i NEED to hear more about Feathers on Fresh Snow. am head over heels with the premise!
Indeed, the premise is, fundamentally, centered on a what-if ; I personally agree very much with @bthump ‘s interpretation of Griffith’s vulnerability complex, and how that destabilizes him. So, this fic sprung from the seeds of “but what if he was forced to be vulnerable?"
Yes, the torture thing does this to a degree, but I’ve already got a fic examining that angle in excruciating detail, plus i can self indulge in a little softer stuff lol. Not that there’s much soft until later parts. Because while I was initially going to write it from the perspective of “some outside force creates a scenario” (which I sorta kept with the influenza situation) I found it entirely more interesting to let it be a sort of inner force driving the outer forces - in this case Griffiths guilt and trauma manifesting as PTSD in a blatant form, triggered first by Guts trying to leave, then by his illness. I don’t think Griffith would handle being sick particularly well no matter the setting, and it worked well with the theories I have on his upbringing.
Plus, Guts is no stranger to “Battle Fatigue” and it gives him a relevant point of reference when Griffith does fall ill and becomes uncooperative with the Novices trying to treat him. I have been hospitalized with H1N1 so I fully understand that a high fever tends to cause one to think in extremes, and that emotions can go wildly out of proportion and control; Griffiths distrust of the clergy, in this particular instance, combined with a reinforced aversion to touchy old men means he is anything but reasonable about his situation. I also HC that he’s got some serious trauma centered around being sick, (alas, mothers could be cruel in those days, trying to be kind) so that just further drives it home.
The ultimate purpose, you could say, of the fic, is just to mush some hunky and pretty gay Barbie’s together lol buuuuuut while also playing with some fun dynamics and putting some applied perspective to some of my research on how PTSD was interpreted in the Middle Ages, as far as that has come (which started as research for That Which Burns Us). That and I read a neat little book about Medieval courtship rituals and it happened to include an illuminating, if brief, stint about how men likely propositioned to one another and the subtle ways they’d pass off flirting, short of a guy in a position of power going “hey, let me rail you and I’ll do you a favor” which…actually wasn’t that unusual lol. Not in the high court. Aaaaanyway, I sorely needed a place to put that information, so you get a few odd little public moments in there too.
(And some revealing information about Corkus)
Hope that helps! I’m working on it :)
