formulaic_beam

everlark author on ao3 current WIP The Beast of Casterbridge banner and PFP by @sassquatch737

[formulaic-beam]

This beautiful piece from the talented hands of @sassquatch737 will help tide us all over until Peeta comes into the story.

[dizzkie]

Laughing. Katniss is laughing like 5 minutes after seeing Peeta again. Mind you, it took Gale months to even get a smile out of her.

[formulaic-beam]

I love this scene so much because of what Peeta does with the power he has. 

They're both being coerced. The cameras mean Katniss can't say no. 

Peeta could kiss her anytime and she would let him, because she has to. But Peeta understands that coerced affection is not real, and would be awful for both of them, so he gives the power — and his explicit consent — to Katniss with one beautiful sentence: "it's all right to kiss me any time you feel like it."

So, even while they're both being coerced, he doesn't take advantage. He gives the choice to her and he does it without making a big speech about how terrific he is. He frames it as a joke, which relaxes Katniss enough that she can laugh inside the worst situation of her life.

[alanfromrochester]

Everlark meta makes bread boy sound even smoother than I thought. :)

[formulaic-beam]

I'm glad to see that bread boy is rising in your estimation :)

[dizzkie]

Laughing. Katniss is laughing like 5 minutes after seeing Peeta again. Mind you, it took Gale months to even get a smile out of her.

[formulaic-beam]

I love this scene so much because of what Peeta does with the power he has. 

They're both being coerced. The cameras mean Katniss can't say no. 

Peeta could kiss her anytime and she would let him, because she has to. But Peeta understands that coerced affection is not real, and would be awful for both of them, so he gives the power — and his explicit consent — to Katniss with one beautiful sentence: "it's all right to kiss me any time you feel like it."

So, even while they're both being coerced, he doesn't take advantage. He gives the choice to her and he does it without making a big speech about how terrific he is. He frames it as a joke, which relaxes Katniss enough that she can laugh inside the worst situation of her life.

[dizzkie]

Wow, you're so right. Another W for Peeta!

I think that serves as a great contrast to Gale, too. He's usually the one between the two to initiate a kiss, so there isn't this freedom Peeta gives Katniss, but rather Gale's greediness, dare I call it, that makes him kiss her as if to claim her instead of Peeta. Like she's a prize to be won and he wants Peeta to lose.

Maybe not greediness, but insecurity? Competitiveness? Something driving him to want Katniss for himself like he's owed her.

So yes, you're right. Peeta gave the power to Katniss and Gale did the opposite because he wanted to be her final choice do badly.

[formulaic-beam]

Peeta earns all the Ws!

I have words for Gale about the way he initiated that fence kiss in CF. So does Katniss and one of them is entrapped. Kiss + entrapped = bad news. Gale is all of the things you said. He has the same troubles as Katniss, father gone, responsible for the family too young. He's afraid of losing her but he pushes her away by holding too tight and forcing things she isn't ready for.

Peeta would have still respected Katniss if she chose Gale. He even encouraged her to think of a future with Gale in the beach scene with the locket. Right before they made out for a really long time.

[dizzkie]

Laughing. Katniss is laughing like 5 minutes after seeing Peeta again. Mind you, it took Gale months to even get a smile out of her.

[formulaic-beam]

I love this scene so much because of what Peeta does with the power he has. 

They're both being coerced. The cameras mean Katniss can't say no. 

Peeta could kiss her anytime and she would let him, because she has to. But Peeta understands that coerced affection is not real, and would be awful for both of them, so he gives the power — and his explicit consent — to Katniss with one beautiful sentence: "it's all right to kiss me any time you feel like it."

So, even while they're both being coerced, he doesn't take advantage. He gives the choice to her and he does it without making a big speech about how terrific he is. He frames it as a joke, which relaxes Katniss enough that she can laugh inside the worst situation of her life.

[formulaic-beam]

The Beast of Casterbridge Chapter 11 WIP

- Lordship Lane Station, Dulwich (1871) by Camille Pissarro

My draft is currently 6k words and I'm maybe halfway there. I don't know where my newfound verbosity came from but I'll credit the oldtimey register. It's difficult to write lean-Victorian. When I was writing my modern AU, some chapters were complete and posted at 1k words or less. I don't write toward word counts, I write toward balanced emotional arcs, but I thought the difference was interesting.

Please accept my humble offering of the following train car excerpt, as a promise that this chapter should be complete within the next week or two.

She and Mr Hawthorne sit nearest the window, facing one another. The gentlemen granted the ladies the forward-facing side. Mr Hawthorne must have arranged the seating so. Thoughtful of him. He reaches to draw the curtain open and fastens it in place with the leather strap. Clearly he's ridden in private train cars before.

Lizzie, next to Katniss, nudges her shoulder. Katniss looks her way. Lizzie grins. Katniss gives back a small smile.

Katniss is reminded of her aunt's house in Lambeth as the sooty brick rears of rundown terraced houses go by, washing strung across the small back gardens, white sheets billowing next to nightshirts and trousers. Katniss recalls tending the coal range and feels a twinge of nostalgia. She was very good at tending that range. Her chest tightens in the thick, close air. Sunlight beams hot through the window. She realises this is her first time on a train since she left her childhood home in Wessex nine long years ago; nearly half her life. She aches for her lost family.

She avoids Mr Hawthorne's eyes. Seated this close, she must be careful to keep her knees from touching his. He seems not to mind. She would feel decidedly less vexed if he would cease catching her eye and smiling charmingly. She wishes for a fan, and turns to face the window. The side of her face burns under his gaze. She sighs with relief when he turns to look out the window himself.

They ride smoothly for a time, with a steady sway. Then the carriage lurches sideways as the train swings onto another line. The men's hats shift and their hands fly to set them back in place. Jane's parasol rolls from her lap to the floor. Edward retrieves it for her, laying it across his own lap for safekeeping, patting it gently as they exchange pink-cheeked smiles. Almost at once the engine's steady beat slows and deepens. The train begins to chug and groan; the wheels squeal against the tracks. Katniss’s mind turns to thoughts of her family's horse pulling the cart, laden with supplies, back from town. Smoke comes past the window thicker and lower than before. Katniss feels the way she did as a girl, paying close attention, fearing the beast will falter. But the train is not a beast and it does not falter. It hauls them up the hill and out of London, slow and labouring the whole way. The city thins as they climb, and open fields begin to pass by the window.

[everlarksupremacy]

Just a reminder that Gale’s good looks have to be pointed out to Katniss or are conveyed as a report about what others say about him, but Peeta’s good looks are noticed by her unprompted.

[alanfromrochester]

I figured she was intellectually aware Gale was considered good looking, she just didn't care

[formulaic-beam]

You're right, Alan. She's aware of Gale's attractiveness.

The first two quotes are from The Hunger Games before she'd ever spoken to Peeta:

Chapter 1 - The talk in the meadow before the reaping. Katniss's own assessment of Gale, based on her own observation.

Chapter 3 - The goodbye at the Justice Building. Again, Katniss's own thoughts and feelings. "Lean and hard-muscled against my own" is her literally feeling his attractiveness.

And yes, the Boggs quote from Mockingjay chapter 6 and her thoughts surrounding it prove that she's no longer attracted to Gale at all, but she can still acknowledge that he looks striking in the uniform, grudgingly.

I'm not trying to prove Everthorne. These quotes actually help to disprove Everthorne at the same time as proving that Katniss has agency. She doesn't need other people to tell her what she thinks or feels. She isn't clueless.

And yes, she notices and catalogues Peeta's attractiveness much differently than she does Gale's. I don't think that needs proving here and I've already written on it extensively, because it's a much more pleasant topic than Gale.

[formulaic-beam]

The Beast of Casterbridge Chapter 11 WIP

- Lordship Lane Station, Dulwich (1871) by Camille Pissarro

My draft is currently 6k words and I'm maybe halfway there. I don't know where my newfound verbosity came from but I'll credit the oldtimey register. It's difficult to write lean-Victorian. When I was writing my modern AU, some chapters were complete and posted at 1k words or less. I don't write toward word counts, I write toward balanced emotional arcs, but I thought the difference was interesting.

Please accept my humble offering of the following train car excerpt, as a promise that this chapter should be complete within the next week or two.

She and Mr Hawthorne sit nearest the window, facing one another. The gentlemen granted the ladies the forward-facing side. Mr Hawthorne must have arranged the seating so. Thoughtful of him. He reaches to draw the curtain open and fastens it in place with the leather strap. Clearly he's ridden in private train cars before.

Lizzie, next to Katniss, nudges her shoulder. Katniss looks her way. Lizzie grins. Katniss gives back a small smile.

Katniss is reminded of her aunt's house in Lambeth as the sooty brick rears of rundown terraced houses go by, washing strung across the small back gardens, white sheets billowing next to nightshirts and trousers. Katniss recalls tending the coal range and feels a twinge of nostalgia. She was very good at tending that range. Her chest tightens in the thick, close air. Sunlight beams hot through the window. She realises this is her first time on a train since she left her childhood home in Wessex nine long years ago; nearly half her life. She aches for her lost family.

She avoids Mr Hawthorne's eyes. Seated this close, she must be careful to keep her knees from touching his. He seems not to mind. She would feel decidedly less vexed if he would cease catching her eye and smiling charmingly. She wishes for a fan, and turns to face the window. The side of her face burns under his gaze. She sighs with relief when he turns to look out the window himself.

They ride smoothly for a time, with a steady sway. Then the carriage lurches sideways as the train swings onto another line. The men's hats shift and their hands fly to set them back in place. Jane's parasol rolls from her lap to the floor. Edward retrieves it for her, laying it across his own lap for safekeeping, patting it gently as they exchange pink-cheeked smiles. Almost at once the engine's steady beat slows and deepens. The train begins to chug and groan; the wheels squeal against the tracks. Katniss’s mind turns to thoughts of her family's horse pulling the cart, laden with supplies, back from town. Smoke comes past the window thicker and lower than before. Katniss feels the way she did as a girl, paying close attention, fearing the beast will falter. But the train is not a beast and it does not falter. It hauls them up the hill and out of London, slow and labouring the whole way. The city thins as they climb, and open fields begin to pass by the window.

[escuerzoresucitado]

[thefragman]

@real-sound-reblogs

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

I just pulled an all nighter and I thought I was cognitively fine until I saw this beast and immediately thought "oh my god he's in camo, he looks like camo print army clothes, I can't believe that anture randomly made something like that, that coincidence is fucking crazy"

So yeah I should go to bed

[alanfromrochester]

Yeah sometimes I get goofy when too tired

[formulaic-beam]

The sticky suction sound when that blob frog moves is really...something

[vanillasunsetsss]

I think it’s time I admit that when I read sotr for the first time I pictured Lenore Dove’s geese like this. I was so confused when the first teaser trailer came out

[formulaic-beam]

I'm Canadian too and thought the same as you. I was so impressed that Lenore Dove managed to tame those cantankerous beasts.

[was-once-somewhere-else]

I just saw a video title on YouTube that said something like “Why is glass transparent?” And that’s an interesting question and I’m sure it’s great that the video exists but my first thought was like “Because glass is terrible, obviously.” Because it’s unwieldy and let’s out warmth and needs to be heated to hundreds of degrees to be shaped and turns into hundreds of tiny daggers if you drop it. Why the hell would we bother with that if it didn’t have some magical quality like being totally transparent despite being solid? Glass is transparent because if it weren’t, we’d use something else.

[was-once-somewhere-else]

looking through my “me” tag and this is apparently what I was thinking 3 years ago

[totally-a-wizard]

If you’re still curious we did not start working glass for its transparency.  It was most likely started as a sanitary concern.  Glass is easy to clean with soap and water, once it’s cleaned out you can use it again for anything and no germs or flavor from the previous meal or drink will remain.

Other materials at the time, namely clay, would absorb flavors and germs meaning that if you ate beef off a clay plate your next meal with that plate could have beef flavor and microbes common on cow meat on it.  That would leak out seemingly at random no less.  Heck imagine a sick person coughing into their soup bowl and then months later their germs hiding in the clay would pop out to infect whole new people.

Also the earliest human use of glass we know of is for its sharpness.  Pre-historic people would use volcanic glass as sharp knives for food preparation.  Also beads.  Pretty much any new substance humans get their hands on for most of our history we immediately try to make into beads.

The fact that it could become see through was a side benefit.

[was-once-somewhere-else]

this is amazing and I’m really glad I reblogged that old bullshit post because I got to learn this

[alanfromrochester]

Glass not chemically absorbing its contents is a reason it’s liked for science equipment

[formulaic-beam]

This is precisely why I prefer glass for food storage, over plastic.

[stupidgayhobbit]

sometimes i catch myself wondering “why did [author] [make x decision]?” and that encourages me to believe i may be on the path to becoming a better writer

[formulaic-beam]

Hey friend, I hope you don't mind if I barge in and chew on this one with you.

I always wondered about the talents too. Your Peeta theory makes a lot of sense, and it got me thinking. Collins has a background in TV, and I wonder if part of it is as simple as a talent being a quick engagement hook. The victors are recurring characters in the Capitol's ongoing show, so Peeta the Painter™ gives the audience an easy identity to latch onto and remember him by.

And painting is authentically Peeta. He's a born artist. We already have the elaborate cake decorating and him camouflaging himself after his leg wound. The Capitol takes something real about him and turns it into content.

But now I'm thinking about Katniss's supposed fashion designing, because that's the opposite of anything she'd choose. Her actual talents are hunting, archery, trapping, identifying plants and generally being very difficult for the Capitol to kill.

They can't exactly make that her cute victor hobby, so Katniss gets a fabricated talent while Peeta's is authentic.

So her fake talent is used to cover her real talents, which are all illegal, banned, and get people flogged and killed. The Capitol constantly rewrites her, repackages her, reframes her, changes her to fit into the image of what they want a 16 year old female volunteer/victor to be, and not who Katniss is.

For the arena she is the Girl on Fire, she's in pretty dresses and makeup and elaborate hairdos, and after the games she's a... fashion designer.

(And, it's not a talent, but even when she's the Mockingjay as a rebel, which is much closer to real-Katniss, Coin transforms her into beautiful formidable warrior woman, which is Katniss with the edges smoothed. Everyone wants to claim her and rewrite her. Everyone except Peeta.)

So maybe the talents are part of turning victors into recurring TV personalities? Image management? Peeta's real self is camera-ready. Katniss's needs a smokescreen.

It's interesting that the movies removed the talents too, maybe because film is already a visual medium and we see both characters as they are? The makeovers and Effie's constant scolding about "manners" (read: image management) are doing that work onscreen anyhow.

[kald-dal-art]

Redraw of old art to get used to Photoshop Ig

Hunger Games Victors....you mean the world to me

[formulaic-beam]

Beautiful 🎨

[formulaic-beam]

How are you?

I am doing well today. It's the first day I could say that truthfully in a little while, because real life keeps being real lately, but I am hanging in there. Thank you for thinking of me.

[formulaic-beam]

YAY HISTORY, YAY HUNGER GAMES, YAY WOOOOOOOO :DDDD

YOU'RE THE BEST THANK YOU 🥹

[formulaic-beam]

Victorian Attitudes Toward Intoxicants

A reader asked me about the function of alcohol in Beast, and it made me realize this is worth saying out loud for everyone, because I think it might be easy to miss if you didn't grow up reading books and/or watching movies based in Victorian/Georgian/Edwardian England.

Simply put, they did not think about alcohol the way we do. It was not coded as a potential vice or a warning sign the way it often is now. Wine and spirits were just an ordinary part of respectable life, and on top of that, people genuinely believed it was healthful. Doctors prescribed port to build invalids back up, brandy for shock, wine for the nerves. Respectable women drank at dinner and dosed themselves with tonic wines that were sold as medicine. There was a whole temperance movement pushing back against all of it. No one campaigns that hard against something rare.

And it wasn't only drink. Most of the bottles in these images are opiates, laudanum, cordials, soothing syrups, sold across the counter as ordinary medicine and dosed without a second thought, even to children. I won't follow that thread all the way here, because it runs straight into plot I'm not ready to reveal yet, but keep in mind that the same lens that made a constantly refilled glass of Madeira look like hospitality made a bottle of opium drops look like care.

So when you are reading a scene where a gentleman strives to keep a lady's glass full, keep in mind that nobody in that room would see anything but hospitality. He is being a good host. He might even be being kind. That is the world these characters live inside, and they had a very different lens from ours.

I will leave it there for now. I know a lot of you have that context already, but I didn't want anyone who might not have it to feel left out, because a lot of what these characters do reads differently once you know how they would have understood it themselves.

[fantasiesformooks]

Had a response all typed out in response to someone arguing that Katniss chose Peeta because he was safe, and she was too traumatized and autistic to have romantic feelings. Rather than be an ass and blow up some stranger’s post, I’ll just comment here. And as I’ve said before when this suggestion was made, while we want to see ourselves in a character, the plain text does not support this argument.

The safe choice was Gale. Period. They had shared interests, shared backgrounds. Their families knew each other. She’d been hunting with him for 5 years. He was predictable. A marriage to him, at least before she became a victor, would have been a logical, obvious choice. But to read these books and still come away with the feeling that she wasn’t attracted to Peeta makes no sense. Who keeps tabs on someone you don’t talk to? Who takes notice of how someone’s hair falls in waves over his forehead, and the details of his eyelashes? I met my ex-husband in 2005 and I couldn’t tell you a thing about his lashes to this day. She calls him shiny. She calls him beautiful. She dreams about him. She keeps momentos from him. She describes the time in the cave as a happy time even as they were on the verge of death. She tells him she needs him and MAKES HIM STOP TALKING SO SHE CAN KEEP KISSING HIM. She is devastated when she believes he no longer loves her. Like, what?

The aroace implications are in the same category as Everthorne to me when it comes to these books. It is contraindicated by the text and the author herself. I have no opinion about her being autistic because that does not obviate the possibility that Katniss would be romantically attracted to someone even if she finds social interactions difficult. I find that take limiting and not borne out by what I see in real life as a disability rights lawyer. She loves that boy, in every sense of the word.

[formulaic-beam]

#Everlark rests its case your honour #the lawyer has spoken

[cassidyjaneart]