tom hiddleston – Page 2 – Alex Acks: Sound and Nerdery

Comes the Huntsman

And I am done with my graceless heart
so tonight I’m gonna cut it out and then restart
– Florence + the Machine Shake It Out

As of today, my story Comes the Huntsman is online at Strange Horizons, available to be read for free. (Though you should consider donating to SH if you like the story!) This is my best work to date, so please go read it, and tell your friends if you like it! Being published in Strange Horizons has been my dream since I started writing seriously again, so today feels unreal for a multitude of reasons.

You see, Comes the Huntsman was not a story I actually intended to write. Nothing remotely like it, in fact.

I wrote it all in one sitting on February 8th of this year, because it was Tom Hiddleston’s birthday in less than 24 hours. I am an unabashed fan, and I’d been intending to get something written to send in with all the other fanworks for the big, gleeful happy birthday package. Unfortunately, I had a rough semester, then I was out of the country for nearly a month and a half for various reasons and it just didn’t happen.

So I sat in front of my computer and decided that damnit, I would write something, and then I’d post it online, spread it around Twitter a bit, and feel like at least I made the attempt and let my fan flag fly. I was vaguely shooting for something cute, fluffy, and quite possibly fan-fiction.

That’s obviously not what happened.

I was in tears as I wrote the story, not necessarily out of sadness but because writing the thing just felt overwhelming. I was in tears all over again when I re-read it. I sent it to my dear friend Rynn, not really sure what I should do because I knew why I’d set out to write the story, and it had gone where it needed to go instead of where I intended it to end up. I didn’t have time to write another story, and I didn’t know if it was any good, and and and–

Rynn’s the one that told me it was good, that I should try to have it published. I flailed at her via gchat about butbutbut and this was supposed to be a gift and so many other worries. Well yes, it can still be a birthday present. That’s what dedications are for, if you feel like it’s what you want to give.

It wasn’t anything I ever intended, but I looked at Comes the Huntsman and knew I’d written it with someone in mind.

So that’s the reason behind the dedication. I see no reason to act as if it’s some coy secret that the mysterious Mr. T. H. is indeed Tom Hiddleston, whom I have never had the privilege of meeting but respect greatly as an artist and a genuinely good human being. (In my book, there aren’t too many better compliments than that.) Sorry it’s a bit late, but sometimes I still have the bad habit of doing things at the last minute.

Since this story was intended to be a gift, and as far as I’m concerned is whether it ever reaches the intended recipient or no, I don’t feel right about keeping the payment. I might be a grad student but I’m doing okay, and I know there are people who can put the money to better use than I. If I by some miracle hear from the incredibly busy man himself (I’ll be holding the money for a couple of months just in case), I’ll be more than happy to send the money wherever he might like since I don’t feel it’s my story in that way.

Comes the Huntsman is a special story for me for many reasons beyond its emotional content. It’s the third short story I’ve sold at a professional rate, which means I get to – as I’ve jokingly said – wear the big girl writerpants from here on out. Three short stories at $.05+/word is a magical border (at least in my genre) that makes one a “professional” writer. I can no longer submit stories to Writers of the Future, or any other publications/contests that are aimed at non-professional or semi-professional writers. That alone is enough to make this a profound day in my life as a would-be artist.

I normally don’t write stories like this, ones where you just let your heart have its say without filtering it through your brain first. I was so out of my comfort zone as a writer that I’ve yet to find my way back. But even more so, writing a story for someone is a very powerful experience, full of uncertainty and churning worries. You spend a lot of time worrying about if this thing you’ve drawn from yourself and shown to the world is worthy, what other people will think, if it will be a welcome gift. When it’s a situation as odd as this, you take a lot of those worries and turn them up to 11. (Supposedly grown-up nobody writing a story for a famous movie star who is completely unaware of her existence? Psh. Give me a break.)

To hell with all of that. I refuse to be anything but proud of what I’ve written and why. I want to love, create, and give without fear. In my experience, you will always have more regrets about the things you haven’t done, as opposed the things you possessed the bravery (or madness) to do.

Or:
And it’s hard to dance with the devil on your back
So shake him out.

Sing it, Flo.

UPDATE: The payment money has now been donated. More here.

Thor Loki Makes Me Go Squee

I liked the hell out of Thor; it’s a fun movie, and I hope I’ll get to see it again while it’s still in theaters. Watch out, mateys, THAR BE SPOILERS AHEAD!

SPOILERS

I liked Thor as a character well enough, and I appreciated that his major arc was realizing that he was kind of a dick and getting over himself. But it actually surprised me a lot that my favorite character out of that movie was Loki. I’m used to feeling fairly meh about comic book villains, but Loki felt like he had a lot of complexity to him.

And I swear, it’s not just because I’ve got a cat named Loki too.

Tom Hiddleston does an amazing job with the character. Loki’s constantly broody and thinky and plotty, and is obviously the smartest guy around, but at the same time just gets screwed again and again by his own issues. I’ve now read a couple of interviews with Mr. Hiddleston where he says Loki just really needs a lot of prozac and a lot of therapy. I’d definitely add a lot of hugs in there too, because damn I ended up feeling really bad for the guy for most of the movie. Yes, a lot of the bad stuff is his own fault for being all plotty and wanting to cause trouble, but the whole bit where he finds out he’s actually just a runty frost giant that Odin adopted… yeah, man needed a hug right then. It’s really not the sort of thing that you want to discover on your own.

I really see his major head-explodey moment there as the reason Loki just goes off the rails and crosses from being a crafty trouble-maker to an actual bad guy. I’ve read a bit of summary from the comics now, but the way it was really presented in the movie was:

a) Odin really does seem earnest that he loves both Thor and Loki equally.

b) Loki seems just as genuinely convinced that Odin can’t possibly love him that much. And there’s a certain logic too it even if you just look at the movie and nothing else… considering how everyone in Asgard seems to feel about the frost giants, it’s probably hard to imagine daddy genuinely loving you at all if you’re actually one of them.

c) Thor is the default good son, even though he starts off as kind of a douchebag.

d) And Loki is actually right when he points out that Douchebag!Thor would be a horrible king that Asgard needed “saving” from. Though at that point, you can’t quite be sure if he says that because he really means it, because he’s trying to convince himself that he’s got a noble reason for doing what he’s doing, or if he’s once again just really trying to fuck with people.

So of course it’s all wonderfully angsty, and that rolls into a lot of anger and that weird sort of love/hate that only siblings can manage to have for each other in these sorts of stories. The final epic fight that Loki has with Thor was definitely Loki trying to prove something to someone, but there are just so many ways that it could be read. If nothing else, I really wonder about Loki deciding to destroy the frost giants, as if that sort of over the top gesture would somehow make him not one of them by showing that damnit, he hated frost giants more than any other Asgardian possibly could.

Now, from the comic summaries I’ve read, it sounds like Thor really was the golden boy that daddy loved best, and that even if no one necessarily knew what Loki was, he also lacked the sheer physical presence in the form of enormous muscles that residents of Asgard seem to prize. But to be honest, I actually prefer the movie take from the standpoint of character complexity; it’s more interesting if dad really does love his sons equally, I think.

I am definitely, definitely, DEFINITELY looking forward to seeing Loki in the Avengers movie. If nothing else, I cannot wait to see what Joss Whedon does with him in the script, since Joss is the absolute king of the the complex and interesting evil-but-not-really-just-needs-a-hug villain. And from the little stinger that comes after the credits on Thor, Loki seems set to be prominent in the next film. Though considering that Thor also left the title character stranded in Asgard, I’ll be interested to see how the Avengers actually all manage to get together to begin with.

/SPOILERS

Wonderful stuff. Makes me wish I still wrote fanfic, to be honest.

Off the topic of my new fan obsession, Heimdall was amazing as well. Even without taking in to account that casting Idris Elba pissed off the white supremacists to no end (WIN!) he did a really good performance as an immensely intimidating and exceptionally patient god. I loved it.