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anythingbutgrey(yeah yeah)
By Fairest Blood - A Snow White and the Huntsman Comment Ficathon
Welcome to By Fairest Blood, a comment ficathon for SWATH. Some quick guidelines:
What can I prompt and how do I do so?
You can prompt whatever you want that pertains to SWATH. That means pre-canon, post-canon, intra-canon, AUs, RPF — the world is your fanfiction oyster. Want to selectively erase certain aspects of canon from your memory? Go right ahead.
Prompts should contain the following format:
Characters/Ship (optional) - Timeline (optional) - Prompt (which may be a song lyric, quote, etc., but is not optional)
In other words, you can leave a character and/or a ship, and/or a timeline, which are optional, and a prompt, which is not. If you want, you can just leave a set of song lyrics and see what people do with them. If you want, you can just leave a timeline with those lyrics, or a just a character, or all three.
How do I respond?
There are no restrictions in terms of word count, format, tense, point of view, etc. Please title all of your response fics as such in bold at the top of your comment (make sure to close the bold tag!) since LJ took out comment titles because they're dumb:
Title - Character/Ship - Timeline
Presumably, your fics will contain these three things even if they weren't in the prompt. You can also fill prompts that have already been filled. If something speaks to you, as it were, it doesn't matter if there's already fic for it. You can write your own.
How do I promote?
Tumblr post if you want to promote there
Promotion link with image:
Other banners:
by me
by![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
yon_lougawou
If you feel inspired to make a banner of your own, feel free to link to it in the questions/comments thread below and I'll add it up here.
Text link:
By Fairest Blood - A Snow White and the Huntsman Comment Ficathon
Welcome to By Fairest Blood, a comment ficathon for SWATH. Some quick guidelines:
What can I prompt and how do I do so?
You can prompt whatever you want that pertains to SWATH. That means pre-canon, post-canon, intra-canon, AUs, RPF — the world is your fanfiction oyster. Want to selectively erase certain aspects of canon from your memory? Go right ahead.
Prompts should contain the following format:
Characters/Ship (optional) - Timeline (optional) - Prompt (which may be a song lyric, quote, etc., but is not optional)
In other words, you can leave a character and/or a ship, and/or a timeline, which are optional, and a prompt, which is not. If you want, you can just leave a set of song lyrics and see what people do with them. If you want, you can just leave a timeline with those lyrics, or a just a character, or all three.
How do I respond?
There are no restrictions in terms of word count, format, tense, point of view, etc. Please title all of your response fics as such in bold at the top of your comment (make sure to close the bold tag!) since LJ took out comment titles because they're dumb:
Title - Character/Ship - Timeline
Presumably, your fics will contain these three things even if they weren't in the prompt. You can also fill prompts that have already been filled. If something speaks to you, as it were, it doesn't matter if there's already fic for it. You can write your own.
How do I promote?
Tumblr post if you want to promote there
Promotion link with image:
Other banners:
by me
by
yon_lougawouIf you feel inspired to make a banner of your own, feel free to link to it in the questions/comments thread below and I'll add it up here.
Text link:
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2012-06-05 10:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-06-05 10:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-06-05 10:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-06-05 10:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-06-05 10:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-06-05 10:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-06-06 12:31 am (UTC)every war was another seed
that could feed every soul in need
oh, I'm worn by the war in me
no subject
Date: 2012-06-06 01:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-06-06 01:44 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-06-06 01:46 am (UTC)Snow was, and had always been, consumed by the desire to make things better. It drew her to destruction. It always had. Her fighting spirit rose and thrived against the challenge of each fresh hell. The bitter and twisted and wrong compelled her, as if by compassion alone she could redeem it.
The merciless winter of Ravenna's rule made her almost more uneasy than anything else about her long imprisonment; she had longed to stretch out her hand and bring spring to the land. Just so with the winter in Ravenna's eyes. She was so sure that with a touch she could change twisted cold iron to budding green life.
She could not save everyone.
Sometimes she wondered what would have happened if she had not been born to be a ruler, always taught to choose the good of the many. If she had gone to the Queen with her hands empty and her throat bared and told her you will not take my heart, but I will give it to you. If the magic had taken the gift in the spirit she could have offered it, and let her press her lips to her Queen's youthful ones again and again and again.
Sometimes she wondered: where is the line drawn between compassion and love?
Sometimes she almost thought that in an oblique way she had failed. It would have been the most fitting thing to be Ravenna's knight in the battle she fought against herself and the world - to be wedded thus to the very antonym of peace and always know she had something to set herself against. Instead of absolving her, she had killed her.
It had been her duty. And perhaps, despite how much she had wanted to prove otherwise, love only ever led to sorrow after all.
She would do for her kingdom what she could not do for her Queen, but the part of her bound to the unquiet thing that was her shadow, her captor, her queen, would always carry regret.
no subject
Date: 2012-06-06 01:47 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-06-06 04:14 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-06-06 07:44 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-06-06 11:32 am (UTC)Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Perfection.
no subject
Date: 2012-06-06 12:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-06-06 01:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-06-06 05:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-06-06 09:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-06-06 09:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-06-07 12:06 am (UTC)bang, bang, bang [snow/eric; pg]
They call it The Dark Forest, but Snow can't help but think that even this grimy, dark part of the city is better than being locked in that sunless basement one more night (hour, minute, year). She doesn't say as much to her grunting protector -- there's no way to trust him yet.
She used to trust all.
*
"I can't use a gun." Snow does not take a step back, but she can feel it behind her eyes, the urge to run, to hide. It's a retreat she cannot allow herself. She has to get to safe haven. To her father's friend Duke. And William.
"You'll have to," her protector says. He doesn't say much else as he shoves the weapon into her waiting fingers. "It will have to be part of your arm." He takes a breath and it fills him until he's towering above her with a look she cannot decipher.
"My arm is not metal," Snow points out, but follows his movement as he adjusts her wrist.
"Aim for the meat of the body. The heart. You cannot wound a leg or an arm. There's too much of a chance to miss and you need to see them die, or you won't see much else."
Snow pictures it. That moment of vengeance for her father. Crash. Rip. Skishhhh. The noise of the bullet as it tears through Ravenna's blackened heart. Too quickly it's ruined by the image that always appears -- Ravenna smiling at her and pushing back a stray lock of Snow's hair.
(When she trusted. When she let anyone in. She doesn't know how to get Ravenna out. Even now, after all this time. Her heart is gentle. Her heart is weak.)
"I can't," Snow says and pushes the gun back into his hands. "I couldn't do that. Not to anyone."
He shakes his head. Still towers above her. He puts the gun back in it's holster and walks ahead.
Snow follows.
*
"Soda," Snow laughs and it surprises her as the carbonation tickles her tongue. She glances at Eric across the table. He looks as surprised, but he's smiling. It's not a bad look for him. "I... was never allowed," she wants to look away, but she meets his eyes, the intensity there -- the same when he's aiming his two guns and spreading death through the air -- it's her own kind of bravery.
"Can't rot your teeth now," Eric says, and drinks his own. Snow suspects by the smell that it is another kind of alcohol. No matter the can.
*
William uses a revolver as if it's an automatic. Eric prefers the shotgun he found, but always relies on the handgun he keeps by his hip.
Snow has no use for these weapons. For the pain they bring. In the scent of their fiery powder, she only smells sulfur. And slowly, sees Ravenna's face.
*
In death, Snow understands. If she does not take a weapon in her hands. Ravenna wins. Ravenna is never free. Snow is to be a leader. A true one. And that means sacrifices and a deft hand.
She wakes to the taste of something unfamiliar and warm on her lips and smiles. And then her smile fades and she knows what she must do.
*
The blood is thicker than Snow had expected as it drips down the stone floor. Ravenna's eyes are pale and empty. She will never fly, or cry, or kill again. There's no relief.
William comes to take the gun from her limp fingers, but she holds him back. "No," Snow says. "It's my fingers at her neck."
He looks at her, confused, and familiar of that boy she knew so long ago.
Snow looks up to see Eric, his gun at his hip, blood smeared on his chin, and a quiet smile on his face.
She wraps her fingers more tightly around the pistol and places it back in it's holster. By her hip.
no subject
Date: 2012-06-07 12:11 am (UTC)When Snow gives birth to a daughter it terrifies her. She tries to recall the love of her mother, but only remembers Ravenna's beautiful face.
"Maybe she'll take after me," her Huntsman says, tyring to soothe her fears, "and we'll have an ugly child."
Snow stares up at his face, even through her exhaustion and through the paler version of his own, she can see the kind eyes and a winning smile.
"No such luck," Snow says before handing her beautiful child to her father and lying back on the bed to rest.
*
Snow's mother said her beauty rested her in heart.
*
Ravenna's mother said her beauty was a weapon.
*
It's widely known that Snow's daughter has none of her natural grace, none of her quiet charm, and all of her father's commanding presence and Snow loves her all the better for it. Her daughter growls through tall grasses and hefts her own toy axe.
There's a feeling there -- of the girl Snow had been in earlier, if not happier times, when she'd chased William over an apple and things had been simpler.
Years in that tower, trapped and alone, had washed most of that away.
*
"Tell me the story of the evil queen!" Snow and her Huntsman's daughter says eagerly.
"You've heard it already," the child's father says, "twenty, no thirty times at least."
"This night alone," Snow adds, earning her Huntsman's smile and her daughter's satisfied laugh.
"Tell it again," their daughter demands, before quickly adding, "please, I would very much like to hear it again."
"She was a little girl once," Snow finds herself saying, "before she was queen."
Her Huntsman watches her, silently. He's not heard this story before and Snow hasn't felt fit to tell it.
She walked through death. She knew Ravenna. She understands.
"She was beautiful," Snow continues. "And that became her trap and her power, because the world let it be so and she lost all that was in her heart until it was blackened with decay."
Their daughter is fascinated, she's pushed herself up to her knees and is leaning forward in anticipation.
"You're beautiful too," Snow says softly, and cards a hand through her daughter's thick, tangled, black hair. "What kind of queen shall you be?"
Her daughter thinks for a moment and then smiles teeth like tiny white pebbles. "A strong one." She falters and then glances at her father. "And a kind one. So there are no more evil queens except in stories."
Snow strokes her daughter's hair, ignores her Huntsman's questioning gaze, and stares out the window.
Twilight has brought on a cast of light over the healed lands of her father and Snow can only hope and pray that their daughter lives in a world like this forever.
"If I have a brother," her daughter says after a moment, sleep tinging the tone of her voice, "may I be a hunter instead of a queen?"
"Finally a suitable choice," her father replies and Snow fights a laugh.
*
Snow miscarries a son and is grieved for all the wrong reasons.
Her huntsman holds her and Snow thinks of their daughter and the pain she might face in this world and the impossibilities of protecting her from it.
*
Snow remembers the beauty of her mother, but the lingering thoughts of her kindness and gentle heart are fading. Now all Snow sees is that happy look on her face when Snow did her hair just right.
It's unfair.
Her mother was never like that.
no subject
Date: 2012-06-07 12:11 am (UTC)*
"I cannot get it to sit as yours does, mother," Snow's daughter says, miserably. It as if the entire world has ended, because she cannot get her hair to lay flat.
"It's lovely," Snow says, and then adds, "you should look like yourself."
"I want to cut it all off." Snow's daughter's eyes brim with angry tears and the face she makes at the bent metal she uses as a mirror is heartbreaking.
"If you'd like," Snow says, amiably. "Or we could braid it."
Snow's daughter throws herself on the bed and pulls at her hair, without a response.
*
The next day Snow has the mirror removed from her daughter's room.
(Snow tries not to look at her own reflection as the piece of warped metal sinks into the fire at the armorer's hand. She catches a glimpse anyway and sees the fire curling around her form. She thinks of Ravenna and then turns away from it.)
*
When that doesn't work, Snow sends her daughter out to the villages to give charity.
*
When that doesn't work, Snow's Huntsman takes their daughter to the farthest reaches to hunt, to breathe and to live.
*
When that works, Snow is grateful and jealous.
*
She stops wishing for a son and embraces the daughter they have as she is. Snow stops dreaming of Ravenna and of her mother and lets their memories rest.
*
Her Huntsman calls her beautiful, even as her hair begins to gray.
Snow says, "That troll was beautiful. The one that almost killed you the first day we met."
Her Huntsman laughs, until he realizes she's not joking. "It was a troll."
"She had kind eyes and she was in pain." Snow shifts past him, up the pathway, her skirt flitting against her legs in the wind.
"She? That thing was a she?"
"I'm sure her mother loved her just the same," Snow says, over her shoulder. She sighs in relief at the feel of truth in that.
no subject
Date: 2012-06-07 09:41 am (UTC)Her eyes are dead
and lusterless but her heart is in the right place, I guess.
Somewhere deep in her chest, I guess.
no subject
Date: 2012-06-07 10:02 am (UTC)She wakes to the taste of something unfamiliar and warm on her lips and smiles.
UNCOOL. ugh and this is so wonderfully dark and grimm and i can imagine it as a modern retelling of the tale so easily! thank youuuuuuu. you're the best.
no subject
Date: 2012-06-07 10:44 am (UTC)This was everything I wanted and more. The troll! The chain of mothers and daughters! The way Snow's been changed by everything she went through! Her daughter's hair texture! Ahhhhhhh. (Also, though the focus was very much on the women, I adored your huntsman characterisation.) Thanks again!