oh, I know! and it's as good an excuse for pseudo-Latin incantations as I've seen offered. it just, as I said about fuego, annoys me on a spiritual Latin-nerd level. :P I'm not sure he's entirely convinced he's cool? like that's one of those Adorable Squishy things, he is such a dork and reasonably self-aware about it. he isn't like, "yeah I'm a dork lol," but he also doesn't really seem to buy the coolness he's selling? doesn't take himself seriously, I mean. he would be really irritating if he did, tbh. DOES ANYONE HAVE QUALITY FIC RECS BY THE BY Spoiler yeah! honestly at this point I'm just "GIMME MORE FUCKIN' OUTSIDERS, DAMMIT." a good plothook, and the Gatekeeper is also a good, and god damn you Harry cut this "character interaction" shit and go fight some eldritch abominations. (I really love the character interaction too though, so. shrug?) further plothooks I wish to see pursued include the British dude in Demonwatch* and Molly as Maeve 2.0. it was really aggravating to have happily pursued the plot through 10+ books and then run up against the last-book wall. I am impatient. also re: Summer/Winter, I have been spoiled by Terry Pratchett (Wintersmith) and Susanna Clarke (Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell) as to dangers-of-Summer and faeries-aren't-evil-just-inhuman-and-terrifying, respectively, and I resent all failures to live up to their very high standards. :P *which reminds me of "Parkour." fuckin just. "Parkour!" Harry never change I still haven't gotten over this it is the single most quality and OP thing ever and. also, speaking of, I appreciate Butcher's willingness to tango with Christianity (maybe all the Abrahamic religions? I know the Gatekeeper is Muslim, but I'm not sure if the "White God" (snerk) is just the Christian one, or Allah and Yahweh too) in a supernatural setting. I spent a couple books going, "is he going to do this?? is he really going to do this???" and I can still hear conservatives screaming somewhere. :P just the. fuckin' mantle, man. I appreciate his complex and ongoing struggle against it, Spoiler and I'm still amazed he assassinated himself over it oh my God but he doesn't fucking need it, even. he feels guilty about all his boners, and there are more than plenty of those naturally occurring, because apparently in Harry-land "anything vaguely sexy" = GIANT FUCKING BONER, and he has that emotional-connection-before-sex-thing, which is sweet and all but apparently makes him feel guilty whenever he's aroused?? idk. and I am still baffled by the fact that his Approved Method For Dealing With All Boners is ignoring and/or cold-showering, which seems. possibly unhelpful in the long term? but. I have read Side Jobs (it's the only one I actually own :P) and, honestly, I've stopped paying attention to villainess descriptions at this point, because they're all Tall and Sexy, with inconsequential variations in hair and eye color. right?? right??? Harry, cut the "men aren't as much of a distraction" shit and go and smooch a guy, I know you want to, the only person you're fooling is yourself and that's because you're an idiot I mean, he's not homophobic or anything, like explicitly not homophobic, but I don't think it helps that he doesn't know bisexuality is a Thing? a Thing for people who are not sexy villainesses and/or succubi or-Murphy-but-he-is-going-to-ignore-that-because-it-does-not-fit-his-paradigm, I mean. it would probably help if he knew some bi humans kinda j chillin.'
I choose to believe that's part of the reason he slobbers over every woman who goes anywhere near him. "MUST REPRESS CONSTANT BONERS" -> sexually frustrated -> even more boners. :::PPP
Spoiler maybe being starborn and sexually frustrated puts out a beacon on the astral plane for a particular copy and paste template of women to flock around him
harry's life is a series of guilty boners and confusion I'll be honest, I'm pretty sure that if literally anyone else narrated the series the Sexy Villains would look a whole lot less generic.
I'm still proud of my theory that the reason Jenny Greenteeth looks like a Generic Mega-Hot Chick is that Maeve glamoured her to look that way because she thought it'd be hilarious to get Harry to mack on the bog monster.
OH MY GOD SHE WOULD god okay but WHO ELSE LOVES THE WYLDFAE BITS I was SO HYPE with the direction that went Spoiler AND THE WILD HUNT!!!!! SANTA CLAUS but not REALLY though :D :D :D
SPEAKING OF BISEXUALITY but really apropos of nothing HERE ARE ALL MY OPINIONS ABOUT QUEERNESS AND THE DRESDEN FILES: it's a relatively-casually-remembered-Thing, like just in the backdrop of the world, which is nice. also just a Thing in general. Murphy!!! there are a lot more queer girls than queer guys, which... on the one hand, Queer Women What Queer Women does happen in other media, so that's nice, but on the other hand, it does feel vaguely male-gaze-y? like, off the top of my head queer women include Lara, That Succubus Madeline Lara Ate, Most Succubi By Implication, Maeve, Jenny Greenteeth, Mab (?? may be part of my vague impression that Sexy Faerie = Faerie Offering Harry Threesome), That Beer Villainess, and Bianca The Red-Court Vampire, all of whom are, well. not positive portrayals. there's also iirc Luccio, Justine, That Girl Justine Brought Home, two of the werewolves, and, as mentioned above, Murphy. out of all those, the only ones who really feel incidental (aka not at all connected to a man's sex life) are the werewolves, and even then The Certified Hot Werewolf Andi is one of them, so. also, I do not know any #confirmed gay women (some of the ones with incidental appearances, possibly?), which, while again there're definitely problems with bi representation elsewhere, again feels kind of male-gaze-y. I still can't fucking believe that Lord Raith was so straight he killed all his sons instead of sexually dominating them. I just. I really don't know where to go with that. fucking legendary Butcher is being a giant chickenshit about Thomas' bisexuality, which I do not appreciate. I mean, Thomas himself said most suc/incubi are bi, and I GUESS I understand that he's in love with Justine, which while itself slightly chickenshit explains his general lack of interest, but what interest he does express is in women and I am displeased. commit to your goddamn representation Butcher there is the whole Toe-moss thing, which personally I find absolutely hilarious but certainly has the potential to be offensive, but like. I don't think Thomas' only expression of queerness should be this weird French hairstylist persona?? it's the French that really does it, I think, like makes it into a persona, because otherwise he likes being a hairstylist! I also find the people-assuming-Harry-is-Thomas'-boyfriend thing hilarious, and I remember the gay-NBA-burglar-with-dog scene with fondness, buuuuut that may be my Harry/Thomas showing, idk. Harry is a good sport about it, anyway, and he also is perfectly willing to make m/m quips involving himself, which I appreciate, probably disproportionately. Butcher has gotten his shit together in terms of remembering that men should also be turning their heads as Thomas walks by, but he's still saying all the women are doing so, which, again, WHERE MY LESBIANS AT. I kinda want to make a gay succubus OC out of spite now, tbh. I'm sure I have more but I'm drawing a blank at the moment, so ENJOY.
it's been ages since i read side jobs but i'm pretty sure those stories were from alternative pov (i remember parts of the thomas pov anyway) eta +1 lord raith was legendary in all the worst ways and i loved that.
there was the one Thomas one, and I guess the Sexy Villainess was not so much sexy as eerily inhuman? then again, Thomas, so there were also intermittent Lust Monster Impulses.
The thing that bugs me the most about how Thomas is handled is Spoiler: lots and lots of trigger warnings when Shagnasty is trying to break him, Thomas specifically says it fed him women. But why the heck would Shagnasty be discriminate by gender like that? If anything, if Thomas is straight, it should have been more likely feed him men, too, just to degrade and dehumanize him farther by making the vampire instincts override his human desires. EDIT: And it's not like Thomas has Harry's sexism hangups and would feel worse about killing women than men, either.
yeah, that's... a very predictable cycle, and most of the reason why I'm so baffled. it's like, Lara is all, "I can tell it's been a lot time since you were with a woman," the implication being "it's been a long time since you've had sexual release so you're horny," and. woman not required for that??? oh yeah, I forgot about that, it kinda faded into the Chickenshit Background Radiation. but that bugged the fuck out of me too. I mean, either Shagnasty is a giant sexist, which, possible, or BUTCHER IS FORGETTING AGAIN, DAMN HIM. ALL HE HAS TO DO IS STOP SPECIFYING, BUT NOOOOO. edit: another thing in that whole clusterfuck—Molly's in danger when Thomas gets chucked into the cottage, but Mac isn't??
bisexuality is very much For The Sexy in this series and it makes me sad also who here other than me and wes has ocs for this series because YES GOOD
Spoiler if those women were chosen for a physical resemblance to justine, that would bypass the unnecessary heterosexualism and add a delicious awful level to the torture
@swirlingflight true, but that was not specified. BUTCHER Y U MAKE ME HEADCANON MY WAY AROUND THIS SHIT
Spoiler yes that would be PERFECTLY HORRIBLE i once saw a prompt for the theory that thomas was fed guys, and he didn't tell harry because the guys had been chosen to resemble harry which would have been interesting unfortunately people flipped their shit at the prompter so it didn't get written
...what kind of shit-flipping? "INCEEEEEEST," or? and honestly Thomas not telling Harry about being involved with guys in general is Plausible, but... sad. :(
Spoiler GOSH somewhere out there a prompter is my thomas torture soul mate just use people who look like the ones most important to him to really hammer home that, no matter how much he loves and cherishes and wants to protect them, lol he's a monster who will destroy and devour them for his own survival and pleasure, and until he sees them again can he even really be sure none of those look-alikes were the real ones...?
Dammit, people, don't flip your shit, that's actually a good explanation, and it's an even better one if the ship squicks you to hell and back because the entire point of the thing in-fiction was to hurt him as much as possible. >:::(((
dude. duuuuude. can I also be your Thomas Torture Soulmate? Thomas Torture is A fuckin' +, tbh. also, that was just generally such a Good prompt. god damn. THIS IS WHAT BECOMES OF CENSORSHIP
