I’ve got it in my
head, somehow, that Ginger Rogers is Steve G. Rogers/Captain America’s aunt.
Now, I know that Ginger Rogers was a stage name, so I’m thinking maybe she
wasn’t Steve’s dad’s biological sister, maybe more an honourary aunt. Like the
lady next door who helped raise the kids, or your parent’s childhood BFF.
And she always liked the name ‘Rogers’ – nice,
solid sounding name. So she used it for her stage name.
She didn’t like it
in the way that she wanted to be Joseph’s wife – Joe was like a brother to her,
that would be weird. Besides, Sarah was a super classy dame and sassy as a
spitfire to boot, and Ginger loved teasing her and calling her “Sis”.
Steven was born in
1920, and Ginger didn’t hit the height of her fame until 1938. So in between
she was just Aunty Ginny, who was away at dance classes a lot, and sometimes
doing shows, but always had time to swing by the Rogers tenement apartment with
some boiled sweets and some chatter.
When Steven was six, uncoordinated, gangly, still
unsteady on his feet, Aunt Ginny suggested she teach Steven to dance a little,
maybe help out his coordination. And Joe, who had swept Sarah off her feet with
a few well-placed dance moves taught to him by Gin, whole-heartedly approved.
And it’s not like
Aunty Gin wasn’t used to dancing with skinny little guys.
Ginger Rogers took her name from her mother’s second husband, so he could be an uncle to Steve, (and Ginger his aunt by marriage) but Ginger was a star on Broadway when she was 19, in 1926, so that would have been a big deal – and by 1930 she was in Hollywood, and Ginger never danced with a partner before Fred Astaire and couldn’t tap, she literally learned how as she went – Ginger always thought of herself as an actress who danced, not a dancer who acted, the proudest moment of her career was when she won an Oscar for Best Actress for a dramatic role, Kitty Foyle, she became a director at age 73.
OH! Thank you for all the corrections! Readers: Adjust your headcannons accordingly!
BUT, think of all the things you could add! Steve loves movies, and his aunt was a movie star! Steve had a war bonds tour with the USO, and so did Ginger Rogers, (so maybe he wasn’t certain about doing it, but she helped him through it) and Steve was out in Hollywood making Cap films before he went overseas. What does Steve think about all the pinups of his aunt in solider’s footlockers? Maybe he gives Bucky the present of one of them autographed. but Ginger was smart and determined and fought for her rights, and strong (she was the only partner of Fred Astaire who never cried in exhaustion at the grueling dance rehearsals) . Maybe Steve sees a lot of her in Peggy.
Oh, karadin you’re a goddess. YES. All these. YES.
But she hasn’t told anyone and doesn’t plan to yet.
The only person that she has told is her editor, and said that her editor felt like vomiting afterwards.
All she will say is that a certain spell is involved, and then a horrific act is performed.
i want to know what it is so badly
Okay, let’s think about this for a second.
We know that making Horcruxes involves murder. It’s essential. So the “certain spell” is probably Avada Kedavra….with some extra words added to it to use the energy created by the death to split the soul.
What intrigues me is the “horrific act” aspect and the fact that the editor wanted to vomit after hearing it. So what could that be? It can’t just be the act of murder itself, which, as horrifying as that is, is exactly vomit inducing in the grand scheme of things.
So if we take the murder itself out of the equation, what other activity could be considered horrific enough to make someone want to ralph? Well, my warped mind can think of at least two.
1) Necrophilia. Now I don’t actually think this is the answer, but it’s gross enough to make anyone vomit on the spot, so I’m throwing it out there. I just don’t think that’s it at all. My personal theory is…
2) Cannibalism. There are a lot of cultures that believe that to eat the flesh of one’s enemies is take your enemies’ power into yourself. Most specifically the heart, though really any flesh or organs would do. So does Voldemort eat the dead as his “horrific act”? I think this one is the most likely and is grotesque and taboo enough that it turns the stomach.
Also, consider this fact: HIS FOLLOWERS ARE CALLED DEATH EATERS. Hmmm. Weird, right?
There’s an obvious problem in these theories though. If either these acts is essential to creating the Horcrux, HOW DID VOLDEMORT ACCIDENTALLY CREATE A HORCRUX WHEN HE TRIED TO KILL HARRY AS A BABY AND NOT KNOW IT? Voldemort didn’t have time to cannibalize Lily. And he certainly didn’t sexually assault her corpse, thank GOD. So how did he turned Harry into a Horcrux that night in Godric’s Hollow?
Consider this: nowhere in the text does it say that Voldemort’s physical body was found in the wreckage of the Potter’s house. Perhaps when the spell rebounded on him….he…ate himself. Not physically chewed himself up and swallowed, but more in a magical way. Think of it like the house being sucked into the Other Side at the end of Poltergeist.
His spirit was so corrupted that it devoured his physical body when the Killing Curse was turned back on him. That would be the cannibalistic act needed to create the Horcrux. And perhaps Voldemort wouldn’t realize that it was a cannibalistic act? He probably wouldn’t even think to consider the fact that his rotten, fractured soul ate his body.
I got an email from a reader earlier. The sender was a lovely young woman who had just re-read my first published fic and wanted to tell me how much she enjoyed it—how it made her feel, how it made her smile, how it made her cry, how it made her excited to get home each night and curl up in bed with it, how it helped ease the pain of a difficult patch in her life, and how much she misses it now that it’s over. It was a beautiful letter, and my reaction to it must have been visible enough to make my saner half take notice from across the room. He shot me a questioning look, and I turned the laptop around and gestured to the screen.
I followed his eyes as they scanned each line, saw his lips tip up in a smile that grew broader as he read, then braced myself for the good natured snark I’ve come to expect when my little literary hobby comes up in conversation.
“Wow.” He said. “That was kind of amazing. How does it feel to be someone’s favorite author?”
“Don’t be a dick,” I said, slapping him on the shoulder.
“I’m serious,” he replied, gesturing to the screen. "That’s what she said—right there: You’re my favorite author.”
“I think she means favorite fic author. Not real author.”
“Is there a difference?” He asked.
“Yes,” I said, rolling my eyes. ”Of course there is.”
“Why?”
“Because, as someone in this room who isn’t ME is fond of pointing out, self published gay mystery romance novels aren’t exactly eligible for the pulitzer.” I said, turning the computer back around.
“So what?” he shrugged, “Something you wrote inspired a stranger to sit down write what it meant to them and send it to you. A lot of total strangers, as a matter of fact. You write, people read it and react. That makes you an author.”
“Huh.” I said, very eloquently, then got up and went into the kitchen to start dinner.
Hours later, sitting down to reply to the letter in question I find myself writing this post instead. Because here’s the thing: That wonderfully crazy man who lives in my house is right. (But please don’t tell him I said that)
From the moment I realized that letters made up words and words made up sentences and sentences made up worlds that were mine to explore any time I wanted to I’ve been a reader. I have fallen in love with perfect phrases and epic stories and countless characters pressed between the pages of the thousands of books I’ve read in my life so far—and sitting down to string together those same 26 letters into tens of thousands of words of stories I felt needed telling? That makes me an author.
I have adored the work of countless authors in numerous genres, and the world of fan fic is no exception. I have admired and cherished and savored the words of talented writers whose work is no less legitimate for the fact that their names include random keyboard characters and their words don’t live on bound paper on a shelf.
It’s not JUST fan fic. It’s literature. It’s published. It’s read. It’s loved.
It matters.
Thanks to all of my favorite authors for every word on every page on every screen that I’ve ever loved.
Reblog for the sweet anon who asked me if I thought fanfic was as important as “real” fiction. Hope this answers your question. 🙂
Thanks for reading my work, so happy you’re enjoying In The Library!
Read this. Take it to heart. REMEMBER IT.
Comments are the best
They really are. Anything that manages to touch another person, make their life – their day, a particular minute – better is invaluable.
“Let us not desert one another; we are an injured body. Although our
productions have afforded more extensive and unaffected pleasure than
any other literary corporation in this world, no species of composition
has been so much decried. … There seems almost a general wish of
decrying the capacity and under-valuing the labour of the novelist, and
of slighting the performances which have only genius, wit, and taste to
recommend them.“
–Jane Austen, defending that most reviled of genres: the novel.
As Joanna Russ says in How to Suppress Women’s Writing, “Jane Austen … worked (as some critics tend to forget) in a genre that had been dominated by women for a century and one that was looked down upon as trash, a position that may have given her considerable artistic freedom.”
This is us, now. This is fanfic.
Russ also writes that “women always write in the vernacular. Not
strictly true, and yet it explains a lot. It certainly explains letters
and diaries. … It explains why so many wrote ghost stories in the
nineteenth century and still write them.”
As I’ve said before, what is more vernacular in the 21st century than ephemeral, fannish internet porn? This is us. We are part of the long tradition of women writing and being told their writing is not real and does not matter, that the things we love and value are worthless and foolish, for so long that we even begin to believe it.
Our work is real work. Our writing is real writing. Our stories matter. Our community matters. We are here, together, doing this thing. This is real life. This counts. If you write something on the internet, you write it in real life.
Fanfic matters. Fanfic is literature. Fanfic is literature that breaks the bounds printing technology and capitalism once imposed on the wide distribution of the written word. Copyright law, royalties, the logistics of producing and selling paperback books, none of those can touch the heart of what a story is. None of those make your story any less a real story that can really touch another person.
If anyone tries to tell you different, you can tell them Jane Austen begs to differ.
