#and then page's metamour probably | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

rotationalsymmetry · 4 years ago

Text

I don’t know who needs to hear this, but if someone is pressuring you to accept more relaxed Covid-19 safety precautions than you’re comfortable with, stand your ground.

We’re not good at this stuff. We like enemies we can see and, preferably, punch. Can’t do that to a virus. We’re so bad at this. (And the thing where there’s a two week delay between cause and effect doesn’t help either.) It’s normal to underestimate the danger, to write it off. Everybody is doing this. Probably you, the cautious one, are also doing this. One time when I was a kid, my class (or maybe summer camp group?) went to a natural history museum and we did a sort of experiment/demonstration/thing. Two adults stood maybe 10 feet apart, one representing when the Earth was formed, and one representing the present day. Kids were called up to stand where we thought on the timeline various things happened. I got dinosaurs. I stood in the middle. The other kids were calling out that the dinosaurs were really old and must be further back in time. I stood in place. Turned out I was wrong: the kids standing in for human time events were told to stand on each other’s toes right on top of the “present day” adult, and I stood just barely in front of the earliest one. Dinosaurs weren’t older than I thought, they were much, much younger. It’s normal to assume that if what you think is right is different from what everyone else thinks is right, the truth is somewhere in the middle. But often it’s not. Notes and caveats: *Do reality checks: washing food with soap can make you sick, the virus shouldn’t be active on mail for more than a couple days, viral load matters so being passed by a jogger who isn’t wearing a danged mask is still fairly low risk compared to being around someone for an extended period of time, etc. “You’re being excessive” = stand your ground, you’re not. “That won’t actually make you safer or could make you sick in a different way” = time to fact check. *Generally the most effective things are doing the basics more thoroughly, not doing weird extra stuff. Washing your hands often. Avoiding unnecessary outings. Avoiding touching your face, especially when not at home. Wearing a mask. Disinfecting surfaces regularly. *It seems like these conflicts mostly come up around unnecessary outings: whether to have them at all, whether to wear masks and maintain 6 feet distance, etc. If someone you want to meet up with isn’t willing to follow your safety standards, maybe not meeting up is the next best thing. *Bubbles: anyone that you’re not practicing social distancing with, in your household or otherwise, their risk is your risk. You can’t control other people’s behaviors (especially when someone’s job involves a lot of risk of exposure) but you can control yours, and sometimes that means “I’m going to go stay with (friend who works from home) for now” or “I’m sleeping in the spare bedroom.” Getting your partner/roommates/metamour/parents/etc to be on the same page with you is the ideal situation, but if you can’t you still have options. *I live in a one-bedroom apartment with my partner; we still have our “what if one of us might be infected” procedure worked out. Spare bedrooms are nice, but living room couches are functional too; the CDC has more advice on distancing in really cramped spaces, such as sleeping feet to head. *Sometimes there’s “but I could end up homeless/without health insurance/etc” issues. If the risks of standing your ground are worse than the risks of getting infected, just make the best call you can (and I’m really sorry you’re in that situation.)

#coronavirus #covid-19 #pandemic living #reopening #us-centric #it's important to know how human beings tend to get things wrong #so that you can correct for it #long post

1 note · View note

relationshipanarchywithoutchaos · 5 years ago

Text

Review: A Geek's Guide to Unicorn Ranching: Advice for Couples Seeking Another Partner

I bought and read this book so that you don’t have to.

I'm going to preface this review with the disclaimer that I started reading this book actively wanting to hate it. The author* is the Facebook page admin for Poly.Land, which has some very cult-like tactics in its image posts, similar in style to scam pages such as David Wolfe, Vani Fari (the "Food Babe"), The Mind Unleashed and Free Thought Project. Most notably, the page is laced with universally agreeable tweets, tumblr posts and memes, some not even about ethical non-monogamy, interjected with the occasional privileged or problematic post about polyamory or swinging, sometimes with amatonormative or ableist perspectives.

Before I get started, allow me to clarify: while I and many others object to the principle strategies of "unicorn hunting" (or even "unicorn ranching", which makes it sound even more like animal husbandry than "hunting" does), the problematic issue of couples seeking a third is rarely the fault of the potential third (or "unicorn"). It is perfectly acceptable for an individual who understands the risks and dynamics to enter into an arrangement with one or both partners of an existing couple who finds them attractive. The problems are almost always from the misunderstanding of the unbalanced power dynamic the existing couple places on their targets, most often due to ignorance, greed, or socially-ingrained conceptions of the importance of the relationship over the members of the relationship as marketed by the western matrimanial society.

This book is a very short read: 73 pages, in large font, with a few appendixes for sample relationship agreements. The paperback is only 1/4" thick. I started it while waiting for a flight to take off and finished it before we reached cruising altitude.

The book is divided into "lessons" rather than chapters, none of them particularly long. The first ten chapters run as basically a Polyamory 101, or maybe even a "Pre-Polyamory" class. The chapters cover things like getting your existing relationship in order prior to opening up, different types of arrangements (vee vs. triad vs. square, etc), the basics of hierarchy, what a metamour is, all the basic stuff.

The only slightly geeky things in the book are a shout-out to the Ferengi meme ("FEMALES") and some minor stuff about math. The author later describes themselves as the geek; but the title aims to target geeks, and there seems to be no good reason jocks, nerds, goths, or preppies couldn't benefit from the information within.

There is good advice in the book. The idea of dating separately is explicitly floated, and I was glad to see it. The idea of a triad not being one relationship, but four or more possible relationships, is also included. Eschewing exclusivity, and looking for partners who are already part of other relationships and arrangements, is also mentioned. Being as "out" as safely possible is recommended for the emotional well-being of all participants. The "love us both equally" requirement is talked about as one set for failure. There is an acknowledgement that unicorn hunting is often looked at poorly by the greater community, and that it's a rookie tactic that many couples take. While introducing the unicorn as most likely to be a bisexual woman willing to entertain a relationship with a man/woman couple, the rest of the book uses gender-inclusive language.

But there are some major problematic issues in the book which raise red flags. More than once, the book talks about hierarchy and veto power as an option, but never once talks about the ethical implications. The words "couple privilege" never once appear. The descriptions of boundaries, and the appendices of relationship agreements, read more like rules than boundaries or agreements, and it's not talked about why that's a problem, how to amend agreements, and how to avoid building resentment. The recommendation is to be low-key and discreet at first, which can unfortunately encourage bad behaviors and abuse. How to deal with one's own children in this situation is never mentioned. Basic discussions about consent and the sense of a high need for emotional work and emotional intelligence is also lacking, and those are the things that unicorn hunting couples need the most. Jealousy and insecurity, as well as how to mitigate them, go undiscussed.

There's also a some statements of privilege. Recommending that a couple get their financial affairs in order before opening up and making plans for couples therapy are not particularly inclusive, as it suggests that only the financially stable and the mentally supported can join in on the fun. Intersectionality is mostly absent.

Only on the last lesson, "Proper Care and Feeding of Unicorns", is there a discussion about what it's like to be in a triad with someone who wasn't in the arrangement from the beginning, and only barely so; the lesson brings the conversation back to the individuals in the original couple.

The "additional readings" list Sex at Dawn, Stepping Off The Relationship Escalator (shoutout to my friend Amy Gahran), The Ethical Slut, and some other books not related to polyamory (e.g., books on communication and self-actualization). While I don't fault the author for not listing More Than Two among their additional readings, given recent developments, it seems like a blatant snub of the work that Eve Rickert put into the work, particularly given how comprehensive and universal the language of MTT was (even for exclusively monogamous couples). Not including Tristan Taormino's Opening Up or Elizabeth Sheff's The Polyamorists Next Door, however, seem like egregious errors in judgement and I wonder what the story behind that is.

A section of one lesson is dedicated to "don't bait and switch", e.g., being honest about being part of a couple and, if relevant, that you're looking for someone to join the existing arrangement. And yet, since there's very little here about the ethics of triad-seeking (or lack thereof), the book itself feels like a bait-and-switch. Maybe that's a good thing. After all, unicorns-r-us.com and freesexworkers.com do the exact same thing.

Unlike most books on the subject, this one references very few personal experiences/case studies, and no negative ones. The author's main argument that unicorns exist and are available, mentioned in the beginning, was that the author has had positive experiences as a unicorn. At no point is it ever stated that unicorn hunting is problematic. At the end, there's an assurance from the author that with the right kind of practice within one's an existing relationship(s), the right person will eventually join the ranch. I feel this is optimism is both dangerous and unwarranted; just going off of several Facebook and FetLife groups on the subject, any given community is filled with thousands of couples who try and fail for years or decades to find "their unicorn", tens of thousands of people who want couples to leave them the fuck alone and/or are angry about them invading queer spaces, and only a handful of unicorns willing to consider joining an existing couple's dynamic for free. Were I reading this from unicorn-seeking perspective, I would have liked to have seen testaments and stories of couples who were successfully open up and form a triad, and how they did it. The absence of these stories is telling.

So, like, I didn't hate it, but I can't recommend it. There are other books where you can spend a few extra dollars and receive significantly more information on the relevant subjects, as well as better guidance about the kind of emotional work one needs to do in order to eschew monogamy (A Geek's Guide is $8; Opening Up is $15, and The Ethical Slut is $18, both of which are way more than double in AGG in length). Some even contain workbook questions to think about individually, or with a partner. I think that if a couple read this book, and made no other efforts to read other works or join discussions online with experienced individuals, they would likely be set up for failure. The author puts all of the scary possibilities up front, which is probably a good thing if it actually makes couples do additional research, but not if it turns them off on the prospect of discovering more about it and just going off on their own, none-the-wiser.

* The author, Page Turner, notes themselves in the back as a polyamory, kink and sex councilor and coach. I do not dispute this, and I know people who have seen them talk at events on those subjects with expertise.

5 notes · View notes

arcanemoody · 6 years ago

Note

49, 29 and 21 💙

For the ask-meme for writers!

49. If you could write a collaboration with another author, who would it be and what would you write about?

I love all of the collaboration and mutual support/feedback in the Pacific Rim fandom but I’d be a bit intimidated to ask anyone to work on even a short piece. “Do you want to do a Newmann art college AU with me? Or a PacRim/Reanimator mash-up?” How does that work? I need tips for asking people, lol.29. Which do you find easiest: writing or editing?

Editing, probably. Getting the words out and on the page, fretting over whether they make any sense at all -- that tends to be the hard part. Once it’s on the page, I can leave it alone for a while and then come back to trim the fat and piece it together with considerably more peace of mind. 21. Do you outline?

I do for academic works and for longer pieces and series like Metamour and Book of Images. For shorter pieces, I might write a short summary to anchor the piece as I work on it. I find it really helpful.

3 notes · View notes

existentialterror · 7 years ago

Text

A humble compendium of asexual dating advice

Happy asexual awareness week! I’ve been aware of (my) asexuality for 2.5 years now and am currently happily dating a couple very wonderful gentlemen. I’ve been asked for advice, and it’s also come up at ace meetups. While I can’t speak for everyone, I’m going to write what advice I would have liked to hear. Maybe you’ll find it useful too. For seeking out potential partners, I’m going to assume that you want to find a broad dating pool, and also that you want to avoid unnecessarily painful rejection. Some rejection is going to happen and in fact will always happen in any dating situation, of course. But while being ace is nothing to be ashamed of and isn’t something terrible you have to “warn” a potential partner about, there are a lot of very nice people who are just incompatible with ace partners, and our goal is A) for you to be happy, and B) for you and them to realize this incompatibility as early on as possible.

Online dating sites

I’d find the biggest dating platform in your region among the age demographic you’re looking at. As you might imagine, being in a big city or being open to long-distance dating helps. For a lot of places, that platform is OKcupid. Here’s my strategy:

Mark yourself as “asexual” in addition to other relevant romantic preferences.

Then, mention it again in the text of your profile. Asexuality is an umbrella term, so quickly describe what that implies for dating you. I like the phrasing “I identify as X, which for me means...” (This tip brought to you by several iterations of refining my okc profile, interspersed with new dates gradually getting less confused about what my actual preferences were. Trial and error: it works!)

After this, you can sort matches by asexuality. But there are also people who aren’t ace, but wouldn’t mind dating an ace person. I recommend the Chrome plugin “OkCupid (for the non-mainstream user).” Among other settings, it has an “asexual-friendly” setting that filters through a person’s question for ones relevant to ace dating, and shows you their answers on their profile page. Turn this one on and leave it on.

Click and message away!

Oh, yeah, especially if you’re a lady, you are probably going to get some sexual messages anyways, and you might get some messages asking you about the ace thing. All I can say is use that block/report button liberally, or just ignore them. (Screenshot the really weird ones to show your friends for a good horrified laugh. And then report the senders.) You can respond to anything if you want, but even if someone’s apparently completely nice and polite and is just curious about how the ace thing works, you still don’t have to respond to them - that’s not what you’re here for. There are also some ace-specific dating websites. I think the idea is neat, but haven’t tried any, and every ace person I’ve talked about them has said the same thing, but maybe you’ll be the first.

If you’re not sure how to describe yourself, I endorse this mindset about orientation labels being about communicating preferences. You might find it helpful too.

In person You can ask people out in person too! You don’t have to disclose being ace on the first date or anything, if sexual preferences haven’t come up. That said, I recommend getting it out there early on - see “The talk” later down.

If there’s a social or friend group you might want to date in, and the circumstances are right - the group is at least somewhat LGBTQ+ and/or sex positive, etc - maybe try to have it be known that you’re ace. It’s not a big deal, and it’s a reasonable thing to bring up if the conversation turns to sex, dating, etc. I like it because it’s an extra screening measure - if people approach you for dating, they’re more likely to have a sense of what’s in store. Even if they don’t know, a lot of dating starts with people telling their close friends that they’re crushing on so-and-so or “who is that, they’re so cute”. Even if the person gushing doesn’t know, their close friend might know and be able to tell them. Also, being visibly ace is pretty cool, and you might be able to help other people come to important realizations about themselves.

Polyamory

Obviously not for everyone, but if you think polyamory sounds interesting and there’s a local poly community (or you’re connected to ones via friends, internet, w/e), it might be worth checking it out. This can expand your dating pool - there are lots of people who dislike the idea of not having sex, but are more than willing to date people who don’t want to have sex, if they can get sex elsewhere. I also suspect poly communities also tend to be more aware of and cool with LGBTQ-ness and unusual preferences about sex, like not having it, but YMMV. If there are meetups around, or places where the poly people congregate, it might be worth going as a social adventure and seeing if the people there seem like the kind of people you can hang with. Poly dating is like normal dating, but a little weirder because we don’t have all the cultural scripts for things like “when do you tell a partner you’re dating someone else” or “what kind of small talk do I make with my metamour”. In general, communicate and be kind. I like the books More Than Two and The Ethical Slut. (I do worry there’s a minority of aces out there who really aren’t into to the idea of polyamory, but think it’s the only way they can date without ‘inflicting’ themselves on sexual people, and I want to be clear that if this describes you: hang on, don’t do polyamory, and look around some more. There are lovely people out there who will be thrilled to date just you, and it’s worth taking the time to find them.)

“The talk” At some point, you are probably going to want to have some kind of actual conversation in which you say you are asexual and what that implies for dating you. This might not be necessary if you’ve already talked about asexuality a bunch, but even if you think the other person knows, or it was on your dating profile so they really ought to know, have it anyways. They might actually not know, or they might have questions. It’ll also open up the floor for any concerns, and ensure that everyone is on the same page. I recommend doing this early on, when the stakes are low and both of you are still feeling things out. My guess is that it’s slightly better to have this talk face-to-face, but if distance bars or if you’re very shy, I’d say 100% do it via a text medium. Especially if you’re worried they’ll be weird about it. It’ll give you the space to choose your words carefully, and it’ll also mean you’re more likely to get a response that’s more thought out and truer to what the other person actually thinks, rather than their immediate first reaction. Fortunately, after this, you won’t have to talk about all this awkward boundary stuff again. Just kidding.

All the talks that come after

You have to keep talking about comfort and boundaries and what you want. This definitely isn’t ace specific. We’re messy people with bodies and lives. The edges of my comfort zone have changed over time, maybe from person to person as well, and they might for you too. Your partner will have them as well, even if they’re not ace. I have this sense that society has sort of a pattern of what a typical romantic or sexual encounter looks like - what kind of touching or contact happens, in what order, over what timeline - and that if that’s what you both want, you don’t have to talk about it much, but if you want something else, you have to clearly explain what that is. Maybe I’m wrong and nobody’s dating actually looks like the first case. Either way, once I’m getting physical with people I’m dating, even after we’ve had the “yes I’m ace” talk, they or I generally start another, more practical talk. I always feel like these talks are a little bit like pulling teeth, but even if you feel that way too, they’re good to have. There are some things that don’t naturally come up (or get remembered) long before you get physical, but that it makes sense to establish early on in the process:

Places on your body you don’t want touched

Activities or escalations you definitely don’t want to do right now

Kinds of sensation or touch you don’t like

Kinds of sensation or touch you do like

Ask your partner what their answers are too. They might be like “I’m up for anything” or they might not be. (Particularly if they’re ace too!) While I remember boundaries, I tend to forget the answer to “what kind of touch do you specifically enjoy” right after a cuddle session, and have to re-derive it from experimental evidence, at which point it sticks. I wish everyone had secret google docs about their gushy physical preferences for their dates to refer to. This is a tangent but I think it’s a great idea. Anyway, note is that you don’t have to precisely define all of your preferences right now in this conversation - you’re just giving them a road map for right now. You’ll keep having versions of it as things come up - “little to the left, ooh I’m ticklish there, not good”. It’s also reasonable to lay out some broad boundaries or preferences and then be like “okay, explore.” Expressing a positive response to your partner doing something nice (”that feels amazing”, etc) is highly recommended. Tips -

This article from Captain Awkward is not quite about this topic, but it’s relevant and sweet and powerful. You’re going to keep talking about preferences and boundaries and desires as long as you’re romancing, so you’ll figure it out.

If you’re up for it, giving each other back massages is good and classic practice for communicating your desires about touch.

Make sure you’re enjoying things and don’t have reservations

Finally, as things go, check in with yourself and/or the other person. Are you enjoying things? Are they enjoying things? Does anything feel off? To ask yourself: Do you feel safe, respected, and happy? If your boundaries are being disrespected or criticized, or you find yourself being talked into things you don’t enjoy, get out of there. If you’re just not enjoying yourself, or something feels strange or bad, still consider getting out of there - you don’t need an airtight reason - or at least talking to the other person. You deserve to be enthusiastic and happy about a relationship! If the other person rejects you and it’s because of the asexuality

I’m sorry, I’ve been there and it sucks. Maybe you're into someone and they just can’t do relationships without sex (or whatever - some fundamental preference incompatibility.) Maybe they can do ace relationships sometimes, but not right now, or not with you. Maybe that’s not even the real reason, but asexuality felt to them like an acceptable, no-one’s-fault reason to offer, so that’s what they told you. (Rejection is by no means an ace-specific phenomenon, but I think it feels worse when it’s pointed at something you knew was going to make dating hard, or part of your identity, or something you’re already a little unsure about. I don’t know if this is universal, but when a relationship is going south, I sometimes catch myself wondering if I should offer to start having sex with them. “If I do, they might like me more, or get back together with me, or spend more time with me, and it wouldn’t be that bad, and...”

And here’s the thing: every single time I think that, that’s my brain trying to solve the wrong problem. It probably wouldn’t work, plus I’d be miserable, and I should not do the thing. I’m not going to say this is 100% always true for you too, but if you start wondering the above, I invite you to STRONGLY CONSIDER that your brain is lying to you. Your boundaries are important and meaningful and you don’t need to compromise on them.) Ultimately, whether it was kind or not, they don’t want to date you, and there’s nothing you can do to change that. Sit tight, feel your feelings, take care of yourself. You didn’t do anything wrong by being asexual or by having a boundary. Once you feel like it, dust yourself off and get out there again.

Finally, of course, your worth and your happiness don’t depend on you dating anyone at all. But it is nice, and if you want to, you can. Good luck, fellow aces!

#feel free to share #asexual awareness week #ace awareness week #asexuality #light writes #polyamory #procedural knowledge

27 notes · View notes

souridealist · 6 years ago

Text

Hello, Yuletide writer! First of all, I’m sorry it took so long to get this letter up, and I am genuinely touched you didn’t just say “to hell with it, this disorganized motherfucker is getting whatever she gets.” (And then I posted it half-written by accident, good Lord, why am I like this).

General Likes and Dislikes:

I DNW’d suicide and deportation, due to personal experience with both. I would lump POV character suicidal ideation under the heading of suicide, but ‘tactical’ suicides (eg: captured spy with an arsenic pill) don’t upset me at all. For example, I have a couple of canons that could allow for “Okay, my grand plan is that I die a little bit and then come back!” and others which could allow for situations where death is preferable to capture, and you can feel free to explore either. It’s specifically mundane, depression-based suicide depictions that I need to avoid.

Deportation I would prefer you interpret a little more broadly. Acknowledging canon events are fine, but I’d rather the story not focus intensely on characters being forced to leave their families, their homes, their lives. (For reference if useful, I discovered this is a hard fictional limit while watching episode 1x08 of The Good Place.)

Other than that: I’ve requested all the canons here because I enjoy them, so canon-subversion fic is not really what I’m looking for here. I’m okay with dark, grim stories, but I’d prefer they not be hopeless ones. I like stories that are honest about characters’ flaws without condemning them.

I... hope that nails down some of the more nebulous points, in some way!

On to general likes: I’m really into things like epistolary fic, mixed media, in-universe documents, outsider POV, Rashomon stories, anything like that. I have no strong feelings on first/second/third-person or on past versus present tense, so run wild there.

As a general rule, I’m going to be entirely happy to see non-nominated / non-requested characters make cameos or indeed take a central role in the fic, as long as the characters I did request are central as well.

I’m a deeply polyamorous shipper at heart, and that informs a lot of these requests, but most of the relationships I ship are relationships where I just plain enjoy all their interactions, so gen works. I am also perfectly comfortable receiving smut for Yuletide, including for the teenage ships. One of my absolute favorite things is smut that uses sex to explore the characters and their relationship; relatedly, I like awkward human details more than idealized sex. (I don’t feel a need to get into things like historically-accurate lamb intestine condoms unless you really want to, though.)

The only specifically-sexual DNWs I’d add are scat play, A/B/O, and parental incest, though I’d be frankly surprised to see the last come up with these canons. (Watersports are okay, since I know they’re often grouped with scat play without distinction.)

Now, by canon! (Which may contain spoilers for their original canons). Also, as a note, I have more to say about some canons than others, but it’s not a measure of enthusiasm; I just don’t want to delay this letter any longer.

Summerlong - Peter S. Beagle

I loved this book’s lyricism, its sense of atmosphere and place, the wonder and beauty that ran through it all. And I loved how old the story felt, how timeless, and how nobody in it was young. Most of all, I was intrigued by the interplay between Lily and Lyonesse. A lot of it was sketched offscreen, related second-hand and in negative space, but there was still a sense of something layered and deep. I’d love to see it pulled into focus, whether in the form of missing scenes or post-canon stories.

Standout moments in my memory: when you forget that Persephone loves you. The dinner-party scene.

(Though I liked the book, I was very much disappointed that Abe and Lyonesse slept together. As I said, I’d be glad to see that played out with Lily instead, if you chose.)

Girl Genius

I am here for camp and shenanigans and gears on things and unabashed technobabble and the sheer glorious enthusiasm that spills out of every page. I love the canon’s sense of zany mayhem and bodice-ripper pulp novels and the way they’re willing to touch on very dark, sad, brutal things without ever losing its energy and color. I wouldn’t want to see them stripped down and rendered ordinary, but if you can get that sense of brilliant experimental chaos in a coffeeshop AU or a college, knock yourself out.

My other favorite thing about the comic is how it revels in Agatha being someone spectacular and extraordinary. We’re not here to watch our protagonist struggle and suffer, we’re here to watch her struggle and triumph. It’s great.

I’m also very, very much here for Tarvek/Agatha/Gil OT3, and this is one where it has to be an OT3 for me to like the ship; as far as I’m concerned, they all three need each other and care for each other. None of it’s going to work with only two; someone would be missing, no matter who it was. If you don’t want to write that kind of story, I’d much rather get straight gen than a story that picks a “team” in a love triangle.

(As a note, I do prefer a three-sided true triangle to an open V, but I’m definitely okay with an open V as long as Gil and Tarvek are grumpily-fond metamours).

One of the darker threads in the comic is the way all three of them have a very painful, bloody legacy; they have all been very isolated growing up; they have all three been failed and used and betrayed by their parents. It’s a heavy thing, and there’s absolutely no need, but if you go into it, I’m interested.

Bonus points: outrageous inventions, Jaegers being Extremely Helpful About The Romance, Castle Heterodyne being Extremely Helpful about anything. Bonus bonus points: if you happen to have read the novelizations, there’s some fascinating shit in the footnotes and epigraphs. If I’d wanted anything specifically novel-related I would have nominated the novelizations as a distinct fandom, but if you want to throw in some Easter eggs or if something novel-specific always struck you as a good starting point, I’d be delighted.

Standout scenes: The entire Hogfarb’s Resplendent Immolation arc; “We could have used him as a hostage! A bargaining chip! We could have... we could have... we could have kept him safe.” / “I’m sorry.”

Clocktaur War - T. Kingfisher

These books are such a brutally detailed portrait of such flawed, tragic people who have done, and do, truly terrible things -- and yet the story is never anything but compassionate, never writes them with anything but tenderness and love. That’s what I love about it; hence the very specific DNW of villainizing anyone.

I love all three of the characters nominated, but I admit that what fascinated me most was the relationship between Brenner and Slate, though Caliban/Slate was both excellent and made a great deal more sense as a long-term romance. I requested Caliban rather than just the two of them because I also very much enjoyed Caliban’s perspective on that dynamic, and on the ways that his presence changed it.

Having said that, you probably won’t be surprised to hear that I ship Caliban/Slate/Brenner (as a V, mainly, though the possibility of emotionally-fraught life-affirming let’s-do-this-instead-of-thinking-about-how-scared-we-are threesomes did cross my mind frequently during the wait between books). I did spend a certain amount of time wailing that I wanted Slate and Caliban to get a nice little cabin, where Slate forges things and Caliban tries to ignore it, and every couple of month Brenner drops by and they all three fall in bed together and it’s kind of surreal for all of them but also a vital touchstone for all of them and NOBODY IS DEAD, but I also knew from midway through the first book that Brenner was going to die; I mostly have my peace with it.

That said: I am on board for canon divergence, and not only on that one point. There’s so much going on in the story, and in the story’s world; it’s rife with what-ifs. I wouldn’t, however, want to see the characters pulled into any less flawed world than theirs.

Standout scenes: “I can make you die slow;” the scene where Brenner is prepared to strangle Slate to prevent her allergies inadvertently betraying them all; the very quick dispatch of robbers in Chapter Five of The Wonder Engine; “He had not quite realized that he would crawl on his knees to any god that would take him.”

The Innsmouth Legacy - Ruthanna Emrys

What I love about this one is everything it has to say about being an outsider, a monster in the world, and all the ways that that does not make one monstrous. The way it takes the empty vastness of the cosmos and turns it into a source of faith and strength, this too shall pass, and, more, the way it creates justification for kindness. That drew me too, so deeply; all the ways it is about love and community in the face of emptiness.

I need to confess that I don’t know the Cthulhu mythos that well, beyond these books. However, if you’re a huge mythos aficiondo and were all excited to include a bunch of details, I’ll probably need an index but I will be thrilled to know they’re there, because I still love that kind of thing.

I requested Aphra and Audrey as my favorites - in particular, I loved Audrey’s drive and determination, how quickly she clutched on to magic with both hands and would not let go, next to Aphra’s slowly opening heart. However, I do love pretty much the whole of Aphra’s spreading odd family, so if you want to write a more ensemble piece, absolutely feel free. In particular I loved the confluence, the idea of these people, all unexpected, finding such a view of each other’s souls, and coming back to find it was impossible not to care for each other deeply, now. Or, in other words, the soulbonding is both group and canonical.

Note that although I’m interested in the soulbond elements of the confluence and have at least a passing interest Aphra/Audrey, I’m not asking for any shipfic that suggests their connection is deeper within the confluence. Just different.

While I’m on the topic of shipfic, there’s a lot to possibly unpack with the legacy of Innsmouth and the question of having children to carry that legacy on, in a story where Aphra falls in love with a woman. Should that be an idea that bites you, I’m intrigued!

Regarding the deportation DNW vis-a-vis the destruction of Innsmouth, anything on par with canon is fine.

I feel like talking about standout scenes would be redundant at this point (CONFLUENCE), but I also need to give out a shoutout to all the many and varied beach scenes in Winter Tide.

Although I haven’t read Deep Roots yet, I intend to, and even if I haven’t read it by Christmas, I spoil myself for things constantly, so incorporate it as much as you please without fear.

Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard

This broader franchise is a huge part of my childhood, going back all the way to the first couple of Percy Jackson books, and the Norse were a delightful pick-up to the cast. Alex and Magnus charmed me immediately, weak as I still am to Rick Riordan’s bickering love interests, and Alex is such a wonderfully shitheaded highlighter pack of a person, while Magnus is so wonderfully caring, and so utterly, continuously stunned by her. (Every other chapter. “A minor physical detail of Alex looked really nice. I have no idea why I noted that.” BOY, YOU ARE SMITTEN WITH HIM.)

Blitz and Hearthstone, meanwhile, struck me as absolutely married, the whole time; I loved their caring and their protectiveness and their trust, even when under stress. And I, er, have a history with dwarf/elf ships, to whit, that I am weak. And Blitzen kept on referring to Hearthstone as “my elf,” and frankly, at that point, it’s time to make an honest elf out of him.

However, if you don’t want to write shipfic, I also love the humor and the heart of these books, in addition to being an outrageous mythology nerd, so I will still be delighted to read gen adventure fic, or Shenanigans up at Hotel Valhalla, or just a thousand words (or ten thousand words) of the characters sitting around and snarking at each other.

Standout scenes: the pottery studio sequence; Alex telling Magnus “your fly is down” in ASL in the middle of an important bluff; Alex and Magnus talking about books and Alex commenting on The Left Hand of Darkness.

And thus, the letter is officially done! The mods reached out to remind me, so I tried to go into some detail, but please, especially after all this wait, I hope you don’t feel any obligation to my nonsense. Write the story that’s yours, that makes you happy, and I will enjoy it. Good luck, and thank you for writing for me.

#yuletide

0 notes