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prxttylittle · 6 years ago

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“Sometimes it feels like my world is falling apart.”, “Am I good enough for you?”, AND “What is it about me that makes you hate me so much?”

“Sometimes it feels like my world is falling apart.”

{ v ;; the princess and the moon.

Prince was confused to come home and find the lights dimmed and his wife sitting at the kitchen table, telling him she’d made his favourites. Now that he thought about it, he had been a little suspicious that Nick had offered to babysit Leo for a few hours, out of nowhere. He was also suspicious that his friends had wanted a day out without that meaning day-drinking or even scoffing their faces. It all added up now, they’d just been distracting him. It was unnecessary, really, in his opinion considering she was the one going through a tough time, not him. Usually, he greeted her with a kiss but since their fight the previous day, things had been tense between them. Prince had been harsh but Luna hadn’t really given him anything to work with. He shrugged off his jacket and sat down across from her at the table. He frowned when she started apologising for pushing him away. “I needed to do things that kept me busy to keep me from thinking about how shit my life feels right now. There were better ways to deal with everything, so I’m sorry and I love you.” Prince sighed and didn’t speak for a moment, his eyes just searching those of his wife. He understood, partly, where she was coming from. Prince didn’t really know what it was like to lose someone he loved. He cared about Cass, sure, but he never had near a bond to her as Luna did, he couldn’t really understand the pain. Luna had had to lose her mother, her father and her best friend and he couldn’t begin to really relate to what that meant for her. Prince didn’t technically have his parents but he bore no love for them so it wasn’t even comparable. He shook his head. “You don’t have to apologise to me. I love you, too, but your life isn’t shit, Luna. You’ve got a beautiful child who loves you.” He was going to add in about a husband that loves her and a great job but he chose to focus on the most important aspect of their life together; their son, their pride and joy, because she could hardly argue against that, right? He pursed his lips together when he noticed her getting visibly upset. “Sometimes it feels like my world is falling apart.” She barely got her sentence out before Prince was already on her side of the table, sitting beside her and pulling her in to his chest, cradling her as he ran a hand through her hair. His lips pressed gently against her forehead, hovering for a moment. He let the silence fall between them as he held her for a little bit, letting it last for a few minutes before speaking again. “I shouldn’t have gotten mad with you for pushing me away. I mean– what the fuck do I know about grief? I should have let you deal with it but I just wanted you to know you’ve got me, no matter what.” He pulled away slightly now so he could look her in the eyes, smiling softly. He kissed her, sweet and slow. “I’m sorry.”

{ v ;; no reason.

The words that escaped from Iola’s lips caused Jason to frown. He had honestly thought she was asleep until he heard her voice. Lying on his back, he turned so he was facing her, watching as she did the same. It had been a tough few days for Iola, Jason knew. He nodded slowly, reaching across the bed to take her hand in his. He brought hers to his lips, brushing against her knuckles with a soft kiss. “I know, babe.” He mumbled. He shuffled closer to her so he could wrap his arms around her, and practically his whole body as he engulfed her in his embrace. His lips grazed her forehead. Jason was being so soft and gentle with her, unsure really of how to act. He wanted to be there for her and he wanted her to not feel any sadness, but he knew that was impossible. He couldn’t take her pain away. All he could do was hold her, and kiss her, and love her. It was all he had to offer her and he hoped it was enough. Jason ran a hand through her hair, brushing loose strands out of her face. “I’ve got an idea. C’mere.” He clambered over her and out of the bed, holding out a hand for her to take. It was late, he wasn’t sure what time exactly but he knew it was late. He figured neither of them were going to get much sleep before the funeral tomorrow anyway so he wasn’t disturbing much by pulling her out of bed. He lifted her up so her legs were wrapped around his waist and her face tucked into the crook of his neck and he did his best to be silent as possible walking through the house, to avoid waking their son. They got into the kitchen and Jason set Iola down on the island in the centre of the room. Jason poured them both a glass of wine. He then unplugged the earphones out from where they were charging and handed her one. He pressed play on the playlist in their shared Spotify, the playlist that was just for them, one he hadn’t listened to in so long. Another thing they hadn’t done in so long was-- “Dance with me.” He spoke with a childlike grin on his face. He knew she wasn’t really in the mood, she was sad and grieving but it had been years since they’d fallen out of bed in the middle of the night to dance around the house like idiots. Unchained Melody came on shuffle and he held out a hand for her. When she met him on the floor, he pulled her in to kiss her. His hand rested on the small of her back, his other hand wrapping around hers. He felt her head fall against his chest as they started to dance in the centre the kitchen. While the sadness hadn’t faded, it was nice to be close to one another. The kitchen was dim, the only glow coming from the lights that lit up the countertops. It was dark outside, but the moon provided a glowing reflection on the kitchen tiles. He kissed the top of her head, lightly, before he started to speak. “I know it feels like your whole world is falling apart right now, babe, but you’re going to get through it. You’ve got Freds and you’ve got me and the rest of your family. I’m never going to not be there for you, no matter what, my love.” He pulled back slightly so he could smile down at her, reassuring her of his words. He pressed a kiss to her lips. He pressed their bodies together again to carry on slow-dancing as The Righteous Brothers played in their ears. Jason jumped slightly when the big light turned on, flooding the room with brightness. He turned around to see their son standing in the doorway, rubbing tiredly at his eyes and asking why they were dancing with no music on. Jason chuckled lightly and let his hands fall away from Iola. He took the earphone from his ear, disconnecting it so that the speaker would play the music out loud instead. A pop song came on shuffle then and Jason pulled Freddie up into his arms, dancing around with him with so much energy that the child’s giggle filled the house. He looked over to Iola and could see the adoration on her face for her boys. He hoped she could see just how okay they were going to be, all three of them together.

{ v ;; july 17th.

Zayn really didn't and couldn’t bring himself to understand Ari’s mother. It had been revealed on international television that Ari’s dad had abused her yet her mother somehow felt it appropriate to invite him round for dinner so they could resolve it? He honestly couldn't wrap his head around it, and he had wanted to let both her parents know just how strongly he felt but his girlfriend was more important. “Are you okay?” Zayn pondered as they entered their hotel room. He followed her to the bed, turning on the lights behind her. When they settled on the mattress and as she fell into his embrace, she finally spoke to him. “Sometimes I feel like my world is falling apart.” She confessed and Zayn felt his heart shatter for her. They both had had high hopes after Ari’s mother invited them for dinner, considering the concern Zayn had revolving the judgement that may come that he’d gone between dating two sisters in the family. When he was dating Perrie, their mother liked him and he’d known that. He got along very well with her and she talked fondly of him when he wasn’t around, he’d heard from Perrie many times. He wasn’t sure if that was still going to stand now that it was not only revealed how poorly he actually treated her on account of his drug abuse throughout their relationship but he had swiftly moved on to date her twin sister like it was no big deal. Now, Zayn didn’t care what her family thought of him. He believed they owed Ari the basic respect of not giving her father any kind of second chance or benefit of the doubt upon learning about his abusive tendencies. “It’s not.” He encouraged her, kissing the top of her head, rubbing a soothing hand up and down her arm. “He’s done enough to hurt you and you shouldn’t let him make you feel like this anymore. Your world is doing just fine despite everything he’s done to change that and I refuse to let him or your mum or anyone else try to push you down like that. This isn’t a setback, you went, you saw him and you left. Nothing bad happened, your world didn’t ‘fall apart’, and you were so strong.” Zayn pulled back so her head was no longer laying on his chest, forcing her to meet his gaze. He smiled, a timid one but a smile nonetheless. “You’re doing just fine, and I am proud.”

{ v ;; what if.

Ashton had only been partly confused when his phone rang at 2AM and it was Ari asking him to come and collect her. He was quick in obliging and had been over to her home in less than thirty minutes. The car ride back to his apartment was awkward and silent. Ashton didn't want to push what was wrong and Ari obviously didn't want to talk about it. Ashton tried to piece together what happened but there was so many possibilities, all signs pointing to Zayn of course. Ashton had seen the reunion episode of Gyhab which had aired lived the night previous. Zayn wasn’t in it. Ashton didn’t know if Zayn couldn’t make it or if he didn’t want to but when he’d watched he had hoped something happened that the married couple didn’t want to be together. Ashton would never tell anyone that he hoped that, but he did. Ashton looked over to Ari when he noticed the sound of her sniffling; she was crying. He didn’t say anything but he took one hand from the wheel to place it on her thigh, squeezing encouragingly. They pulled into the drive of his apartment and he ignored how tightly she wrapped her hood over her head. He doubted any paparazzi were lurking at this hour of the night especially around his apartment but he chose not to question her. “Tea?” He offered weakly when they entered through his front door. She shook her head and stated she was just tired. Ashton couldn’t stand how awkward it was between them, he just didn’t understand why. He got that Ari felt guilty whenever she came running to Ashton during her marital issues only to return to her husband the next day without a second thought. He wondered if the tension was because they both had done this so many times that they knew it was going to happen again. Neither of them were even pretending that her being here meant anything more than it should this time. Ashton sighed as he pulled up the covers for her to lay down. She wrapped a hand around his wrist and asked him to say, to which of course he agreed. Ashton snaked his arm around her waist and pulled her body in close to his, letting his lips graze her neck lightly. “I hope you’re okay, Ari. I don’t know what happened but you deserve to feel alright.” He whispered into the dark of the night. Silence for a moment. “Sometimes I feel like my world is just falling apart.” She finally spoke and what could Ashton say to that? It wasn’t as if he was about to start going off an a ten-minute speech on why Ari had the perfect life. He couldn’t say that for or to her. Everytime they did this, he held her and did his best to distract her and then she would leave, he felt his world fall apart. He chose not to relate by saying that, either. He nodded. “You’re safe here.” He paused. “With me. You can always lean on me, whether your world is falling apart or you’re on top of it, I’m always going to be here.” His arm didn’t move from her waist when she finally turned around in the bed to face him. He smiled softly despite how she could barely see him. “I’m not going anywhere.” He mumbled, leaning in to connect their lips.

“Am I good enough for you?”

{ v ;; the princess and the moon.

Prince had been painting when Luna showed up at his apartment. He didn’t do it very often-- to Panda’s disdain. His sister loved when he put time into his hobby of art but Prince just never had the muse or the time. He mostly put his artistic energy into tattooing himself. Well, he’d been finished painting when Luna showed up. He’d just set the canvas to the side of the room to dry and was about to clean up when she fell onto the floor beside him. She’d complimented his painting and the moment had turned so sweet that Prince had been uncomfortable and, to ease the tension between them, had taken a paintbrush covered in yellow and flicked it her way, splattering yellow dots down her face and shirt. To retaliate, she’d dipped a hand in red paint and dragged it down his chest, making him furious at first until he was coming back with a splash of blue until eventually his floor, the pile of laundry at the end of the bed, some of the wall and most importantly the two of them were covered in paint. He tackled her to the floor to get her to stop flinging paint his direction, pinning her down underneath him. His eyes scanned her face, red and blue mingling to make purple, yellow splotches like bright freckles. He smirked, taking one hand from pinning her arm down to cup her face. His thumb brushed the drying paint on her skin, scraping through some white paint to turn the purple into lilac. It looked good and he couldn’t help but smile. And just as he leaned in to kiss her, Luna spoke. “Am I good enough for you?” She asked and he frowned, pausing. It was an unexpected, to say the least. It had no correlation to any recent conversation nor what they were doing right now. He loosened his grip where he was still pinning her down to the floor and pulled back slightly. He didn’t understand why she would ask that, especially considering how many times she, and others, had said how she deserved much better than him. Usually, the serious talk or the attempt to discuss feelings was something that made Prince run a mile. He would either tell her to shut the fuck up or storm out, bar the few times he’d confessed the truth. He didn’t feel so afraid right now. Prince leaned back in, pressing his lips to hers lightly and letting his eyes flutter closed. He was being sweet, somewhat gentle with her, his lips ghosting her own. There was nothing heated about, no aggression or intense passion like it usually was with them. There was a twisting in his stomach as he kissed her like this, some kinds of nerves or unsettling that he didn’t appreciate but chose to ignore. Prince pulled back, his eyes remaining closed for a beat. They finally blinked open, his gaze meeting hers. “’Course you are, babe.” Prince whispered. He dipped a finger onto the palette beside them, wetting his digit in green paint. He dotted a smiley face on her cheek, smirking playfully. “More than enough.”

{ v ;; no reason.

Jason grabbed his phone out of Iola’s hand and marched away from her and into the bedroom. He didn’t doubt she was going to follow him, demanding who the girl in his Instagram DM’s was. “I don’t know, Iola!” He snapped, his voice raised louder than he had intended. “I didn’t even fucking text her back, so why are you getting angry at me?” He still hadn’t turned to face her since storming away from her, his irritation growing the more she questioned his loyalty to her. He knew if he saw the fury on her face, he'd just get more annoyed. He busied himself by picking through his laundry and putting it away, still ignoring her. Eventually he felt her hand on his arm, turning him around. Their scowls were almost mirroring when their gaze met, both annoyed at one another. Iola detailed how that one wasn’t the only girl and he rolled his eyes. “I have a lot of followers Iola, some of them are bound to message me.” And he scoffed when she pointed out that he’d been flirting with the girl that served them at the restaurant earlier and she’d ‘totally caught him checking out the neighbour’ whom Jason had helped carry a box into the next-door apartment when they’d bumped into her on their way into the building. “Now you’re just making stuff up for the sake of fighting with me. I’m just a friendly guy, there’s nothing wrong with that!” Jason couldn’t understand Iola’s jealousy half the time. When they had first met and started dating he was a nervous, stuttering wreck and remained that way for weeks, even months into their relationship. How she assumed he could find the confidence to chat up so many girls on a daily basis was a mystery to him. “This is exhausting.” Jason stormed past Iola and back into the kitchen, pulling a beer from the fridge. He slammed the fridge door shut just as she caught up to him. “Jason, am I good enough for you?” And just that question was enough to wash away all of his anger. His eyes met hers and he could see the sincerity in her features, if her tone hadn’t been enough. He bit down on his lip and sighed, placing his beer on the counter before making his way across the room to her. He placed a hand on either of her arms, rubbing up and down soothingly. Jason kissed her forehead. “Good enough, more than enough, too good.” He mumbled, his words slightly muffled from the fact his lips were still on her. “I could never find anyone better for me than you, and I wouldn't want to. I love you.” He shook his head. “You are more than good enough for me and that’s why I don’t understand how you get so-- so angry and so jealous. I would never want anyone else, I will never want anyone but you.” He pressed another kiss to her forehead, her cheeks, the tip of her nose, around her mouth and then finally kissed her lips. “Okay?”

{ v ;; july 17th.

Zayn sighed and looked at their counsellor who was looking between them. Part of Zayn hated how he could never read her expression, she was so good at keeping it straight. “See, she always says things like that. Like, how many times can I tell her she’s good enough for me until it just starts feeling like a habit?” Zayn glanced to Ari. When they agreed to start doing counselling together, he had this kind of cinematic-expectation where they just show up, she tells them what they’ve done wrong to lead their relationship to be like this for her to then tell them what to do to fix it. It had been nothing like that. The first time she had made them fill out a questionnaire which Zayn had felt childish doing. The next few times she had made them talk so much about their relationship that Zayn felt uncomfortable. She gave advice in tiny tidbits unlike sounding out every bit of relationship-knowledge she had stored in her brain in the first session, like Zayn had been unrealistically hoping for. A lot of the time she didn’t even really give advice or offer an opinion and left Ari and Zayn to have the floor while she sometimes intervened with a ‘why’ or a ‘how does that feel’ between arguments. He really had believed this was going to be easy but it was far from it. Zayn crossed his arms and sat back in the seat when the counsellor focused her attention on Zayn, asking why he thinks Ari would ask him that. He shrugged, avoiding his fiancees gaze. “Because she’s insecure.” He answered, short. There was silence and Zayn knew a much better answer was expected of him. He sat forward rubbing his hands together. “Uh, because when she first told me about her self harm, I didn’t really say anything. Then, I broke up with her because I didn’t want her to, like, rely on me so much and then” he paused, rubbing his hands over his face, feeling the guilt consume him as he reminisced on their relationship. “Then I left her when she told me she relapsed because I thought it somehow meant she didn’t, like, love me enough to stop. And, probably, because after our son died I stopped spending time with her and even really talking to her so that I could grieve on my own.” Zayn hated when it was his turn to admit his faults in the relationship. The therapist nodded and there was something soothing about her silence, for once. It made Zayn feel like he could talk. Having her there meant a neutral mediator and not just constant back-and-forth between he and Ari. He probably wouldn’t confess that to Ari afterwards though. “She probably says that because I treat her like she’s not good enough.” He admitted with a sigh. Zayn had never actually listed out loud the things he'd done to hurt Ari. He’s apologised and they’ve moved on but they never go back to talking about it. “Zayn, do you think Ari is not enough for you?” She asked and Zayn felt almost humoured by the question but he had to stop himself from laughing when he realised the things he’d just listed that indicated otherwise. He shook his head. “Of course not. I love Ari.” He looked to Ari now, taking her hand. “I do, I love you. I can’t change the way I’ve acted but I guess that’s why we’re here. I want to prove myself to you. You are good enough and I want to marry you and spend our lives together, happy.”

{ v ;; katie and leo.

Katie sighed when Leo started talking about how he thought it was time that they stop messing around and finally get together. She had given him this exact same speech three months earlier but he turned her down he had made some good points that were all coming to her mind now. They weren't ready, she felt. She was still too young, as was he. Katie didn’t want them to get together only for them to become bored of each other by the time school was over or when they got older and realised they’d missed out on other stuff by only being with one another. She sighed, and reached past him to pick up her shirt to bring it over her head. Maybe the benefits thing was the issue. If they were fooling around but not being exclusive, then maybe they were just causing more harm than good. “Leo, we’ve talked about this.” Katie pulled her shirt over her head and climbed off the bed, feeling his arms fall from where they’d been at her waist. She missed his touch already. “We’re not ready to be together. I think you know that, too. You’re just bored right now and want us to move on with something.” She shrugged, not 100% believing her words but she needed an excuse to turn him down. She watched as he turned around on the bed to face her. “Am I good enough for you?” he challenged and she was across the room in seconds, her hands on either side of his face. “Shut up, Leo. That's not what this is about. You’re more than enough for me, you’re my best fucking friend and I would never want anyone in my life as much as I do you.” She kissed him with passion. Katie truly loved Leo but something about them becoming a couple in the school halls was just scary to her. She wasn't really sure why, it’s not as if she cared about what the other kids thought. It was more of a personal thing. “I fucking love you, I just don’t want to be your ‘girlfriend’ just yet.” She smirked as she pulled away from him. “But don’t worry, I’ll probably offer again in another three months and you can turn me down next.”

“What is it about me that makes you hate me so much?”

{ v ;; the princess and the moon.

Prince rolled his eyes, and made an attempt to leave the room but she blocked his pathway. He huffed out a breath and glared down at her. “Get the fuck out of my way.” He snarled but, adding to his infuriation, she didn’t. It was starting to seem quite stupid of her to even ask why he hated her so much when all she ever did was give him reasons to. He sighed and stepped away from her, aware he wasn’t getting out of the room until he answered her question. “Because you’re so fucking annoying. I’ve literally never met someone as annoying as you in my fucking life. It’s like you know that you’re annoying too and you try to add to it just to piss me off. You purposely piss me off all the fucking time. You speak in Spanish despite how I know that you know the English for what you’re trying to say. You ask too many questions in class, you chew gum so fucking loudly it makes me want to tear it out of your fucking mouth. And you style your fucking school uniform, like, we all wear the same one why do you have to make yours look so fucking–” And he wished, he so wished he didn’t pause. Because the hesitation gave him away. The unfinished sentence and all it’s possible endings swirled around in his mind– the words hot, beautiful, sexy all danced in his brain and it just got under his skin even further. His anger and his irritation was growing with each given second he spent in this room. He went to leave again but she was still blocking him. He wasn’t sure why he hadn’t shoved her out of the way instead of allowing her to trap him inside the room like she was. He huffed out a breath, his nostrils flaring as he did so. His gaze settled on hers, the anger evident on his features. “Why d’you have to ask why I hate you? This is fucking why. Move.” She did not. Prince wrapped a hand around her arm but he didn’t move her, he just held on. He leaned in, his face close to hers. He was trying to be intimidating but something about the moment felt more heated than he was expecting. “I wouldn’t make a habit out of crossing me, if I were you.” His tone was low, and threatening. It was a threat. It was definitely a threat, so Prince didn’t understand how suddenly she had her hands on his neck, her legs wrapped around his waist as he pulled her up with his hands under thighs, their lips kissing furiously at each other. It wasn’t sweet, or even nice for that matter. It was just violent, clashing of lips and teeth as he carried her to the bed.

{ v ;; no reason.

Jason just had to laugh. He really had no other choice, he just had to let the noise fall from his lips. He couldn’t believe that this was his life, his girlfriend and her words were serious. He shook his head. “You’re so dramatic.” He spoke, his tone not as amused-sounding as his laughter had been. “--I’m not saying that, like, as an answer to you as in that’s something I hate about you I’m just stating that you are.” He could tell she wasn’t amused but frankly, neither was he. Jason didn’t know if Iola was trying to provide something for her to do with her day since she had the day off but he didn't consider it very fair for her to start a fight with him five minutes before he had to go out the door. Couldn't she use her boredom to play Candy Crush or look up memes on the internet? He didn’t understand why she had to constantly start this fight out of nowhere. “Baby, I don’t hate you. Obviously, I don’t hate you. I fucking love you but I’m only 25 and I feel like I can’t even as much as turn the microwave on without supervision. I can’t even imagine how you think you’re old enough to get married. As in, I can’t actually formulate where your thought process is coming from.” He scoffed. He didn't want to make fun of her or make her feel as though her feelings regarding the proposal issue were invalid but her logic was just non-existent in his eyes. “Me not wanting to marry you has nothing to do with my feelings for you, I obviously want to spend the rest of my life with you and I’m going to. If you want to think that I hate you just because I would like to be your boyfriend for a longer time while we are already spending our lives together, then that’s your prerogative. Stop dragging me into it.” And with that, Jason gathered his things and made his way toward the front door. Surely, Iola would spend her day thinking into every little word that came out of his mouth and he would probably come home from work to her fuming at him for marching out without actually doing anything to reassure her that being with her was his priority. He hadn’t done anything to squash her concerns or her fears around their relationship because he hadn’t felt like he’d had to. Standing in the elevator, he had to let out a quiet chuckle to himself as he recalled her asking what she’d done to make him her her so; what a stupid question.

{ v ;; july 17th.

Zayn considered Ari’s question. Apart from sneaking into her room two nights prior to sleep with her, everything he said, and did certainly pointed in the direction of the possibility that he hated her. She made a valid point, there. But when she said it, he knew he didn't. Zayn didn't hate Ari, in fact he believed he had a bit of a crush on her, if he really thought about it. Zayn liked to mess around, though. He was going to tease and tease as much as he could to get the most entertainment as he could out of this. “I don’t know. Maybe I get a kick out of this love-hate relationship we’ve got going.” He laughed when she scoffed at his definition of their relationship. So maybe it was lacking any love, she was right there. Zayn couldn't think of a genuine reason as to why he got such a kick out of making fun of Ari and making her life unnecessarily difficult. Arguing with her, whether it was playful or coming from a mean place, was better than any peaceful conversation Zayn ever had with Perrie. "Maybe you’re just easy to hate, Arianna.” He chuckled quietly when she went to storm away from him because he wasn’t really giving her anything to work with. Zayn let her storm off, going to amuse himself elsewhere in the house. Zayn returned to his own room to see Perrie playing with Hatchi. She beamed up at him and he immediately knew he didn’t want to be here with her. He kissed his girlfriend and threw a toy across the room for Hatchi before making up an excuse that he had just come back to grab a jacket because he was going to head out for a bit with Cody. Zayn happened to know Cody was already out of the house. He quickly slipped back out of his room and made his way to Ari’s. He didn’t bother knocking. “What, Zayn?” He ignored her snippy attitude. “I don’t hate you.” He confessed, locking the door behind him as he stepped into the room. Zayn sat down next to her on the bed, holding her gaze the entire time. “You do annoy me and I don’t get half of your jokes or references and I hate the fact that you hate my child, Hatchi, but I don’t hate you.” His tone was softer now than it had been the first time he was talking to her. He reached out his hand to cover hers. Zayn had enjoyed their night spent together, and while Cody and Perrie remained in the dark, he couldn’t see anything too wrong about it. In fact, he wanted to do it again. He laughed when she pulled her hand away and insisted she hated him. Zayn shuffled closer to her. He leaned in so their faces were inches apart, noticing she didn’t move. “Do you hate me, Ari?” He whispered, feeling the tension fall deep in the air between them. His gaze flicked down to her lips before meeting her eyes again. He smirked. “Cause I don’t think you do.” he leaned in further and when she didn’t pull away again, he kissed her. It was bold and a little outrageous considering their relationships but they’d already slept together. How much harm could this cause, really?

{ b ;; squad goals. I guess

Cassie was practically beaming as she walked through to the kitchen of Matt and Nick’s flat. She hopped up on the counter beside Nick who was attempting to clean but didn’t seem to know the difference between spray for counter-tops and window-cleaner. She continued beaming until he paid attention to her. “What are you grinning about?” He queried before he gave up on scrubbing to make some tea. She looked over to Prince who hadn’t as much as spared her a glance since she walked in. The smell of whatever he was smoking caused her nose to crinkle in disgust before she re-focused on Nick. She took her tea from him. “I have a theory that I think you’re going to love!” She chuckled at the mere thought of it. He didn’t even have to press her any further. “I think that Matt and Luna are sleeping together.” And just as she spoke, Nick practically spat out his tea. He looked at her like she had gone insane. She felt Prince’s eyes on her. Nick informed her that he would know if they were, and so would she for that matter. She shook her head. “I think they’re keeping it a secret. Come on, it makes so much sense!” Cassie placed her cup of tea down so she could talk even more with her hands than she already was. “She’s definitely been sleeping with someone, okay, and I’ve heard whoever it is –Matt– sneak out at, like, 6 in the morning more than once this month. He’s always flirting with her.” She rolled her eyes when Nick insisted that Matt flirts with everybody, pointing out he never flirts with her. She watched as she could see on his face that he was considering the idea. “Okay, listen. She always goes missing at his parties, last week she offered to drop you back your phone charger that you lent me. And remember that time that we ‘randomly’ bumped into Luna literally down the street and she looked all flustered? Like, first of all why was she around here without at least you knowing she’d called around? And you remember Matt said he hadn’t even seen her? I mean, she was hardly at Prince’s considering how much she hates Prince.” She looked over to the raven-haired boy whose presence made her feel uncomfortable. “No offence, Prince.” She quickly added but he just rolled his eyes. “Just keep me out of your stupid theories.” He said before re-focusing on his phone. Cassie turned back to Nick, to catch him putting the pieces together, the sense formulating on his face. She watched his eyes widen. The fact that he was seeing the logic in her theory just helped confirm it for herself. She beamed to herself, proud that she had come up with this. When Nick asked her why they would keep it a secret, she shrugged. “I don’t know, that’s the part I’m struggling with. Like, I’m not going to tell her that I totally know her secret because she obviously wants to keep it hidden for a reason and I respect that but I just don’t get why. Like, is it just because he’s the ugliest out of the three of you? I don’t get why that should matter, Matt is nice and it’s not as if he’s that ugly.” Cassie chewed down on her lower lip. Now that Nick was on board, she was even further convinced of her theory but she just couldn’t figure out why Luna wouldn’t tell her. “What is it about me that makes you hate me so much?” Nick spoke and Cassie frowned, confused. “Now I’m going to watch everything they do and I’m going to be suspicious when he has girls over, which he always does. You’ve ruined them for me, Cassie.” Cassie just rolled her eyes and hopped down off the counter. At the same time, Prince let out a sigh, probably done with hearing Cassie’s voice, and marched out of the room barely offering Nick a goodbye. Cassie re-focused on Nick. “So I’m definitely right, huh? Matt and Luna are for sure having a secret relationship?”

#if you're not listening to unchained melody for Jason and Iola in the first one then don't even BOTHER reading it #im telling u #also imagine being as stupid as @cassie williams #also I rlly only had muse for princess moon and no reason #the others are well u know they're just there :)#ly bye #{ v ;; the princess and the moon.#{ v ;; no reason.#{ v ;; what if.#{ v ;; katie & leo.#{ b ;; squad goals.#beencaughts #memed

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preserving-ferretbrain · 6 years ago

Text

City of … Clocks?

by Dan H

Sunday, 05 February 2012

Dan crawls back to Cassie~

Reading Cassandra Clare is, for me, like visiting an old friend. An old friend who is kind of a dick. An old friend who is kind of a dick, but who you are comfortable enough around that you accept their being a dick as part of the charm of their personality, and then after you get home ask yourself why the hell you were ever friends with that dick.

So yes. Cassandra Clare.

The Infernal Devices trilogy is a prequel to the Mortal Instruments trilogy, set in the same world, but in Victorian Times. Being Victorian Times means it is set in London, which is where the Victorian Times happened, and there are clockwork automatons, which is what the economy of the Victorian Times was based on.

The heroine of the prequel trilogy is an American Girl named Tessa Gray who has had to come to England to live with her brother. The hero of the prequel trilogy is Fanon Draco, as always. This version of Fanon Draco is called William Herondale. He is a sarcastic, emotionally withdrawn young man who has difficulty trusting people. He is not to be confused with Jace from The Mortal Instruments who was a sarcastic, emotionally withdrawn young man with different coloured hair.

I'm going to start by saying how much I love the name “William Herondale”. It just sounds so perfectly like what it is – a name invented by an American girl to sound really English to other American girls who have never been to England. The whole book is kind of like this – it feels a great deal like the cast of the original trilogy decided to cosplay as Victorians (and the cover of the UK edition looks rather like that as well – I've never seen somebody look less comfortable in a top hat).

The book opens with a nine page prologue, but the action of the prologue takes place directly before the action of the first chapter, so I really don't understand what makes it a “prologue” and not “chapter one”. Anyway the prologue delighted me by including the two things I've come to demand from the works of Cassie Clare, the first being incredibly ill-constructed similes:

Through the gap, Will could see the dark outlines of docked ships, a forest of masts like a leafless orchard.

It's not quite “the colour of black ink” but there's a certain peculiar genius to it. You can almost imagine her sitting at her keyboard and thinking “hmm, there's this forest of masts, but I need a striking visual metaphor to describe it, what would it be like … I know, a forest of masts would look like an orchard.”

And the second, of course, being an infeasibly hot badboy love interest:

Will smiled the way Lucifer might have smiled, moments before he fell from heaven.

As I so often say in these situations, part of me appreciates the sheer brass (and presumably in this case steam-powered) bollocks of it. Remember that this line appears on page twelve of the UK edition, and the prologue only starts on page seven. I'd say that she might as well have just written “and by the way, Will was really, really, really hot” but she actually does that as well a mere thirty pages later:

He had the most beautiful face she had ever seen. Tangled black hair and eyes like blue glass. Elegant cheekbones, a full mouth, and long, thick lashes. Even the curve of his throat was perfect.

I mean, it's nice that she puts her cards on the table, but seriously, we are on page forty-two here. I don't think I'd mind so much if it weren't for the fact that they don't even get together in this book – they kiss like, twice, and he makes inappropriate suggestions (because he is tormented) and that's it. I know it's the nineteenth century, but nobody in the entire book offers more than a passing nod to a period-appropriate worldview – at least TMI had the whole incest arc keeping the leads from hopping into bed with each other, all that stops the protagonists of this book from jumping in the sack is recycled Draco-angst and the fact that Tessa very, very occasionally remembers it's supposed to be 1878.

Anyway, the story of Clockwork Angel (spoilers follow) is that Tessa Gray is summoned to England, where it turns out she has shapeshifting powers, which she is abused into revealing by two scary old ladies called the Dark Sisters (I shit you not) who want to force her to marry somebody called “the Magister” (I still shit you not). She is rescued by

Draco

Jace

William Herondale and the other Shadowhunters, who are investigating the Dark Sisters and the mysterious “Pandemonium Club” that they work for and the sinister “Magister” who runs it. Investigation ensues, and it turns out that the Pandemonium Club are building a clockwork army to wipe out the Shadowhunters. The Shadowhunters try to take down the Magister, but it turns out they have been tricked by the real Magister into taking down the wrong villain. The identity of the true Magister is kind of obvious (clue, all Cassie Clare's villains have surnames beginning with “M”) but the reveal is reasonably well handled and while you can see the twist coming a mile off, the clues are mostly metatextual so the protagonists don't look too stupid.

Because it's the first book in a trilogy, of course, the book ends with a completely inconclusive confrontation, and a metric assload of foreshadowing during which nothing whatsoever is revealed about anything at all.

I'm sort of torn about the plot. I found the opening dull, was quite excited at the bit in the middle where they killed a bunch of vampires, was pleased with the revelation of the real Magister but then realised that (a) nothing was going to get explained at all and (b) there were still two chapters to go, which presumably would consist of nothing but setup and foreshadowing. I did provisionally like the Magister arc, which begins with the Shadowhunters being all dismissive and superior about mortals who dabble in the occult, and ends with the revelation that the Magister actually is an ordinary mortal who – it seems – has managed to achieve power in the world of the supernatural by being legitimately smarter than everybody else (which admittedly isn't particularly hard, Clare's secondary creation isn't exactly overflowing with competence).

Of course this touches on one of my perennial beefs with Urban Fantasy, which is its complete lack of interest in anybody who isn't touched by the Special Magic Fairy Dust. Long-time fans of my struggles with the good Ms Clare might remember that I felt that

City of Glass

was in part an attempt to “do right” some of the unfollowed plot threads in the later Potter books (specifically, any and all threads that related to Wizarding society being hella fucked up), in City of Glass the Clave really does have to make concessions to the Downworlders in order to defeat Valentine, and they (to some extent) have to confront some nasty truths about their society. Clockwork Angelseems (although I am more than ready to be disappointed on this count) to be making a similar attempt to address the Wizarding World's treatment of Muggles (and more generally, the treatment of mundane humans in urban fantasy as a genre). It's relatively clear throughout the book that the Shadowhunters have a really screwed-up attitude to mundanes, and part of the reason the twist works so well (despite being relatively obvious) is that you can absolutely see why they fall for it – it's clearly impossible for any of them to believe that they could be so utterly played by an ordinary human.

This does have a downside, however, which is that it leaves some parts of the audience (at least, those parts of the audience which are me) kind of rooting for the villain. Perhaps I'm just an asshole, but Clare does such a good job of making the Shadowhunters look like patronising douchebags that I could see a lot of sense in Operation Robot Army. Certainly I'd rather put my faith in a bunch of killer machines than in a group of invisible ninja wizards who think they're better than me. Of course the problem with this is that the guy is inevitably going to lose, which means that whatever Clare's intentions, it seems likely that the overall message of the series is going to wind up being “and remember, don't try to move outside of the sphere you were born into.” Like always.

As always when reviewing long running series by the same author, I find myself running out of steam around this point because, well, there isn't a lot I can say here that will be a surprise to anybody. I can I think say that Cassie Claire is getting less bad, although as always it might just be that I'm growing accustomed to her idiosyncrasies. For example, I didn't find the chapter titles quite as infuriating this time around – none of them were in Latin, most of them were short and descriptive, and only three or four of them contain the words “Heaven”, “Angel” or “Darkness”. Chapter two does reach a new low by being called “Hell is Cold” - a title which is justified solely by the fact that Tessa randomly tells Will (in the middle of an escape scene, no less) that “Hell is Cold” because the lowest levels of hell are full of ice in The Inferno. Which she has read. And which Cassie Clare has also read.

Oh yes, about that. While Ms Clare has very slightly restrained her urge to pack literary references into her chapter titles, she has more than compensated in two ways. Firstly, she continues her tradition of having her protagonists quote stuff all the damned time (this gets circular fast – frequently chapter titles are references to the fact that characters in the book quote a particular line in the chapter – as with “Hell is Cold” in chapter two). Secondly she opens each chapter with a quote from a poem. Poems which she helpfully informs us (in an author's note after the text – much like you might get in an H/D songfic) were all poems that Tessa would have known about, except for the bits that aren't – there's Wilde and Kipling in there despite the book being set in 1878. I wouldn't have minded this so much, but the Author's Note makes quite a big deal about how the rest of the poems are texts Tessa would have been familiar with, and I kind of think that if you're going to do a thing, you should do it properly, otherwise it looks a lot like you've just taken a bunch of random poems from some time vaguely in the past.

The book opens, incidentally with a full length poem called “Thames River Song” which was actually written especially for the book by a third party (one Elka Cloke, you can apparently find a full version of the poem at www.elkacloke.com). This poem is clearly supposed to be about the Thames as it was in the Age of Steam, and – I don't know – I think if you want a poem about the Thames in the nineteenth century you should go with a nineteenth-century poet. I can't help but suspect that the reason she didn't pick, say, Lines Written Near Richmond, Upon the Thames, at Evening or Steam-Launches on the Thames is because they didn't contain enough references to cogs, steam, machinery and all the other things that people who have never been to London associate with it.

I vaguely promised myself that this wouldn't turn into a rant about Steampunk, I've mellowed a lot on the (sub)genre over the years, and I'm happy to accept that good books can be and have been written in a steampunk mode. That said, a lot of things still hack me off about the subculture, one of which is its peculiar insistence that the Industrial Revolution was all about individual craftsmen building wonderful machines when in fact it was about masses of people in factories producing stuff in bulk. To put it another way, real Victorian poets didn't write about their world like this:

Each tiny golden cog has teeth, each great wheel moves a pair of hands which take the water from the river, devour it, convert it into steam, coerce the great machine to run on the force of its dissolution.

This is because people in the nineteenth century didn't give a crap about cogs and brass and steam any more than, well, twenty-first century people do (after all the vast majority of electricity is still generated in thermal power stations, which still use steam-driven turbines and which still contain cogs and gears and all of those other oldey-timey sounding things which are part of pretty much any mechanical device you might care to name). Real historical poets who lived in the real London wrote about real people who lived in a real city. William Blake's London for example, begins:

I wandered through each chartered street, Near where the chartered Thames does flow, A mark in every face I meet, Marks of weakness, marks of woe.

Wordsworth, in London, 1802 writes:

Milton! thou shouldst be living at this hour: England hath need of thee: she is a fen Of stagnant waters: altar, sword, and pen, Fireside, the heroic wealth of hall and bower, Have forfeited their ancient English dower Of inward happiness. We are selfish men;

Sorry, I've spent a really insanely long time banging on about this, but you might notice that neither of those poems contain any reference to brass, steam, lenses, goggles or any of the other steampunk nonsense that Clare felt was such a necessary part of her evocation of my goddamned home city.

Again, I should add that I have actually mellowed a lot on Steampunk over the years, but what bothered me about the steampunky elements in Clockwork Angel was that it isn't a steampunk setting. Steampunk posits an alternate reality in which the progress of technology is fundamentally different, but this clearly isn't true in the Cassandraverse – we know that, supernatural elements aside, the New York of the Mortal Instruments trilogy looks exactly like the real New York. Yet somehow the villain of The Infernal Devices is able to build humanoid robots which follow verbal commands, believably pass as human, and move sufficiently well to stand up to trained Shadowhunters in a one-on-one fight, and he is able to do this without using magic. Clare just seems to assume that because it is The Victorian Times people have access to steampunk technology that somehow ceases to exist somewhere between 1878 and 2010.

It's not the steampunkyness that I object to per se, rather it's the thoughtless assumption that (a) England (b) the late nineteenth century and (c) steampunk are basically the same thing. It's like Clare was unable to imagine a novel set in England that was not set in the Victorian era, unable to imagine a novel set in the Victorian era that was not set in England, and unable to imagine a novel set in either England or the Victorian era that did not include steam-and-clockwork-powered mechanical marvels.

It makes it quite hard to work out where to place the books. They're so tied to the original trilogy that they don't really make sense except as a prequel series, but they make enough changes to the way the world works (seriously guys, clockwork robots are a game-changer) that they don't feel quite like they're set in the same universe. It's a lot like the Star Wars prequels in that respect, you have to really squint to imagine that the events established in the original canon logically follow from the world established in the prequels.

The weirdness is compounded by the fact that half the characters in the book have the same surnames as characters from the previous book. I get that this provides a sense of continuity, but rather than making the story feel like part of a consistent world, it makes it feel like it's just set in a weird AU where everybody is a Victorian (like that Marvel comic where it's the X-Men except that they're in 1602). The strange fake feeling isn't helped by the fact that people not only fail to act in any way like actual Victorians but also draw attention to the fact that they aren't in any way acting like actual Victorians. So Tessa tries for about two chapters to refer to Will as “Mr Herondale” but then just forgets, she points out how peculiar it is that she Shadowhunters all refer to each other by their first names, but they still do it. Yes you can claim that it's all “Shadowhunter tradition” but it seems a giant fucking coincidence that the eternal and unchanging traditions of the Shadowhunters align so perfectly with twenty-first-century social conventions despite their having been instituted n-thousand years ago. It's like that bit in City of Ashes where they explain that “adult” in Shadowhunter tradition means “eighteen year old” because “teenagers are a modern concept”.

The awkward sense of history is at its most jarring when it comes to gender politics. Tess pays lip-service to having internalised sexism, but after expressing mild surprise that in Shadowhunter society Women Are Allowed To Have Power And Fight Like Men she just goes with it. Except later it seems that Shadowhunter society is kind of sexist after all (Charlotte, the Shadowhunter who runs the institute, can do so only because she does it jointly with her affable buffoon of a husband, and her gender apparently causes her political difficulties) which for me shoves the whole thing down the uncanny valley. If it's a gender-equal society, why does Charlotte get a hard time for being a woman? If it isn't, why don't they keep their women at home making Shadowhunter babies? Again it all feels oddly specific, like the Shadowhunters are eternally stuck in a kind of late-twentieth-early-twenty-first-century mindset with very, very vague nods to whatever time period they happen to be cosplaying as.

The gender politics get particularly confusing when we get to the character of Jess. Jess is the Isabel of this book (although she's fair-haired this time, meaning her hair is presumably the colour of blonde ink) only instead of being a badass dominatrix, she's a (relatively) proper Victorian lady who isn't interested in fighting demons at all, and who wants to move out of the Institute and find herself a husband. Jess is very nearly an interesting character, but I could never quite work out whether I was supposed to find her situation complex and ambiguous or whether I was just supposed to think she was shallow and stupid. Read charitably, Jess asks us to question the morality of Shadowhunter society (which is trying to force her into a life she doesn't want, just as Victorian society forces many mundanes into lives they don't want) and to recognise that some women really will choose marriage and domesticity over excitement and adventure, and that there is nothing wrong with this. Read uncharitably she's there exclusively to make the heroine look good.

I'm going to close this review by mentioning the two Author's Notes at the end (this really, really feels like a fandom thing to me – I half expect the next book to open with bold text saying: Disclaimer: I don't own any of … oh wait). I've already mentioned the one about the poetry, but there's also a lovely note about “Tessa's London” which begins thus:

The London of Clockwork Angel is, as much as I could make it, an admixture of the real and the unreal, the famous and the forgotten.

Good old Cassie and her thesaurus. But I do wonder what she means by “as much as I could make it,” surely as long as the book contains at least one real thing (like say, the name of the city) and at least one unreal thing (like say, the character of Will Herondale) then she has succeeded in her goal.

Either way, thus ends the review. A review that is, as much as I could make it, an admixture of the fair and the unfair, of sincerity and sarcasm.Themes:

Books

Young Adult / Children

Judging Books By Their Covers

Cassandra Clare

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Arthur B

at 01:20 on 2012-02-06

It's like Clare was unable to imagine a novel set in England that was not set in the Victorian era, unable to imagine a novel set in the Victorian era that was not set in England, and unable to imagine a novel set in either England or the Victorian era that did not include steam-and-clockwork-powered mechanical marvels.

To be fair, maybe she

could

imagine such a novel, but she (or her publishers) couldn't imagine it selling better.

I mean, if you're a hack novelist who's perfectly content to write the literary equivalent of popcorn - lacking in distinctiveness, flavour, nutritional value or surprises, but comfortingly disposable and familiar - and if you're facing a situation where the urban fantasy market is oversaturated, moving on to steampunk seems like the logical choice because there's a built-in subculture attached to it of folk who'll happily give your novel a chance provided there is a reasonable chance there'll be cogs and corsets in there.

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http://alankria.livejournal.com/

at 10:20 on 2012-02-06This is because people in the nineteenth century didn't give a crap about cogs and brass and steam ... Real historical poets who lived in the real London wrote about real people who lived in a real city.

I love you so much for saying this and for quoting poetry and for putting into words something that has bothered me about Steampunk Londonland for a while. Thank you.

I personally think steampunk has huge potential as a lens (a fun lens, even!) for looking at a very interesting and highly problematic era, with industrialism, imperialism, the beginning of the suffragette movement and many other issues and events - yet it mostly seems to be about gears and cogs and corsets and steam, rather than poking and prodding what it was that made the 19thC (in England and elsewhere) such a volatile time.

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Sister Magpie

at 19:09 on 2012-02-07

As someone who once was an American girl who had never been to England, I sort of want to hug it just for that too because it is so naked in its appeal.

So Tessa tries for about two chapters to refer to Will as “Mr Herondale” but then just forgets, she points out how peculiar it is that she Shadowhunters all refer to each other by their first names, but they still do it. Yes you can claim that it's all “Shadowhunter tradition” but it seems a giant fucking coincidence that the eternal and unchanging traditions of the Shadowhunters align so perfectly with twenty-first-century social conventions despite their having been instituted n-thousand years ago.

This kind of fascinates me because when you read a lot of 19th century lit, well, as you said, the difference is just there. In the book I'm reading now I just read a passage where a woman refers to someone by just their last name in a letter, with a line about how the recipient might be shocked to hear her taking such liberties and she'll now explain that they have become much more intimate since she last mentioned him. There's also a scene earlier where the two dim-witted lovers have a breathless exchange about how they are totally going to call each other by their first names.

It makes me wonder about the decision to do that, I mean, to take a basic difference in the two societies and then toss it when it immediately makes everything seem that much more modern.

I actually just read another YA book that takes place in the 19th century in England where there wasn't many places to deal with this sort of formal convention but I was really distracted by how completely modern the personalities were. Like, not only did all the girls openly chafe against all the Victorian expectations (or lack of expectations) for girls, but they had personalities that were almost frightenly abrasive and aggressive for the time period compared to any other books I've read. Judged in the way the women in the actual 19th century book I'm reading, every one of them would be the villain.

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https://me.yahoo.com/a/XN0WFW88y4QZqlu6627sTvW6qWXOhmhF#91b77

at 19:45 on 2012-02-07Yeah, steampunk in general bothers me for a lot of similar reasons. Obviously fantasy is fantasy, but people native to the 'steampunk world' simply wouldn't be so self-consciously obsessed with the purely cosmetic trappings of steampunk (cogs, steam power, goggles, etc.) that for the bulk of the poulation would be everyday mundanities. It'd be like a character in a typical fantasy setting going apeshit over common swords and shields and campfires. The setting isn't so fresh these days that mere mention of its tropes excites interest. James Blaylock wrote better steampunk novels in the 80s.

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http://angmar-bucket.livejournal.com/

at 23:21 on 2012-02-07I must be one of the few people who just doesn't get the appeal of the Victorian era. It's in the past, but in the relatively recent past by historical standards. I'd love to read a supernatural thriller set in ancient Egypt, or Mongolia, or Mesopotamia, or something like that. And what about Japan? If Ms. Clare doesn't want to use people's surnames, she should set a book in feudal Japan, where once upon a time only the nobility had surnames and everyone else had to make due without them (of course, there are a lot of other Cultural Restrictions in that setting, so perhaps nevermind to that idea). I suppose medieval Japan wouldn't be "classy" and "posh" enough.

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valse de la lune

at 07:13 on 2012-02-08Ugh fuck no, there are enough crappy, orientalist, exotifying novels written by westerners about Japan as it is. Let hacks continue to wank over Victoriana and leave everything else alone, it's much less insulting than rampant cultural appropriation.

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Janne Kirjasniemi

at 11:36 on 2012-02-08Of course, the thing about the industrial revolution is that not only were people not that interested in the cosmetic trappings, many of them were actively opposed and hated by many people as the industrial revolution brought with it not just miracles of engineering, but also the negative effects, a burgeoning uncontrollable urban growth and poverty, problems with sanitation and health and the pollution caused by the many factories situated quite near city centers. Trains were feared or treated with suspicion and in general, there were many who regarded the progress as a negative thing destroying a world that they had grown used to. But enough about that. I was both fascinated and confused by this line:

Will smiled the way Lucifer might have smiled, moments before he fell from heaven.

I am having a hard time imagining the exact nature of this smile. So, moments before he was cast outside the light of god into perpetual metaphysical darkness, Lucifer was smiling? Was this smile masochistic, defiant, inappropriate, insane or lackadaisical? That's one tough angel. One could imagine that this is the exact sort of positive attitude that makes one able to turn abyss into the fastest growing afterlife enterprise in the christian universe, but on the other hand it might be that he thought he was actually winning and was smiling about it not noticing that archangel Mikael had tricked him to step above a hole in the clouds and he was only moments away from realizing, like Wile E. Coyote above a ravine, that there's a long drop to abyss opening under him. But what exactly was Will doing, that made him pucker out a smile resembling such a specific expression from a future archfiend? Did the author elaborate on this? Even with the above speculation, I can't imagine what sort of a smile it would actually be...

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Shim

at 12:23 on 2012-02-08I would love to read something fantastical about Victorian Japan written by someone competent. Sadly given how likely genre fiction is to get translated, that's probably contingent on me learning Japanese. Really must find more non-Western fantasy to read.

Frankly I'd also like to read some steampunk that wasn't about London; did nobody notice the whole "industrial north" business? The whole "Sheffield: steel capital of the world" business takes on a whole new meaning.

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at 15:03 on 2012-02-08Well, there are the Kai Lung stories Ernest Bramah wrote, though those come off to me more as a satire of the West's distorted idea of China than anything else. A less charitable person could consider them really insulting cultural appropriation I guess, but this is just so exaggerated that I can't believe he was taking it seriously or intending it to reflect on China as it actually was:

"O illustrious person," said Kai Lung very earnestly, "this is evidently an unfortunate mistake. Doubtless you were expecting some exalted Mandarin to come and render you homage, and were preparing to overwhelm him with gratified confusion by escorting him yourself to your well-appointed abode. Indeed, I passed such a one on the road, very richly apparelled, who inquired of me the way to the mansion of the dignified and upright Lin Yi. By this time he is perhaps two or three li towards the east." "However distinguished a Mandarin he may be, it is fitting that I should first attend to one whose manners and accomplishments betray him to be of the Royal House," replied Lin Yi, with extreme affability. "Precede me, therefore, to my mean and uninviting hovel, while I gain more honour than I can reasonably bear by following closely in your elegant footsteps, and guarding your Imperial person with this inadequate but heavily-loaded weapon."

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valse de la lune

at 15:30 on 2012-02-08I'm not entirely comfortable with a person who's not Chinese doing that, to be honest.

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Janne Kirjasniemi

at 15:52 on 2012-02-08What of Robert Van Gulik's Judge Dee stories? I don't know any better, but I did get the impression, that he tried to interpret traditional Chinese detective stories to a western audience and he did seem to do a lot of research on it.

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valse de la lune

at 16:02 on 2012-02-08I'm not familiar with them, but there was a film about the same character--that is, based on the same historical figure--made by actual Chinese people, so I'm predisposed to be more interested in that than in something by whoever Gulik was.

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https://me.yahoo.com/a/XN0WFW88y4QZqlu6627sTvW6qWXOhmhF#91b77

at 16:14 on 2012-02-08

Here

is an interesting article about cultural appropriation in speculative fiction. It touches on ways an author might deal with elements of a foreign culture tactfully. While a member of the culture in question could obviously be counted on to deal with it from a place of knowledge and sensitivity, there's nothing preventing people who aren't from doing so as well.

It's just that the 'invaders' (to use Shawl's terminology) tend to be more common. Dealing appropriately with complicated and sensitive subjects like foreign culture is difficult. Making matters worse, the English-speaking speculative fiction readership is largely comprised of white western people, who aren't exactly likely to notice and be vocally critical of cultural appropriation.

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valse de la lune

at 17:13 on 2012-02-08Oh, I've written reams

on that subject

on particular

books

, particular

occasions

Truth be told though? Westerners get my culture(s) so wrong most of the time that I'm inclined to run the fuck away when I see one of them try. I no longer read anything about my country that's by a white person. Why should I, when there're plenty of my countrypeople writing?

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https://me.yahoo.com/a/XN0WFW88y4QZqlu6627sTvW6qWXOhmhF#91b77

at 17:34 on 2012-02-08Fair enough, seems like you've thought quite a bit more about this than I have, what with it directly concerning you and your culture (surprise: I'm a white guy).

Still, I think you go a bit far. An outsider's perspective is often useful, and can be educational; should white people only read white people's opinions on what white people are like? Surely not. The difference I guess is in the claim of 'authenticity'. Like in that book by Paolo Whatshisname you wrote about; it's set in Thailand and told from the perspective of Thai characters, and so really needs to display a deep understanding of the culture, but he proceeds to prove his ignorance about it.

But say some other foreigner lived in Thailand for a period and wrote a book that drew from their genuine experiences with Thai people and their culture, from that foreign perspective? That would bring something much different to the story than what you'd get from a Thai author writing about their own culture and countrymen. I'm assuming, of course, that it doesn't just turn into more "white guy out-natives the natives" type of Dances with Wolves/Avatar/The Last Samurai crap.

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http://scipiosmith.livejournal.com/

at 18:37 on 2012-02-08

It's occurred to me that, as you've described it, the Victorian English setting works as quite a nice paralell for the goings on around the villain. You have a society in which an established elite, perpetuating by blood, who come under assault by the little-thought-of underclass, and are completely blindsided by it due to their own complacency in their continuing place at the head of affairs. Meanwhile the revolutionary villain harnesses the desire of the working class to improve their station and uses it to sweep himself into power. This isn't just a YA urban fantasy, it's a metaphor for the rise of the Labour Movement and/or Irish Nationalism.

Pity it wasn't set in 1868, the Hyde Park riot could have been used as a backdrop.

Since I haven't actually read the book, does that make any sense at all?

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valse de la lune

at 20:20 on 2012-02-08

Oh piss right the fuck off. Hahaha "genuine." God, white people like you are the very fucking worst. Jesus buggering cocks. I've read that shit and it's full of condescending assumptions, judgmental assholery, and general idiocy of every single flavor imaginable. It's the white expats living in Thailand that are the worst of all species of scum: racist, entitled, sexist, whiny. I have no idea why we give then long-term visas and if a political party promised to deport the whole fucking lot I'll vote for them with all my might, even if that same party also promises to club baby seals.

The idea that you believe POC need an outsider's perspective to educate us about our own culture/country is patronizing beyond belief. And very, very white. You didn't even have to tell me you were white.

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at 20:26 on 2012-02-08Jesus Christ, I'm sorry I offended you but that's not what I meant at all. I didn't mean white people could teach you about your own culture, I meant an outsider's perspective can teach you about how you come off *to other people*. The impression you make and all that. If you've read a lot of stuff written by expats and it's been largely crappy then fine, you've read more of that than I have and know better than I do about its failings. But I don't think it's a bad idea in principle, assuming it's approached with maturity and sensitivity (which according to you it isn't the bulk of the time). And what's up with your attack on 'genuine'? All I meant was, people who have real, actual, *genuine* interactions with people of different cultures might have something interesting to say about those interactions. They might also have soapboxes they want to get on to preach some "racist, entitled, sexist, whiny" message, but that's true of anything.

But seriously, you want to *punch me in the face* over this? If that would make you feel better, be my guest, but it's not going to change anything.

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at 20:42 on 2012-02-08OK, well you edited out the part where you want to punch me in the face. Is my face now safe? Look, I'm not *trying* to be patronizing, but I'll admit that if my comments were interpreted as you did that they would come across as very patronizing. I didn't mean them that way, and I could've worded myself better, given that it's obviously a sensitive subject for you. It's a complex issue and I'm certainly not an expert on it (duh!). I do think outsider perspectives can have value if they're handled well, but maybe when it comes to culture that's an unattainable ideal.

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valse de la lune

at 20:46 on 2012-02-08"Genuine" is a favorite buzzword used by a certain type of bleeding-heart liberal slacktivists who go around backpacking through Asia (usually on their gap year, because white people

love this sort of thing

), write travelogues, and congratulate themselves over how

amazingly genuine and insightful

they are. In fact, the bulk of travel literature is nothing but exotifying claptrap writing by smug self-satisfied privileged white people who know nobody'll question their shit and buy into how "genuine" their dreck is.

I didn't mean white people could teach you about your own culture, I meant an outsider's perspective can teach you about how you come off *to other people*. The impression you make and all that.

Like the west in general and tourists particular don't tell us how they perceive us 24/7? I mean do you think... this... is... something... new? That there's a gaping void that begs to be filled? Westerners love nothing more than to lecture everyone else on what to do and how to do it in a way that'll appeal to them, westerners, better. At a global level my country is defined solely through the perspective of tourist guidebooks and exploitative expat scum. Everything has already been said,

you people

can't stop blathering on, you people can't just shut the fuck up and

listen

. Whites have an opinion on every fucking thing and love nothing more than to shout those opinions (even if their opinions are

insulting/based on generalizations/on three days' vacation

), and best of all while drowning out the opinions that actually matter. Like, you know, the opinions of insiders. Who know what they're talking about.

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Janne Kirjasniemi

at 20:55 on 2012-02-08Do you happen to remember the english name if any of that film? It would be nice to see it.

I wasn't meaning to puff Van Gulik, it was just something that popped into my head. They're pretty good detective strories, but I don't really know what there is to get terribly excited about in them, if one can read the originals. Van Gulik was a Netherlandish diplomat who worked in China during the Second World War. I remember reading that he translated some of the original stories into english. Whether they(his stories) are in anyways accurate about Qing dynasty China or its justice system or what in general is to be made of them, I don't know. Hmm, according to wikipedia, one of them was translated to chinese. Doesn't mention how it was received, though.

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valse de la lune

at 20:59 on 2012-02-08

Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame.

It's an interesting reimagining of China with a queen as the sole ruling monarch. There's at least one wuxia show IIRC that features the same historical personage as well. He's a popular one.

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at 20:59 on 2012-02-08

Like the west in general and tourists particular don't tell us how they perceive us 24/7? I mean do you think... this... is... something... new? That there's a gaping void that begs to be filled?

Well according to your own post, doing it well *would* be something new! Granted, I would like to see more attention paid to insider perspectives in speculative fiction too. I'm really tired of medieval Europe (or America in Space) being the default setting and cliched western views of other cultures are worse. Are there any good Thai spec fic authors you might recommend? In translation, of course.

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valse de la lune

at 21:07 on 2012-02-08Hahaha the thought of Thai genre writers being translated. Heh heh heh. Nope. The Anglophonic publishing industry isn't generally super-interested in things that aren't English-language. Even works from parts of Western Europe that don't speak English don't cross over very often (hey Gollancz, what's holding up that translation of

Time of Contempt

?). There aren't even good translations of some well-known Chinese epics.

Sightseeing

by Rattawut Lapcharoensap is fairly okay, and it's by an actual Thai person too! Not SF/F, but what the hell.

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Janne Kirjasniemi

at 21:29 on 2012-02-08On that subject, there is a rare Finnish specfic book which is(I think) actually good, by Johanna Sinisalo, which has been translated into english, called

Not before sundown

. It's about a gay photographer who rescues a young troll. It is really a shame that lack of translations. There's been lot's of people I know learning chinese here so I should probably try it out as well.

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Michal

at 02:10 on 2012-02-09

Even works from parts of Western Europe that don't speak English don't cross over very often (hey Gollancz, what's holding up that translation of Time of Contempt?).

Poland is considered part of Western Europe now? I guess I should be proud.

But yes, the imbalance is hugely frustrating; last time I was in a Polish bookshop half the stuff there was Polish translations of English works and actual Polish books were squeezed into their own little corner. Meanwhile, barely any fantastika from the whole of Russia, Poland, Ukraine et al has recently been available in the English-speaking world. Even honest-to-God classic works in French haven't been completely translated yet (You'd think you could find a complete English-language edition of Louis Sebastien Mercier's Tableau de Paris, but nooooo); let alone works from, uh, most of Asia and Africa.

As for the topic of writing outside of the usual Victorian London/western medieval setting, here's thing: I would love to see a steampunk novel set in St. Petersburg, say. I just wouldn't want Cassandra Clare to write it. Because, you know, Daniel can snigger at Claire's not-really-London, but I think she'd step into unbelievable levels of failure if she tried to take on a culture or place "outside the norm". If anglophone authors can't even seem to get Russia right 80% of the time, how well do we expect them to do with non-white cultures?

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valse de la lune

at 06:02 on 2012-02-09Herp, I should've said

Europe

period.

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Shim

at 13:41 on 2012-02-09Okay,

Sightseeing

and

Not Before Sundown

added to reading list. Other suggestions welcome! Currently working my way through Alexey Pehov and Fflur Dafydd.

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Michal

at 16:23 on 2012-02-09If you want to add some early Polish horror to the list, Shimmin, a little bit of Stefan Grabinski has made it into English (and unlike most cases, the translation is actually quite good). He's a personal favourite of mine.

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Shim

at 19:53 on 2012-02-09Thanks Michal, I've made a note of it.

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http://angmar-bucket.livejournal.com/

at 22:30 on 2012-02-09All this being said, I'd still like to see more fantasy books set in other places and in other time periods. They're hard to find, and the ones I actually like are even harder. (To be fair, any time after the 1300s I generally find boring, and in my opinion the world really lost its shine after Trilobite and the early Tetrapods went extinct, but there you go...)

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Dan H

at 23:46 on 2012-02-09Wow that's a lot of comments...

From the top

@Arthur:

To be fair, maybe she could imagine such a novel, but she (or her publishers) couldn't imagine it selling better.

I don't think that's the case though - it's not a steampunk text, it's a YA urban fantasy with vampires and wizards, its chief selling point isn't the fact that it's got quasi-steampunky elements, it's that it's got hot boys.

@alankria:

I love you so much for saying this and for quoting poetry and for putting into words something that has bothered me about Steampunk Londonland for a while. Thank you.

Thanks. Like I say in the article I've actually mellowed a lot on Steampunk (I basically think of it as fantasy with more modern technology these days). I think the reason the poetry bugged me so much was that she'd put so much effort into picking "authentic" period poems for her quotes, and then had something made up for the big introductory piece. It's like writing a book about the life of Jesus, peppering the text with lines from the gospels, and opening with a long pseudo-biblical passage you got a mate to write.

@Sister Magpie:

As someone who once was an American girl who had never been to England, I sort of want to hug it just for that too because it is so naked in its appeal.

I know! It's kind of adorable.

@angmar-bucket:

I must be one of the few people who just doesn't get the appeal of the Victorian era. It's in the past, but in the relatively recent past by historical standards.

I think it's the recentness that makes it so interesting in some ways. It's a world that's recognisably *not* the world we live in now, but is also recognisably very *similar* to it. I had no problem with the book being set in Victorian England (although I kind of think Victorian New York would have been cooler and less done to death) - just with its being filtered through the cogs-and-steam lens.

@scipiosmith:

It's occurred to me that, as you've described it, the Victorian English setting works as quite a nice paralell for the goings on around the villain.

Interesting, I'd been thinking something similar (although to be honest I know crap all about the history), but it strikes me that the problem as always has to do with the fact that the guy is, well, the villain. Because trying to take power away from people who inherited it through no virtue of their own is bad.

Sorry for the bulk post, I feel like I've just written one of those circular Christmas emails.

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Cammalot

at 02:59 on 2012-02-10I like the bustles. They validate my African-esque physique. (What?)

As far as actual (UK) plots and dramas go, I kind of prefer the Edwardians to the Victorians. Massive societal change, changes in self-perception and whatnot...filling the gaps in my knowledge of WW1, which is technically after, but *right* after, and always seems to get included...

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http://fishinginthemud.livejournal.com/

at 15:36 on 2012-03-10I want to point out that it's frightening how easily writing reasonably well-received fanfiction inflates the ego. I wrote a drabble a few years ago and got some praise for it from people I didn't know, and I walked around for the next month thinking I was Hemingway.

I didn't try to write a novel, or anything, but I can see where this poor Clare woman is coming from. And of course she's a bestseller now, so she doesn't have to care what anyone thinks. I doubt I would either.

By the way, I hope it's okay for me to comment on an older article this way. I also wanted to let you all know that your podcasts have at least one other American listener.

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http://mary-j-59.livejournal.com/

at 18:53 on 2012-03-10Valse de la Lune, I'd like to point out something about Ernest Bramah, whom my mom and my sister have enjoyed enormously. He's not really writing about China at all. He's poking fun at his own culture. One of the wittiest stories in the collection deals with the rise of insurers and insurance agencies, and I don't believe for a moment that's something the West got from China, though we certainly appropriated many other things.

No offense, I hope.

BTW, I can't help thinking that there is also a difference between a genuine Victorian or Edwardian being unconsciously racist, and a modern person being so. Surely one ought to be far more offended by the modern author? Or am I wrong about that?

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Dan H

at 23:37 on 2012-03-10

To give Ms Clare her due, I *do* think she's got better. As I've mentioned several times before, even writing a *bad* book is much harder than people think.

By the way, I hope it's okay for me to comment on an older article this way.

That's absolutely fine, we get comments on articles *years* after they go up, it's nice in a way because it lets us know the old content isn't dead.

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http://fishinginthemud.livejournal.com/

at 01:48 on 2012-03-11

To give Ms Clare her due, I *do* think she's got better.

From what I could tell, never having read any of her books and knowing only that she plagiarized a lot of people in her fanfiction, she had nowhere to go but up. I was always puzzled by the fanon Draco thing, and with the idea of "fanon" characters in general; I would have thought if you were going to change the guy's entire personality, you might as well give him a new name and write your own book about him. I now realize that was bad advice in Clare's case.

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Furare

at 09:30 on 2012-03-11By the end of HP, if you wanted to write a fanfic about any three-dimensional, moderately well-realised character, you'd end up not being true to the character as presented in the text. Just saying.

Mind you, I never understood the "fanon Draco" phenomenon either. It's much more satisfying to try to make the bugger vaguely sympathetic while preserving the notion that he's actually kind of a bastard.

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Michal

at 16:51 on 2012-08-19

Cassandra Clare made it on the NPR "100 Best-ever Teen Novels" list. Twice.

Meanwhile, I don't think Jane Yolen was even on the long list.

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at 11:06 on 2013-09-03People in the nineteenth century didn't give a crap about steam and cogs? One poet at least was an exception:

http://www.kipling.org.uk/poems_mcandrew.htm

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Dan H

at 13:04 on 2013-09-03Umm, pretty sure that poem isn't about steam and cogs at all - it's about being a Scots Calvinist boiler worker. It's no more about steam than From a Railway Carriage is about electricity or Radio Ga-Ga is about electromagnetic radiation.

Also, that's one poem by one poet in which the word "steam" features, that's hardly a national preoccupation.

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Fishing in the Mud

at 21:32 on 2013-09-04I can understand wanting to use a motif for the time period, but it's weird to focus on one specific thing that you don't have any actual experience with. It's like if people wanted to evoke the information age in 150 years and wrote poems all about USB ports and cat-5 cables.

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Dan H

at 19:20 on 2013-09-05

It's like if people wanted to evoke the information age in 150 years and wrote poems all about USB ports and cat-5 cables.

I really, really hope this happens.

How doth the little USB

improve each shining hour,

And transfer data all the day,

'twixt laptop, phone and tower.

#Ferretbrain #The Mortal Instruments #The Infernal Devices #Cassandra Clare #Steampunk #Victorian Times #Dan H

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