Wow, your writing is incredible! The way you handle the romantic moments and the humor it’s all so lively! There's something that really stood out to me though, and I’ve been meaning to ask. It feels like Alfred is always there, even when he’s not. even when he's not in a scene, his presence seems to linger, subtly shaping events, even in moments that don’t seem to be about him at all. Was that intentional?
I'm about two months later for this comment. Apologies, but oh, very much on purpose. But only after a long time of realizing it would happen a lot of the time, even if I didn't mean to.
Alfred is just so overwhelming in so many ways. Americans and American culture are so intense and powerful that it's inescapable. Part of the reason I enjoy writing Jack and Zee in their early lives is that they are an ocean away and know little of Alfred or Americans.
This phenomenon of Alfred haunting the narrative is particularly bad when I'm writing from Matt's pov, but it kind of seeps in no matter what perspective I'm trying to if its related in any way to the US. It's just the most intense for him. It's just how loud and forceful American culture is. American culture stands heavily on a strong foundation. A lot of people overseas will say things akin to "Americans have no culture" or at home, "I have no culture," while just drowning in American media. In opposition, Anglo-Canadians have often been commented upon as building their identity upon not being Americans. An identity often constructed as an Anglo void of "I am not" rather than the French shield of "I am."
And in that void, Americans can still project themselves onto and inside of Anglo-Canadians. Matt has an anchor in French Canadians, especially Quebec, but no shield on earth can keep Alfred out. My Alfred tends to be a New Englander but less in a cultural sense and more in the Lovecraftian sense. Cthulhu-esque. He is so overwhelming. Ten times the population, untold more cultural influence. Something like a Golden Retriever with too many teeth and far too much strength or intelligence and even more power. They are all some kind of eldritch, but Alfred's shows more. It exerts itself on his neighbours and the world. Most can look upon him, hold him, love him, and know him without madness. But live on the edge of that immensity? To not know one's innermost self without the pressure of that which Alfred is? To be so used to that form shaping the world its like gravity vanishing when its presence is gone? Yeah. Alfred is going to haunt the fucken narrative no matter what I do.
But if Alfred's body is more intensely eldritch than normal, his personality is also, in some ways, more intensely human. Isolationism cut him off from many of his own kind of beings. Being hung as a child by his own people for that eldritch nature made him crave the safety of seeing himself in another, in sensing that another sees themselves in him. He's charming and (usually) the gentlest kind of manipulative, the kind who can not only believe his own bullshit but forget its bullshit. He laughs and smiles and exists largely genuinely, that power and confidence born of belief.
He's Matt's brother and the bane of his existence. His nearest neighbour and worst nightmare. He lays damage on Matt and is then the one most likely to drop in to check in on him later. Cthulhu but if Cthulhu was a golden retriever. The void that screams back is also usually rather sweet. The emerging insanity is also the affectionate, indulgent elder brother. If a hurricane could be a hugger.
All that to say, yes. Alfred haunts the narrative the way gravity and American pop culture and soft power haunt the world.
