Pansies (Spires #4)

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Fifteen

1 . Paragraph begins with: “I want one of those…” Alfie shaped a V with his hands.

Alexis: Apparently my complex personal history with the romancelandia V-cut goes back a fair way. Don’t get me wrong, I know romance is a fantasy/escapist space, and it’s okay to have heroes with difficult-to-maintain body types. And I’m certainly not disputing that a V-cut looks pleasing. But I think I don’t like V-cut as the default body type for masc characters we’re supposed to find attractive, especially because it is so specific and demands quite a lot of the, err, V-cut haver.

Basically, I think I just like to emphasise that certain body types aren’t necessarily “natural” or easy, even if they’re appealing. Also I wanted Alfie’s physicality to be about strength and solidity, rather than being fashionably super cut.

2 . Paragraph begins with: But, fuck, he looked so good.

Alexis: I’m not sure, but I think Alfie does more looking than most of my POV characters. Don’t get me wrong, I know particular flavours of physical description are a kind of romance novel trope (and we all know how I love a trope), but I think I prefer to establish rather than dwell. Or else have the POV character notice specifics about their partner’s appearance only when the context is significant—like the colour of their eyes in sadness or whatever, or a particular curl of their mouth.

Alfie, though, I’m noticing on revisiting this book, is staring at Fen all the damn time. I think it’s partially because finding men attractive is still fairly new to Alfie, so it feels daring and freeing for him be able to admire openly. But I also think, from a more authorial perspective, it’s a bit to do with Fen not being the sort of hero who was regularly or typically presented as attractive—at least when I wrote the book; queer looks very different within the genre now. I mean, he’s not particularly masc-coded, he wears glasses, he presents himself in a deliberately queer way (his hair, the way he dresses).

So I guess Alfie and I were on the same page of wanting to celebrate and make space for Fen a bit.

3 . Paragraph begins with: “God, you give good hug, Alfie Bell.”

Alexis: I think I’m getting old (even though I was comparatively less old when I wrote this) because I am really so here for scenes where the main characters hug and have a nap together.

And I can’t tell anymore if that’s because it’s genuinely romantic or I’m just tired.

4 . Paragraph begins with: And must have dozed off…

Alexis: This is another one of those moments I enjoy where the romance comes with a touch of reality. I don’t know why this makes it feel more romantic to me, but it does. I think I tend to call it friction in fantasy—like if the fantasy is too easy, too perfect, it doesn’t seem as meaningful to me. Maybe I’m just a weirdo. Oh wait. It’s probably that.

5 . Paragraph begins with: It was sexy as hell. But also intimidating.

Alexis: Nurrggh, penetration politics is rearing its ugly head as usual. I really wish I lived in a world (and wrote in a genre) where I didn’t have to spend so much time thinking about who put what body part where. Except, unfortunately, I do because we, as a culture and in fiction, persist in thinking it matters.

I think it’s especially tricky in romance because the genre requires sex acts to mean something: that’s kind of the whole deal. But I think that often leads to certain sex acts becoming tropified in ways that can be problematic. For example, back in the day, being penetrated was often framed as submissive (and, of course, it can be—anything can be submissive if you choose for it to be so), and occasionally the conventionally masculine character would allow it once near the end of the book to prove his “trust” in the relationship/other person.

Hyper awareness of these dynamics and expectations means that I generally tend to follow two “rules”:

(1) most unlikely person tops

(2) vers until proven otherwise

And this, mostly, holds true for Pansies . Although the limitation of these rules is that it makes it difficult to write characters who have strong preferences (for whatever reason), and that feels complicated too: because some people just have a preference, and that’s okay, and doesn’t have to matter either.

I think what I was trying to explore with Alfie here was navigating the spaces between what is natural preference and what is socially conditioned. Also, given Fen is much more overtly femme-presenting, I wanted to ensure I wasn’t reinforcing the whole “the pretty one’s the bottom” stereotype.

6 . Paragraph begins with: Fen moved his mouth to Alfie’s ear.

Alexis: I’ve mentioned before how it felt important for Alfie to sometimes find the exact words for Fen. I think Fen here finds the exact words for Alfie.

7 . Paragraph begins with: A rough hand, tight on his cock…

Alexis: My ever-anally retentive side is concerned at the number of all s in this paragraph, and in Alfie’s narration in general. But they’re also intended to be part of his voice, a tic he falls back on when he’s in his emosh. In the end, I chose to leave them all here because I thought if there was a moment for Alfie to be in his emosh, it was now.

8 . Paragraph begins with: It turned out Fen didn’t actually have any food…

Alexis: Is Primula a thing elsewhere? To be honest, I don’t even know if it’s a thing anymore. It’s basically like a creamy cheese spread squeezed out of a tube like tooth-paste. Retrospectively that does, indeed, sound gross.

9 . Paragraph begins with: “Aren’t you supposed to be a vegetarian?” Alfie asked.

Alexis: Apparently vegetarians who sometimes break their vegetarianism is a theme with me. I know I’ve said this about Oliver in Boyfriend Material too, but I just think it’s important for people to be able to falter in their principles sometimes. I mean, on some principles, anyway. Probably not murder or something (although maybe it would depend who was being murdered?).

10 . Paragraph begins with: “Yes. Well.” Fen’s hands shifted idly…

Alexis: Another theme appears to be people living in squalor while in emotional distress. Can’t relate at all. Cough.