a meme

Apr. 30th, 2020 07:26 pm
kindkit: Captain Kirk writing on a PADD, text: "And then they had sex. The end." (Star Trek TOS: Kirk writes fic)
[personal profile] kindkit
I am annoyed by absolutely everything today. Therefore, I meme. Grabbed from around, slightly modified.

Give me a character and I'll tell you some things:

1. How I feel about this character

2. All the people I ship romantically and/or sexually with this character

3. Favorite gen relationship(s) for this character

4. My unpopular opinion about this character

5. One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon.

6. Random pet theory about this character that you won't convince me is not true.

7. A song or piece of music I associate with this character.


Any characters in any fandoms I know are fair game. But a lot of my fannish thoughts currently are about The Magnus Archives, Rusty Quill Gaming, and Stellar Firma.

Date: 2020-05-01 01:48 am (UTC)
aurumcalendula: gold, blue, orange, and purple shapes on a black background (Default)
From: [personal profile] aurumcalendula
Garak?

Date: 2020-05-01 02:38 am (UTC)
sovay: (I Claudius)
From: [personal profile] sovay
TELL ME EVERYTHING ABOUT BROTHER JEROME.

Re: Brother Jerome--Cadfael TV verse

Date: 2020-05-02 06:37 am (UTC)
sovay: (Claude Rains)
From: [personal profile] sovay
It is really interesting to watch Jerome's body language etc. towards Robert. Kudos to Julian Firth for doing an amazing job at something I think is one of the great pleasures of watching good British character actors: telling another story that's not in the dialogue at all.

People who can tell stories with their bodies are treasures. What does Michael Culver do in return around him?

I don't know what would constitute an unpopular opinion in this context!

I think liking him counts as an unpopular opinion, so you're good. Go know.

We should have seen consequences for his attempting to murder someone. There are consequences in the books, but on the show, while there are some during the relevant episode, everything resets back to normal in the next episode.

TV show status-quo resets even bugged me as a child. Is this something you would write fic about? (I know, your copious free time.)

He's genuinely devout and he believes in the Rule, even when he doesn't follow it. He's such a stickler for rules/the Rule because he's trying to save himself from a feeling he believes to be sinful, and also simultaneously hoping that if he follows the Rule in every other respect, and makes damn sure everyone else does too, then he can get away with cherishing a love and desire for Robert that he never intends to act on. (By the standards of medieval monastic Christianity, he ought to be trying not merely not to sin in his acts, but to eradicate his sinful thoughts. It does not work and eventually he can't bring himself to try any more.)

If that's the core of your still unedited story, I really want to read it.

There's a lovely tension in chant, from a certain perspective, between (on one side) the religious subject matter and the seeming austerity of the form, and (on the other side) the overwhelming beauty of the male--in this case--voices. Music can't get away from embodiment, and vocal music all the more so.

I like that way of looking at it.

Also, there's a whole medieval Christian genre of quasi-erotic, and in some cases frankly erotic, devotional poetry, e.g. homoerotic meditations on the body of Christ. I think a lot of it is later than Brother Jerome's era, but I strongly associate him with it.

Any pieces in particular?

Thanks!

Date: 2020-05-01 05:42 am (UTC)
lycomingst: (Default)
From: [personal profile] lycomingst
John Reese

Re: John Reese (Person of Interest)

Date: 2020-05-10 09:57 pm (UTC)
lycomingst: (Default)
From: [personal profile] lycomingst
I don't know why Reese popped into my mind even though I'm not fannish about the show. But I enjoyed reading this.

Date: 2020-05-01 11:55 am (UTC)
flo_nelja: (Default)
From: [personal profile] flo_nelja
Jon Sims!

tl;dr

Date: 2020-05-05 06:32 am (UTC)
rydra_wong: Lee Miller photo showing two women wearing metal fire masks in England during WWII. (Default)
From: [personal profile] rydra_wong
[ETA: And a sexual one. I very much want to believe that Martin and Jon were able, during their Scottish honeymoon, to negotiate the sexual aspect of their relationship in a way that works, even if not perfectly, for them both.]

You might like:

https://archiveofourown.org/works/18751258

It's a very sweet and hot (and impeccably in-character) take on them figuring out sexual activity which they're both getting something out of, even if it's not exactly the same thing. And one that's very aware of the possible failure modes -- that Jon would ignore all his own boundaries to try to make Martin happy, or that Jon's lack of desire would leave Martin feeling unseen/unwanted -- even as they navigate it and get it right. And it's imperfect and human and lovely.

(I also enjoy Martin recognizing that he is about to be wrecked and accepting his fate manfully.)

Absolutely not the only good one out there, by a long way, just one I'm fond of.

I don't know much about asexuality, and I would definitely do some research if I were to write a fic in which Jon's asexuality is a factor

Fortunately, the fandom has a delightfully huge number of ace porn writers, so lots of people posting info about asexuality and discussing possible takes (and lots of potential people to hit up if you wanted a consultant).

There have been a couple of bouts of Discourse where someone tried to say that it was evil and disgusting to write anything nsfw about Jon because he's ace, and a tonne of people stood up to say EXCUSE YOU I AM ACE AND HERE'S HOW I RELATE TO THE CANON AND WHY I AM ABSOLUTELY WRITING ALL THE PORN ABOUT JON.

E.g. (don't read if you would prefer not to even know of the Discourse, but yeah, strong ace porn-writing contingent):

https://wildehacked.tumblr.com/post/188221656215/im-tired-of-people-giving-fans-shit-for-writing
https://sazandorable.tumblr.com/post/615458881527824384/stopitjon-dirtdweller-jon-sims-from-tma-is-a
https://backofthebookshelf.tumblr.com/post/615477885176774656/ive-done-this-before-but-to-be-fair-that-was-a#notes

Also this post is charming:

https://backofthebookshelf.tumblr.com/post/183938195531/ace-jon-sims-scenarios-this-fandom-has-been

So, my own interpretation, until and unless contradicted by text, tends to place Jon more in the gray area of asexuality, or even as demi-sexual.

Yeah, those are options, asexuality being a spectrum.

(Context note: I would undoubtedly fit the criteria for being somewhere in the area of demi and/or grey-asexual. I have apparently not quite reached being able to say "I am on the asexual spectrum" as an identity thing, but that's my issues. Anyway.)

And I think it's very plausible to say that, wherever on that spectrum he is, how he engaged with sex in a relationship at university (almost certainly his first ever relationship) is not necessarily going to be how he relates to it now.

Like, I can absolutely imagine Jon-at-university, with no vocabulary for his sexuality and all the social pressure that “of course” if you love someone romantically you should want to have sex with them (and for bonus points, in a male-female relationship, which comes in our society very very specific expectations about the exact kind of thing that counts as "sex" and what you're supposed to want to do), reacting by NOPE-ing out of the whole subject and getting ever more avoidant when it comes to talking about it let alone doing anything.

And then with Martin, I'm fairly sure he'll feel the need to out himself fairly early on (if Martin doesn't already know via Melanie) -- but having set that boundary and feeling safe with it (and knowing that Martin will absolutely respect any of his boundaries, and also being in a situation where any hope of "normal" vanished long ago, which weirdly removes some pressures), that opens up space to potentially go "... actually I might kind of wanna try this specific thing ...?" Or not, as the case may be.

The one thing that makes me mildly homicidal -- and I have seen this a few times - is when authors go "well he just didn't love Georgie that much so he wasn't interested in sex with her". Which just takes us back to old-school slash demonizing of canon female love interests (with bonus bi erasure), and is just as unnecessary. Umpteen reasons why things might be different with Martin, without having to throw that in.

(Not meaning to imply for a moment that you might do that; I'm just rambling here and it's just one of the few really obnoxious ways of handling it I've seen.)

I personally like fics where Jon and Martin have to navigate differences in sexuality and work out what intimacy means to them because it can push stories to such interesting places (also, Relevant To My Interests). And in S5 they are doing so well at negotiating their different needs and being so careful and gentle with each other's boundaries, and I love that so much about them.

Re: tl;dr

Date: 2020-05-06 09:51 am (UTC)
rydra_wong: Lee Miller photo showing two women wearing metal fire masks in England during WWII. (Default)
From: [personal profile] rydra_wong
I'm not reading a lot of TMA fic at the moment, and even less Jon/Martin focused fic, because I have no critical distance whatsoever from the characters and, well, if I read something I don't care for, I don't feel like I can trust my emotional reactions to be okay.

*nodnod* That seems very wise, then. Good to be aware of one's own limits.

I mean, Jon/Georgie is a relationship that ended, so I think we can assume that there were problems.

Oh yeah, but there's no reason to think that "they didn't really love each other at the time" was one of them. And it's so unnecessary to throw that in as a way of boosting Martin's significance or explaining why the relationship with him might be different.

There seem to be a lot of fics that go like this:

A: I love you!
B: I love you too! But I'm asexual. We can never have sex of any kind.
A: Oh, okay! I am not asexual but this is absolutely not an issue for me, so we'll just snuggle!


Which has validity as a fantasy, I think -- it's not any more unrealistic that any other fics where people's sexual and romantic needs magically turn out to be completely compatible with no negotiation or complicated conversations required ("I am into this highly-specific kink!" "Fortuitously, I am also into this exact same kink in a complementary way!").

Sometimes fic's all about the fantasy, and frequently I have to go "okay, this is not my fantasy or what I was looking for here, but it's obviously what someone needs".

And I do hate the idea that being in a relationship with an asexual person inherently and inevitably has to be a terrible sacrifice for an allosexual person.

But yeah, personally I wanna see them have to do some figuring out to get to a place where both of them are getting their needs (emotional and otherwise) met. I want to see the workings!

... apparently my narrative kink is Awkward Negotiations.

and I really really don't want to see him put back into a self-abnegating position.

Fervently agreed. Also new confident-with-boundaries Martin is such a good look on him.

Martin deserves to be loved and cherished and have all the orgasms.

But Jon doesn't have the same pattern of sacrificing himself to be loved that Martin does.

On the other hand, he has a different pattern of sacrificing himself for others because he thinks he's monstrous/inhuman/responsible for everything bad that's ever happened, etc.. and also has no sense of self-protection at all. And I'm fairly sure that however he thinks of his sexuality, he's got it filed as part of why he is Bad At Relationships. So they both have the potential to be disasters here.

On the third hand, they've also reached a point where -- as we're seeing in S5 -- they can be really good for each other, and they're navigating really well around having different needs and boundaries (e.g. Jon's need to "vent" versus Martin's need to not have all the horrors of the fearscape poured into his brain).

I love them so much.

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