#aka Baby Fic (or lack therefore which is The Problem)

[hekateinhell]

I was rooting around in the Google Docs (pray for my soul) and I found a draft of Chapter 7 for Our House that I started in October, and I thought I'd share a bit that I'm particularly pleased with since I've really been feeling them a lot again lately! It's rather gloomy though, not horny. Sorry about that... you have to earn your smut with this one. ;)

“Penny for your thoughts?” Daniel dared to ask. His need to know would be the death of him, perhaps sooner than he’d once originally thought.

Armand scoffed in response, never taking his eyes off his own reflection. But the tension subdued somewhat as Daniel came to wrap his arms around his middle, bent down to rest his chin against the curve of Armand’s shoulder, tickling him with his scruff.

“How I used to fetch considerably more than a pretty penny once upon a time,” Armand sighed. It was so matter-of-fact too, with the same mild inflection one might use to comment, “It’s cloudy today, wonder if it’ll rain.” Didn’t match the tiredness Daniel could see etched in his face, the distance in his eyes—ten years and an ocean ago. Right behind the thought of now just what the fuck am I supposed to say to that?, came the startling he’s getting older… we both are.

Without ever bidding him a proper adieu, the sense of immortality and invincibility that had informed much of Daniel’s more—shall we say… risky?—decisions in his late-teens and early-twenties (included but not limited to: going through a bottle of vodka every two nights for four years; fucking the creepy cutie he’d met at Louis’s party completely unprotected without ever having said more than two sentences to him; picking up a brief coke habit, in-between getting off the drinking and getting into the aforementioned creepy cutie on a regular basis) had quietly departed. For fuck’s sake, he had a husband, a steady career, a Roth IRA, and a general 11 PM bedtime now.

Looking at their faces in the glass, Armand’s large honey-colored eyes meeting Daniel’s highly usual violet ones (Liz Taylor, his mother once said; White Diamonds, his sister had teased accordingly) without expectation or suggestion, he thought he could see the evidence, the alterations that the past couple years—hell, the past couple months—had left behind. It wasn’t all bad, the shadow of laugh lines shading in just past the corners of Armand’s lips, the same for the slight crinkles around Daniel’s eyes. Not quite drawn in, no, not yet, but the impressions were starting to form.

But Armand’s eyes… Daniel suddenly wondered when was the last he’d actually looked at them, divorced from the throes of passion or the midst of an outburst. Thought back to Armand’s face in the recent days as they went through their routine—handing Daniel his coffee in the morning, holding his gaze when Daniel bent down to give him a sloppy kiss goodbye on his way out the door, humming along to Blackbird when he folded the laundry on the living room floor—even seemingly serene and content; the shell-shocked stare never really went away. A deer that had narrowly escaped death one too many times for the shock to ever truly wear off.

When had that happened? What had finally done it?

[antianakin]

I think this might be one of the places where Star Wars contradicts itself a little, because it MAKES SENSE that an untrained Force Sensitive person might experience some ill effects from that lack of training in these abilities and there's a ton of fics that explore that. But what we see of actual untrained Force Sensitive people on screen doesn't seem to indicate any sort of ill effects of that lack of training at all. That yeah, sure, they've got better reflexes and potentially a sixth sense or just really good character judgment or whatever, but it's not something people might immediately clock as Force Sensitivity all the time.

And I think part of this is because the Jedi themselves, and therefore Force Sensitivity, is treated less like, say, X-men, and more like demigods. The Jedi are Jedi, in large part, because they have chosen to Answer The Call Of Destiny. They can do this at literally any age, too, they can choose this as babies or toddlers (the problem is that if they're that young, the parent might not allow them to be able to make that choice). So if they choose NOT to answer the call of destiny, there's no real physical impact of that, they just... aren't answering the call of destiny (aka, they don't become Jedi and will walk another path, which could be a perfectly good and happy path for them). It's important in TPM that Anakin CHOOSES to go with Qui-Gon to be a Jedi and nowhere in Qui-Gon's dialogue is it ever stated that Anakin would suffer if he chose to stay on Tatooine with Shmi.

Ahsoka's whole "Force abilities fade over time without training" comment in The Mandalorian I think actually STEMS from this contradiction. People feel like untrained Force abilities SHOULD cause a problem and yet, on screen, they never do. And so this is the explanation given for that (unfortunately this kinda... conflicts with Luke and Leia seemingly being able to use their Force abilities just fine despite not having training until they're adults).

So I don't know that Luke and Leia would truly suffer from a lack of training, or necessarily be bullied for whatever signs they might show of their Force Sensitivity, but some problems could definitely arise from being trained in their abilities by someone like Anakin who isn't going to give them the philosophies that would help CONTROL those abilities and so, as kids, they might be acting more like we occasionally see Grogu do. Grogu nearly chokes Cara Dune because he sees Din arm wrestling her and getting upset when she wins or something, which IS a symptom of his Force abilities only being partially trained as well as his 30 years of being in the hands of the Empire and the darkness he's probably been surrounded by that whole time potentially influencing him. Luke and Leia, as Anakin's children being trained solely by him with his values and ideologies, could end up having similar problems. I could see that. And that probably WOULD create issues for them socially.

Which... would suck for them, wow.

In a No Order 66 AU where Anakin raises the twins, I already know Leia would still hate his guts for being a shit dad, but would Luke dislike him too?

I've been inclined to just let Luke be the kid who thinks Anakin does love them, he DOES, he just doesn't always know how to SHOW IT Leia! Because he obviously is the one who chooses to forgive Anakin in the films.

But the thing is, in the films, Luke grows up with what he knows are his Aunt and Uncle and seems to have this DESPERATION to know who his birth father is (no real desperation for his birth MOTHER apparently, but whatever that's a different post) and it's so essential to his own sense of identity to know and understand his father that he only really starts coming into his own once he knows the truth and is able to make his peace with it. So a lot of his willingness to just... accept and move on from what Anakin's done, to choose to love him anyway, could come from this desperation to know his father, to build his identity around knowing who his father is.

So in an AU where he's raised by Anakin anyway, he doesn't have that. He's known who his father is his entire life, so his reaction to Anakin being a piece of shit is going to maybe end up very different without that aspect of Luke wanting to wrap his identity around knowing Anakin.

Which could lead to Luke REJECTING Anakin rather than embracing him, flaws and all. Maybe instead of a desperation to build his identity around knowing his father, he has more of a desperation to build an identity AWAY from the expectations of his parents. He could turn around later and come back to Anakin perhaps, when he's older and more settled in his own skin and willing to look at Anakin more forgivingly, or he could just... not. Their relationship might always just be strained. He loves his father, probably, but they just cannot see eye to eye and it's better to love each other from a distance maybe.

Anakin's relationship with his children, even in a happy fix-it AU where Palpatine dies and Order 66 doesn't happen and Anakin walks away from the Jedi to raise a family, is defined by difficulty and strain. He loves them, but the way Anakin loves people has always been defined by possessiveness and disrespect. I could see Luke and Leia suffocating under that, railing against it, refusing to bend to his demands and expectations of them.

[thefanficmonster]

Corpse Infested

Corpse Husband & Reader (Gender Neutral)

Warnings: Mentions of dysfunctional family, Family problems, Swearing

Genre: Humor, Comfort, Platonic fluff, RPF (Real Person Fic)

Summary: When your friend disappears for a long time, seemingly having lost interest in what fueled the most passionate fire in their life, you cannot not worry about them. Even if you wanna give them space, you will reach out, you will offer your help. You will tell them they always have you to rely on and talk to.

Requested by Anon. Hi dear! I’m really sorry it’s taken me so long to complete and post your request, but here it finally is! Hope you come across it and if you do I hope you enjoy the read! Love, Vy ❤

For me, it’s never hard to find things to do. I’ve constantly got things on my mind and tasks to tend to, keeping me occupied and my mind focused at all times. I think that comes with living in a home as dysfunctional as this one. I honestly can’t recall a time when my parents got along nor can I think of a time where there was at least one second of peace while the two are both present in the house. It’s always a warzone up there. I’m saying up there because I tend to live out of the basement of their home. I know living in your parents’ basement is considered a peak loser point, or the bottom of the bottom, but you’d have to believe me when I say - I wasn’t always like this. In fact, I only recently came back to this hell-hole and boy do I regret it. I mean, it was a decision forced upon me by circumstances. Trust me, I tried every other option there was. When my dorm was to be closed down and demolished, we were given a notice to start planning our next move about a month early. You can bet I immediately started looking at places but my very tragic and miserable budget didn’t allow such a purchase. No rent was adequate for me and my near-empty wallet so my second option was moving in with my best friend who was also not in the greatest of situations but I thought I’d give that a shot too.

Spoiler alert: it didn’t work out. She lived in a tiny apartment with her boyfriend and his best friend at the time, so four people in one apartment was a nightmare. Still a lesser nightmare than this one but a nightmare nonetheless. Some unwanted and downright traumatizing events chased me out of that place after barely managing to pack my stuff. Therefore, finding myself on the streets again, I had no other option other than the obvious and least liked one: moving back in with my parents.

Making money during my first year of college hasn’t been easy. Working two jobs at once and also streaming video games on the side was what my time was filled with all throughout the first semester but then this damn pandemic started and now ruined everything for me. I had things going for me, I was slowly getting my life together and now it has all fallen apart yet again. The places I worked at closed down due to quarantine and I haven’t been able to steam, not only cause I’d be the victim of my parents’ comments but also cause my terrible home life would be exposed to all my fans and viewers. It’s not like I could cancel out the commotion going on right above my head, it’s a livestream and this house’s walls are cardboard thin meaning all the arguing I hear almost 24/7 will serve as background noise for my streams.

I haven’t reached out to my friends or fans to inform them of this which I feel slightly guilty about but I’m really not looking forward to having to lie to them, just as much as I’m not looking forward to having to tell them the truth so instead I’ve picked silence which is probably either worrying them or driving them insane. Either way, I’ll make my comeback soon.

Well....not very soon by the looks of it...

I have to gather the money, then I have to find a place, then comes the packing, moving out of here, moving into the new place...oh God, there’s so much to it that I don’t even wanna think about. Just that thought that I’ll be inactive for that long makes my stomach turn. Streaming’s where I’ve been channeling all my negative emotions, turning them into something positive and entertaining with the help of my friends.

Speaking of my friends, I should probably put emphasis on how amazing they are. Basically the older siblings I’ve always wished I had. I’m the baby of the group, the eighteen year old freshman in college, powering through life the best they can cause they are constantly getting tripped up by inconvenient occurrences such as this one for example. I tend to have the gang poke fun at me quite frequently - all lighthearted and with good intentions obviously - but they are also the ones to get super defensive if anyone gets the balls to talk shit about me. They’d never allow me to be the victim of any smack talk or online rumors and ‘cancel culture’ or whatever the hell people will come up with to leave others restless and wondering if they did something shady a decade ago. Well, to be fair, I didn’t even know about the concept of social media a decade ago and I’ve never been one to post much but I still have a protection squad in case anyone decides to come after me.

Little do they know the people I need protecting from are the very people that are supposed to protect me - my parents. Luckily, they don’t venture into to basement very often if at all and I have my own exit to the outside world so I don’t have to run into them unless I absolutely have to. The only time I emerge to the surface of the house - aka the ground floor - I do so to leave my share of rent money on the dining table and I usually do it when they aren’t home or when they’re asleep - that happens often with how many bottles they each knock back on the daily.

*sigh*...at least I don’t have to talk to them, right?

Anyhow, remember how I mentioned I always have things to do? Well, right now I’ve tasked myself with rifling through the large boxes containing random stuff I found in one of the basements down here to see if there’s anything I could possibly sell online. For starters, I’d like to hope there aren’t any severed body parts in here because this was one shady-ass basement before I moved in and un-creeped it a bit so I wouldn’t have to become an insomniac due to the paranoia of there being a homeless person down here with me or some paranormal entity. Regardless, old basements tend to be, apart from haunted, also filled with junk no one would find valuable despite it actually being worth something after all. That’s basically what I’m hoping to find at the moment.

As I dig through the contents of the first box, the YouTube playlist I have put on on my phone cuts off causing me to furrow my brows in confusion for a second before my ringtone pierces the silence the lack of music created.

I quickly mute the ringing and take a look at the Caller ID to see a name I never thought would pop up on my screen as an incoming call - Corpse. I, as well as many of our friends, know that he’s not the biggest fan of talking to people on the phone so this is rather surprising. Still, I pick up the call in case it’s not a mistake and an odd chance that it’s somethin urgent cause Lord knows Corpse doesn’t call people willy-nilly. 

Thank God it’s quiet up there at the moment.

“Hello?“ I try my best to cover up the confusion in my voice but I can only assume I didn’t do the best job considering Corpse replies with a slightly awkward chuckle.

“Surprised you, didn’t I?“ He asks, getting my cheeks to redden a bit, “You can’t blame a guy for calling after up and disappearing on him and on the whole internet. Where’ve you been?“

I open my mouth to respond when I hear the sound of glass breaking a shouted curse from upstairs.

Oh for fuck’s sake!

“Um...you know, places?“ I’m aware the answer isn’t only nonsensical but also sounds more like a question, but I can hardly focus on that right now. I’m too buys praying to an entity I don’t fully believe in for the situation above to not escalate.

“Uh, is everything ok over there? Where even are you right now?“ The teasing tone to his voice is all but gone at this point, replaced with deep concern, having obviously heard the commotion that did the exact opposite of what I prayed for - escalated.

“Y-yeah, it’s ok. It’s just another Thursday, you know.“ I attempt a small laugh but it’s blatantly miserable, “I moved back in with my parents when they announced the quarantine so that’s where I’m at now. They’re not the quietest of folks as you can tell so...“

“I FUCKING HATE YOU, YOU PIECE OF SHIT! I HOPE YOU DIE“

Oh crap, here we go.

“...So I can’t really stream a lot...or at all.“ I mutter, cringing with all my might, “But it’s only temporary! I’ll get back in the saddle as soon as I find another place to stay.“ I don’t dare mention how long that’s gonna take me, it’ll be too disappointing and depressing for the both of us. “So yeah...um...thanks for showing concern but there’s really nothing to worry about. I’m ok, everything’s ok, things are just...a bit off the rails, but I’ll fix em no problem. Like I always do!“ I attempt to sound as cheerful as possible with little success due to the overwhelming anger I feel towards those people upstairs and the gut-wrenching nostalgia for the world of streaming I can no longer be a part of because of them. Actually, I put the blame first on the pandemic and second on my parents - if it wasn’t for Covid I’d probably still be in my dorm!

“Hey...um, I think I know an affordable place where you can take up residence. Only if you want to, of course.“ He sounds hesitant but I easily overlook that as excitement bursts throughout my entire being at the sound if an escape being offered to me just like that. Had I known I’d find the solution to my problem in the very people I spent time avoiding because I was afraid of their pity, sympathy and judgement.

“Oh please, it could be a rat and roach infested shoe box and I’d go running to it. How much is rent?“ I ask through a gasp of hurried laughter that’s a result of my inability to contain said excitement. Listen, I’ve been sitting here in Hellsburg for three months now and haven’t gotten a proper shuteye during that whole period, whatever Corpse is offering has to be better than this misery.

“Rent can be discussed once you move in...“ He trails off, “And it’s not rat nor roach infested but there’s a slight issue...“

“Which is?“ I’m honestly expecting the worst: in a bad neighborhood; faulty wiring with a high chance of being electrocuted; faulty piping with a high chance of flooding; people have died there; things get randomly moved around in the middle of the night etc. However, I don’t voice any of them to avoid getting laughed at for my wild imagination.

“Well, uh, it’s corpse infested.“ He says a little awkwardly, causing me to let out an inaudible sigh.

So my ‘people have died there’ guess was on point, huh?

“People have died there, huh? Well, I can turn a blind eye to that as long as I don’t find their bodies in the closet or meet their spirits at 3AM.“ I attempt to joke, now second-guessing my eagerness to accept the offer.

Corpse bursts out laughing his ass off at my statement, getting me to furrow my eyebrows in confusion and wonder what I said was so funny - it was a poor attempt at a joke, it in no way deserves that sort of reaction, barely a chuckle in my opinion.

“You’re golden, Y/N, I swear.“ He says once he forces the laughter to subside, “I meant corpse infested as in Corpse Husband infested.“ He breaks out in another fit as my brain slowly starts connecting the dots.

Oooohh he’s asking me to go live with him

“Wait. Wait, wait, wait, hold up for a sec. Are you aware of what you’re offering me? I mean, we’ve never met IRL, you barely know me and....and for all you know I could be the serial killer in this situation!“ I have no idea why I’m pushing my luck, don’t ask. I just don’t want him to make a decision he’ll later regret, I guess. “Like, I could kill you in your sleep!“

“Would you?“ He asks confidently, silently stating he already knows the answer.

I roll my eyes, “Of course not! But...” He cuts me off.

“Great, the offer stands on my end. I’m not a noisy nor nosey roommate so I suggest you start packing. If you choose to live in that hell-hole over living with me, I’m sorry but I’ll be hella offended, just so you know.“

Corpse sounds like he’s about to hang up on me, a decision already made, so I hurry to stop him. “Wait! What about rent?”

“Fuck the rent, pack your bags.“ And just like that, despite my efforts, he hangs up on me.

Well...this is a chance of a lifetime that I know refusing would lead me to not only remain stuck here but also put me in the hugest loser bin. There’s also the fear of being Corpse’s burden which I’ll try my best not to be - I mean, I’m a super independent person and Lord knows that if this offer came any other time or from any other person, I would’ve declined asap, no discussion.

But streaming

But sleeping properly

But having a normal life again

Yeah those are most certainly the reasons I get up and go into the closet in search on my emptied suitcase. Time to fill it up again, I guess. This time with a smile on my face and excitement fueling each and every movement of mine.

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[i-did]

wait id love to hear your rant about how fanon deals with the race in tfc fics/fanon's of everyone else’s race :0

I would like to start this response with the fact that I do not believe anyone is being intentionally harmful in their race head cannons, simply that people tend to follow Fanon blindly and I believe people should not do that, and remember Fanon is only Fanon and we should make our own ideas and stray from the pack more often.

Okay, my thoughts on common race headcanons for the foxes and how they are often accidentally racist:

I know @bloodydamnit has spoken up about this before, but people specifically portraying Seth as black falls into a lot of unhealthy anti-black stereotypes of black men, especially the lack of development people tend to give him. She has written him and deconstructed these issues from her perspective and me a non-black person don’t think I could ever achieve such a thing and therefore do not headcanon him or will write him as black.

I personally headcanon him as hard Vietnamese and half white and made a long post about him before, I love Seth.

Matt and Dan are also often written as black, this isn’t inherently problematic necessarily, but it does often overlook the issue that people see this likely because of Matt’s history with drugs and Dan’s sex work playing into anti-black stereotypes without a tally going into race theory or redlining or any of the following issues in a way that gives them any development.

I like to headcanon Matt as Filipino, his straight hair is perfect for spiking, and dan as 75% black and 25% Oceti Sakowin (commonly known as Sioux), I want to write about how her leaving the reservation was a big deal for her, especially at the 25% mark which means if she is with anyone who isn’t of the same tribe her kids would not be considered a part of the tribe since the US minimum to register is 25% and this was part of her hesitance to be with Matt as well as other pressures. I like to think the baby her aunt had in the EC she ends up adopting from the foster system and that baby is 75% Oceti Sakowin and Matt is super excited to learn about their traditions and bring in both indigenous Filipino culture that he got disconnected with as well as Oceti Sakowin culture that she got disconnected with into their lives with their unexpected kid.

Renee is often headcanoned as Asian, but typically just generally Asian without nuance or explanation and also this plays into the passivity stereotype of Asian women. I headcanon her has African American, with very dark skin and Stephanie Walker was the first black foster mom she had and they hit it off really well, also Renees hair is a wig, no one can bleach their hair to white that’s just… it melts before it does that usually.

Again I’m not saying Renee can’t be Asian, It can be done right and written well, but overall I think it’s important for people to remember why they headcanon things and not accept Fanon blindly. Fanon often plays into harmful ideas. While people of color don’t have to have a reason for being people of color, I think it’s important to notice why you think charters who aren’t described at all are whatever race you headcanon and think critically. Our cultures and races make us experience the world in a certain way that contributes to who we are outside of blanket diversity, and it is important to think about that.

I often see people saying they headcanon Womack as Native American to make him having the tribal tattoos “unracist”, and to make Nora not racist, but Nora wasn’t being racist by saying Womack has tribal tattoos, Womack having shitty Tates in tattoos, which faux tribal was a huge cultural staple despite how cringe it is from the 90’s to mid 2000’s in America. It’s important also to not just say Native American but to do research on specific groups because each culture is unique and different.

That being said, I bounce back between Wymack just being some 70’s looking dad with cut off shorts to Maori where the swirl tattoos are very significant, and Kevin is white-passing but discovered he’s not white like he thought he was, and becomes an AOA history major (Africa, Oceana, Americas, aka indigenous history major).

Also considering Neil and Allison are supposed to be significantly attractive I don’t like them being white because of that, so I headcanon Allison as half middle eastern, (or maybe Indian I have more research to do before I decide), she was told she was adopted as a kid and often her mom would buy her whitening cremes like fair and lovely as a kid, but later found some papers when she was older finding out her dad actually got a woman pregnant and to keep her quiet took Allison and pretended he was such a good philanthropist and adopted a brown kid. She has a lot of problems with this, and bleaches her hair blond to try and fit in with her family without even realizing it. She never finds out who her birth mom is

I am a bit annoyed at white fans constantly calling Nora racist, while also using the lightest skinned headcanons every time for black characters playing into colorism and Spanish Nickys instead of darker toned people. Also, I think people should really try to critically think about their own ideas before calling out someone else. Do I think Nora is perfectly woke? No, no one is, but Fanon is just as bad but in a different way. There is a lot of colorism I see in both headcanon photos people use for the foxes as well as people tending to draw looser curls and thinner noses for characters they headcanon as black. Not every black person is half white and darker-skinned rep is very important. I’ve also seen people use Reece king as a Nicky face claim before and I wasn’t even surprised.

I've also seen people almost always have Erik be “Aryan” some even using the word to describe him unironically, and as a Jewish person this obviously doesn’t sit right with me. I would like to see less straight passing blond haired blue eyed taller than Nicky Erik sometimes.

Again I’m not calling anyone racist, I just think that people should go outside Fanon and think of their own ideas on who they want the characters to be in their headcanons and why. I'm tiers of the same 4 Instagram model photos being used for every Aftg edit, the same light-skinned Dan’s, Matt’s, and Nicky’s. Also while I’m at it, add some body diversity, they’re athletes all playing different positions, I think all the defense players are at least chubby if not plus size. Aaron, Andrew, and Renee are all fat and proud, Nicky and Matt are bulkier with their bodies good for blocking, while Seth is an awkward string bean, an offensive striker who can slip through people quickly despite his height.

Again I know discussions about race can be tense, I am not trying to sound like I am attacking anybody, and I'm not calling out anyone in particular, I didn't even touch on how nicky is written in fanon or canon and how it can often be both racist and homophobic coming from my prospective as a gay latino.

Okay I'm tired sorry this took me so long to respond lol

[devourer--of--books]

Callis was Gavaldon’s first witch gynecologist and here’s why

Okay so, in this post we’ll be discussing topics such as sex, contraception, and some religion in the context of it being used as a mean to control people sexually. 

If you’re younger than 13, honestly, this post isn’t for you. 

If you’re unlucky, like me, and your school didn't give you proper sex ed, I beg you to ask someone about it. Your older sibling, your mom, someone, okay? Ask google. It’s important stuff you need to know.

First of all, for composure’s sake, let’s all pretend I didn’t start thinking of this due to me writing a smut fic. At 4am, on my tablet notes. On my defense, tho, there’s an astonishing lack of E-rated fics on this fandom and someone ought do it, okay? Moving on.

So, where shall we start?

Let’s get context out of the way, welcome to my analyses, the actual headcanons are here, I promise, let me just bore you to death first:

The SGE book series overall is set in fantasy fairytale land (The Endless Woods), with the exception of Gavaldon, aka, the reader village. Due to this, there’s not really a time period liking the SGE world to ours, neither can it be presumed by the world building, as Soman mixes traditional medieval elements  with modern elements, which I know bothers some of you too, it ain’t just me, but nevermind that right now.

The point is, the arguments I’m making on this post are based on aspects mentioned in the books, but I’m also going to draw some information from the real world.

A big chunk of the first two books rely on the world the existence of a patriarchal structure in that world, as do some plot points during the rest of the series, but if I were to dive into that we’d be here all night. Talking about the Endless Woods social structure is very complicated, specially with the ‘no labels in the woods’ stuff combined with the misogyny. It’s messy. 

Thankfully for this post, we’ll only go into Gavaldon, because I feel things there are more… explicit (pun intended).

So here’s what we know of Gavaldon’s social structure pre-book 1:

It’s a decent sized village with no official government. There’s no political figure of power, such as prince or a mayor, as they eventually get in QFG. There also doesn’t seem to be an actual economic class distinction between the people of Gavaldon, other than mentions of beggars (pretty sure it’s just one tho, but I might be wrong). Everyone works and trades amongst themselves, with people having more or less the same things (except for Callis and Agatha, due to them being social outcasts). 

Who has power in Gavaldon?

The Elders Council. They make the laws, they are respected, they have influence, and therefore they have power. These dudes stopped people from selling food to Stefan’s family during book 2, and threatened his new family in front of everybody during book 3. And everyone in Gavaldon loved that man. Why are they powerful tho?

Power is born out of inequality. If you have what we have not, we follow where you lead. Gavaldon has no nobles and no bourgeoisie. Geez, I wonder which powerful class we’re missing.

The clergy.

Personally, I hold no love for the church. I’m an atheist, but, as this post is about SGE and not religion, I’ll try to be as neutral as possible, as the point is not to offend or disrespect anyone. When I mention ‘religion’ or ‘clergy’ from this point on, I’m talking about religion as an Institution. As in the Medieval Catholic Church (which if you don’t agree was at least kind of very evil, I don’t know if I want you reading my posts anyway, so feel free to leave).

Most likely, the members of Elders Council of Galvadon were linked to its Church, whatever religion they may have. I can’t see any reason why they would have so much influence otherwise. Who appoints new men to the positions once one of them dies? I’m gonna guess the remaining members of the Council. 

And no one said anything? For centuries. Okay. Corruption? Never heard of her.

Also, burning unmarried women as a way to solve problems claiming they were witches? Wonder where I’ve seen this before.

The fact they’re men, should get mentioned too, just in case you forgot. I bet there are women just as old and wise, if not wiser than the members of the council. Hm, wow why they’re not part of the council.

This hypothesis ties in with the fact that the education given to the kids is limited to the local school, which, given the lack of government and simplicity of work relations, is probably funded by the clergy. We don’t see any proof of this, but again, if we’re comparing Galvadon to a medieval village, it would make sense.

What is even taught at this school? Math and whatever language they speak there, sure, but like they have little to no history that we know of, geography would be pointless, there are no foreign languages, science who, and with these clowns running the village I’ll bet there is no philosophy or social studies and... Doesn’t matter, let’s not do this right now.

Callis briefly mentioned that all girls in Galvadon must marry before the end of their school education, or they are deemed witches. The Elders Council even chooses the matches, in case those aren’t naturally formed or if they disagree with pre-existing ones. These kids are what,15,16, maybe younger?

(this makes me so mad, you have no idea-)

ANYWAY. They form these child marriages, for... look I’m gonna presume is because of population reposition. They need an average of 2 kids per couple or they’ll have more people dying than people being born. Let’s just presume it’s because of this because if it’s because of some tradition stuff I’ll scream, okay?

Maybe they have a low life expectancy in Gavaldon (which is another evidence for the case that the elders are part of the clergy, they probably don’t work, so they live longer). 

So have them teenage girls poping them babies, I guess.

Also, a miracle they have survived this long, because the genetic pool for Gavaldon must be the worst ever, everyone is related to everyone, ew. At least, in theory, there would be no STIs.

In theory.

Ahem… During the middle ages, all forms of birth control tended to be frowned upon, at least here on the west, including coitus interruptus (aka, pull out method), (tho it depends of who was the pope at the time, some of them were cool with this one if you already had too many kids and was like super poor), because sex was supposed to be about procreating, so a marriage with no kids was ‘pointless’. 

(hear me raging in the background, this context is stressing me out, i just wanna get to the headcanons-)

We can assume this view is probably compatible with the Elders Council mindset, as they are marrying CHILDREN. 

If there were any available contraceptive methods, you can bet they weren’t teaching this stuff at school. They probably have no sex ed, and if they do, it’s going to be just about periods and vague stuff. Gotta love them church schools (I never went to one, officially, but honestly, I live in Brazil, what even is Secular State).

(“Don’t have sex before marriage, you’re gonna get pregnant and die”, - one of the teachers at the Galvadon school at some point, I bet)

Let me also mention that there is an specific Gavaldon law that states that if a girl is pregnant she is going to marry the boy who knocked her up. Which, specially in Vanessa’s case, makes no f-ing sense. Could she prove it was Stefan’s? Did she sent it to a DNA lab? If Stefan was the Elders favorite why would they not take his word?

I digress, let’s say Stefan didn’t deny sleeping with her and only said he was under a spell, which, hm, how dumb do you have to be to do that, it’s lying 101, Stefan c’mon, but okay, you do you.

So they are probably super “moral” in Galvadon. You know, the kind of moral who just swipes stuff under the rug. Like, yeah, Stefan you’re now doomed to marrying Vanessa, but ain’t nobody gonna say a thing if you cheat on her as long as you don’t do it during plain daylight.

(The amount of closeted gays in Gavaldon is probably astronomical, can you imagine?)

And then you have Callis. Whom I think is probably responsible for the introduction of birth control in Gavaldon. We have arrived at the headcanons. Hear me out:

After Stefan saved Callis, she was deemed a witch. She’s a ‘witch’ doctor for the town. Only the most desperate of people seek her out. 

That means she normally wouldn’t get a lot of patients. Like, Idk about you, but Gavaldon doesn’t seem big enough for her to have people looking for her everyday. And she probably had to feed Agatha somehow.

But, while her being a doctor for normal diseases wasn’t really working all that well, everyone knew she had a hand in Vanessa’s miracle child. So ‘infertile’ women and women who had been getting sickly during pregnancies start looking for her, asking for her to help them. 

Callis obviously doesn’t use her magic, but as she can’t say she used magic for Vanessa, she gives them generally good advice about herbs and stuff they can add to their food to make it ‘more likely’, aka stuff that reduces stress, telling them how to eat better, stuff they should avoid, etc. She’s no big expert, but at least in the Endless Woods they had sex ed and she was witch, she just knows stuff.

So she becomes this sort of witch gynecologist for Gavaldon’s desperate women.

It works for a while, but then people eventually share these tips amongst themselves to avoid going to see her. Then, it’s back to slightly starving herself so baby Agatha could eat.

One day, a teenage girl arrives at her doorstep in the middle of the night, trading food for her help. If she could ‘make people more fertile’, she could surely make them miscarriage. Maybe this girl got pregnant by sleeping with someone the elders didn’t aprove for her to marry, maybe it was something else a bit darker, but we won’t talk about how that could be common, given you could literally force someone to marry you if they had your child.

Callis panics, because she wasn't ‘making anyone more fertile’ really, she was making them healthier and therefore more likely to have a healthy kid. If she were to tell her to do the reverse of what she told the others, not only it wouldn’t work, but it would actually harm the girl’s health.

At first she’s like, “I can’t help you…”, but then she hears baby Agatha crying, poor thing, so hungry all the time. So Callis decides, “you know what, might as well”.

There’s probably many potions made with magic one could take to not have a baby in the Woods. Even ones that cause abortions with no side effects or danger to the woman. But there also more natural ways, ones that maybe aren’t 100% effective, but would work, tho it had some side effects.

So Callis, makes her a potion to take. For real life comparisons, let’s say she used Queen Anne’s Lace, which works a bit like Plan B. The girl is thankful, and goes on her way.

Soon enough, everybody knows Callis can do these potions. You have girls sneaking to Graves Hill in the middle of the night to get help in exchange for food and while the elders know something is fishy, they can’t do much anything about it. They ask Callis what is up with that and she’s like ‘nope, just ya know, helping them have babies, plan b who’.

She tries to introduce a variation of the potion, one that acts as birth control, because it would stop people from being irresponsable all the time, but the Plan B one is the one every girl wants, because well, it’s easier. You can be unsafe and then take a potion and it’s fine. Soon, it’s not just girls. There’s full grown women there too, who should really know better.

She is pissed, so she says she won’t make them any more potions unless people stop being so careless.

Someone tries to make a knock-off potion, but it ends tragically, because people don’t really know what Callis puts in it. And well… you know what looks a bit like Queen Anne’s Lace?

F-ing Water Hemlock, that’s what.

After that incident, people listen to Callis when it came to ingesting stuff. And thus, birth control culture is born in Gavaldon. Other people started trying out other things to avoid dealing with Callis, like animal-based condoms, pull-out method and inserting acacia gum into your vagina before you had sex,but she had a good clientele overall.

The Elders? Pissed. But since they couldn’t just prove this was her fault, they just kept on hating on her from a distance.

After Agatha has her first period, Callis sits her down and pretty much gives her the talk. Agatha doesn’t really see a point to it, boys are gross, but she listens nonetheless. 

Callis gives Agatha the best sex ed homeclass ever, you can bet she will teach her correct anatomy, debunk myths the school told her about both periods and her own body and even promised her to teach her how to make the birth control potion once she got older.

Again Agatha doesn’t see a point, but okay.

When Agatha comes home with Tedros, years later tho. Callis is... worried.

She tries to ask Agatha if she’s being safe but her daughter just... stops functioning. Blushing like crazy. 

 (“We just kissed, like, once, mom.”)

That being said… Callis doesn’t live long enough to teach her how to make the potion.

So when Tedros and Agatha’s relationship starts to progress (hm… if you wanna read something about it, maybe wait a couple of days, I might or my might not have a sin fic in the works, it wouldn’t be one of my posts if it had no self-promotion, I’m my own sponsor after all) she’s unsure of who to ask about this.

And it makes her extra sad about her mother’s death, so that’s great.

I honestly don’t know who she would ask. If you have any ideas, please tell me. Because I’m kind of inclined to think that maybe Merlin might have predicted this and handed a recipe to her as a semi-joke, but idk. Maybe Uma?

But yes, Callis was totally Gavaldon’s first witch gynecologist. And after they made Stefan mayor, I want people to remember her for the absolute legend she was, okay?

[amorremanet]

top 5 movies? and why? no no TOP FIVE BOOKS

oh gosh, both of these are hard and my answers for them are probably so boring (they also come with the, “this is just how I feel right now because ugh, I am the worst at picking any all-time faves for broad categories”) — but!!

top “five” movies:

The Prince of Egypt — has some of the most beautiful art that I’ve ever seen, anywhere, and music that sticks with you, and it really shows the human drama and human stakes of such a classic story in ways that a lot of adaptations of Biblical mythology are afraid to do

Deadpool — because I’m garbage, the characters are great, the script is pretty good, and the movie makes me laugh. It’s not really a deconstruction (in the way that some people make it out to be, by way of justifying why they like it), and it’s not super-intellectual, and in a lot of ways, it’s like a giant #SorryNotSorry that makes fun of superhero movie tropes while continuing to use them (and there are some subtle ways it plays with some of said tropes and twists them around, but it largely doesn’t) — but it’s fun

But I’m A Cheerleader — is far from perfect, and I maintain that it’s actually much more depressing than the ending leads us to believe (I mean, Meghan/Graham and Dolph/Clayton get together and escape from True Directions and homophobic parents, and Meghan’s Mom and Dad at least try to do better by their daughter, but things don’t work out that well for anybody else), but it’ll always have a special place in my heart because it was one of the only lesbian movies that I had access to as a little gay baby

Female Trouble — I wouldn’t say that it’s the best thing that John Waters has ever done, just the one that I personally like the best, and I’ll admit that it’s probably an acquired taste…… but I love how it takes on celebrity culture in the story Dawn Davenport, and it gave us great lines like, “The world of heterosexual is a sick and boring life” and, “I wouldn’t suck your lousy dick if I was suffocating and there was oxygen in your balls!” It also has a special place in my heart as one of my favorite, “gay AND weird” movies

—which probably makes sense, given that it was written and directed by the trash king of being gay and weird

……like, seriously. My (best friend who I call my) brother once asked me, “So is John Waters gay or is he just really weird?” and the only thing I could think of to say to that was, “Yes, both.”

the “Three Flavours Cornetto” trilogy — which is totally cheating, to put three in here, but I couldn’t pick between them. I do think that Hot Fuzz and The World’s End are more fully actualized than Shaun of the Dead, but I love all of them, and the reason is pretty much just, “Because they’re good mixes of being hilarious and making me FEEL things” (……less so in The World’s End, for several reasons; it’s a lot heavier on the feels, to the point that you sometimes feel bad for laughing at the jokes, but still)

and books:

Good Omens (Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman) — This book was my introduction to both PTerry and GNeil, after I found a cheap copy in an airport bookstore when I was about twelve and immediately fell in love. It’s funny, the characters are vibrant and engaging, and it played right into my love of screwing around with Biblical mythology.

I’m periodically tempted to list different books for both of those men (with PTerry’s probably being one of the Granny Weatherwax books, or Faust Eric, and GNeil’s being either American Gods or one of his Sandman books — because yeah, he’s done other good stuff, but I’m more sentimentally attached to AG and Sandman. Also, Preludes and Nocturnes has some of the only non-movie or TV horror that has genuinely terrified me, so)

—buuuut then I never do, because Good Omens was my first book from either of them, and remains my sentimental fave, even though I admit that they’ve both written other books that are, “better” or, “stronger,” or whatever

Dry (Augusten Burroughs) — There’s a lot of fair criticism to be made of Augusten Burroughs, and he’s been one of the writers at the center of the debates about truthfulness or lack thereof in popular memoirs (like, how much an author is allowed to condense things before it stops counting as a, “real story,” and how an author remembers things happening vs. how other people remember them), but Dry nevertheless means a lot to me.

Like, I enjoyed Running with Scissors and his novel, Sellevision (which were the other Big Deals in his collected works, at the time I originally read Dry), but Dry fucked me up a LOT when I first read it. It has continued to fuck me up ever since.

There are passages in this book that I can’t even be jealous of, as another writer, because they’re so good that they skip right the fuck past, “I’m angry and jealous that I didn’t write this myself” and into, “Holy shit, THIS is why I write, the ability to do THIS KIND OF THING EXACTLY with words, I need to go write something right now”

Also, it means a lot to me for sentimental, “I read this book for the first time when I was in high school, and it made me feel less lonely and sad and scared” reasons

Dynamic Characters (Nancy Kress) — This is by no means the be-all and end-all of, “how to writer better” books, but it’s a personal favorite of mine, for two reasons: 1. there are some things that Kress doesn’t cover about creating characters and doing better by them in your writing, but she’s still pretty comprehensive and offers some solid illustrative examples, multiple perspectives on this part of writing (not as many as she could, but to be fair, she only has so many pages to work with), and a good mix of “tough love” advice and gentler, more reassuring advice;

and 2. …it was the first, “how to writer better” book that I ever got my hands on. I picked it out specifically because I’d posted a completely ridiculous crack fic that was a crossover between Harry Potter and Sailor Moon, with a first-person protagonist narrator who was a hot nonsense self-insert power fantasy Mary Sue with no flaws and no nuance because, hey, I was 11.

And someone actually commented to go, “Hey, look, you have talent, but you could do better and one place to start is maybe with learning to build better realized characters” — so I picked out the Nancy Kress book and it seems like a really silly thing to call a turning point? But it was big a turning point for me

Death, Disability, and the Superhero: The Silver Age and Beyond (José Alaniz) — okay, time for me to be a loser and cite an academic book. I’m also probably a cheating loser, since I just read this book for the first time recently…… but with that said? I’ve read a LOT of critical treatments of the superhero genre, some pretty good, others pretty bad (for example, I remain Perpetually Tired of Slavoj Žižek’s heavy metal Communist, Bane in Leather Pants bullshit reading of The Dark Knight Returns), and most of it somewhere in the middle

—but there’s this trend among people who write critically about superhero junk, whether they’re academics of not, wherein we act like we have to act like superhero comics are The Most Progressive Ever and oversell their sociopolitical impact in order to make them look like ~*True Art*~ That Must Be Taken Seriously (—and like, I’m not saying that they have NO impact on people at all, because that’s objectively false. But you also can’t try to claim that Superman, Wonder Woman, and Captain America comics are why the Allies won World War II)

(this is a pointless aside to note that I deliberately left the Goddamn Batman off that list, because while Supes, Diana, and Steve were all off punching Nazis, Golden Age Bruce and white boy!Dick were running around on the home-front, rounding up Japanese Americans and putting them in internment camps. So… y’know. There’s that.)

……or we have to take legitimate criticisms of problems in the superhero genre, both historical and current, and use them to go, “Therefore, the entire genre is pointless garbage that has no redeeming qualities at all and could never ever EVER be used to tell any stories that are worth telling, and frankly, you are all terrible, horrible people for enjoying it, how very dare you enjoy that X-Men movie or that Red Hood And The Outlaws comic, you’re basically a fascist now”

—which is hilarious, to me, because the people who write that sort of criticism almost always cite Fredric Wertham’s book, The Seduction of the Innocent (aka: the book that led to so much moral outrage over the allegedly very gay and fascistic, child-corrupting content of comicbooks that the Comics Code Authority was created), and they always go, “Well, obviously Wertham was OTT and totally full of shit, buuuut…… *argument that would not have been out of place in his book*”

So, one of the big reasons I loved Professor Alaniz’s book is that is does neither of these things. It offers some incisive, and occasionally kinda damning, critique of the superhero genre and its handling of disability and mortality, but he does so from a place of love and enjoyment, and never pretends to hate the genre, nor argues for throwing the whole thing out because it has problems.

Like, his underlying mindset is very much, “Yes, the superhero genre has a LOT of problems, but people could, in theory, fix them and try to get closer to realizing the full potential of what these characters and stories can do” — while never skimping on a detailed analysis of the trends and case studies that he presents.

Sometimes, I think he’s kinda reaching (and I, personally, never want to hear anything about Doctor Doom’s Oedipus complex ever again so long as I live, though it was validating to hear that my theatre kids AU version of him — who is a ridiculous mess, obsessed with taking selfies, and perpetually acting like he totally gets everything while missing some crucial detail, which is how he ends up thinking that Loki is dating Tony Stank [a suggestion that makes both of them want to puke] — is actually a valid interpretation of his character, based on some parts of canon)

Overall, though, my biggest problem with Professor Alaniz’s book is that he can be kind of a hipster and it can get a little bit annoying. Not enough to ruin the whole book, but enough that it does stand out.

Like, his chapter on Daredevil specifically analyzes an infamous Silver Age story that basically everyone hated — the one where Matt Murdock tells Karen and Foggy that he isn’t the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen, but he has some heretofore unknown identical twin brother named Mike, who is not blind but *IS* actually that aforementioned costumed hero, and carries on a charade of pretending to be his nonexistent twin brother — and okay, we get some pretty neat discussion of how passing can work or might not with disabled people

…but you can still walk away feeling like his biggest reason for analyzing that story arc was less about its value to any part of his discussion, and more about going, “Other Daredevil stories are too mainstream, I care most about this one that was so infamously ridiculous that people have said even soap operas wouldn’t have done this plot”

Likewise, I’m not saying that there aren’t very fair criticisms to be made of the X-Men and how their stories handle disability in particular… but at some points in his chapter on the Silver Age Doom Patrol comics, Professor Alaniz seems to be less, “using the pre-Claremont Silver Age X-Men stories as an illustrative foil to the Doom Patrol, especially with regard to how Charles’s paraplegia is treated vs. how The Chief’s paraplegia is treated” and more, “using this discussion as a free excuse to bash on the X-Men for being popular”

To his credit, Professor Alaniz does kinda discuss some of the ways that the X-Men’s popularity might have been affected by the fact that things like their ableist handling of Charles make them feel, “safer” and, “less sociopolitically threatening” than he makes the Doom Patrol out to be (with a pretty convincing argument, actually)

He just doesn’t do it enough for me to feel like his “criticism” of the X-Men isn’t at least partially grounded in going, “Well, it’s popular, therefore it sucks” (—as opposed to my approach to them, which is, “It’s popular, and has a mixed bag of things that it does well vs. things it does that suck, but it does not suck BECAUSE it is popular”)

Anyway, good book, and it’s written in a refreshingly accessible way (it’s still an academic book and harder to get into than, say, Good Omens, but Professor Alaniz doesn’t make a lot of the more common mistakes that leave a lot of academic writing effectively incomprehensible)

and last but not least…… Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire (we all know who wrote this, okay, come on) — because I’d be lying if I didn’t include at least one HP book on this list, considering how important those books and that fandom have been to the course of my life and to my development as a writer, and it was either gonna be this one or POA, but this one won over the other because I’m garbage