#anna tromedlov

[chpearcewrites]

Fanart of Anna from HENCH by @nataliezed, mixed media, 2022. 🦹 💻 She is such a great character. This scene from chapter two specifically...

“So today was the day you finally went full conspiracy theorist.” She curled her lip. “Honestly, you took longer than I thought.”

I was too feverishly amped to succumb to her sick burn. “I’m onto something.”

[roll4luck]

I swear if in the upcoming Villain book either Greg or Keller end up being traitors I’m not making it out alive 🙃😀

[thestrangemirror]

Reread Hench again, and one thing I keep getting stuck on is what Leviathan's relationship with Anna is. He obviously cares about her and wants her to do well, but like, is it genuine?

Spoiler warning for Hench by Natalie Zina Alschots ahead...

During her conversation with Decoherence, she talks about how she loves him, but her feelings are secondary to the actions that they incite. At the same time she seems pretty sure of how Leviathan feels about her...

"He pulled me off an operating table and rebuilt my brain. He killed people to get to me. What more could I possibly need to know?"

But honestly, as much as I want to believe the love is reciprocated, is it? Leviathan has Anna start the attack on Supercollider in part because of the Dovecote surgery. He says something about how he thought Supercollider's restraint was from respect but the attack on Anna proves otherwise. It kind of gives me the impression that while yes, he cares to a degree, it was also very much about ego. His rivalry with Supercollider is prioritized over anything else (which we've known from the get-go) and I wonder if Anna's focus on Acton over emotion means she's reading far too into it.

Maybe a better question to ask is what it means now that Supercollider is gone? Will it make space in Leviathan's mind for her, or is he going to go through the motions like a shell? Now that he has the space to act on his possible feelings, will he commit or was this

[cactuskat]

Hench spoilers, leviathan

I need to speak this into the void, but I think it’s so cool how the further in the book you get more and more blatant details of what he really is as the books transitions from plainly describing sounds as odd, to deliberately honing in on insect-like imagery, to full on bug

Not only does it subtly create a creeping trickle of information

but also replicates how Anna is slowly learning about Leviathan, her perception of him becoming more detailed as she knows him more in deeply

[gay-disabled-characters-showdown]

LGBTQ+ Disabled Characters Showdown Round 1, Wave 2, Poll 7

Anna Tromedlov vs. Elim Garak

Anna Tromedlov (Hench)

Elim Garak (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine)

Voting ended onApr 18, 2024

A character being totally canon LGBTQ+ and disabled was not required to be in this competition. Please check qualifications and propaganda before asking why a character is included.

Check out the other polls in this wave and prior here.

Anna Tromedlov-Hench

Qualifications:

She's bi! She has an injured femur and uses a cane and has cybernetics in her optic nerve implanted after having that injured as well!

Propaganda:

She's smart! She is kind of an awful person in the best way!

Anything Else?:

everyone should read this book unless they aren't into thinky, fun sci-fi or body horror

Elim Garak-Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

Qualifications:

He has PTSD due to child abuse, as well as a painkiller addiction due to a brain implant. He is also extremely gay. Like literally everybody who watches DS9 immediately understands this about him. He was explicitly played by his actor, Andy Robinson, as attracted to Julian Bashir, and his only heterosexual romance is truly painful to witness. Andrew Robinson has also said that he has had a one-night stand with Dukat, one of the main villains of DS9 and noted lizard nazi. Do with that what you will. His closest relationship onscreen by far is with Julian.

Propaganda:

This man. There is a reason so many people are obsessed with him. Former spy, current tailor, forever an incurable bitch. Guilty of many war crimes, including onscreen attempted genocide. Once intentionally blew up his own tailor shop (with him in it) because he didn't want to ask for help with something. In his very first scene on the show, he wears an shirt that strongly resembles a watermelon, propositions Julian Bashir, and leaves while canonically high on painkillers. He has PTSD due to child abuse at the hands of the head of the space lizard KGB, who is also his dad, and a painkiller addiction due to a brain implant he has to help him withstand torture. He tortures a main character in one episode, and then a few episodes later they start having regular breakfasts together. Once got high on Space Weed and started systematically murdering people while making ominous announcements about chess over the PA system. The Most Character Ever.

Anything Else?:

He once told Julian to eat his rod. It was about a futuristic USB stick (datarod) but he still very much said it.

Submitted by @convenient-plot-device

[m7rna]

I just finished Hench (the novel) today!! Watch me get obsessed with a random book with no fandom again... *cough* meddling kids *cough* These are just some quick sketches of some characters, I'll hopefully do some digital art soon‼️

[chupacabraatemybrother]

I find the number of reviews and posts about Hench to be really interesting - so many people feel like there is something unresolved between Anna and Leviathan (and there totally is, but imo it's just not what people think is unresolved). There's definitely still some unresolved disagreement: there's some...not resentment, exactly, from Anna (resentment is a little too strong) but she's left annoyed about the whole thing, and Leviathan still needs to further address that *and* get out of his own head and trust her.

A lot of people are sad they didn't kiss at the end, or that their feelings for each other are somehow up in the air, but I think the ending fit. They do know where they stand with one another. They're just taking it (painfully) slow.

Usually a kiss is a stand in for characters A and B showing they love one another, and are on the same page. It's used as a clear neon signal of mutual interest and agreement over that interest. This usually happens when either the characters are confused over how the other feels (but the reader is appraised of how at least one feels), one character has been hiding the extent of their feelings from the other, or there's been a slow buildup of flirtatious banter and actions but nothing confirmed/out in the open.

Anna and Leviathan already know how the other feels about them. No one's been hiding it - Anna even says as such to Decohedrence. She doesn't need to speculate. She loves him, he feels the same for her, and she enjoys that. And while I can't claim to be in Leviathan's head, his attempts at an apology, his assurances he'd trust her plans from now on, and the gesture of rebuilding her office first, seem to prove he's trying to secure and maintain the relationship in the best way he knows how. I choose to believe that means he also enjoys knowing how she feels about him.

So - they do love one another, and are on the same page about it, so why no kiss? Lots of reasons, including: a track record of not really trusting people (Leviathan), heaps of physical and emotional trauma (both of them but make it a double for Leviathan), and the fact that I would bet actual real money that Leviathan is ace. They're literally just trying to figure out how to exist in the same space together with these feelings hanging out there. Things like casually touching each other, assuring the other when someone is worried (Leviathan seemed genuinely surprised when Anna said she was worried about him, and not all of that is ego), being informal with each other - this is the level they are currently trying to navigate. In the end scene Anna reaches for his hand and stops just before touching him, presumably to let him have control over that final barrier, to make the choice if he wants to be touched. If they are still navigating touching hands, they are not ready for kissing. (But I can't fucking wait until they are)

[warren-kepler]

Bro,,, why aren’t more people hip to Hench