Sphinx, small print, you are inscrutable

Put fandom for the first fic you posted online and the year your posted it in the tags.

Wake is an interesting subversion of the Dead Pregnant Wife/Mother because she initially appears to be a classic tragically dead mother. Dead soon after birth, last act trying to protect her child, names her child with her dying (or in this case posthumous) breath. Then we find out the actual truth about the nature of her pregnancy, childbirth, and death. For her conceiving was akin to strapping on a suicide bomb vest. It was a last ditch attempt to carry out a mission she had dedicated her life to. Her pregnancy reveals so much about her character and mindset. It fleshes her out rather than flattening her into a caricature of a mother like pregnancy so often does to characters. It helps that we actually get to hear her talk about her pregnancy and birth in her own words, something you don't usually get from a Dead Mother. It's also interesting to have a character who both chose to get pregnant and yet found the process horrifying as well as a woman who unequivocally does not care about her child, in fact barely views it as human, and is not vilified by the narrative for it. Untimely Wake is still a character who's arc centers around her pregnancy, traumatic birth, and subsequent death. But all of those things serve a role in the narrative basically counter to how they usually would. Wake was not a mother in anything but the most technical sense, she did not love her child, she died trying to kill the baby she'd just given birth to, and that baby is special only because Wake chose to conceive her to use as a weapon.

pulling a Paul (starting a holy war) or pulling a Paul (merging souls with your bff)?

fuck it, i'm curious. reblog and tag with the first fictional death to ever rewrite your brain chemistry and/or make you cry like a baby. mine was ares from the underland chronicles (who, for context, was a giant bat.) to this day i will weep if i think too hard about it. okay, go.