My understanding of Harry’s life, and especially the years before Storm Front, is fuzzy at best. Take inconsistencies as Nick’s memory playing tricks on him, if you like, or Harry lying about his age at any point in the series/this story.
+
Normally, I could treat my kid apprentice like just that. A kid, an employee, sometimes a friend. Dresden had a good heart.
Tonight was different. We'd been staking out this bar, hoping the deadbeat dad of our latest missing kid case would show at his usual watering hole. It was a young joint, so I sent Harry in with a few bucks and a fake ID and told him not to drink anything on the job.
He came out less than an hour later, clinging to someone’s shoulders and singing, loudly and off-key. Whoever was helping him out of the bar kept trying to shut him up.
I know what an abduction looks like, and this had all the hallmarks of turning into one. Especially since Dresden couldn’t possibly be both disobedient and that much of a lightweight. I came up on the stranger’s other side, sweeping his legs from under him. A miscalculation - I just felled Dresden on top of both of us. More than six and a half feet of gawky youth giggled and fumbled and rolled off of me.
Dresden distracting the guy gave me the time to pin him properly, so some good came of it.
“What did you give him?” I rounded on the stranger, pissed off. Dresden might be all kinds of useless, especially with technology, but he was mine - I mean, he was my apprentice. My problem, my charge, whatever. I wasn’t going to let someone else walk off and do unspeakable things to him.
“He’s just drunk, man,” the guy said, hands up in surrender.
“Bullshit. What was he drinking?”
He babbled. I slapped him.
“What did you give him, dipshit?”
The guy swallowed. “He just looked like he needed to lighten up - “
“My left nut he did. You didn’t think anyone was gonna notice if you drugged someone who was drinking some goddamn water? He can’t even fucking walk.”
“Jesus, you can fucking take him, then! Just let me go!”
I picked his pocket and let him up, concealing his wallet. “Sure.” I might report him to the police in the morning. It depended how Harry felt after this ordeal. The guy ran - apparently his name was Anton Vasiliev. Anton would probably get a nasty lecture one way or another, before he got t his wallet back. If he got this wallet back. I could be a prick sometimes.
I gave up on getting the deadbeat dad tonight and struggled to fold Dresden into his Beetle. I’d drive him home and take a taxi back to my car. Simple enough, right? Except he giggled and swatted my hands when I tried to search him for the keys.
“Do not make me hot-wire your car. I don’t know how, it’ll probably never run the same if I try,” I told him.
“You can’t drive my car. ‘S not fair. Never let me drive your car.”
“Because you barely have a goddamn license and you’re hell on any kind of machinery, Dresden. Come on. We know this already,” I said impatiently. “Where are your keys?”
“I can drive home by mysellllllf,” he pouted.
“You really, really can’t. Dresden. Where are your goddamn keys?”
“God probably does hate my car. God hates me, why wouldn’t he hate my car?” he pouted even more.
“I do not have time for this,” I muttered. I patted down his duster - nothing. He just giggled at me. “You would keep them in your pants,” I said, unsurprised but irritated all the same. I was at completely the wrong angle to be investigating the front pockets of his pants, but I did it anyway, with him moving lewdly against me the whole time.
Okay, not all that lewdly. I just haven’t been laid in a while.
“Niiiiiiick why don’t you ever call me ‘Harry?’” he asked, eyes wide, pupils blown with the drug.
Because it would mean admitting I’d let someone in. I’d never had a secretary last more than a week. Dresden had battled furiously with me until I agreed to mentor him for licensure. This colossal tornado had swept through my offices and created a...not quite system, and certainly not one of organization. But we found things easily enough, and it ended up where we expected it to be. He wasn’t half-bad at answering phones, barring the static problem. I had engaged in my usual practice of testing “the help” with relatively mild sexual harassment, increasing in intensity.
I do this to see how they would react to an abrasive, sexually confrontational, or irritating client. Few of them see it that way.
Dresden, bless his heart, didn’t even notice. At first I thought he just had hetero-blinders on, but some lonely moms had hit on him over the course of our working relationship already. He didn’t notice them, either. It seemed to be a very selective blindspot, at least - when he wasn’t involved in the chemistry, he picked up on flirtation right away, or most other emotional undercurrents to human interactions.
I gave up on flirting with him and decided my dense apprentice was a keeper, but that didn’t mean I had to like him.
Except I did. I liked him a lot. He was funny, he was smart, he was nerdy and he was so charmingly innocent and heart-breakingly world-weary at the same time. I don’t know what his guardians had done to him to make him expect only cruelty or neglect from anyone in a position of power over him, but the way he flinched when I yelled spoke volumes, especially considering how much larger than me he was.
Well. Taller. I probably had a solid 50-80 pounds on him.
“Niiiiiick you didn’t answer meeeeee,” he whined, clinging to my jacket. I brushed his hands off gently.
“You never said I could call you ‘Harry,’” I shrugged. It was true enough. He wouldn’t remember this in the morning, so it didn’t really matter what I said now.
That took a minute to sink in. I swallowed. I could tell him anything, do anything to him, and with that drug in his system, he wouldn’t even know. It was so deeply wrong to want, but - hell. He was smart and sexy in the way only people completely unaware of their good looks can be sexy. He dressed like a cry for help, but so did I, most days. And I’d seen most of what was under the ill-fitting, cheap clothes, one way or another.
“It’s cold out here,” he sulked. I tried again to press him into the car. His legs finally folded right and I got the belt on him.
“I’ll take you to a warm place, okay?” I told him.
He went through the motions of driving when I got behind the wheel. It was kind of cute. He stomped the floor impatiently when I slowed down for traffic signals.
Then he stopped driving with an invisible steering wheel and pedals, and started touching me. His hand trailed over my thigh curiously. “Muscley,” he mused.
“Yeah. That’s what happens when you spend a dozen years running down people who really don’t want to be found.”
“Mmmm, ‘snice.” His hand skated higher abruptly, and I almost veered into a building.
“Whoawhoawhoa,” I shoved his hand away. “I’m driving, kid, let me focus on not getting us both killed.” Dresden mumbled something and dove for my crotch again.
“Dresden. Not. Now,” I said firmly. He tilted his head.
“Later?”
“Sure, later, whatever you want. Not when I’m driving!” I kept telling myself that, using my need to concentrate as a shield against thinking about what Dresden touching me actually meant, or about my own inclination to take advantage of his pliable, likely forgetful, state.
I reminded myself that I wanted to be better to him than the people who had already mistreated him in his short life, not another on a long list who betrayed his trust in them. Whether he was aware of the betrayal or not, I would know.
He nuzzled my shoulder, still muttering quietly.
I got us to his place without too much incident. It was a little shithole, really, but the kid had saved everything he could to buy the P.o.S. Beetle he drove, and I couldn’t pay him a hell of a lot, anyway. He’d done odd jobs before he ended up with me, and continued to work some of them on the side, for the extra money.
Harry hadn’t wanted to get in the car, hadn’t wanted to let me drive, and now he didn’t want to leave the car, and he certainly didn’t want to let go of me. He kissed my ear messily. It shouldn’t have been hot, it should have been sad, kind of pathetic.
The tightening of my jeans said I thought it was hot whether I was admitting it to myself or not.
“D-dresden. Let go,” I said, pulling away, trying to break free of the wandering hands and arms. I threw the car door open and half-fell out to escape. Now I had to get Dresden out and into his apartment. I could, you know, tuck him in or whatever. I’d leave his clothes on, just not his shoes. You know. Didn’t seem fair to leave him on the couch, that’s all, since he got drugged on the job. I should take care of him.
I couldn’t even convince myself that I didn’t want to bone him, and it was taking considerable willpower to remind myself why I shouldn’t bone him. The list I was coming up with was painfully short: He’s a subordinate, you’re dead meat if he remembers...
That was it. And the first was sounding less and less like a disincentive and more like a new kink. The second was also less and less convincing.
The apartment key wasn’t too hard to find, on Dresden’s keyring. I was glad I didn’t have to search his pockets again. He leaned heavily on me, arms wrapped around my waist, face nuzzling into my neck, where he was nibbling and kissing and making a nuisance of himself. God I was so hard, and he sounded so horny and desperate for it.
I got the door open and he was herding me to the couch as we tumbled inside, his hands everywhere, trying to get my pants open.
“Dresdennnn...no, kid, we can’t,” I said desperately.
“You said ‘later.’ It’s later. You said ‘whatever you want.’ This is what I want.”
“It’s what you want strung out on date-rape drugs. It’s not what you’ll want tomorrow,” I said, frustrated. I couldn’t believe I was talking him out of this.
Lol. Poor Nick. He doesn't know what the hell to do! This is awesome so far! I'm usually big on Kincaid/Harry or Marcone/Harry, but this Nick/Harry fic is all kinds of win\o/ Hope you keep goin!
:3 I love reading Kincaid/Harry, but I haven't gotten to Kincaid in the books yet >> and I didn't feel up to the extremely complicated emotions Marcone would have about being able to take advantage of Harry.
First, Nick is being a bit euphemistic here. By "nasty lecture" he actually means he's probably going to beat the crap out of Anton, when Harry isn't around to tell him not to and when he, similarly, isn't trying like hell to make sure Harry doesn't hurt himself while drugged.
Second, culture is a huge double-standard, and I figured Harry got at least some of his chauvinism/misogyny reinforced by Nick. Which means the reaction they would have for a woman being attacked this way would be more extreme.
As an ancillary to 2, many people - including many people currently serving in the United States Congress, apparently, do not count being drugged or coerced as "rape." Having actually engaged in sex of dubious consent while using mind-altering drugs:
Trust me. It counts.
But they didn't ask me. Anyway, please take comfort that Nick actually does mean some retributive violence as a deterrent, and if he is feeling particularly vigilante, he will spend some time off the books keeping an eye on Anton, making sure he doesn't try it with anyone else.
If your problem is with me writing that, then you should probably find a different fandom. Butcher's characters are flawed: it's why we like them so much. Nick, I attempted to make no more or less flawed than the rest of them. In the short story, Harry is the only person who seems to really believe Nick will help them. Nick doesn't say anything to confirm that. Nick cracks jokes about prison and prison sex. He's crass and, from what we've seen/not seen, he has a bad habit of leaving Harry alone.
/rant. Sorry about that. I just can't gracefully handle extreme reaction reviews, and I have a bad habit of writing almost anything in a passive-aggressive way. I hope I didn't offend you and that I made myself clear?
Firstly, I'm sorry that I didn't consider whether it was IC or not. I'm not familiar with Nick yet. I'm also very relieved to hear that you intended to imply violence. As you can tell, that didn't come across for me, but that may just be me.
Second, I do have my doubts about whether or not the general awesomeness of the Dresden Files is worth putting up with the misogyny and consent issues, but a) forewarned is forearmed, b) I take comfort in the fact that most of the fans recognise the issues and c) I can hardly read anything these days without finding something to piss me off. If it's not sexism, it's racism, or homophobia, or ablism, or whatever. I'm rapidly running out of authors I don't want to beat to death with my copy of their book, which would take a long time because I prefer paperbacks.
Lol, no problem - we don't have a lot of characterization to go on with Nick, so I read the short story and was like "Well...now I need him to actually have a personality." So I do admit to having spun an interpretation that is definitely less than flattering. I also confess to some hastiness with kink meme fills in general that does lead to this kind of misunderstanding, where I know exactly what I meant and it just...doesn't come out that way. I'm working on it, and generally I edit these and eventually I may deanon and post them to my lj, in better form.
I'm starting to have my own doubts in that area, and generally agree with you on every point. Homophobia in particular is a pretty big trigger for me, as are the consent issues for reasons previously mentioned.
(Also, I lol'd at your last sentence. It would take less time for me, but be more expensive: I have an e-reader and I know how to use it.)
If your problem is with me writing that, then you should probably find a different fandom.
Can I just how much I love that this fandom totally fucking owns the fact the source canon is so rife with issues like this? The way people explore and talk about and include in fic these problems and transform them into riveting reading is great.
1) Butcher is really, really good at writing three-dimensional, flawed characters with issues and problems, including an unreliable narrator who not everyone is going to like.
2) Butcher is actually misogynistic/ablist/other and doesn't even realize he's tainting at least his narrator with his views.
I tend to lean towards 1 for my sanity and so I can keep reading without kind of hating Butcher for building this intricate world and polluting it with author prejudices. Intentional or not, I always find flawed characters interesting to read. Of course, my definition of a flawed character is pretty precise: not "single negative character trait and very few traits in general," those are stereotypes. I don't think Dresden fits perfectly into any stereotype, though I'd probably call him a medieval romance knight if you made me pick one, with a dash of film noir detective if I was allowed secondary traits. He actually is a lot more than that, though...
And I'm getting into meta/discussion. So I'll just leave it at: yes, there are lots of problems in DF, and I'm aware of many of them, as is much of fandom. But I'd argue that it improves the realism of the world without making it hateful.
I would argue one and two are not mutually exclusive and Butcher portrays his characters as flawed and complicated but also has issues in his own writing. But that's me.
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Fic: Whatever You Want [1/?]
(Anonymous) 2011-02-18 01:44 pm (UTC)(link)+
Normally, I could treat my kid apprentice like just that. A kid, an employee, sometimes a friend. Dresden had a good heart.
Tonight was different. We'd been staking out this bar, hoping the deadbeat dad of our latest missing kid case would show at his usual watering hole. It was a young joint, so I sent Harry in with a few bucks and a fake ID and told him not to drink anything on the job.
He came out less than an hour later, clinging to someone’s shoulders and singing, loudly and off-key. Whoever was helping him out of the bar kept trying to shut him up.
I know what an abduction looks like, and this had all the hallmarks of turning into one. Especially since Dresden couldn’t possibly be both disobedient and that much of a lightweight. I came up on the stranger’s other side, sweeping his legs from under him. A miscalculation - I just felled Dresden on top of both of us. More than six and a half feet of gawky youth giggled and fumbled and rolled off of me.
Dresden distracting the guy gave me the time to pin him properly, so some good came of it.
“What did you give him?” I rounded on the stranger, pissed off. Dresden might be all kinds of useless, especially with technology, but he was mine - I mean, he was my apprentice. My problem, my charge, whatever. I wasn’t going to let someone
elsewalk off and do unspeakable things to him.“He’s just drunk, man,” the guy said, hands up in surrender.
“Bullshit. What was he drinking?”
He babbled. I slapped him.
“What did you give him, dipshit?”
The guy swallowed. “He just looked like he needed to lighten up - “
“My left nut he did. You didn’t think anyone was gonna notice if you drugged someone who was drinking some goddamn water? He can’t even fucking walk.”
“Jesus, you can fucking take him, then! Just let me go!”
I picked his pocket and let him up, concealing his wallet. “Sure.” I might report him to the police in the morning. It depended how Harry felt after this ordeal. The guy ran - apparently his name was Anton Vasiliev. Anton would probably get a nasty lecture one way or another, before he got t his wallet back. If he got this wallet back. I could be a prick sometimes.
I gave up on getting the deadbeat dad tonight and struggled to fold Dresden into his Beetle. I’d drive him home and take a taxi back to my car. Simple enough, right? Except he giggled and swatted my hands when I tried to search him for the keys.
“Do not make me hot-wire your car. I don’t know how, it’ll probably never run the same if I try,” I told him.
“You can’t drive my car. ‘S not fair. Never let me drive your car.”
“Because you barely have a goddamn license and you’re hell on any kind of machinery, Dresden. Come on. We know this already,” I said impatiently. “Where are your keys?”
“I can drive home by mysellllllf,” he pouted.
“You really, really can’t. Dresden. Where are your goddamn keys?”
“God probably does hate my car. God hates me, why wouldn’t he hate my car?” he pouted even more.
“I do not have time for this,” I muttered. I patted down his duster - nothing. He just giggled at me. “You would keep them in your pants,” I said, unsurprised but irritated all the same. I was at completely the wrong angle to be investigating the front pockets of his pants, but I did it anyway, with him moving lewdly against me the whole time.
Okay, not all that lewdly. I just haven’t been laid in a while.
“Niiiiiiick why don’t you ever call me ‘Harry?’” he asked, eyes wide, pupils blown with the drug.
Because it would mean admitting I’d let someone in. I’d never had a secretary last more than a week. Dresden had battled furiously with me until I agreed to mentor him for licensure. This colossal tornado had swept through my offices and created a...not quite system, and certainly not one of organization. But we found things easily enough, and it ended up where we expected it to be. He wasn’t half-bad at answering phones, barring the static problem. I had engaged in my usual practice of testing “the help” with relatively mild sexual harassment, increasing in intensity.
I do this to see how they would react to an abrasive, sexually confrontational, or irritating client. Few of them see it that way.
Dresden, bless his heart, didn’t even notice. At first I thought he just had hetero-blinders on, but some lonely moms had hit on him over the course of our working relationship already. He didn’t notice them, either. It seemed to be a very selective blindspot, at least - when he wasn’t involved in the chemistry, he picked up on flirtation right away, or most other emotional undercurrents to human interactions.
I gave up on flirting with him and decided my dense apprentice was a keeper, but that didn’t mean I had to like him.
Except I did. I liked him a lot. He was funny, he was smart, he was nerdy and he was so charmingly innocent and heart-breakingly world-weary at the same time. I don’t know what his guardians had done to him to make him expect only cruelty or neglect from anyone in a position of power over him, but the way he flinched when I yelled spoke volumes, especially considering how much larger than me he was.
Well. Taller. I probably had a solid 50-80 pounds on him.
“Niiiiiick you didn’t answer meeeeee,” he whined, clinging to my jacket. I brushed his hands off gently.
“You never said I could call you ‘Harry,’” I shrugged. It was true enough. He wouldn’t remember this in the morning, so it didn’t really matter what I said now.
That took a minute to sink in. I swallowed. I could tell him anything, do anything to him, and with that drug in his system, he wouldn’t even know. It was so deeply wrong to want, but - hell. He was smart and sexy in the way only people completely unaware of their good looks can be sexy. He dressed like a cry for help, but so did I, most days. And I’d seen most of what was under the ill-fitting, cheap clothes, one way or another.
“It’s cold out here,” he sulked. I tried again to press him into the car. His legs finally folded right and I got the belt on him.
“I’ll take you to a warm place, okay?” I told him.
He went through the motions of driving when I got behind the wheel. It was kind of cute. He stomped the floor impatiently when I slowed down for traffic signals.
Then he stopped driving with an invisible steering wheel and pedals, and started touching me. His hand trailed over my thigh curiously. “Muscley,” he mused.
“Yeah. That’s what happens when you spend a dozen years running down people who really don’t want to be found.”
“Mmmm, ‘snice.” His hand skated higher abruptly, and I almost veered into a building.
“Whoawhoawhoa,” I shoved his hand away. “I’m driving, kid, let me focus on not getting us both killed.” Dresden mumbled something and dove for my crotch again.
“Dresden. Not. Now,” I said firmly. He tilted his head.
“Later?”
“Sure, later, whatever you want. Not when I’m driving!” I kept telling myself that, using my need to concentrate as a shield against thinking about what Dresden touching me actually meant, or about my own inclination to take advantage of his pliable, likely forgetful, state.
I reminded myself that I wanted to be better to him than the people who had already mistreated him in his short life, not another on a long list who betrayed his trust in them. Whether he was aware of the betrayal or not, I would know.
He nuzzled my shoulder, still muttering quietly.
I got us to his place without too much incident. It was a little shithole, really, but the kid had saved everything he could to buy the P.o.S. Beetle he drove, and I couldn’t pay him a hell of a lot, anyway. He’d done odd jobs before he ended up with me, and continued to work some of them on the side, for the extra money.
Harry hadn’t wanted to get in the car, hadn’t wanted to let me drive, and now he didn’t want to leave the car, and he certainly didn’t want to let go of me. He kissed my ear messily. It shouldn’t have been hot, it should have been sad, kind of pathetic.
The tightening of my jeans said I thought it was hot whether I was admitting it to myself or not.
“D-dresden. Let go,” I said, pulling away, trying to break free of the wandering hands and arms. I threw the car door open and half-fell out to escape. Now I had to get Dresden out and into his apartment. I could, you know, tuck him in or whatever. I’d leave his clothes on, just not his shoes. You know. Didn’t seem fair to leave him on the couch, that’s all, since he got drugged on the job. I should take care of him.
I couldn’t even convince myself that I didn’t want to bone him, and it was taking considerable willpower to remind myself why I shouldn’t bone him. The list I was coming up with was painfully short: He’s a subordinate, you’re dead meat if he remembers...
That was it. And the first was sounding less and less like a disincentive and more like a new kink. The second was also less and less convincing.
The apartment key wasn’t too hard to find, on Dresden’s keyring. I was glad I didn’t have to search his pockets again. He leaned heavily on me, arms wrapped around my waist, face nuzzling into my neck, where he was nibbling and kissing and making a nuisance of himself. God I was so hard, and he sounded so horny and desperate for it.
I got the door open and he was herding me to the couch as we tumbled inside, his hands everywhere, trying to get my pants open.
“Dresdennnn...no, kid, we can’t,” I said desperately.
“You said ‘later.’ It’s later. You said ‘whatever you want.’ This is what I want.”
“It’s what you want strung out on date-rape drugs. It’s not what you’ll want tomorrow,” I said, frustrated. I couldn’t believe I was talking him out of this.
Re: Fic: Whatever You Want [1/?]
Re: Fic: Whatever You Want [1/?]
(Anonymous) 2011-02-18 06:14 pm (UTC)(link)OP Here
(Anonymous) 2011-02-18 05:32 pm (UTC)(link)Re: OP Here
(Anonymous) 2011-02-18 06:13 pm (UTC)(link)Re: Fic: Whatever You Want [1/?]
(Anonymous) 2011-02-18 08:40 pm (UTC)(link)Re: Fic: Whatever You Want [1/?]
(Anonymous) 2011-02-18 11:34 pm (UTC)(link)First, Nick is being a bit euphemistic here. By "nasty lecture" he actually means he's probably going to beat the crap out of Anton, when Harry isn't around to tell him not to and when he, similarly, isn't trying like hell to make sure Harry doesn't hurt himself while drugged.
Second, culture is a huge double-standard, and I figured Harry got at least some of his chauvinism/misogyny reinforced by Nick. Which means the reaction they would have for a woman being attacked this way would be more extreme.
As an ancillary to 2, many people - including many people currently serving in the United States Congress, apparently, do not count being drugged or coerced as "rape." Having actually engaged in sex of dubious consent while using mind-altering drugs:
Trust me. It counts.
But they didn't ask me. Anyway, please take comfort that Nick actually does mean some retributive violence as a deterrent, and if he is feeling particularly vigilante, he will spend some time off the books keeping an eye on Anton, making sure he doesn't try it with anyone else.
If your problem is with me writing that, then you should probably find a different fandom. Butcher's characters are flawed: it's why we like them so much. Nick, I attempted to make no more or less flawed than the rest of them. In the short story, Harry is the only person who seems to really believe Nick will help them. Nick doesn't say anything to confirm that. Nick cracks jokes about prison and prison sex. He's crass and, from what we've seen/not seen, he has a bad habit of leaving Harry alone.
/rant. Sorry about that. I just can't gracefully handle extreme reaction reviews, and I have a bad habit of writing almost anything in a passive-aggressive way. I hope I didn't offend you and that I made myself clear?
Re: Fic: Whatever You Want [1/?]
(Anonymous) 2011-02-19 12:47 am (UTC)(link)Second, I do have my doubts about whether or not the general awesomeness of the Dresden Files is worth putting up with the misogyny and consent issues, but a) forewarned is forearmed, b) I take comfort in the fact that most of the fans recognise the issues and c) I can hardly read anything these days without finding something to piss me off. If it's not sexism, it's racism, or homophobia, or ablism, or whatever. I'm rapidly running out of authors I don't want to beat to death with my copy of their book, which would take a long time because I prefer paperbacks.
Re: Fic: Whatever You Want [1/?]
(Anonymous) 2011-02-19 06:59 am (UTC)(link)Lol, no problem - we don't have a lot of characterization to go on with Nick, so I read the short story and was like "Well...now I need him to actually have a personality." So I do admit to having spun an interpretation that is definitely less than flattering. I also confess to some hastiness with kink meme fills in general that does lead to this kind of misunderstanding, where I know exactly what I meant and it just...doesn't come out that way. I'm working on it, and generally I edit these and eventually I may deanon and post them to my lj, in better form.
I'm starting to have my own doubts in that area, and generally agree with you on every point. Homophobia in particular is a pretty big trigger for me, as are the consent issues for reasons previously mentioned.
(Also, I lol'd at your last sentence. It would take less time for me, but be more expensive: I have an e-reader and I know how to use it.)
Re: Fic: Whatever You Want [1/?]
Can I just how much I love that this fandom totally fucking owns the fact the source canon is so rife with issues like this? The way people explore and talk about and include in fic these problems and transform them into riveting reading is great.
:chinhands at everyone:
Re: Fic: Whatever You Want [1/?]
(Anonymous) 2011-02-19 07:10 am (UTC)(link)You know, I look at it as one of two things:
1) Butcher is really, really good at writing three-dimensional, flawed characters with issues and problems, including an unreliable narrator who not everyone is going to like.
2) Butcher is actually misogynistic/ablist/other and doesn't even realize he's tainting at least his narrator with his views.
I tend to lean towards 1 for my sanity and so I can keep reading without kind of hating Butcher for building this intricate world and polluting it with author prejudices. Intentional or not, I always find flawed characters interesting to read. Of course, my definition of a flawed character is pretty precise: not "single negative character trait and very few traits in general," those are stereotypes. I don't think Dresden fits perfectly into any stereotype, though I'd probably call him a medieval romance knight if you made me pick one, with a dash of film noir detective if I was allowed secondary traits. He actually is a lot more than that, though...
And I'm getting into meta/discussion. So I'll just leave it at: yes, there are lots of problems in DF, and I'm aware of many of them, as is much of fandom. But I'd argue that it improves the realism of the world without making it hateful.
Re: Fic: Whatever You Want [1/?]
Re: Fic: Whatever You Want [1/?]
(Anonymous) 2011-02-19 07:22 am (UTC)(link)