for COVID-19, what motivated that?

Tej Kohli - I donated $100,000 of emergency funding to Harvard Medical School researchers based at the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Hospital in Boston. They had developed a novel and experimental gene-based vaccine which utilises a harmless ‘Trojan horse’ virus as a carrier to bring a tiny piece of the DNA of SARS-CoVid-2 into a patient’s cells, building a protein that stimulates their immune system to fight future infections. I think it is a promising solution to a major global problem, and I am hopeful that it will prove successful.

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Your ‘Future Bionics’ program is funding 3D-printed bionic arms for young people in the UK. How did you arrive at this project?

Tej Kohli – I am immensely proud of our Future Bionics project. It captures so elegantly what the Tej Kohli Foundation is all about: making direct interventions to improve people’s lives using technology, with a particular focus on younger people with their entire life ahead of them. The project came about when I had lunch with the CEO of the company that make the bionic arms and he told me that a lot of families turn to crowdfunding because they cannot afford to purchase one of the arms for their child, and that most of this crowdfunding fails.

The first arm was delivered to a 10-year-old from Blackburn called Jacob as an early Christmas present. He has set a shining example and is a fine young man who is a great role model to other young people. And since then we are working our way through to provide arms to ten young people to begin with. I hope we can continue the program after that, but we will have to take a view on the cost versus the impact once that the current tranche is completed.

Why do you place so much faith and emphasis into technology?

Tej Kohli – you should never underestimate the role of technology in making the world a better place. We are living through an unprecedented time in human history where a chain reaction of rapid technological development across science and technology is unlocking unprecedented new opportunities to solve major human problems. Technologists can look out across the vista of a hugely rich and fertile landscape of new opportunities to improve human life. Many new and novel solutions are within grasp and simply need to be incubated and ‘proven’ to stimulate their widespread adoption.

Many technologists and entrepreneurs have built successful commercial enterprises or pioneered new technology solutions before. It’s my belief that this expertise is absolutely critical for unlocking the potential of these new and frontier technologies in a way that can have an exponential global impact in terms of solving human problems and improving human life.

I have long been fascinated by deep tech and new frontier technologies. When I started my payment gateways company in Costa Rica in 1999 we were figuring out frontier technologies and combining them to build brand solutions and applications. By the time that I left in 2006 my company employed armies of software developers. And this experience as a technologist is now also part of the DNA of my objectives and ambitions as a philanthropist.

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It was Peter Thiel who noted that “We wanted flying cars, instead we got 140 characters”. Is there a risk that technology will not deliver in the ways that you expect?

Tej Kohli - My real point is that we are now at a watershed moment where the opportunity is to innovate solutions that could eliminate specific areas of human suffering entirely, rather than merely alleviating them. I strongly believe that AI and ‘humanitarian robotics’ have the potential to drive innovations which will alleviate human suffering and hardship, both directly and indirectly. I also believe that humanitarian efforts the world over will be greatly advanced by these emerging technologies as they continue their exponential growth.

That’s why earlier this year I established a new incubator to back scientific projects and commercial ventures that were targeting solutions to corneal blindness, with the caveat that those solutions must be affordable, scalable and accessible in the world’s poorest countries.

You have predicted that artificial intelligence could become a $150 trillion economy within five years, which is ten times more than the current combined output of India and China?

Tej Kohli - Artificial intelligence, and also biotechnology for that matter, are both frontier technologies that are locked into an exponential growth trajectory. The cost of deciphering the human genome has dropped from $3 billion in 2001, to about $1,000 today and what took many months ten years ago can now be done in less than one hour.

I believe that AI will be so manifest within all aspects of life, and that the applications are so broad, that the AI economy will worth four times that of the global Internet economy, which is today worth approximately $50 trillion. AI is also already transforming developing countries. In Nepal, machine learning has been utilised to map and prioritize reconstruction needs after earthquakes. In Africa AI tutors are helping young students to catch up on coursework. NGOs and humanitarian aid agencies are using big data analytics to optimise the delivery of supplies for refugees fleeing conflict and other hardships. And in India rural farmers are being encouraged to use AI to improve crop yields and boost profits.

Technological innovations like these bring us much closer to achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals on issues like eradicating poverty, ending health-care inequality, increasing access to schooling, and combating global warming. And yet the world is only just scratching the surface of what these new technologies could do for human progress.

Your Kohli Ventures investment vehicle focuses on impact investment. Where does philanthropy end and impact investment begin?

Tej Kohli – That’s a good question. Impact investment looks at the double bottom line of profit and social impact. Philanthropy is a good way to spend wealth, but somewhere along the line you need to first generate that wealth. So why not, when the circumstances are right, try to do both at the same time? Take for example Detraxi, a Florida-based biotech company that I wholly own. It’s a commercial venture but could have a significant humanitarian impact.

More than 100,800 solid organ transplants are performed each year worldwide according to the World Health Organisation. Eight lives can potentially be saved by just one organ donor. Demand far outstrips supply, yet thousands of organs get discarded every single year though wastage due to the practical difficulties of preserving and transporting organs. Imagine if you could solve that problem, it would be a good business that would also save thousands of lives? Well that is what we are trying to do by bringing the Detraxi solution to the market.

But which is more important, philanthropy or impact investment?

Tej Kohli - It was Sir Ronald Cohen who said that “the world must change but we cannot change it by throwing money at old ideas that no longer work. To change the world, we must change how we do business, starting with where and when we invest our money”. Can you imagine a world where every investment decision made by every institution also weighed up the human or social impact of that investment? The consequences would be immense.

Worldwide impact investment is currently was worth around $715 billion in 2018, but the International Finance Corporation estimates that based on current demand from investors’ total demand is nearer to $26 trillion, which is fifty times larger. Impact investing already has the power to solve issues that are often beyond governments. And I am convinced that impact investing is one of the best ways of funding the technology-led changes that the world urgently needs in order to solve some of our biggest challenges.

What have been your favourite impact investments so far?

Tej Kohli – my impact investment portfolio is doing very well indeed, but I deliberately do not disclose my investments since having my name associated can eb a hinderance. And anyway, the focus should be the founders and entrepreneurs at those venture, not on me. One of the largest investments I have made was in 2019 when I committed $100m into the Rewired robotics-focused venture studio ‘with a humanitarian bent’.

Rewired is a Switzerland based organisation, so I do not have any direct influence over what they invest in and their portfolio is also a tightly guarded secret. But based on the Rewired investments that are already in the public domain, one of my favourites is Aromyx based in Silicon Valley. Aromyx was originally initiated by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. The company is creating new modalities of data that have the potential to be disruptive across many sectors and applications. In 2019 Aromyx completed a large-scale study with one of the world’s largest chemical companies with a view to deploying Aromyx into the recycling process to improve plastics recycling rates by over 90%.

Other investments publicised by Rewired include Seldon, which is at the heart of accelerating the adoption of machine learning to solve some of the world’s most challenging problems. There is also Raptor Maps, which was founded by MIT Engineers and makes it simple and affordable for solar companies to adopt drone technology as a tool to increase performance. Open Bionics is enhancing the lives of all humans everywhere with its next generation of 3D-printed ‘bionic’ prosthetics. And Elementary Robotics is re-engineering automation intelligence through its deep learning artificial intelligence software.

You have said before that you believe your children, who are teenagers, could live to be at least 125 years old. What will the world be like by 2125?

Tej Kohli - If I look at how the world has changed since I graduated in 1980, and given the acceleration of technological and human progress, I think it’s impossible to imagine the world in 2125. Thanks to economic growth the world is already on track to end extreme poverty by 2030, so perhaps the next 100 years of human history will see humanity unlocking the latent potential that has always been restrained by global inequality.

Of course, there are still major human challenges such as over population, sustainability and climate change that need dealing with. But even during the next decade AI will change every aspect of our lives. So by 2125 I am optimistic that technology will have unlocked even more solutions to these major global challenges.

Time will tell. What I am certain is that the opportunity is right in front of us, and it is for all of us to master it for the betterment of all of humanity.

For more information about Tej Kohli visit:

Tej Kohli official website: http://www.TejKohli.com

Tej Kohli Foundation official website: http://www.TejKohliFoundation.com

Kohli Ventures official website: http://www.KohliVentures.com

Tej Kohli personal blog: https://medium.com/tej-kohli

Tej Kohli Foundation YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tejkohlifoundation

@MrTejKohl on Twitter: https://twitter.com/mrtejkohli

@MrTejKohli on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mrtejkohli

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hallie-fics · 4 years

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author spotlight - restlessqueenx

“If you get yourself killed doing this,” Harry murmurs, his hand on the back of her neck, his forehead warm where it's leaning against hers, “I will never ever forgive you.”

- Someday I’ll Need Your Spine to Hide Behind @restlessqueenx

it’s not hard to note the fics that define a fandom. this author has written three, three defining stories. the amount of love and respect i have for them is immense, and i was honored to be able to ask and receive answers for these various questions regarding everything from their writing process to favorite hallie headcanon.

this is only the first in a series of interviews done with hallie authors. if there’s anyone who you’d like to see, please message me and i’ll get that sorted out right away!

the q&a

*quick note, I tend to shorten my titles when talking about them because I always pick such long titles, so I may refer to Someday I’ll Need Your Spine to Hide Behind as “Spine,” It Feels Like Winter Follows You Around as “Winter” and Screaming at the Stars as “Stars”

Favorite of your stories (and why)

I think, at least right now, it has to be Someday I’ll Need Your Spine to Hide Behind, because it’s complete. Also, because Winter (Harry’s POV) wouldn’t exist without it (I had never intended to write it, and it just sort of happened), and Screaming at the Stars is probably more in the vein of what I normally write, but I can’t decide how satisfied I am with it until I wrap it up.

Easiest story to write

Probably Screaming at the Stars because it just sort of showed up as this emotion in my chest and I knew I wanted to put it down on the page. Spine was pretty time consuming because it’s canon divergent and I was constantly having to check scenes to get the dialogue/descriptions right. I wanted to use as much of canon as I could, but that meant that I couldn’t really write it if I wasn’t home with the episodes available. Winter was (is) difficult because of how dark of a headspace I sometimes have to get into with Harry. Stars is overall a much lighter emotional space to access.

Hardest story to write

Spine, just because of how much work it took to weave the canon with the canon divergence and reframe scenes. Winter is easier because (even though it does include some scenes that aren’t in Spine) I have the blueprint of Spine to refer to, and I reuse some sections of it word for word to highlight the difference in POV when it diverges. Winter is definitely emotionally heavier, but it’s less tedious work.

Pre-writing process (if any)

For me, it depends a lot on the fic. With Spine, the very first thing that came to me was “What if I wrote a soulmate AU where the only thing that indicates that is that wherever you fall asleep, you always wake up where your soulmate is?” Then I thought, “Could this be set in the canon universe? How would that potentially just twist around or change what we’ve seen?” And everything spiralled out from there. I didn’t really outline initially, I started writing it, just to see where it was going. Then I ended up having to go through every episode and watch each Harry, Allie, and Hallie scene and write basic outlines of the dialogue and what happened in those scenes so I could start to figure out how to adjust the scenes/story to fit the soulmate AU idea. I’m not very patient about outlines, so I mostly just bullet point brief descriptions of what I need to write and then re-examine the scene as I’m writing. I’ve never written something that relied so heavily on canon before. It’s a lot of work and I’m really impressed by people who do it regularly. So Spine’s pre-writing was basically an idea on a twisted trope (I don’t know if I’m the first person to think of it, but I’ve never read a soulmate au with the basis of Spine before) and then watching/transposing the canon scenes. Winter didn’t really have any since I had Spine as a basis. Stars I started thinking about while taking a shower and I just jumped right into it.

What drew you to Hallie?

I love ships that I see potential for, but aren’t all neatly worked out immediately in canon. And I love ships that I feel the characters have a lot of potential to grow and change as individuals within the relationship. I was a little unsure about Hallie at first as I was watching the show, because it took me a while to work out how I felt about Harry in general, but I just see so much potential for a great story between them. And, to be quite honest, Kathryn and Alex just have loads and loads of on screen chemistry, they just light up with each other in scenes. Sometimes actors just have that with each other and it’s almost hard to look away.

Hopes for season 2

Growth and help for Harry! I’m okay with having to wait for romantic Hallie (presuming we get more seasons) as long as keeping them apart feels organic and true to the story (and not done solely for tension & keeping the audience coming back), but I need to see Harry receive help (I get that he can’t get professional help in these circumstances, but he really needs people who are genuinely looking out for him and trying to help him) and to also grow as a person and make better decisions/amends for some of his actions. I want Harry to have friends/people who actually care about him. While I really love Kelly’s character, and appreciate that she’s tried to keep an eye out for him, I think Harry needs people in his life outside of just an ex (and obviously outside of Campbell) and that’s pretty much all he’s had for a while. Harry’s so isolated in season 1, and I don’t see him being able to develop much (in a positive manner) if he continues to be so isolated in season 2.

Favorite line (or lines) that you’ve written for a hallie fic/ a section that you’re really proud of

From Spine, probably my favorite pieces are-

Allie tells him to leave like it matters, like come morning she won't find herself curled in his bed, close enough to feel his body heat. She tells him to go, because she wants to hate him, thinks she deserves to hate him, but she doesn't. And that's even worse.

And then the end, which I wrote long before I actually got to it. Specifically-

“There's probably a world somewhere,” Harry says, and his voice rumbles through his chest, against her skin, “where we never worked any of this out, and you and I are on opposite sides and always will be.”

“Probably.” It wouldn't be hard, she thinks, to have ended up somewhere else, anywhere else. They fought for this, a small sliver of peace in a fucked up world. It might be all they get.

“I'm glad it's not this one.”

“Me too.” Under her cheek, his heartbeat is steady, in sync with hers.

From Winter my absolute favorite section so far is the flashback to Harry when he’s 13 & deals with his familial relationships. I also am pretty happy with-

Allie is simultaneously fragile and hard as steel, one for a moment, the other the next. Harry doesn't understand it, how she can bear to wear her feelings to blatantly on her face, how she survives without a protective shell to keep her safe. He could never do that. She doesn't burrow down inside herself, she burns. He almost can't even watch it. Harry doesn't know what he is, but he knows Allie is something else entirely.

And-

She lets out a little shaky exhale. “I don't know how to hate you.”

Harry wonders how that can be. It's easy, he wants to say, if she doesn't already, all she needs to do is crack open his ribs, see that dark void yawning underneath, that place he falls into. But Allie isn't like him, even her darkest moods and thoughts are full of fire, casting light. Allie burns things down, she doesn't swallow them up.

He tells her the truth, one he's known for a long time. “I do.”

And, finally-

She's not starlight or sunlight or candlelight, she's a forest fire. When she leans into him, skin fever hot and her nails biting into his shoulders, he wonders if her inferno could burn the darkness right out from behind his ribs. Harry thinks he could be reduced to ashes, but he'd still let her try.

From Stars, I’m a little less sure, but I do like this part-

Just outside the doors, she catches a glimpse of Harry, head thrown back, laughing, his friends crowding close to him like moths to a flame, like they can't help it. Harry's always been magnetic. Allie remembers his face in the moonlight, the way she'd felt compelled to lean closer. It wasn't her fault; if you get close enough to Harry, he draws you into his orbit, planets rotating around a sun, basking in his light. Even now, her feet ache to drift in his direction. Those aren't her friends, he's not her friend anymore, but his gravitational pull is strong.

What type of Hallie stories do you like to write/read? (canon divergence, modern au, soulmate au, etc)

I’m an AU girl at heart, which is ironic considering 2 of my 3 Hallie fics are canon divergent. But really, I’m a big fan of AUs, almost any of them, I love them so much. I think I get more and more attracted to them the further I get into a show (the more seasons) because canon gets more confining as you have more of it. I think the kind of AU I like the most depends on the ship. I like soulmate AUs (obviously, I wrote one, lol) for Hallie because they have a history of not being super fond of each other & it’s a great way to force them to interact.

Favorite Hallie trope?

I think…. maybe Bed Sharing? You may notice that I write it into like everything I write ever. I just love the intimacy of it and the conversations people can have late at night in the dark or sleepy in the early morning. I dunno. It’s a thing for me, I guess.

Favorite Hallie headcanon?

I haven’t written it into anything (yet), but I have this mental picture of Modern AU Hallie getting really competitive about playing boardgames with each other. That has a soft spot in my heart.

How long have you been writing for?

Pretty much as long as I can remember. The first thing I can remember writing (like thinking I was seriously writing something people would want to read) was this ridiculous story about unicorn royalty when I was about seven years old. I never finished it, but I think I actually did write like at least a couple thousand words before I quit. I have hundreds of beginnings of original works, literally several hundred, but most of them are only a few hundred words. My parents always encouraged me to write, so it was just something I did pretty much ever since I physically could.

How has your writing style evolved over time?

Oh, I’m not even sure where to begin with this. Because I’ve been writing since I was really young, it’s definitely evolved a lot, some of it just through age and getting a better grasp of language, and some of it deliberately. I think when I was younger, I tried really hard to mimic the styles of writers I liked, and I’ve definitely moved away from that as I’ve gotten older and found my own voice. I’m not trying to sound like anyone in particular now. That’s not to say I don’t find other writers influential, I certainly do, but I’m not actively attempting to write in someone else’s style. I think everyone who writes is always evolving. You can’t help but be influenced by everything you read and absorb.

Do you ever worry about how your stories are received?

All the time. I only have 3 works on the restlessqueen AO3, but I think I’ve posted about 25 fanfictions over various platforms/accounts for various fandoms and ships, and I get nervous about them every time. Whenever I write something, I usually get this glow of like “Oh, I’ve done something and I like it!” and then that sort of slowly wears off and I start to just question everything about it. I don’t know anyone who feels 100% confident about the stuff they post. I think I’m a little less nervous about it than I used to be, because people have been very kind to me for the most part (I have one old fic from around 2012/13 that got a couple of comments that still haunt me a bit, but other than that I’ve had good experiences) and so that’s helped ease some of my fears. I think what makes me the most worried now is when I post something and I just don’t get much feedback or it takes quite a while for responses to roll in, because I’m always thinking like “is it really so bad no one has literally anything to say?? Is it that bad and I didn’t realize it?” Also, I’m a bit insecure about my descriptive writing, I feel like I don’t do a very good job of describing location/setting, and it’s something I’m working on. I’m always a little scared someone will say they basically just didn’t get any sort of mental picture from what I write.

What’s the hardest part of writing for you?

Focus. I have so many ideas always bouncing around my head, but I get distracted super easily. I can’t ever seem to only do one thing at a time. If I’m writing, I’m definitely either listening to music or sometimes even playing a podcast in the background because it’s like if there’s any free space at all in my brain, I just completely lose my ability to do anything. It’s a big struggle for me. I actually write with the most focus when I’m supposed to be doing something else. I wrote 150k worth of an original piece by writing when I was supposed to be taking notes in history class in high school. In fact, a lot of my fanfiction has been written during lectures, because somehow if I’m supposed to be focusing on something else, I’m almost always the most productive version of my writing self. I wish I were different, though.

Do you get writer’s block and if so how do you deal with it?

Ugh. Unfortunately. I’m not great at handling writer’s block, tbh. Sometimes I just don’t write for a long time. I think reading can sometimes oust me from it, but not always. The worst is that occasionally I have to just push through it and write my way out of it (which basically means just writing really uninspired crap until I manage to find some inspiration again). I do think that talking to someone about what I’m working on is a big help, though it’s not always an available option. I’m part of a writing group, and I usually feel really inspired after we’ve had a writing discussion.

Biggest risk you’ve ever taken as a writer?

Wow, this is actually a really hard question. I feel like I’m not a big risk taker, and this is making me wonder if maybe I should try to take more writing risks. I guess most recently it could be creating the restlessqueen AO3. I made it because I have written quite a few fics for a pretty large fandom and I had gotten comfortable within that space and I thought it would be good for me to step outside of that world for a bit. I think it really has been, too.

again, the biggest of thanks to @restlessqueenx for doing this with me! to anyone who hasn’t read any of these fics, please do so immediately. each of them are amazing and i will never step recommending them!

#the society #hallie #hallie:fic #fic rec #author spotlight #i will forver recommend spine to anyone who asks for a soulmate au #restlessqueenx

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mia-cooper · 5 years

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Fanfiction Questions

from here

Fandom Questions

1. What was the first fandom you got involved in?

Involved as in ‘frantically read every book I could get my hands on, daydreamed about being part of that universe and wrote stories/made art inspired by the books, if not actual fanfiction’? Mm, probably The Chronicles of Narnia when I was six or seven. The next great obsession was The Silver Brumby when I went through my horse stage around age 12, and then Sweet Valley High when I was 15. Hahaha.

2. What is your latest fandom?

Marvel! I’m not into comics and I’m definitely not interested in consuming every last bit of canon material or memorising the variations of every universe, but I love (most of) the movies and Agents of SHIELD is pretty cool.

3. What is the best fandom you’ve ever been involved in?

Star Trek Voyager. No contest. I venture to suggest that the older fandoms, the ones that are all about defunct shows, are a hell of a lot more chilled. Maybe because we’ve come to terms with our shitty canon endings and learned that liking the ship you hate doesn’t make someone problematic, unlike some newer fandoms I could name (Yes I’m talking about you, Game of Thrones fans. What the fuck.)

4. Do you regret getting involved in any fandoms?

I’ve dipped a toe into one or two fandoms for shows or books I’ve really enjoyed and backed the fuck out when the vibe gets weird (oh hey, it’s GoT again), but nope. No regrets.

5. Which fandoms have you written fanfiction for?

All the Star Treks except TOS, and a Trek/MCU crossover. I’d like to write more for MCU someday. Plus I’ve written longhand entire notebooks full of teen romance shit that bore an uncanny similarity to SVH, and my first short story was a fantasy fic that featured a girl whose guardian was a wise talking lion who led her into mystical secret worlds, which is kind of familiar.

6. List your OTP from each fandom you’ve been involved in.

Wow. I’m going to define ‘involved in’ as ‘cared enough about to have an OTP’, but I’m guaranteed to forget a ton. In no particular order:

Voyager: Janeway x anyone who can get her off

Discovery: Lorca x Cornwell or Pike x Tyler x Burnham (or any combination of)

DS9: Kira x Jadzia Dax

TNG: Picard x Vash, I guess? I don’t really have any TNG ships

ENT: T’Pol x Trip x Hoshi (or any variation therein)

MCU: Cap x Widow

AoS: Coulson x Skye... no May... no Skye... I don’t know

CAOS: Madam Satan x Zelda

Timeless: Garcy

The Good Place: Eleanor x Tahani

The 100 (shut up): toss up between Clarke x Bellamy and Kane x Abby

Veronica Mars: Veronica x Leo (first run), Veronica x Logan (s4)

Orphan Black: Cosima x Delphine

BSG: Apollo x Starbuck

SG1: Sam x Jack

Arrow: Olicity (so over the show now though)

This Life: Milly x Egg

Yeah you know what... I’m drawing a blank. I can’t think of any other shows where I’ve been invested in The Romance that much.

7. List your NoTPs from each fandom you’ve been in.

I’m too tired to do every fandom, and besides, I can come around to almost any ship if the headcanons (or fics) are convincing enough. I do have a few hard no-gos, but they might be someone else’s OTP so I’ll shut up about them.

8. How did you get involved in your latest fandom?

Reluctantly. The MCU movies are not something I ever thought I’d enjoy beyond a dull evening’s entertainment. I never expected to get attached to the characters. And yet.

9. What are the best things about your current fandom?

Voyager is my forever fandom and the only one where I’ve really interacted with other fans. The best things about it? In general, everyone is just cool, accepting, open and basically awesome. And talented. I love my Party Bus people.

10. Is there a fandom you read fic from but don’t write in?

Sure. The 100, Veronica Mars and Agents of SHIELD are the ones I’d dip into more frequently. I really enjoy crossovers between Trek and BSG or the Stargate variants, too.

Ship Questions for your Current Fandom

11. Who is your current OTP?

Janeway x Chakotay.

12. Who is your current OT3?

Janeway x Chakotay x Paris.

13. Any NoTPs?

A few.

14. Go on, who are your BroTPs?

Janeway & Tuvok! Also Torres & Chakotay, and I’d have killed for more Janeway & Torres in canon. (If they kissed sometimes that would be okay too)

15. Is there an obscure ship which you love?

Yeah. Paris x Seven. There are like two fics in existence, and yet ... the potential! (Sorry, B’Elanna)

16. Are there any popular ships in your fandom which you dislike?

Nope.

17. Who was your first OTP and are they still your favourite?

Janeway x Paris. And they’re still way up there, but not quite at the top.

18. What ship have you written the most about?

84% of my fics feature Janeway x Chakotay as either the primary or secondary pairing... holy shit.

19. Is there a ship which you wished you could get behind, but you just don’t feel them?

Paris x Torres. I mean, I feel them. I just don’t generally feel the need to write about them.

20. Any ships which you surprised yourself by liking?

Chakotay x Seven. In another universe, it could’ve been beautiful.

Author Questions

21. What was the first fanfic you ever wrote?

Actual story that was clearly fanfic? A farcical drunken romp told in the 24th century equivalent of email format called PADDemonium (see what I did there?)

22. Is there anything you regret writing?

Lol, a few things that should probably have never seen the light of day for various reasons, some of them leola related. But I’ve only deleted two fics that I can recall.

23. Name a fic you’ve written that you’re especially fond of & explain why you like it.

Relieved. It’s a 30k AU Chakotay moral dilemma backstory that brings in DS9 characters, Section 31 and his longstanding history with AU Janeway. I did so much research for it (way back in the days before memory alpha and chakoteya.net) and I’m really proud of how I wound in canon stuff across series but changed a few key bits and pieces. Only problem is, it’s a sequel to ...

24. What fic do you desperately need to rewrite or edit?

... Pressure, which I can’t even read without cringing. My characterisation of Janeway, even Angry Maquis AU Janeway, is way over the top and there are moments that verge on Mills and Boon and give me first, second and third hand embarrassment. God, I’d love to rewrite it. Actually, that’s a lie. I want someone else to rewrite it so I can read it without covering my eyes and moaning.

25. What’s your most popular fanfic?

Desperate Measures, by about 70,000 light years, lol. Although Fragile Things beats it on bookmarks.

26. How do you come up with your fanfic titles?

You know what? A fair percentage of the time, I think of the title first and come up with a plot second. Aside from that, I prefer shorter, punchier titles that clearly tie into the story (Flight Risk, Speechless), though sometimes it’s song lyrics (Burn Our Horizons, your body like a searchlight) or a literary quote (Required to Bear, All the Devils are Here) or a turn of phrase from the story itself (The Prisons You Inhabit). Hey that was fun. Thanks for letting me pimp the shit out of my stories.

27. What do you hate more: Coming up with titles or writing summaries?

Ugh, it depends on the day. Summaries are harder, I think. I never want to give away too much of the plot, but there has to be enough there for people to know whether they’ll bother clicking. Funny story: I actually ran the stats on this a few months back. Here they are for your edification:

Fics with a one line plot summary = 54%

With two or three line plot summary = 18%

With a short snippet directly from the fic = 16%

With a snippet + a one line explanation = 3%

With a one line plot summary plus a line to date the fic (eg "set in season 3", “episode tag to Worst Case Scenario") or the fic prompt = 7%

And finally, a quote from something other than the fic = 2% (that's only 3 fics).

28. If someone were to draw a piece of fanart for your story, which story would it be and what would the picture be of?

Ooh. I’ll say the final scene in Explosive.

29. Do you have a beta reader? Why/Why not?

I used to regularly ask @jhelenoftrek and @littleobsessions90 to beta for me, and both of them are brilliant at it. Lately I’ve been posting without sending my stuff off for editing. This is partly because I’m impatient to get stuff out there, partly because I don’t have as much time to write/edit, and partly because I’m a little less focused on improving my writing and more on enjoying it for its own sake.

30. What inspires you to write?

Little bits of episode dialogue I haven’t noticed before, other people’s fanfiction, stray conversations, fic prompts, song lyrics, random headcanons, fever dreams, dares ...

31. What’s the nicest thing someone has ever said about your writing?

I’ve been really lucky with comments on my fic. The least helpful comment I’ve ever received was on one of my early 30k fics and all it said was “Did you have to take the name of the lord in vain?” Which is kind of funny. The nicest thing anyone’s ever said? I’m very partial to the feedback that starts “I don’t even like this pairing/genre/trope/show but you made me love it”, and particularly “I’ll read anything you write, I don’t care what it’s about.” But all comments are gold. The little heart button is cool too.

32. Do you listen to music when you write or does music inspire you? If so, which band or genre of music does it for you?

I’m not someone who can tune out music I love, or leave it in the background to inspire me. If it’s on, I’m fully invested in it. I’m that annoying person in the car who flips radio stations every three seconds until I find something I like and then it’s on 11 and I’m singing along to it. I’m also really picky but extremely eclectic, although there are genres I can’t stand (anything with autotune makes me stabby). That said, sometimes I find a song that I can’t stop listening to for weeks and often that perfect combination of music and lyrics will inspire me to write a fic. For example, I just plotted out an entire J/C story because of this song.

33. Do you write oneshots, multi-chapter fics or huuuuuge epics?

All of the above. Although I’m not sure if my longest epic is huuuuuge or just huuuge.

34. What’s the word count on your longest fic?

101,467.

35. Do you write drabbles? If so, what do you normally write them about?

I have two drabble collections. One is all J/C, full of responses to random prompts and I add to it sporadically. The other is episode additions set on Kathryn Janeway’s birthday (May 20) and added to annually.

36. What’s your favourite genre to write?

Angst, definitely. Sometimes it’s smutty angst or fluffy angst or hurt/comfort angst, but often it’s just fucking unrelenting angst. And I’m okay with that.

37. First person or third person - what do you write in and why?

I did the stats on this once, too, haha. Pretty sure I came out fairly even on first and third person with a smattering of second person in there. I’m probably even-ish on present vs past tense, too. I make it a point to mix it up to avoid my writing getting stale or same-y. And sometimes a fic doesn’t really click for me until I try it in a different POV or tense or from a different character’s perspective.

38. Do you use established canon characters or do you create OCs?

I mostly write for canon characters - the fun is in all the different ways you can interpret and imagine them - but I’ve been known to throw in the odd OC, or focus on a character who only got a brief cameo appearance, or write about someone who only appears in beta canon, or who only rates a mention on screen.

39. What is your greatest strength as a writer?

Oh, wow. I’m not sure. I guess the thing I value most about my own writing is my willingness to try different styles, characters, pairings and so on. The thing I strive for most is characterisation that feels true, and I really love it when I get comments on that. Exploring a character in a way that rings true with a reader is the best thing ever.

40. What do you struggle the most with in your writing?

Overly long sentences and adverb abuse, haha. No, truthfully, there comes a point in most of my fics, particularly the longer ones, when I really just want to scrap it because in my heart I know it’s dreadful. Usually that passes once I slog through the ‘I don’t wanna’ stage because I’m a bloody-minded bitch, but sometimes fics do get left in the dust half-written. Honestly, though, they’re the ones that probably should stay there.

Fanfiction Questions

41. List and link to 5 fanfics you are currently reading:

This is hilarious because I was just talking on discord about my problematic ‘to read’ pile. My unread AO3 subscription emails currently number 29 and my phone browser has 71 tabs open. So here are 5 random picks from that list of exactly 100 fics I should be reading:

Sex on the Beach (E, Janeway/Chakotay) by @traccigaryn

The Ruby Ring (T, Janeway/Chakotay, Janeway/Tighe) by @trinfinity2001

Earth is But an Idea (T, Janeway/Chakotay, Carter/O’Neill) by @caladeniablue

Home (E, Janeway/Chakotay) by Cassatt

Wise Up (E, Janeway/Chakotay) by KimJ

42. List and link to 5 fanfiction authors who are amazing:

Only five? Shit. Okay. In no particular order, these are five of the writers I keep coming back to:

quantumsilver (also here)

northernexposure

LittleObsessions

Helen8462

Cheshire

But there are so many others. My chosen fandom is chock full of amazing talent.

43. Is there anyone in your fandom who really inspires you?

All of the authors above for various reasons, but also august because her writing is so spare and delicate and devastating, and runawaymetaphor because she writes the most delicious Janeway/Paris, and @seperis because I read In the Space of Seven Days literally 20 years ago and I still haven’t recovered, and I could be here all night raving on this topic but there are still many questions to get through.

44. What ship do you feel needs more attention?

Janeway x Paris. I’m so happy there’s been a little bit of a resurgence in J/P fics lately. Thanks, @curator-on-ao3, you’re doing the lord’s work.

I’ll also take Janeway x Johnson content any day of the week.

45. What is your all time favourite fanfic?

What the hell? I can’t pick just one! Ugh!

... but okay, here’s the first one that came to mind when I tried to think about this: if you came this way by tree. I’m not sure I’d call it my favourite, but it’s one I revisit often. Ugh, there are so many other fics I’m thinking of now that I really want to list.

46. If someone was to read one of your fanfics, which fic would you recommend to them and why?

Oh, that’s hard. I should probably pick an angsty smutty J/C because that’s a fair proportion of what I write and it’s good to let a new reader know what they can expect. But honestly, I think the best fic I’ve written is The Uncharted Sea. (It’s safe for work. Maybe not for makeup.)

47. Archive Of Our Own, Fanfiction.net or Tumblr - where do you prefer to post and why?

The Archive, of course. Where else can I find ad-free hosting on a stunningly user-friendly interface with absolutely no moralising content restrictions and the world’s best tagging system? That Hugo award is well deserved.

Tumblr is good for headcanons and meta and gifsets and a few other formats that I’m less likely to post on AO3 because I’d feel like I was pissing off people who subscribe to me by giving them some random garbage.

I also have my own website, but I’m not really sure why. Sometimes I post fic there that doesn’t make it to tumblr or AO3.

48. Do you leave reviews when you read fanfiction? Why/Why not?

I try to. Honestly I do. I love it when I get reviews, so I figure paying it forward is the least I can do. I’m less scrupulous about leaving comments when I’m busy or reading on my phone.

49. Do you care if people comment/reblog your writing? Why/why not?

I mean, I love it when people reblog, but I certainly don’t expect it. @arcadia1995 is amazing for reblogging stuff *blows kisses*

Nobody owes fanfic writers shit, but I feel like there’s a tacit agreement that if you like what you just read for free and you’re on a platform that makes it easy to do so, you leave a review or at least a kudos, because I’m not gonna lie, posting a fic you’ve worked super hard on and seeing it get very few kudos or comments is a bit deflating. I’m sure a lot of us have been there.

50. How did you get into reading and/or writing fanfiction?

During Voyager’s original run I was trawling the internet for Endgame spoilers (I don’t know why; I usually love surprises) and I guess I googled (or whatever the 2001 equivalent of googling was) something like “how does voyager get home” and somehow I stumbled across Revisionist History. At first I had no idea what I was reading - was this a lost story pitch that somehow got leaked? A professional novella commissioned by the showrunners?

Then I started following links and discovered yahoo groups and webrings and Trekiverse and fanfiction.net and all sorts of incredible things I’d never guessed at, including the now defunct ‘archipelago of angst’, a collection of Voyager writers who focused mainly on a darker Janeway than most of the other fic writers I was encountering, and I was hooked. So I wrote a few of my own pieces, and then I lost interest for 15 years. I’m still not sure how I got dragged back in.

51. Rant or Gush about one thing you love or hate in the world of fanfiction! Go!

Honestly, in what other way can I indulge my obsessions, hone my skills and talk about it endlessly with like-minded people? Where else can I instantly find a plethora of fiction about the exact topic I feel like reading about on my mobile device and for free? Fanfiction is fucking amazing and I’m so glad it exists in my life.

#miamemes #fanfiction #fanfic asks

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polyamorousmisanthrope · 5 years

Text

Does it Work?

This is a paper I wrote in 2009 trying desperately to find the line between healthy, in-group behaviors and cult. It was inconclusive as hell.

In studying the alternative lifestyles and communities of the US in the past 200-odd years, there has been an attempt to judge whether or not these communities are good. That’s fine in the context of a rigid social system or system of morality against which it present a background or framework.

Unfortunately or fortunately, depending on your point of view, the United States of 2009 simply doesn’t have a single, unified code by which to judge the goodness or badness of a lifestyle. Oh, we agree that child molestation is wrong and revile the more excessive behaviors of a Warren Jeffs of the FLDS church, or a David Koresh. But for things less extreme than rape and murder, the line between “good” and “bad” becomes far more fuzzy.

Social traditionalists might bemoan the fuzzy line, cry “declining family values” or even “lack of faith in God”. This is a difficult point of view for a thoughtful student of social history to take seriously. Even as recently as the 1950s, the Leave it to Beaver snapshot of a household wasn’t exactly the real world that people were living. The author’s own grandfather worked three jobs during that time-period to support a family of six, and when the children were in school, his wife also went to work to be able to pay the expanded expenses of a household with four pre-teen and teenagers.

If people can idealize and romanticize times they actually lived through, how much easier it is to romanticize times of more than a century ago. We remember the family solidarity of Little House on the Prairie, but fail to internalize the desperate poverty of a family that could only afford two dresses for each child, that counted on fish from a creek three times a day to get through a summer, and a rearing that caused one of the children to feel she must go to work to pay her parents back for the expense of rearing her.

In the face of this romanticism, it is easy to cry “Traditional Family Values!” when confronted with a new problem of living such as Polyamory. However, that sort of answer, when faced with the realities of our changing society and its mores is worse than useless, as Traditional Family Values hearken back to an age that never actually existed. If it didn’t exist and work then, how could it be possible to make it exist and work now?

Polyamory is defined in the Oxford English Dictionary thus:

The fact of having simultaneous close emotional relationships with two or more other individuals, viewed as an alternative to monogamy, esp. in regard to matters of sexual fidelity; the custom or practice of engaging in multiple sexual relationships with the knowledge and consent of all partners concerned.

This definition isn’t entirely accepted by everyone in the polyamory community, but as a writer in the polyamory community herself, the author personally considers it good enough to be going on with.

Polyamory, then, can just be considered an open alternative to sexual exclusivity. This is practiced in many ways by different people. Many married couples who are polyamorous might have their marriage, household, dog, kids and white picket fence, but also engage in romantic/sexual relationships outside of the marriage relationships. Others take it in a different direction – eschewing pair bonding and forming non-formal relationships. Yet others form group marriage. This relationship is often called a PolyFamily, and is probably the least common form of polyamorous relationship practiced.

So, does it work?

One could answer “yes and no”, but it would hardly be conclusive. Sometimes not. Margaret Hollenbach (Hollenbach) did not find her life in the Family in New Mexico very workable. Hollenbach had to be just about the classical “hippie”. College kid, white, from a relatively well-to-do background though with divorced parents – somewhat less common in the late 1960s and early 1970s than now. She joined the Family in Taos, New Mexico and found that the lifestyle and therapy sessions[1] reminiscent of the brainwashing techniques used by the Chinese government (Hollenbach 166). She also comments that her own experience did not include coercion in the classical sense. One was free to get up and walk away and there were no physical attempts at restraint.

However, one of the serious problems with any long-term live-in relationship that may or may not be workable is the fact that while one might not be physically restrained from leaving if it becomes unpleasant, unworkable or difficult, there are matters of social isolation, inertia, and the simple financial ties anyone has in a household that one must contend with. Historically, some communes, in a deep desire not to be coercive when it came to group membership have had a way to pay out members that wished to leave so that they would not feel financially tied to a group that they did not want to be with. The Shakers would allow a member who left to take any property that he had brought with him upon joining away, or give a monetary allowance to those who joined empty-handed. Few modern communes, poly or otherwise, have had such a forward-thinking view.

There is also the social isolation. If one lives in a group where the internal culture is “different”, there is an increased tendency towards Groupthink. Groupthink is generally characterized by premature concurrence seeking – high conformity pressures, self-censorship of dissenting ideas, mindguards and the maintenance of the image of unanimity (Forsyth 370). The ideals of marriage say that the happy, effective couple presents a united front. However good or bad this idea is, it becomes problematic in a group marriage situation.

At first, it might not seem so. That united front can be useful. Imagine being a car salesman and negotiating a loan among four people who can play off of each other and come together with the precision of watch gears while you have to answer each and every one of them all by yourself[2]. To be a member of such an effective team can be pretty heady.

But there’s a dark side. That groupthink? It’s very real. In the interests of the unified front, one can suppress one’s own dissenting opinions, find oneself weary of discussion and abdicate opinion in the interests of quiet. This is an example of something that doesn’t work for long.

The social isolation is often a problem as well. If one lives in a group marriage or other alternative relationship, one often finds that the internal frame of reference of the group is the one that’s turned to for a “reality check”. Choosing the left-hand path means that one occasional faces outside disapproval. The “us against them” view that one can develop within such a context, while entirely human and natural,[3] can be counter-productive for the individual health of individual members of a group.

In observing group relationships that work out well, a primary characteristic of any of them seems to hinge around personal privacy and, oddly enough, a high value placed on individuality. “The two (or three or four) shall become one” does not wear well in a polyamorous situation. The relationship and personal dynamic must be very different for it to work.

The Oneida Community had an inkling of this when it built its group home. Each adult member had his own small room. While they professed to value the group over anything, and diaries of the time talk of struggles with selfishness (Herrick 62), there was an understanding that a certain level of personal privacy and personal choice are very necessary to the happiness of a person within a group. Within the Oneida Community, there were people with varying interests and these interests were encouraged. Children were sent off to school away from the O.C., people often made trips to visit the “Outside”, as they called it, and there was a tacit understanding that one would choose for oneself how much to participate in the “social life[4]” of the Community. While it ultimately dissolved, keep in mind that the Oneida Community lasted for thirty years – a Methuselah among communes.

Modern marriage counselors now talk about this more and more often. In modern mental health literature, there is a strong theme of taking responsibility for one’s own needs instead of depending on another to meet them. This isn’t to say that we must blow off others’ needs and desires, nor that we have no responsibility to the people with whom we’ve formed relationships.

Each human being has freedom of choice over his or her own actions; all of us are accountable for our choices and their consequences. No other person can be responsible for the feelings that result from our choices, be they happy or sad. (Paul and Paul 212).

Recognition of this individual responsibility seems to be the key to happy interpersonal relationships of all sorts. While it might seem that it means that one could callously assert that if someone else is unhappy in the face of what’s going on that it’s his own problem, that extreme isn’t quite the way accepting personal responsibility for one’s own feelings and actions work. While it’s impossible actually to be responsible for another’s feelings, it’s also impossible to have a good relationship without caring about the other’s feelings as well. It’s an important balance.

Also required for good balance is the “what’s in it for me?” factor. There has to be some incentive for people to devote time/energy/money to almost anything, and they have to feel like they’re getting a good trade out of it. A housewife, putting in long hours to create a beautiful and comfortable home, might be compensated by a spouse with more free time to earn a higher salary. That spouse might be glad to have a well-run home and be relieved of housekeeping responsibilities. While a very “traditional” view, it’s one that works out in practice as well[5]. In communal situations larger than a family, a credit system where work means something tangible tends to work out better than an “from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs” situation. The founder of Twin Oaks in Louisa, VA commented, “Nowadays, I think you need some personal incentive to put out your best in the work scene.” (Kuhlmann 126)

The poly families that work out the best do seem to be families where there is a high regard for individualism and privacy, as well as a strong vested interest in each member of the group finding the relationship a fulfilling, perhaps even profitable, one.

Works Cited

Forsyth, Donelson R. Group Dynamics. Belmont: Wadsworth, 2005.

Herrick, Tirzah Miller. Desire and Duty at Oneida : Tirzah Miller’s Intimate Memoir. Ed. Robert S. Fogarty. New York: Indiana University Press, 2000.

Hollenbach, Margarget. Lost and Found : My Life in a Group Marriage Commune. New York: University of New Mexico Press, 2004.

Kuhlmann, Hilke. Living Walden Two : B. F. Skinner’s Behaviorist Utopia and Experimental Communities. New York: Univeristy of Illinois Press, 2005.

Paul, Jordan and Margaret Paul. Do I Have to Give up Me to Be Loved by You? Grand Rapids: Hazelden & Educational Services, 2002.

[1] They used a form of Gestalt therapy as a means of social cohesion.

[2] This actually happened in my own quad. One of the former members still owns and drives that car!

[3] There are few things better for group cohesion than a common “enemy”, as history has proven more than once.

[4] The expression “social life” in the Oneida Community was a euphemism for sexual relationships.

[5] When I worked full time, while I did do housework at home, having a housewife there for primary childcare duties was a great boon to my ability to focus on my job!

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marginalgloss · 5 years

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the penknife through the boards

‘...days, even weeks later, he was sitting on the grey pebbles of an island, one of the innumerable cold grey Chonos islands, sullenly training his glass not on any wildly exotic migrant but the commonplace resident blackish (but white-footed) oyster-catcher wading about in search of its living. Farther along there was another, a lacklustre female; and neither betrayed the slightest interest in the other: clearly this was not their breeding season, whatever the snipe might think...He fixed it with his telescope, and there indeed was Jacob looking at him through another and making signs – untimely mirth? Whatever the signs were they were very soon lost as the brig rounded yet another great sea-worn cliff in the direction of Surprise, and Stephen’s attention was at once seized by a very noble sight – two black-necked swans flying steadily south, quite low over the water, so low that he could hear the rhythmic beating of their wings. ‘I cannot just sit here, watching pale-footed oyster-catchers,’ said Maturin aloud. ‘But what other course is open to me?’’

Blue at the Mizzen is the last book that Patrick O’Brian finished before he died in 2000, aged 85. There would be another unfinished novel published posthumously but, having worked my way slowly through this series, I don’t feel I need to read it. By all accounts it ends mid-sentence; I doubt it would contribute much in the way of what is fashionably called closure. As it stands this final book ends on a pleasingly optimistic chord. But there is nothing final about it, no sense of an ending close at hand. The writer Jo Walton has written an excellent series of short blogs on this series, and in her assessment of this one she mentions how it seems like O’Brian would have gone on writing this series as long as he drew breath. It’s hard to disagree.

With Napoleon out of the picture, the plot here is effectively a fictionalised re-telling of another episode from the life of Lord Cochrane, namely his role in the fight for independence of Peru, and the creation of the Peruvian navy. Earlier novels have mentioned this for some time, and the politics of it are quite complicated, but for the reader it is largely an excuse for an epic transatlantic sea voyage from Britain all the way to the Pacific. By this stage O’Brian’s descriptive writing is not what it was, nor is his pacing, but it’s solid, compelling stuff. The gentle wash of his long sentences, with their curious pedantry, nested sub-clauses and old-fashioned elegance, is never less than charming.

Even at this late stage, the author is setting up characters to play a greater role in future instalments (though of course there would be none). Christine Wood returns to Maturin’s attention and affection, and there is Horatio Hanson, the son of a Duke who is reluctantly accepted by Aubrey as a midshipman. Hanson redeems himself on a number of occasions, almost to the degree of being set up by the author as a sort of apprentice to Aubrey. There’s even some nice scenes back in England with Sarah and Emily where it seems inevitable that we must return to them at some stage to witness another stage in their lives. Here, more so than in the preceding novels, O’Brian really seems to be taking an interest in the younger members of his cast of characters.

It ends with something of a bang. There’s a big battle, and Aubrey is quite badly wounded in the melee. In fact he comes out of it far worse than in any recent confrontation. But once word of his exploits reaches home, his dream is granted, or at least he achieves that measure of security which he has long craved: he is made a proper admiral. Thus, I imagine, he sails home a hero. (That is assuming Jack survives his wounds. In another version of this story that happens only in my mind, he dies on the long journey home. But I can’t imagine O’Brian ever countenancing such a thing.)

Maturin has done all right, too; Christine Wood might have refused his initial proposal of marriage, but she does so in such a way that seems to leave it an open question. I imagine a future in which they live together in a sort of celibate, platonic ideal of more-than-friendship, residing perhaps in a quiet wing of the greater Aubrey household. There is a very striking sequence in which Maturin believes he sees a vision of Christine, while riding alone in South America:

‘On the next stretch they passed through an invisible barrier into a thinner, cooler air, and there were his – not illusions: perceptions might be the better word – of Christine again, clearer and sharper now, particularly as she moved across a dark wall of rock. A tall, straight, lithe figure, walking easily and well: he remembered with the utmost clarity how, when she was reading or playing music or training her glass on a bird, or merely reflecting, she would be entirely apart, remote, self-contained; and then how she would be wholly with him when he moved or spoke. Two strikingly different beings; and the delight in her company, as he delighted even in the memory of it, seemed to him essential happiness, fulfilment. Of course he was a man, quite markedly so, and he would have liked to know her physically: but that was secondary, a very remote stirring compared with gazing at this phantasm – this now remarkably clear and sharply-defined phantasm against the rock-face.’

This passage also serves as a fine summary of the relationship between Jack and Stephen. Two strikingly different beings delighting in one another’s company – each entirely apart, alone, yet coming together in movement and speech. This is about as intimate as people can ever get in O’Brian’s world.

***

I’ve now written something about all of these novels. (Unfortunately tumblr does not provide me with a convenient way to list them, but you can find all the pieces by clicking on this tag.) Summarising them turns out to be easy, in a way, because they are so continuous that after a while one blends into the next. They are so very much part of a greater whole that in a very real sense they might as well be part of a single endless manuscript. The final part of it might have been lost but that detracts little from what remains.

These novels are timeless in the sense that when you read them you forget the order in which they were written. There are machinations of plot, but these are mostly incidental. Nothing is allowed to disturb the beautiful essential routine of naval life in the early nineteenth century. Bacon and eggs and toast for breakfast, and coffee. The practice of gunnery in the afternoons, at captain’s expense. Port after dinner and toasted cheese in a silver dish, followed by a duet between cello and violin. There is something comforting about all this. The books are formed around a conservative vision of life which seems alien to life in the twenty-first century. It might even have seemed alien to most people in the nineteenth century. You could say with confidence that these books belong to no time at all.

It is the opposite to when we call something ‘dated’. When we say something is dated, we mean we notice the cultural residue of the time it was made in the details of its production. Almost all films and popular music are dated because they are reliant on era-specific technology as a means of reproduction. Most novels are also dated, for different reasons. O’Brian’s books are not dated. The first book was published in 1969, and the last book was published in 1999, and you would never know this from reading them. There’s no crack in the text against which we can press ourselves to glimpse the twentieth century drifting by.

Perhaps there’s a pedantic argument that says this cannot be the case. Perhaps we can find literary techniques at work in these books that would have been totally alien to a reader in the Napoleonic era. This may well be true. But what I mean to say is that these books do better than most in allowing the author to entirely disappear within them. Better to say, in fact, that the books themselves — all twenty-odd of them — speak with a singular voice best ascribed to the books, and not the author. It is as though they wrote themselves until one day they stopped.

But of course they didn’t really write themselves. In the last few years of his life certain facts about O’Brian came to light that were, at best, embarrassing; at worst, a minor scandal. We learned that he left (or abandoned) his first wife and child while the latter suffered from a disorder of the spine. He may have lied about being an intelligence agent and he may have lied about his sailing experience, or at least his did nothing to correct those misapprehensions amongst his fans. His name was not even O’Brian; his Irish ancestry was, apparently, a convenient fiction. Little of this is awful enough to be placed beyond the category of ordinary human failings, though much of it seems strange, or even cruel. But once known it is difficult to forget about. And if Master and Commander was published tomorrow it seems inconceivable that the same author could escape similar scrutiny for so long.

Today we expect artists to be good people. We need them to be exemplars of quality. We need to admire them. Our expectations for them are higher than they are for politicians or other public figures. It used to be the other way around: the politician would be crucified in the press for cheating on his wife, while artists could sleep with whomever and ingest whatever in the name of expanding the boundaries of the possible. Now, we already expect the worst of politicians. We expect them to lie, to cheat, and even to misbehave in their personal lives, perhaps because we have grown accustomed to accepting the line between personal and professional conduct. But the artist must be always at work. And we want them to be everything we can’t be: happy, secure, modest, successful. With moments of excitement, perhaps, but for the most part we want them to be dependable, capable, calm. We want them to be honest.

All of this is what is so appealing in O’Brian’s novels. Theirs is a vision of a world at work which is also, somehow, a work at rest. It is a very old English vision: the peasant in his field, the craftsman in his shop, the soldier at the gates, and the lord in his tower. All capable, calm, and happy in their understanding of what the world requires of them and how they must relate to it. The ideal mood is of things ticking over under the oversight of a supremely competent leader. An authoritarian? Well, perhaps. Democracy is certainly out of it; revolutionaries and radicals of all kinds are never to be trusted in these books. How much better to be ruled by a benevolent king of some sort. Rule by consent, of course, but it must be a rigid, unspoken sort of consent.

There is something wonderfully comforting about all of this. To give yourself over to someone else — to put all your trust in your own well-being in the judgement of that person — this is what these characters do for one another. The ship is only the symbol of all that: the thing which endures through ingenuity, in spite of everything, even though it is so desperately fragile. There’s a line somewhere in those books where Maturin remarks that he feels safe within the thick timbers of the HMS Surprise, and a seaman laughs, and says that there are parts of the Surprise so thin you could push a penknife through the boards and find the ocean. It is a haunting image, but a resonant one. The boards are always so thin.

#books #patrick o'brian #blue at the mizzen

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