Troubled Blood - *Spoiler-laden discussion*

[EllacottObsessive]

Setting this up for Strike and Ellacott fans to talk about spoilery things.

I might be tempted to play with this idea in fanfic...

She’d definitely get into robins head....

She already lives there, as the kids say, rent free.

Charlotte wouldn't let a little thing like him telling her not to stop her from calling him a pet name to remind Robin of their intimacy!

I've been planning a fanfic about it all afternoon... But I don't have the patience to actually write it down & even if I did, my cripple self-doubt would stop me sharing it! Please do write one EO & share it with us!

I'm rolling some ideas around. Just finished a fluffy Christmassy one, so I have a little window of brain space in amongst all the other stuff. Just been enjoying making some more of my copious notes on The Silkworm. I was struggling a bit at first, because it's quite an unpleasant book in a few ways, but I'm in the frame of mind to enjoy the humour now, of which there is much, particularly in the absolute skewering of the erotic fiction blogger. I wonder if the manuscript came back with a few queries about the SPAG in those blog entries?

@EllacottObsessive @ISmellLikeRobin yes to more fan fic
I also can totally see Charlotte trying to get into Robins head like that. If that does happen I’d hope Robin wouldn’t totally crumble immediately. I’ve always had the impression that she saw Charlotte, from the outside at least, as everything she thought she should be. But Robin knows at least some of how damaged Charlotte is too and I’d hope she’d have enough self esteem for it not have the intended effect. I think that could actually seal the deal. Strike seems aware of what she’s been through but doesn’t want to assume she needs protection like he did early on. Him getting really pissed at Charlotte because of the way she treats Robin could finally get through to her that it’s over. Robin standing up to Charlotte can prove to Robin she’s so much stronger now and then she can bend Strike backwards and snog him. She’ll needs to nearly drop him too though because he’s huge and we want it to be too Mills and Boons obviously.

I’ve not thought about this a lot of anything....

You know, I'm definitely going to fic it, but can I just say, it really would be a genius dramatic narrative choice in actual canon. Totally in character - Charlotte is a prime candidate for proper stalker behaviour, and we already know it's been signposted from CC that Robin needs to resolve all this. It really would be proper fireworks to write, too. I'd like the asymmetric nature of Matt going out with a whimper and Charlotte going out with a bang, tbh. I know JKR will surprise us, though.

Although, by the time she gets it out, we might have exhausted so many possibilities that someone hit on the plot simply because we covered everything...😅

I am on my 4th read of Troubled Blood on Audible, 3 reread of the series

I am a huge comfort rereader and find this useful in coping with post covid and all the changes.

I am telling you all this because I can't 'Watch' this thread on the app and I lost it for a while
So I am posting to be able to keep up to date

Just listening to Dave Polworth talking about women...

I'm planning a big re-read over Christmas/New Year, as my Christmas plans are now off, and I'm now by myself from Tuesday till approx 4th Jan. So loads of reading/TV time . So EO, if you could also get a move on with several more podcasts please, that would be very much appreciated, ta very much. Also planning a fanfic marathon, I will feel a lot less guilty with Strike/Robin fanfic than my current real person fanfic obsession, which I'm very conflicted about Plus the S/R stuff linked further up was a damn sight better written!

Sorry to hear about your Christmas plans getting cancelled. I'm proper jealous about all the extra reading time though!

I've never read fanfic before this but I'm a bit obsessed now! Some of it is really well written, some is atrocious but my main issue with a lot of it is feeling like they've missed the mark character-wise. Especially in romantic situations - the tendancy seems to be to portray Strike as initially honourably hesitant but then they have Robin being really confident & making the first move. I struggle with that. Personally, I think a much more likely progression for their relationship would have him gently testing the waters, like taking her out for her birthday, & her response encouraging him to continue. I think he'll keep pushing, taking tiny steps until she lets him kiss her goodnight after an evening out. Only at that point do I expect them to actually have a discussion about what they want. I can't see her just randomly seducing him when they happen to get stuck overnight in a hotel. Yes, I'm aware accurate character portrayal isn't really the point of such stories...

Maybe I'm wrong though... Maybe his aroma will indeed bring out her inner dominatrix!

ISmellLikeRobin I sort of have plans to cover that in a future podcast. I agree, in character Robin seems unlikely to be remotely dominant, and I am totally a Strike, first fangirl. But I get why people write her that way - apart from the, erm, erotic edge - it speaks of an affection for the character that wants to see her fet want she wants, and a reflection of the growing confidence of her trajectory.

Which does sound very thought through on my part, and is, but I accept that it's also about lots of people getting horny at the thought of Holliday Grainger as a dominatrix, and I can't say I blame them 🤣

Loving this thread and sit here, nodding away but don't seem to have anything to add. So thanks.

I'm also using the Strike world as a way of surviving at the moment and slowly working towards a project of my own.

Can't get my head around fanfic, though. Just feels wrong somehow but my loss, clearly.

ISmellLikeRobin I agree & it’s one of the reasons that with a few notable exceptions I have struggled with Strike fanfic. I write in another fandom & I get very tetchy when ppl write characters as they’d like them to be rather than as they are.

Being honest though, Robin having been raped is the one thing that sits uneasily with me as it’s such a common trope as to why a female character is ‘damaged’. I love jkr, I really do but it’s the one thing I struggle with

So yes I struggle with fic with Robin being all sexually confident & dominant without showing the working of how this occurs....especially paired with a clueless strike who IS sexually confident & bangs models

I agree EO that it hopefully will be where she ends up though

Well, to be fair, it's a common trope because it's a common thing, and Rowling gives us reality in this which is one of the reasons we connect so well with it. And as much as it feels out of character for her to be whipping Strike into shape sexually, we just have a fairly blank space where her sexuality is, so it's not been presented as 'damage' particularly in a sexual sense for her.

It's not even just the rape that makes me think she'd be less confident. She grew up with 3 brothers who she was taught to prioritise - right from the start she learnt to put the wants of men above her own. Plus, she's only had one partner who was selfish & controlling. I'd honestly be bit surprised if she's ever initiated sex because she wanted it. I think it's much more likely that it was always Matthew who initiated it whenever he wanted. I also suspect he hasn't grown out of a teenage "I'm horny, gimme sex" approach. I can't imagine him properly seducing her.

I really want Strike to take it slowly & to gently find out what she likes but not by asking her outright because I doubt she'd really know herself. She needs someone she trusts to give her the freedom to explore what she likes & I'm sure Strike would be more than happy to help her...

I definitely don't disagree, I think nervous ingenue Robin is definitely how I read her in character, and it's how I've written her when I've approached that aspect. But as much as I dont think she'll be nipple clamps at ten paces, I think the empty space is just that - Rowling simply hasn't given us enough to go on wrt how she is responding to Strike.

My own, more specific take is that she has only ever been with Matthew, from school age on, and was beginning to tire of his blandness when events happened that tied her to him for longer than she really wanted. I think she sees Strike and has quite a primal response to a big, hairy, masculine man, and actually can't quite name what she feels. Yes, there's love feelings, for sure. But I think she's also lusting after him and doesn't have the frame of reference to pin that down.

Interestingly, it was Robin who was first thinking about their proximity to a bed in chapter 58... JKR often references them having feelings for each other that they can't, or won't, name. Perhaps her unrecognisable feelings are lust & his are love - the things they think they've experienced but were actually not.

He recognises his attraction to her from the start - he consciously averts his eyes from her body on multiple occasions so it seems like he recognises his lustful feelings. His "love" frame of reference is Leda & Charlotte, definitely not what he feels for Robin.

She admires him as a person but initially insists she doesn't think he's attractive because, to her, "attractive" is the Matthew type so perhaps she doesn't recognise that there can be different types of attraction.

I love having people to discuss this with! Does anyone join in with the Strike zoom? I saw it being advertised on Twitter but I think I'm too chicken to do it!

Where is it that JKR writes that sex for Robin was more complicated than it was for other people? Or have I imagined that? That's pretty much as much insight as we have at this point - I agree re blank space.

Whereas I get the feeling that for Strike sex is only as complicated as the women he is sleeping with want to make it. They seem to be coming from very different places, so I'm fascinated to see how Rowling is going to bring them together on this.

Perhaps her unrecognisable feelings are lust & his are love - the things they think they've experienced but were actually not.

I like this idea, and I'm going to think about it some more while I reconstruct our family Christmas plans. (I imagine that at this very moment somewhere someone is writing a Strike and Robin get stuck in Tier 4 for Christmas together fanfic.)

I was struggling a bit at first, because it's quite an unpleasant book in a few ways, but I'm in the frame of mind to enjoy the humour now, of which there is much, particularly in the absolute skewering of the erotic fiction blogger. I wonder if the manuscript came back with a few queries about the SPAG in those blog entries?

Rowling is absolutely brutal to Kathryn and Pippa in The Silkworm (and I think how she has written the trans character is very interesting but I'll stay away from that here). The thought of Rowling seeing anything I have written on the internet and putting it in a book is almost enough to make me want to delete my entire internet history. Actually, what if she writes a character who is a Mumsnetter who enthusiastically contributes to a fan thread? May she not be reading this one...

I wonder if she does read any fanfic... I definitely would if I'd written something that got so much attention - I'd want to know whether other people understood the characters as I did in my head or whether I needed to change something about my description to communicate essential parts of their personalities more clearly.

I'm not JKR, just in case anyone was in any doubt! I think it's probably pretty clear from my waffling that I don't have the same writing style!

According to Dd3, JKR asked that people didn't publish HP fanfic, so presumably wasn't a fan. Although I doubt there's much to done about it now tbh

Rowling has read fanfic, because her description of it was it was weird, like someone coming into her house and moving the furniture round, so she deliberately swerves it subsequently. It also means she can make sure she also avoids any over enthusiastic amateur claiming she nicked their idea to have Robin and Strike kiss on the dancefloor of a nightclub at Christmas or whatever...

Honestly, Rowling can trawl my history. I don't reckon she could be half as brutal as I am to my (own, original) characters, and authors always draw on their own lives. I comfort myself that my SPaG is ok, and I've rarely used a phrase as pseudo-meaningful as 'the Heart has it's reasons, which Reasons don't know'

However, she is extremely generous in her Robert Galbraith interviews, talking about her writing process, and I've often found her insight very helpful.

Having not read the fanfic (still... Resisting...) I lean towards a very gentle Strike and Robin encounter.

The TB "almost" moment where they're interrupted was tantalising (haven't got to it again yet in my reread) but I'm glad it didn't go any further at that point. I do wonder in a way, thoug, that Strike might be more reticent than Robin due to not wanting to screw it up and she might try to be more forward to compensate?

So, anyway, it occurs to me that JKR tends to always have a plot reason for everything

I've just finished the scene where Morris is fired. Was he only there for this book (Shifty's PA and Robin's character dev) or do we think he'll be back in the future?

Also whilst I'm on the subject, Barclay. I like him, but it occurs to me that he's an example of men knowing when other men's behaviour towards women is poor, but never calling them out first. A contrast to Strike.

I got distracted from MN by attempting to write my own fanfic. Now I feel bad! I wasn't planning on sharing it with anyone so it's more of a "imagining how I might arrange someone's furniture" than an actual rearrangement...

I hope Morris was just for this book. Really don't want to have any more of him!

Yy, re: Barclay. He seems like a nice enough guy but his only complaint to Strike was that Morris talked too much in the car. At least Hutchins raised the issue of his smarmy-ness!

BebeStevens Do you think that is because he's not bothered enough, or because Strike is the boss and Barclay doesn't want to cause trouble in the agency?

Keep resisting the fanfic - there are some shockers being posted, that I will never be able to unread... I need some palate-cleansing chapter 58, I think.