nothing will ever top a good bait and switch—especially when it's saviour to abductor.
like getting lost in a national park and getting "saved" by big, burly Park Ranger John Price who got the alert and braved the elements to find you. and you're so happy to see him, stuttering out a hushed thanks as he slips his jacket over your shoulders, and leads you to the safety of his truck. tells you he'll bring you to the police station in town, and you believe him. of course you do. you have no reason to mistrust the ranger who rescued you—even if SARs are usually more involved than a one-man team, but. at least you're not left to the elements, right? and he'll get you home.
only he doesn't stop. he keeps going. all the way to his house where he has everything you'll ever need waiting for you because you had the utter misfortune of catching his eye when you doodled a little smiley face next to your name in the sign-in sheet at the visitors centre.
they always said he needed to retire with a nice family of his own. he figures now is the best time to get on that.
Given that your characterization of Price is immaculate (like the rest of your work, but I digress), I was wondering if you have different characterizations regarding the reader. Like, is there a common thread you follow or does it entirely depend on the specific scenario?
Also (this might be a bit personal on my side, so feel free to ignore this), how do you think Price would react to someone who is inexperienced but extremely sure of herself as well? As in, someone who hasn't done anything simply for the fact that she couldn't care less about things of a sexual nature.
Anyways, hope you have an amazing day and much love to you :p
i'm answering your last question first because if i were to make blatant self-insert/oc, it would be kinda similar in mindset lmao so this is mostly self-indulgent (sorry!), but i think it would draw out a lot of his baser, darker impulses (especially his archaic/traditional views on sex—but in a significantly worse way). it would be so easy to twist a general disinterest/apathy, and absorb it into his icky god complex. even though it has absolutely nothing to do why shyness—or purity culture, virginity, sex-shaming—in his head, it will always be about him.
the words grey and demi are meaningless him too tbh; you can give him a full PowerPoint on how sex means nothing to you and the only reason you're not out having it with other people is because it doesn't interest you in the slightest (or certain conditions—a deep connection, an established relationship, etc—were never met), and you just don't get the appeal. at all. but it won't matter. not in the slightest.
he'll always be the one who (forcefully) pried that door open, and sees it as his duty to keep it open.
and it'll change his behaviour too because there is a huge difference between inexperience/shyness and genuine disinterest in sex as a whole, and it'll lessen some of his more possessive tendencies. like, he won't be in a constant state of hoarding what he has.
the dynamic would shift, but you won't be better off for it.
and thanks!!!! i think i have quite a few pre-existing characteristics for my inserts that usually pop up in all my fics, but the rest depends on who i'm writing for.
(this got kinda long when i was answering it, so i put the rest below the cut):
like with Price, i lean towards inserts who are much more submissive (knowingly or unknowingly just depends on the plot) and crave some sense of stability in their lives. they're basically cosplaying independence until Price comes along and either rips the costume off or watches them drop it on the floor. and it is a costume when it comes to him—even if the insert doesn't think it is. they're very needy—but in the sense that something is missing from their lives (stable homelife, affection, discipline), and they're subconsciously using Price to fill that void.
unfortunately for them, he's fully aware of that, too.
and the driving force that always attracts them to Price is their father (or lack there of). so in many ways, their relationship with their dad is the catalyst that lets Price in because he always presents himself as this steepled figure: fatherly, attentive, and protective (even if it's just an act); and firm, indomitable, disciplined. i think they had to grow up too fast but Price kinda gives them this opportunity to let go of all of that responsibility (or he'll pry it out of their hands). i definitely see him as nuclear-family/post-war propaganda: just perpetuating this idea of freedom from stress and worry, and the pinnacle of family-centric values, but the price to pay is loss of autonomy.
they're also very malleable. they could go their whole lives saying "I'd never fuck a married man" and that would be completely true—until they meet Price. he has a way of bending their morality until they forget who they were to begin with.
and tbh, i can't see anyone of my inserts picking Price if they had a stable, healthy father figure in their lives.
and Ghost is always paired with someone a little numb to everything. stuck in a functional freeze. a lot of neglect, childhood trauma. they had to grow up too fast as well, but instead of it making them needy, seeking affection and a replacement for the family they never had, they're extremely avoidant in all aspects of their lives.
the core is their mother—who is always this abstract shape that lingers in almost all of their thoughts. there's a lot of loneliness, but it bled over into this false sense of independence. they typically don't have a lot of friends or people close to them. they have a very shallow, isolated routine that never changes. because abandonment is a central theme in their lives, they're extremely reluctant to let people in.
they're not weak, though. at all. they're just stuck in survival mode and don't really know how to escape because no one taught them how. i see them as a lil opossums, yanno. very much a believer of "if i don't move, the predator can't see me." mostly, they just want to make themselves as small as possible—they crave a small, dark crevasse they can just rest in—and so when they meet Ghost, who is this big (almost larger than life) predator, i think they actually find some sense of comfort living in his shadow.
(but like. it's probably the same as saying since mice like small, narrow places, the mouse trapped under the lions paw must have felt some sense of comfort there, too.)
the narrative between them is different, too. inserts with Price are pretty static in the way they seem the world. you rarely get an in-depth description of the world around them—unless they're describing how Price interacts with these things. like, we only know there's an armchair in the room because he sits on it. and in contrast to that, the inserts with Ghost are usually OVERLY descriptive in the world around them. they're very much trying to get lost in their heads. a little too attentive to everything because they're stuck in a flight or fight state of hyperarousal.
my ideal body type for Price has got to be Colin Farrell in The North Water. nothing else comes close to capturing the way his broad shoulders and big hairy chest looks in my head.
remembering the young girl john knocked up when his wife wanted a divorce from him. sighs dreamily.
ever since he was young, Price always knew he wanted to be a Husband. and if his wife won't let him do it, then he knows he'll have better luck with you instead.
so the problem solved itself, really. and you just had the terrible misfortune of living next door to a man who took i'm leaving in the fall to go back to school so i can pursue an independent career without a partner as knock me up so i have a reason to stay. and aren't you just the luckiest thing ever because this man is set to give you everything—even if you're too shy to ask for it yourself.
(or, yanno, he'll just learn nothing from his previous failed marriage(s) and pull strings until he gets what he wants this time. securing a new wife, a kid, and another divorce settlement to frame and hang on the wall in his study.)
i don't talk enough about Price's anger and how he probably has genuine, diagnosable issues with rage that absolutely impact almost all of his relationships in major ways. and i should probably change that asap.
thinking many thoughts about a therapist reader stuck with price after he gets himself written up for mandatory anger management sessions by laswell…
he'd fight that on every level imaginable. poor reader. in storms this burly bear of a man who is uncommunicative (at best) and aggressively pacing around the room like a caged tiger, ripping apart the fundamentals of your profession (at worst).
i see Price as a mix of his traditional upbringing and someone struggling to circumvent some of the uglier aspects of these values that he doesn't believe in. on one hand, he can respect therapy as a whole. but on the other, when it comes to him and his problems, it's pseudoscience. a man of many, many contradictions. he's very much a "respect is earned, not given" kinda guy in my head and i don't think he really holds any love for what he sees as someone trying to change him (even if it's for the best).
but also. i love pairing him up with smart, ernest people. i think the juxtaposition between him (eternal grump) and them (burgeoning sunshine) is just spectacular. and his therapist having that easy-going, i'll split my hard earned cookie in half so everyone gets a piece/yes, i did bring enough gum for the whole class i'm so glad you asked! temperament would be impossible for him to deal with. anyone else and he'd just blow up. leave. throw his impressive weight around to get what he wants.
but then he's faced with this competent person (which he respects) who is just genuinely trying to help him because they see something in him that he doesn't want to admit is still there, and ahhhhhh. i'd love to see him flustered. uncomfortable. and i think that'd do it. (plus. i love throwing a person at him who is the model of his speech he gave Gaz, which i 100% believe was ALL bullshit. i think he felt Kyle slipping away and needed something to reel him back in, and also; it's Cope. he prescribed himself a serious dose of Cope, and it's so obvious. UGH. what a dumb, emotionally stunted, manipulative man. gimme him RIGHT NOW. and then you pop up and it's a slap in the face against everything he pretends to believe in!!!!)
anyway!!!! the first thing he says when meeting you would be some eclectic mix of disrespect and grumpy old man yelling at clouds.
"this might work for other people, sweetheart, but it won't work for me." and you just sit, stunned, and try to wrap your head around that.
Hey, hope you're doing well, having a good day and that I'm not bothering you.
I've been obsessed with all of your work, especially everything you've done on Price. His characterization, the way he behaves, his essence - you paint this beautiful picture that is a delicacy to devour every single time.
Given your characterization of him, I was wondering how you would view him raising any children he has. It's obvious that he wants them, but how do you think he would go about actually raising them? Would he treat them completely different depending on if it's a boy or girl?
ahhhhh thanks!! and i think it really depends on when in his career he has his first kid. too early/mid career, and ummmmmmmm. controversially. i don't think he'd be a really good one lmao
and i know that kinda goes against the idea of him being very family-oriented to the point of obsession, but i think he's a better dad in theory than in practice. mostly because i just don't think good guys/superheroes will ever make good fathers since they're always going to put the world/the greater good before anything else, including their family—which canon Price is already kinda doing.
and the tragedy of it all is that he's not even purposefully neglectful, but he's just never really there. always gone. comes home late. and when he is home, he's always checking his phone, demanding updates. present but not present, you know? especially early in his career when he's moving up the ranks and that's the bulk of his focus. in that stage of his life, his kids are just get the gruff, clumsy guy who shows up (sometimes). spoils them, for sure, but at the end of the day, you'd want your dad at the event you were looking forward to rather than coming home to a new laptop/whatever you wanted super badly three years ago because he's in [CLASSIFIED] and doesn't have cell reception, yanno.
but!! on a happier note, if you get him pre-retirement, when he's sick of the military's bullshit and post-Soap, i think he'll be a better dad because he's now at a place where his mentality will shift from "the world stays clean" to "fuck everyone except me and mine." then you'll get overprotective dad Price who is morally suss on a good day, but he's always gonna be there for his kids. he's gonna show up for his first and foremost before anything else.
(but he's also probably gonna be pretty emotionally distant considering everything he's done/seen. he'll def be there for his kids, listen to them, understand them; but it's 100% a oneway street. i don't think they'll ever really feel like they know him beyond the face he wears when he's dad. he'll give them hugs and joke with them and make their life as great as he can, but they're getting all of that (affection, love, devotion) instead of a why, so. he'll probably give them that Duchenne smile of his and shift the convo away the moment they start asking to see beneath the mask.)
and he's def a Girl Dad. utterly obsessed with his daughter and would happily commit crimes to keep her happy. and he'd be the father he never had to his son—and being that man he wished raised him would also be to a pretty obsessive degree. but i doubt there's much difference between him having a girl or a boy. at the end of the day, they're just "his" and that's all that matters. and he's def gonna spoil his kids rotten, but they'd be raised in a household where they didn't ever feel like they needed to hold any part of themselves back. they'll never know him the way you/his wife/his colleagues do—there's no chance of peeking behind the curtain since that would go against the core of what he's trying to accomplish, even if that is kinda translating itself into a degree of emotional distance—but they'll be raised with plenty of affection.
I am binge reading your work and I love your Price characterisation so much! Can you please go into detail what you his childhood looked like and what led him to be this angry, stubborn man who is fixated on saving the world at all costs
this is basically a reinterpretation of opening Pandora's box but instead of releasing great evils, it's just me yapping non-stop about John Price whenever i get the opportunity. but i cut a lot out because it was getting too long, so this is a brief summary on what made John Price the way that he is;
re: abuse (physical, mental, emotional; of authoritative power).
Nepo-baby. Born into Military Royalty. The Price name has a lot of sway in the government. Probably lived in Hereford going up before moving to Liverpool at 18. Realistically, Price has no other career choices because I can't see Mr "threatens to hang superior officers" sitting in a cubical and expected to hit quotas without catching several charges for assault and battery when his temper gets the best of him. And it always does.
His homelife was bad (but absolutely nothing compared to Simon's). His dad was just a staunch disciplinarian groomed by the traditional values of 40s-60s England. The typical "father works to provide for his family all day and then comes home to quiet, respectable children neither seen nor heard with food already on the table waiting for him and a wife that only speaks when spoken to and only ever to agree with her husband (and a lil bit of female "orgasm"????? by god! they've brought witchcraft back to the land of her Majesty the Queen!)"
He has an angry, uncompromising father with a temper and a mother who says thinks like, "well if *you* didn't make him angry, then you wouldn't have gotten yourself a black eye."
His dad was very physically abusive to both of them. Price really tried to stick up for his mum, but that would just set his dad off even more. And afterwards, his mum would just side with his dad, anyway. But on the flipside, I think she expected Price to protect her. So when he didn't (because he's a literal child!!), she'd get angry. But she obviously can't lash out like her husband or even her child, so uses the only weapon she has to gain some semblance of control: manipulation.
Price takes pieces of both his parents. His father, the physical aggressor, and his mother, the manipulative victim. And she is a victim, very much so. But I also think she pits them against each other. Gets bored. Causes issues. But there's power in getting someone to do what you want, and that's how she takes hers.
Price catches on to her in his early teens, but that's still his mother. Even though they have a very rocky relationship, she's still the Victim in his head, even when she's whispering in his dad's ear about all the things she despises about her son. And then going to Price (after his dad does something about it - again: disciplinarian, control freak) and playing the pitiful mother subjected to her husband's tyranny and a sad, weak son who can't do a single thing to protect her when she needs him.
Price learns to manipulate from her. Emotional blackmail. Victim-complex. Gaslighting. Scapegoating. But the biggest takeaway is the way he shifts the victim-complex into heroism (esp with Gaz). They can't be the bad guys. It's a logical fallacy in his mind. They're the ones saving the world, and if the world wasn't so riddled with bad guys, with people who need projecting, then they wouldn't need to do what they do.
I think Price has a bit of animosity towards people he sees as weaker (re: his mum having to share the victimhood with her son). But this animosity can also rear as obsession. He's the only person who can save you/them/the world. And since you/they/the world can't save yourself, then you should just listen to him.
And if you don't. Well, that's going to be a pretty big problem.
Honestly on the fence about siblings. If he has any, it's probably an older sister and she's either the equivalent of Janice Soprano (minus any of the backbone and ambition) or Barbara, resigned to her life and utterly forgetful. but I kinda like the idea of him not having any siblings to weather the storm with, you know? Like, it's just him and a mother who victim blames and ignores, and he gets the brunt of his dad's anger.
He was an obnoxious kid to be around. Probably really tried to impress his dad by adopting all of his values; baby misogyny, bite-sized authoritarianism, military fiscalism/military–industrial complex, militarism, etc., before realising (earlyyyyy teens) that he hates his dad and everything he stands for (but I'm a SUCKER for letting Price suffer and I love cyclicity and generational trauma so naturally, as much as he tries to run from the ghost of his dad, it still lingers - just in different ways; the worst thing you could ever say to Price is, you're just like your father).
Turned into a moody teen in the 80s/90s. His anger is a hair trigger. Utterly uncontrollable. But by this time, he learned to hide it because his dad's way of idealing with trauma was to add more. Therapists are pseudoscience, so he taught Price that men just bury these things. And if you can't, then you should be put down like a dog.
The assessment of a man's character was entirely based on the military tests he passed. And with Price's anger, trauma, he probably shouldn't have passed the evaluations, but since his dad, his grandfather, his great-grandfather, were all military dogs, he learned how to beat it. He's also really good at manipulating people.
I think between 16-17 there was a real attempt to do something that wasn't the military and I haven't decided which one I like better but:
He gets a job (as a port worker or in a factory). The Price name has no sway here (and baby Price grew up surrounded by people who knew his family, who revered them for their service to the country, etc). If he wants to make it, it has to be by his own merit. The problem is, while he's a hard worker, his trauma (men who remind him of his father, women who are too much like his mother) causes an incredible rift between him and authority.
If his boss is a man just like his dad, then Price is a match in a tinderbox.
If he isn't, to Price (who has only just learned to hold his tongue), the idea of a nobody being in a position of power over him will also set him off.
Either way, he's doomed.
If he man is a beast that no one can stand up to, and gets away with things because he's the boss, then Price's temper would flare pretty quickly. Especially if he comes after Price. Bullies him. Belittles him. But the worst is the humiliation. He ends up beating his boss very badly, terrifying the men around him but in their fear, and how quickly they listen to him because of it, Price realises he likes it. That fear can be weaponized. Honed.
Or: same situation, but if you lean more towards Price looking out for the underdog rather than his own self-interest, then he sticks up for someone and beats his boss to protect them. Everyone's still afraid of him, but they revere him. They do what he asks. This version, he realises that respect can be weaponized.
(and if the man is not like his dad, then Price will antagonise him into action. He'd throw the first punch, and Price will retaliate. It would still go too far, but - Nepo baby, weaponized fear: the outcome would be the same.)
He gets taken into custody. The tell him his boss is not going to make it. But Price's dad exercises every ounce of power to get his son out of trouble (because this will look very bad on them), and Price leans several things which shape him as an adult: his name has a lot of power; rules and regulations and just policing won't stop bad people unless you take it into your own hands once and for all, and people listen to him and that either version of the above can be weaponized.
He'd probably take the military a bit more seriously but only because he's trying to get vengeance for himself (even if this is subconscious and he doesn't realise it). He leaves at 18. Joins. And climbs the ranks higher than his dad.
At first, there's a concerted effort to do good but something cracks. Builds. Eventually Price comes to the conclusion that he'll have to take a more hands-on approach and get them a little bloody if he wants real change.
I have a lot of thoughts of military-dog Price. But!! That's basically it.
Shaped by physical, mental, emotional abuse; leans into the poor rich kid trope slightly. It all manifests more when he climbs the ranks, gets freedom, and realises that only he can do what needs to be done.
