#i read more fanfic than original fiction these days
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Ten Books To Know Me
Rules: 10 (non-ancient) books for people to get to know you better, or that you just really like.
I’m considering myself tagged by @that-banhus and @fancy-rock-dove!! I sadly suffer from Gifted Kid Burnout Syndrome currently engaged in a very time-consuming course of study which means I haven’t read a single book from cover to cover in about two years (and I stayed in the YA genre for far too long because it’s easy brain candy) so I’m sorry to say that none of mine will be fancy or sophisticated or longer than about 300 pages. Nonetheless, I enjoyed reminiscing back on some of my childhood favorites that shaped me and some of the series that sustained me throughout my life since!
The DragonKeeper Chronicles Series by Donita K. Paul - I wasn’t raised religiously but I devoured these books like there was no tomorrow. I adored Kale and Bardon and Dar and their whole host of dragon friends (Wizard Fenworth my beloved). If you can stomach or ignore the fairly obvious Christian themes, I highly recommend them for a bit of brain candy.
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley - this was the first classic book I ever read and it captivated me endlessly. It was the only school book I actually finished and enjoyed. Stories within stories, creator vs creation, voyages that you undertake knowing that you can never go home, this book has it all.
The All For The Game Series by Nora Sakavic - this series comes with a pretty heavy trigger warning for anyone interested in reading it. Centered around a made up sport and a kid on the run from the mafia, it’s dark and intense and drew me in like no other series ever has. Fans of the series will often proudly proclaim that the books make no sense, that the made up sport is confusing at best (absolutely incomprehensible at worst), and that not enough trigger warnings in the world will prepare you for what you’re about to dive into and I fully endorse all three statements. I also fully believe that these books helped me revolutionize how I view relationships between traumatized people (relationships that may not seem healthy to those not involved but are built on a strong foundation of trust and consent), how a good story should end, and showed how healing looks different for everyone. It’s not a book series I recommend lightly but I wholeheartedly recommend it. Proceed with caution.
Six of Crows Duology by Leigh Bardugo - I couldn’t ever get invested in the Shadow and Bone series, but I couldn’t put SoC down. Even now, I can’t explain why it enthralled me so much except to say… morally grey characters are hot, no matter what gender they are 👀
The Raven Cycle by Maggie Stiefvater - rounding out the trio of book series that are often mentioned in the same breath (AFTG, SoC, and TRC), The Raven Cycle is a fabulous series centering around four rich boys and the girl who had always been taught to hate them. There’s magic and prophecies and car racing and an enchanted forest and ghosts. It’s a very rich story so every read-through gives up more secrets than the last time you flipped through it.
The Genome Odyssey by Euan Angus Ashley - A sharp veering turn from the previous books, this book helped to shape my passion in my (hopefully) future career. It tells the story of the genome, from its discovery to present day, and how it’s been used to diagnose previously unheard of and incurable genetic diseases, saving countless lives in the process. The author personally worked on every project detailed in the book and every chapter packed such an emotional punch that I had to put it down several times. A must-read if you need to be reminded just how good humanity can be.
The Martian by Andy Weir - This is a relatively recent addition to my ‘favorite books’ shelf but I read this like my life depended on it. I laughed, I cried, and my faith in humanity was restored. I was raised with the same style of dry wit and dark humor that the main character uses to keep his hopes and spirits up while trapped on Mars so reading his inner thoughts often felt like I was catching a glimpse into my own head. I know I’m late to the bandwagon but better late than never. A fantastic book that deserves a reread in the near future (as soon as I have time 😅)
Razorblade Tears by S. A. Cosby - When a queer couple is killed, their homophobic ex-con fathers meet at the funeral and vow to find who killed their sons. Over the course of their journey for revenge, they start to better understand their sons, each other, and themselves. A book about healing overcoming repression and toxic masculinity.
Redwall by Brian Jacques - an oldie but a goodie. Oh to be a small mouse eating fresh-caught fish and defending your abbey against rats. Every single detail of this story was so masterfully laid-out and described. Reading the first scene never fails to make me hungry and the entire book sweeps you away from beginning to end.
Where Hope Comes From by Nikita Gill - I had to sprinkle in some poetry to the list. This is an anthology of poems written during the Covid lockdown detailing the author’s struggle with despair and eventually finding hope again, even in the most mundane of scenarios. It carries a strong message of positivity while stressing the importance of allowing yourself to feel “negative” emotions too. An excellent read for any poetry fans open to free verse or anyone struggling with their own despair.
As always, I’m not sure who to tag so I’m throwing it open to @aquilathefighter, @virgo-dream, @mathomhouse-e, @ladymegana, and the rest of the Dreamling Nation server! Please tag me, I need book recs!
#thanks for the tag!#oh god it’s all ya novels#i don’t want to be embarrassed by this but#i am slightly#oh well#i read more fanfic than original fiction these days#because my brain is fucked and only likes instant gratification#adhd go brrrr
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I have really mixed feelings about the small proportion of F/F fiction (original or fanfic), because yeah sure, people have their desires, they should write what they want, I get it. It all works out when I hear it from person to person. But somehow the logic only ever applies in one direction? "There are more male protagonists because men only care about male characters! Women also mostly care about male characters, because that's the majority of characters they get!" And then somehow we also yet kvetch when men write female characters (because it's incorrectly or something, nevermind if women are writing male characters correctly). Why don't we expect gay men to feel compelled only by femslash for the same reasons (but gender swapped) as the lesbian slashers/fujoshi? All of those very rational justifications are applied selectively, "for me for not for thee," and it all only leads to "idk I just don't wanna write femslash", for Reasons. Do we get to call them microaggressions yet?
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No, you don't get to call other people's fantasy life a microaggression.
That is indeed "for me but not for thee" in the sense that you get to want what you want but other people aren't supposed to follow their id.
Do you also police gay men who spend too much time on drag and obsessing over female divas? That's an actual real world behavior that's somewhat equivalent. It frequently goes unchallenged, at least by progressives, because men are allowed to do whatever they want with chick stuff, while women are "stealing" if they dare to stray into dude stuff.
(God, I've seen so much more policing of drag kings being ~problematic~ for acting out stereotypical gender than policing of drag queens for the same. It's nuts!)
Fujoshi are often queer, but it's absurd to think we're mostly lesbians. We tend to be bi or asexual women with gender stuff going on, though there is a mix of everybody, including lesbians. There are also a lot of AFAB non-women who get lumped in with us. On the rare occasions I find a man willing to admit to being a similar demographic, he usually does like gender play in his hobbies and entertainment. It's just that men face even more pressure than women do to fit into tidy categories. Bi women get told we're whores. Bi men are told they don't exist.
Yes, I know plenty of lesbians who write more m/m than f/f, but in the big picture of all of AO3 or all of fanfic or all of media, they aren't the demographic driving these numbers. They're vastly outnumbered by the bi women, the asexual women, and the straight and gnc women.
The men we should be looking at as an equivalent aren't cis gay men but bicurious soy boys and the like.
Do most of us fujoshi object to equivalent men doing an equivalent thing? I've seen it sometimes, and I agree it's hypocritical. I'd like us to afford men the same ability to play and take on identities in their art. I remember enjoying Ranma fandom back in the day and reading quite a lot of f/f that was probably by men. It had some of that same sense of distance and fantasy that I so enjoy in m/m aimed at fujoshi. (I do consume some by-cis-gay, for-cis-gay content, both m/m and f/f, but it's often too literal and too bound up in specific named identities for my taste.)
On average, the people I see complaining most about men producing f/f material are the same people who think that because I have a clit, I should center my life around women exclusively. In other words, people spouting radfem ideology, perhaps on purpose or perhaps without realizing.
I do agree that some of the ways of expressing a lack of desire to write femslash can get pretty douchey. I want us to move away from some of the less accurate ones like "There are no compelling female characters" because of this.
But the reason for all these jerkass explanations is that women and people perceived as women who like m/m are constantly asked to explain ourselves. These aren't usually microaggressions: they're openly hostile. People get defensive and try to answer with important-sounding reasons about identity and pain because society at large won't accept "I like this" as the true explanation.
Pleasure is never enough of a reason for a woman to do something.
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just saw ur gale/mystra analysis post. im new to the game and dnd lore and honestly… ur take on their relationship feels like the most natural/compelling one??? esp since its all too easy to simplify topics that have many facets and nuance….
thanks for sharing i love analysis and reading people’s takes on narratives : D
My pleasure! (Bee from the future here: congrats, you spawned another meta!)
I love complicated characters, WAY more than I like a clear cut-and-dry case. Flaws, to me, are what make a character compelling and lead to interesting stories about them with choices that can get them into situations. I'm both writing a fanfic and running a campaign where I'm playing as Gale, and in the interest of portraying him properly and in-character, I've gone into SUCH a deep dive into all the decisions and facts that make him him.
It helps to, y'know, also be in love with the fictional wizard, but I digress
The thing about Baldur's Gate 3 is that no character in there is perfect. I've seen a couple analyses about the theme of continuing cycles of abuse vs breaking out of them, but in my mind, in terms of the characters themselves, it goes like this:
The origin characters have just come out of the lowest situation of their lives (Lae'zel being the exception; being tadpoled is a gith's worst nightmare. You're seeing that lowest situation in real time).
Not the lowest point, mind. Gale's lowest was probably the day after he got the Orb. Wyll's was probably the day his father cast him out. Karlach's was the day she lost her heart. But the lowest, accepted normal for them is what they've just left.
They're then thrown out of their depth and forced to rely on you to live. That's #1 priority: living. We get the extremes of these characters before we get their nuances, because they're quite literally at their breaking points.
Then once we get to know them, we see their wants, their hopes, their fears, as they open up to us. Every companion's story is at their own pace, but they all have a moment where they ping-pong between despondency and desire. Sometimes that desire is what we know isn't good for them, like Shadowheart wanting to be a Dark Justiciar. Sometimes that despondency is only for a flicker, like Astarion's realization that he's condemned 7000 people to a half-life of tortured spawnhood for as long as he's been a vampire.
Romance lets us crack all that open more, because if you pursue a romantic partner, they see you as their closest confidant. They WANT to trust you, so they're more willing to explain how they see the world and what decisions they want to chase.
And then their endings. Those often get simplified as good/bad, continuing the cycle vs breaking away from it. But how is Duke Wyll on the same platform as Ascended Astarion? He's not evil, he's not even entirely unhappy. He might even have broken out of his abusive cycle with Mizora, if you played your cards right. And Ascended Astarion is overjoyed, even if he is remarkably more cold.
I think that the endings are less a dichotomy of "this is good for them" vs "this is bad for them," and more one of "bringing out their best traits" vs "bringing out their worst."
Wyll's worst trait is being willing to sacrifice his own wants for whatever people desire of him. His best is standing for what he believes in and ensuring people are safe. Duke Wyll leans into that necessity to turn the other cheek in the name of people who count on him, while the Blade of Avernus has seized that moral compass of his and forged it out of mithral.
Shadowheart's worst trait is blind obedience at the cost of her individuality, while her best is her desire to be kind to things that don't deserve to be hurt. Mother Superior Shadowheart's whole life is defined by Shar. Selûnite Shadowheart's life is defined by her hospitality, especially towards animals.
Karlach's worst trait is how willing she is to accept that things are (to quote her) fucked, letting despair override hope. Her best is her durability in the face of horror. Exploded Karlach would rather die than try to work out a solution in the Hells, because she's terrified of facing Zariel alone. Mindflayer Karlach has accepted her fate and decides to give up her heart and soul to go out a hero, losing who she is. Fury of Avernus Karlach is willing to keep fighting for a solution, and by the time the epilogue happens, she's got her sights set on one.
Astarion's worst trait is his desire for power over people. His best trait is using the tools he has to his advantage. Ascended Astarion has let his powerhungry nature and paranoia lead all of his decisions, with his sights set on dominating mankind. Spawn Astarion has embraced what he is, and carved out a life for himself where he can do as he pleases.
Lae'zel's worst trait is her blind fanaticism, while her best trait is her individual dedication, making her loyalty a marriage of the two. Ascended Lae'zel is a meal for the lich queen, turning a blind eye to all Vlaakith's tried to do to her and literally being consumed by her fervor. Champion of Orpheus Lae'zel has turned her loyalty into something productive for diplomacy. Faerûnian Lae'zel has seized her individuality by the throat and decided her own future.
And then Gale. Gale's worst traits are his hubris and, paradoxically, his low self worth. His best traits are his creativity and wonder for the world. God Gale is the embodiment of ambition, having burned away all but that in pursuit of perfection. Exploded Gale has let his remorse blot out all hope for a redemption in which he does not die, because he thinks he's earned it. Professor Gale leads his life by embracing the school of Illusion and letting his creativity thrive, teaching others to do the same. House Husband Gale has multiple creative projects he's working on, and Adventurer Gale is always finding new sights to see and wanting to share them with you.
There are arguments to be made on which ending the origins are happiest in, certainly, or which one benefits them the most, but each ending represents the extreme of a facet they possess.
So with all that, there's a sort of malleable method to figuring out the ins and outs of a character.
You take their endings—all of them, all variables they can have—and reverse-engineer the flaws and details they carry. Then you start to notice how those work into their approvals for minor things: Astarion approving of your taking of the Blood of Lathander, or Shadowheart approving of standing up for Arabella. Getting a list of approvals and disapprovals is helpful, but having those endings on hand tells you why they react like that to a majority of their decisions.
You take their romance-route explanations of how they act, and apply those to earlier decisions. Astarion's confession to manipulating you and Araj-prompted admittance to using himself as a tool brings to light how he reacts to your decisions, regardless of his actual opinions on them. Wyll's fairytale romance and love of poetic adages speaks to his idealistic nature, and why he takes a sometimes-blinded approach to decisions in which the "right" answer isn't always the smart one.
You take their beginning reactions to stress and use that to measure how future decisions impact them. Lae'zel locks down and gets snappy when she's scared, while Gale immediately turns to diplomacy. Shadowheart has gallows humor, while Wyll turns to quiet acceptance. If they break from these and seem even worse, you know the situation is more dire in their minds than having seven days to live.
And then you factor in all their fun facts and dialogue choices and backstories.
A wizard falls in love with a goddess and her magic, attempts to retrieve a piece of her power for her, is scorned for his attempt and is cursed to die.
Give that backstory to a Tav. Look at how it changes.
A chaotic good wizard fell in love with a goddess, thought retrieving a piece of power for her would be a showy bouquet of love, and was punished for not thinking things through.
A lawful evil wizard fell in love with a goddess's power, snatched the most precious thing she owned, tried to use it to barter his way through to the secrets she kept, and was given a swift retribution.
Same backstory. Same class, same act, same goddess. Wildly different connotations. Wildly different conclusions as to who is in the wrong.
If you take all there is to Gale, all that the game shows us makes up his character, and apply it to this backstory, you get what really happened:
A wizard, enamored with magic, fell in love with a goddess. His desires led him to want more than she was willing to give. In his well-buried fear of inadequacy, he concluded that the reason she wouldn't indulge his ambitions was because he just hadn't proven himself worthy enough. So he tried to prove himself, but he lacked the context for what he was proving himself with. And the goddess, seeing a weapon that had killed her predecessor, saw this ambitious wizard as losing his way and coming for her just like the weapon's creator had. She was angry, she withdrew his link to her, and he didn't know why. So he drew the conclusion that she took his powers to punish him, and let that encompass his fall from grace.
Was he wrong to reach for what was out there?
If you knew that the answers to everything you cared about were not only known, but kept by someone you loved—someone who adored you—what would you do to ask to see them? What if your curiosities were if there were other planets with life out there, or how dark matter worked, or whether or not we could one day travel in the stars? What if it was the potential cure to an illness that's little-understood, or the way to make a program you dreamt up, or the scope of the true limits of your artistic talents? Would your answer change?
Was she wrong to cut him off?
If you were once hurt, and the person you loved—the person who adored you—brought the thing that caused it to your door, believing you'd want it, how would you react to seeing it? What if that thing was someone you thought you'd broken contact with, like a friend or family member you'd been trying to avoid? Would your answer change?
That's the sort of scope that needs to be applied to this, on both sides. You have to take the perspectives of each party, and apply two analogies instead of one.
Gale saw the vastness of the universe, untold wonders, the solution to every question he could ever dream up, and saw Mystra as withholding this from him because she thought he just wasn't worthy enough. To claim Mystra knew his perspective does her a disservice.
Mystra saw a cruel weapon she thought long gone, in the hands of someone who could use it, brought right to her, and thought Gale was willingly following the path of Karsus. To claim Gale knew her perspective does him a disservice.
Should Gale have researched his prize more, so he knew just what he was obtaining? Should he have kept his hands off a cursed book that would devour him? Of course he should have.
Should he have given up on chasing his dreams?
Should Mystra have understood that Gale's pursuit of power was nothing like Karsus'? Should she have communicated when she was angry instead of giving the cold shoulder? Of course she should have.
Should she have given him the benefit of the doubt?
That's the root of their falling out. That's what leads to hurt being inflicted. Understandable, human reactions to the situations they perceive. Unhealthy, unwise choices made afterwards.
You work backwards from this to figure out their dynamic as Chosen and goddess. You work forward from this to understand more of where Gale and Mystra are during the events of Baldur's Gate 3. Gale reached too high, and understands this. His goddess hates him, and he regrets this. Mystra isolated Gale, and understands this. Her Chosen wants redemption, and she wants to make it happen.
Just like we took Gale's character into account, we also have to take Mystra's.
A goddess is faced with a problem. She uses someone who's desperate for approval to solve it, by telling him to kill himself.
An evil goddess is faced with a threat to her reign. She sees someone who's unfailingly loyal and hates himself, and elects to have him tear himself apart rather than do anything about it.
A good goddess is terrified of the future. She sees someone who tried to hurt her, who's going to die anyways, and tells him to use it to save the world.
Same story. Same act, same power, same pawn. Different character. Different perspective. Different outlook on whether or not this is the right thing to do.
Mystra has died, multiple times, to people trying to stake claim to her domain. Someone appears with the very thing that could do it again, right as she's regained her stability.
She does not see mortals the way mortals do. She is timeless. She is eternal. She has a duty to protect billions of people, and one person lost to protect that number is more than worth the sacrifice.
People like to bring up the Seven Sisters as proof of Mystra's cruelty. For those unaware, Mystra asked permission to, then possessed, a woman, used her to court a man (with dubious consent from the woman), and bore seven children, all of whom were capable of bearing Mystra's power as Chosen without dying. The woman she possessed was killed in the process (reduced to no more than a husk, then slain by her now-husband, hoping to end her suffering), and the husband was horrified by the whole story.
Mystra needed Chosen in order to restore herself in the event that she was killed again, to prevent magic as a whole from collapsing and wreaking havoc on the mortal realm, like it had in the few seconds Mystryl had been dead. Elminster, Khelben Blackstaff, and the Seven Sisters contributed to this. The more Chosen she has, the better; what happens if Elminster dies? She can't afford to have all her eggs in one basket.
Mystra has Volo (yeah, that Volo) as a Weave Anchor, imparted with a portion of her power to prevent the Weave from shredding itself to pieces in her absence. All Chosen of Mystra are Weave Anchors by nature. The creation of Weave Anchors was mandated by Ao, the Overgod, and Chosen are the best way to make sure those anchors aren't drained by ambitious people hoping for godlike power. Chosen can, and will, defend themselves, unlike static locations (which Mystra also has). The anchors are why the Weave wasn't completely obliterated during Mystra's last death, when the Spellplague rose up, because they stabilized the Weave around them.
Everything Mystra does is in the name of the big picture, to prevent a catastrophe like the fall of Netheril from happening again. Her restriction of magic, her numerous Chosen, her creation of Weave Anchors, her destruction of those who would claim her power, it's all in the name of the stability she's been charged with. Dornal Silverhand's grief and Elué Silverhand's death, while regrettable, were worth it to bring seven more anchors into existence to save all of the Material.
So someone appears with the Crown of Karsus, potentially powerful enough to try to kill the other gods in the name of the Dead Three. She can't risk being a target of them. She can't risk the destruction of magic again.
Gale is going to die. He lives in fear. He begs for forgiveness.
In Mystra's eyes, she's offering him the best outcome. She'll let him die in service to her, to save Faerûn, and she'll forgive him. He's going to die anyways, and if he does this, she'll give him everything (she thinks) he could ever want in her realm. She's asking him to do what (she thinks) is the right thing.
"She would consider what she considers to be forgiveness."
Notably, she leaves the decision in his hands. She doesn't have Elminster lead him to the Nether Brain. She doesn't activate him as soon as he's there. When he lives yet, she doesn't revoke the charm that keeps him stable. And when he declines, when he lets it go and starts pursuing Karsus' path, she doesn't smite him on the spot.
She is (she thinks) being incredibly patient. If Gale is going to try to be Karsus II, she's ready for him. If he decides to walk off and keep the Orb, he's dug his own grave in the Fugue Plane (those who don't have a god to claim them roam endlessly as husks and form a wall of bodies around the City of Judgement).
From her perspective, she's not being unreasonable. But from the perspective of a mortal, she absolutely is.
"Now, I have a question for thee: what is the worth of a single mortal's life?"
This is a question she cannot answer properly.
I think a lot of characterization is lost whenever someone paints one of them as being totally in the right. But I also think you have to be invested in them as characters to want to see that characterization. If you want to write about Mystra, you have to try to get into her head, analyze the decisions she made, figure out why she thinks she was right, and follow the pattern.
Gale's sacrifice is a very predictable thing for her to ask for.
#bg3#gale dekarios#gale of waterdeep#mystra#long post#like really long post holy hells#did not expect this to go on for this long#swearing tw#< for karlach#oh yeah#astarion#karlach#wyll ravengard#shadowheart#lae'zel#ask bee
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Hi Im sure you answered this already but i sadly cant find it: how did end up shipping or rather writing drarry fics?
I've actually been asked quite a few times why I ship H/D. I never answer, because it's complicated and long and I have an essay on the subject, so I'll answer the 'how' question without addressing the 'why'.
Once upon a time, the internet was becoming a thing that people used regularly. The news kept talking about how the youths of the day were "surfing the 'net" and this was going to be the new normal. As usual, I could not identify with the 'youths of the day,' even though I was one. What could possibly be of interest to me on the internet? Reading books was far better than talking to other people. Then one day in my senior year of high school it dawned on me that you could possibly talk to other people about books, something I had never done before, as I didn't know anyone but my parents and brothers who ever read for fun, and my parents and brothers did not like to read things like Jane Austen. What if there were people on the 'net who liked Jane Austen??? Seemed fake, but I gave it a try.
The first Jane Austen website I found was Republic of Pemberley, which hosted something they called "Bits of Ivory." Through the "Ramble" board on Republic of Pemberley, I found out that there were "Bits of Ivory" elsewhere. It was called fanfic and hosted on fanfic.net.
Almost all of it that I was introduced to was Harry Potter fic, as HP was the megafandom of the time, and my Sense and Sensibility friend was obsessed with Snape, mainly because of Alan Rickman. I was also obsessed with Snape, though I must say that even though I had been obsessed with Alan Rickman since 1995, I never did like his casting as Snape and still don't. Anyway, I ended up getting interested in Snape/Hermione fic, and continued to be interested on and off for over the next five years.
I should pause at this moment to say that I had been writing fanfic since the fourth grade. I didn't know it was called fic. I didn't know other people did it. It never occurred to me to share it. When I found "Bits of Ivory" it actually took me a while to process that the stories there were in a similar vein to the stories I had been writing all my life, stories based on fiction by other people. It was just so wild to me that anyone would share that stuff, as though other people would want to read the different endings that they came up with, the self-inserts and the cross-overs they came up with.
I should also take this moment to say that I didn't really have slash ships. I was aware that slash existed, and I thought it was great. Sirius/Remus was a background ship everywhere at the time, and even though I didn't really see it in canon and wasn't terribly interested in it, I thought it was a nice thing. And when I started getting into X-Men through Wolverine/Rogue, it seemed obvious to me that Professor X and Magneto had a past sexual relationship. I, in fact, had an original story that I'd started writing in eleventh grade that had similar tension between two male characters, and the idea that they were in love and unable to have sex about it explained so much. And I wrote more original stories in college that were gay.
I think my problem was that the canons I was consuming were quite straight, and while I wasn't obsessed with writing canon-compliant fics, I was (and still am, to some extent) obsessed with writing characters who were true to canon. At the time sexuality seemed some kind of immutable thing to me that was deeply a part of who a character was. Also, sex to me was very Other; it meant something really deep and serious about you that obliterated other things you were. For instance, I was frustrated with all the Frodo/Sam porn, because I felt it obliterated their beautiful friendship and made their relationship about sex and being gay rather than the deep pure bond of friendship. So I was maybe kind of homophobic and confused.
Then I fell in love with Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and while that canon has a lot of heteronormativity, it not only has a character who thought she was straight who realizes she's gay, it also has vampires who have lived for centuries and who have broken every kind of social norm that exists. It seemed silly to me to assume that Spike or Angel were straight, which is how I began shipping Spike/Angel, which is how I got absolutely obsessed with slash. It was so liberating to write porn where the power dynamic wasn't influenced by centuries of patriarchy! It was so liberating to write porn where I didn't have to think about my own anatomy or gender or position in a sexual dynamic! It was so liberating to write porn with a bunch of dicks!
Having discovered slash, I turned back to ye olde faithful fandom, which had ten billion fics about everything. I'm not sure I even tried Sirius/Remus, because I was still so uninterested in it, but now I read all the Snape slash, the majority of which seemed to be Harry/Snape. The thing is, I don't ship Harry/Snape. It can be very hot! But while the porn is fine and some of the stories are fun, these are not two people that I want to live happily ever after. I just think that the power dynamic between them, the history they have, and the personalities they are do not make me want to imagine them as a couple with a happy marriage who occasionally have the friends over for games of Quidditch and Exploding Snap. And while I like queer complicated, angsty stories, I also like a happy ending in a semi-heteronormative sense, especially for Harry Potter, who really seems to want one. So, I started looking for other Harry Potter slash.
I knew that Harry/Draco was a juggernaut pairing, but I just hated Draco Malfoy so much. I honestly could not stand him. I used to go about saying that I hated him not only as a person (like, I also hated Snape as a person; he's a dick, and he's cruel to children! But he's a great character) but as a character. I just didn't like the function he played in the narrative. I like big, dramatic rivalries and evil vs good; meanwhile, Draco Malfoy is a little worm. So I kept thinking about reading HP slash, but resisting.
Then, one day, I was sleeping on the couch, and woke up suddenly with the idea that Draco Malfoy could be reformed. He could be sorry for all the shitty things he's done! He could be really apologetic! He could be really trying to make up for his past, and Harry could find this truly beautiful, and they could have sex about it!
Surprisingly, it was hard to find fic about this. For some reason, in most of the fic, it was Harry having to earn Malfoy's approval, instead of the other way around, which I found absolutely bonkers. But I eventually found Eclipse, by Mijan, which was just what I wanted. Then I was obsessed and was reading every Harry/Draco fic I could find.
Eventually, I even read the ones in which Harry was a cad and Draco Malfoy was a perfect snowflake who never did anything wrong. And then I started finding fics that really emphasized that Draco had a very different point of view of what happened, which showed that he really had no way to understand who Harry was, or what Harry had been through. In these fics, Harry had to do some work to understand Draco, which is what really sold me on the pairing. I still want fics in which Draco has to do a lot of heavy lifting to address his past and deal with the hurt he has caused and the violence of his previously genocidal outlook, but I love it when Harry, too, has to adjust. After saving the world and losing most people he loves and protecting the innocent and doing his exhausted little best to be honest and righteous and true, Harry Potter still has to do work, again, to overcome his past and find a peaceful life. And that's what made me start writing Harry/Draco, the end.
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I need help writing the league of villains for a fan fiction. Like can you give me tips on to write their dialogue and stuff like that
Thanks for the ask! Here are some things that I think would be helpful, but please be aware that it's my approach to writing the League the way I interpret them. I'm sure there's people who finds my fic wildly inaccurate in terms of characterization. Sometimes I go back months later and disagree with my own stuff, given new information or outlook. You'll have different interpretations than me, and that's okay. And thus,
Tip #1: First of all, it’s fanfic, it’s fun, and it’s yours. You can do whatever the heck you want! It does not matter at all what you do with the characters, their dialogue, their personalities, their relationships, etc. I’ve read plenty of AU fanfics where I could not recognize Shigaraki Tomura/Shimura Tenko, despite the character having the name, but I still liked the story okay. Really, it’s all up to you and what you want.
That said, to actually answer your question:
Tip #2: Re-read the manga. Read the scanlations - multiple versions from different scanlation groups. Read the official. No version will be perfect, some are better than others (Viz Official has its issues, but it is done by a professional translator and I tend towards it; Fallen Angels (Chapters 1-150s) was the first to scanlate and iirc they even included translation commentary at the end of their chapters; I found mangastream to be more accurate than Jaimini (Chapters 150-250s)), but having a variety of translations will give you insight into the intention of a dialogue, and different ways of achieving it. Read the original Japanese, if you can.
Tip #2.5: Best way to figure a character, I find, is to describe the panels they’re in as if you’re writing a very plain, objective, impartial image description. Now you have an overview of their outward behavior, their actions, their dialogue. Using that, you have the basis for developing their motivations and personality. It’s the difference between ‘Shigaraki used gamer lingo a few times here, so he is a gamer... therefore he’s obsessed with games and that’s all he does’ and ‘In the first 100 chapters of the story, despite speaking sometimes like a gamer, Shigaraki is actually seen reading newspapers rather than holding a game console’.
Put another way, don’t assume generalized descriptions or traits for a character and write them based on that. You risk writing a trope or archetype or situation rather than the actual character.
When a loved one dies suddenly, people will be in shock, before sobbing and weeping uncontrollably. That’s generally true, but the character may manifest grief in a different way. Someone close to Toga is killed - what does she do? You can write her breaking down crying, that’s perfectly reasonable. But if you look at the manga, when Twice is killed, she doesn’t cry right away. She gets angry; she lashes out. She’s deeply hurt by his murder, of course! But the tears she sheds for his passing are few in the immediate aftermath - her grief mostly takes the form of slicing Heroes’ throats.
Tip #3: Read everything else, for inspiration, for background knowledge, for tone, for your own gain outside of fandom.
Just the other day, I read Real, the wheelchair basketball manga by Inoue Takehiko. Its three main characters are marginalized by proper society - two because they’re disabled, one because he’s a high school dropout - and there were moments where I was reminded of the League’s situation. In the first chapter, the high school dropout makes a final visit to school where his teachers didn’t think much of him, and his classmates looked down on him. As he leaves, he thinks to himself that everything he does ends in failure and he’s an idiot, all the while he takes a dump at the school gates as a parting gift.
While I can’t see anyone from the League doing that exactly shot for shot, the spirit of it - being seen as a fuck up, being unwanted, being defiant in face of that, even in a inadvisable way - is similar.
Tip #3.5: Another book I’ve read years ago is Codes of the Underworld: How Criminal Communicate. It was very informative, and I think back to it sometimes when I write for the League.
Criminals face severe constraints on communication imposed by the action of the law, and, unlike the rest of us, cannot easily develop institutions aimed at circumventing them. This central feature of criminal lives makes communication and above all reliable communication exceptionally hard to sustain. For instance, the same secrecy that protects criminals from the law hinders their opportunities to advertise their goods and qualities… In the underworld, moreover, punishments for mistakes and irrational behavior are harsher than they are elsewhere. In the world of regular business, failures of communication can lead to a loss of business, but in the underworld they can result in years behind bars, or worse.
I don’t follow it exactly, because the League is in a children’s fantasy story, and maybe this was obvious but now that it was written out to me, I know how to give the Villains an “edge” to them that a non-Villain might not have, because as Villains, they do often logically would to be secretive and brutal and cautious. Dabi walking around in broad daylight meant their hideout was discovered and All Might literally took down the wall to the bar; a breakdown in negotiations with Overhaul meant Magne dying and Compress getting his arm blown off.
Tip #4: Related, let the League be assholes, because sometimes they are. Let them be mean and cruel and problematic. Sometimes they’ll be jerks to each other. Nearly all of them grew up in bad circumstances where they probably were not taught important lessons and details about respect and boundaries and being nice. They are definitely not going to be aware of the intricacies of fandom's (oft-American and oft-terminally-online) consensus about problematic behavior. And that’s fine.
I remember once receiving an ask about why Shigaraki would pull Twice’s mask off in Chapter 224. Wasn’t that terrible of Shigaraki? Yeah, it was. It was also the quickest, most efficient way to get Twice to quit his arguing with the rest of the League, so Shigaraki can announce that they are going to rescue Giran (what Twice was arguing for). After that, he puts the mask back on for Twice. If you ask me, I’d say Shigaraki thinks this evens out - he does something mean that he knows will freak out Twice for a moment, but it’s because he’s arguing for Twice’s side, and he’s putting on the mask back at the end.
You and I would likely never do something like that because we know taking away someone’s important assistive aid, even for a moment, hurts them and we don’t want to cause them pain for even a second if we could help it/there’s not ‘evening it out’/it demonstrates a power unbalance that perpetuates ableism/there are other ways to stop someone and grab attention/we know not to touch someone even the slightest without permission/etc. But does the character you’re writing know all this? Does he care? Does he think it’s worth following these rules? Does he have time for it, does he have incentives for it, does he have the lucidity, does he think he’s an exception because of this and that, etc, etc.
A lot of things, most people often just don’t know until they’re taught to be specifically aware. As an example: When I was younger, I knew broadly that taking things without permission was bad; but what if I took these pair of scissors from my friend’s desk and used it and put it back before the owner knew? The owner is my friend. They once told me it was okay to take it, so it counts even today, right? It was just a pair of scissors, a common household item. My friend did not care; still does not care. But knowing what I do now about things like violations of boundaries, explicit consent, the continuation of these concepts for the most trivial and mundane things even in the deepest of friendship or familial ties - I feel the need to ask to use something. That’s me and what I’ve learned through the years, though. It’s probably not going to be [fictional character].
And sometimes the League are just bad people. Shigaraki tried to kill Toga and Dabi at their first meeting. Mr. Compress is seemingly a-okay with kidnapping and murder despite his ancestor being more of a Robin Hood type. Spinner likely knowingly doomed his family to even worse ostracism and harassment from his fantasy-racist hometown when he ran off to join a group of well-televised terrorists.
That’s also fine. They’re not real. They’re fictional Villains, and you’re temporarily using them as hand-puppets to tell a story.
Tip #5. For dialogue, it helps knowing what each character’s voice/speaking style sounds like. Some basics:
Shigaraki:
“Shigaraki speaks with the normal masculine contracted speech, but with a sinister tone. Surprisingly not very cussy. He likes aggravating other people though.”
Caleb Cook notes that Shigaraki talks like an overgrown kid. (In comparison to ReDestro, who “uses more SAT words, since he’s had a formal education.”)
He can be a sarcastic smartass.
Kurogiri:
“Kurogiri is Extremely Polite”
He only refers to Shigaraki as ‘Shigaraki Tomura’. Always the full name, always just that.
He speaks very formally and respectfully; however, there is also a nastier side to him that comes out when he faces off Heroes: Saying to All Might, “I can't say I like the idea of having blood and guts inside my gate, but… if they're yours, I’ll happily oblige.” (Chapter 18); mocking Eraserhead and Mic when they're being sad over him, “Have you mistaken this place for a confessional of some kind?” (Chapter 254)
Dabi:
“Dabi is like Shoto but ruder, though not to Bakugo’s extent”
He calls people names: Toga most often, as 'crazy'; he called Spinner 'lizard' once; when he first met Shigaraki, he said 'gross'.
Note that all the examples above are people younger than him; as far as I know, Dabi refrains from name-calling his allies who are older than him: Compress, Twice, Skeptic.
He inexplicably politely calls Ujiko ‘Ujiko-san’.
Compress:
“Compress is kind of like Sero. He’s got that trickster tone to him. Gets rougher when things don’t go his way.”
Likes to call himself an ‘old man’ at age 32; talks like an older gentleman as well.
Twice:
Twice contradicts himself a lot. Generally, he says one thing, his alter then says the opposite of that immediately afterwards.
However, when things are urgent or serious, his alter’s speech fades. See Chapter 148, when he confronts Shigaraki about the Overhaul plan - he spills out his feelings with no contradiction. See Chapter 224, after they find out Giran’s been kidnapped - when arguing with the League about whether to say Giran, he’s completely coherent.
Twice argues back with the alter sometimes, rather than the alter simply blurting out the opposite of what he says.
After he gets over his clone trauma, the alter seemed to have…integrated into himself? He still speaks in contradictions, but less so, and it doesn’t seem to be a separate voice speaking out involuntarily
Spinner:
“Spinner also speaks the normal masculine contracted speech like Kirishima and Kaminari, but he talks like Tokoyami during the Forest Lodge arc because he’s a Stain chuuni.”
An average, normal guy, compared to the rest of the League: not very polite, but not particularly rude; no great wit or affect (after he stops being a Stain fanboy), but not unintelligible; game references infrequently.
Giran:
“Giran is also like speaks the normal masculine contracted speech similar to Shoto, but he’s a lot more mature.”
He calls Shigaraki “Shigaraki-san”, being polite towards him as a customer.
He calls Twice by his last name, ‘Bubaigawara’, likely because they seem to be friends beyond just business.
Toga:
Toga is a generally polite girl, talks like a teenager.
She can be bad at explaining herself! Seems to forget the people are lacking context for the things she says. “Hey, my best friend Jin just got killed by a Hero, which makes me sad, as well as worried that I'm going to be cut down like nothing as well, especially because I've been told how abnormal I am, even though I think I'm a normal person just like you, because I have emotions like love and fear, as any regular human does, and that lifetime of repression has hurt me.” -> Whatever she actually says to Uraraka in Chapter 289.
Only Toga uses first names with honorifics with the other League members. This is her being cute and desiring familiarity, but still polite.
◦ Twice is ‘Jin-kun’
◦ Shigaraki is ‘Tomura-kun’
◦ Dabi is, at first ‘Dabi-kun’; after she finds out he’s Touya, he’s ‘Touya-kun’
◦ Spinner is ‘Spinner-kun’
◦ However, Mr. Compress is simply ‘Mister’
Conversely, only Mr. Compress and Twice call her ‘Toga-chan’. All the 20-somethings dudes call her just ‘Toga’.
*Note what the League calls each other. They all call each other using Villain names. If the male members of the League are using first names and honorifics for each other, they’ve either gotten extremely close and intimate and weirdly polite, or they’re being possessed by AFO.
Tip #5.5. Instead of fretting over writing good dialogue right away, just write whatever you need to get a scene over with. You can go back later to change the tone and speaking style of the sentence.
Here’s a line I had for Dabi at first:
“Whatever hospital he works at should be shut down for incompetency in background checks.”
Wayyy too formal. Here’s the line after I went back and fixed it:
“Whatever hospital he works at should be shut down for being shit at background checks.”
Still not my best shot, but better. Sometimes all you need is just to change a word.
Tip #6. Humor. The League is ridiculous and hilarious. Always try to have fun with their interactions and antics.
#ask#asked#answered#anon#anonymous#nalslastworkingbraincell#League of Villains#Shigaraki Tomura#Spinner#Shuuichi Iguchi#Toga Himiko#Mr. Compress#Sako Atsuhiro#Dabi#Todoroki Touya#Twice#Bubaigawara Jin#Giran#Okuta Kagerou#Kurogiri
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The Tortoise and The Hair
Pairing: Dean Winchester x Female Reader (You)
Summary: You've been hunting with the Winchester brothers for a while, and you've developed feelings for the older Winchester. Unbeknownst to you, he has feelings for you as well. Will you both admit to these feelings when a coincidence brings emotions to a head?
Word Count: 2.1k
Warnings: 18+, cursing, male nudity (shower), pistol mention, knife mention
Author's Note: This is my first every fanfic! Y/N is your name, y/h/c is your hair color, and italics are thoughts. The mentions toward male nudity are not super detailed, but the mentions are there. Feedback is welcome! Thanks for reading <3
Disclaimer: I do not own Supernatural, or any of the related characters. The Supernatural series is created by Eric Kripke and owned by The CW Network. This work of fan fiction is for entertainment only. I am not making a profit of any kind from this story. All rights of the original Supernatural series belong to The CW Network.
AO3 link here
"You've got to be kidding me." You run your hands through your hair in frustration.
"Sorry, Y/N, looks like another day without a hunt," Sam continues scrolling on his laptop, hoping he can find something to prove himself wrong, even if just to make you happy.
"There's got to be something. Come on, Sam, I can't be stuck here in the bunker again."
It's been weeks without a hunt. Not a single one. Sam has kept busy with research, but you've been itching to get away. Chuck only knows what Dean's been doing, he's been avoiding you every second of every day. You've even been starting to wonder if you should move out of the bunker and go back to your solo hunting ways. Your stuff is always mostly packed, you could be out of here in less than 3 minutes. Sam being like the brother you never had is the only reason you haven't yet. Well, that and your crush on the older Winchester.
"Y/N," Sam sighs, closing his laptop and crossing his arms on top of the table to look at you seriously. "There's more to this than just boredom, isn't there?"
You scoff, "of course not. I'm just bored. And itching for kills. You know me." You lie through your teeth, hoping Sam will accept this answer and drop it.
"Y/N, you know you can talk to me."
You stare at each other for several painful seconds before you break. "Fine. I just feel like Dean hates me."
Sam places his hand on yours. "You know that's not true. Why would you think that?"
You roll your eyes. "Come on, Sam. He avoids me at all costs. He doesn't even come out for meals together anymore. Let alone not talking to me, he doesn't even talk to you if I'm around! He just motions for you to follow him to another room. You can't honestly say he's happy I'm here." You get up to start walking away when you both hear Dean's yell from down the hall.
"Son of a BITCH!"
With one look at Sam and panic in your eyes, you both take off running.
*
A few moments earlier....
Dean:
Another boring day. Alone. Ever since you moved in months ago, Dean just can't seem to bring himself to have any one night stands. He tries his best not to ignore why that is. He'll just keep avoiding you and quietly checking with Sam about what's going on, if there are any leads on hunts, how you're doing...
No. He doesn't want to spiral down this hole again. He can't follow through. Bad things happen when he and Sam get involved with anyone. He won't subject you to that. Maybe if he keeps avoiding you, you'll get sick of it and leave the bunker, minimizing your risk of being targeted because of them. He's upset enough that Sam refuses to do the same, instead being nice to you all the time. Hell, you and Sam are practically inseparable, you even have movie nights together.
Maybe he can make his feelings for you go away if he avoids you enough. He can stop thinking about how you light up a room when you laugh, instantly making his mood brighter. Or how your cooking always smells the most delicious, even the most simple foods weave a decadent smell throughout the halls. Or how you're always waiting at the bottom of the stairs after the brothers run for supplies, smile on your face and arms wide open to hug Sam.
Maybe if I stop ignoring her, I could fall into those arms, hold her close, smell that enticing perfume of hers up close...
Somehow you've managed to integrate yourself into every aspect of his life, despite his attempts to keep you out. He's constantly finding your post-it notes with cute doodles in the most random of spots, inside kitchen cabinets and books that have been untouched for months. He even found one under the sink one day, a stick figure drawing wearing a trench coat, an arrow pointing from the word baby to the figure. Sam had to explain that one to Castiel, who then laughed and asked you excitedly if he could keep it.
He shakes his head and runs his hand down his face, as if that will clear the thoughts.
I need to think of annoying things about her. Reasons to keep my distance. Come on, there's got to be something.
And then it hit him. Your hair. Your beautiful, y/h/c hair that he would love to run his fingers through. No, not beautiful, he reminds himself, annoying. It's everywhere, even in rooms you don't frequent, even in rooms he's sure you've never been in.
He'll just have to hang on to this annoyance until he can think of more. If he can manage to think of more. This is useless, he sighs, grabbing his things to take a shower. At least I know I can waste time relaxing with a hot shower and not run into her there. He double checks to make sure the coast is clear in the hallway before heading toward the shower room, hearing muffled voices further down the hall but assuming it's you, busy helping Sam with research.
He gets to the shower room and sets up his things. He turns on the hot water, and steam starts filling the room immediately. He undresses, stepping under the water and letting the heat relax his muscles, tense from his endless debate about his feelings. He grabs his soap bar and starts cleaning, but he feels a tug when he starts to clean his member. Confused, he looks down, finding a long hair knotted around his most sensitive part.
He yanks on the hair, finding it stuck. He yanks harder, feeling a small sting followed by relief with the tension breaks the hair. With the hair pinched between his fingers, he brings it up closer to look at it under the light. He assumed it would be one of Sam's. They mix up their clothes in the laundry sometimes, it would make sense for it to be Sam's hair. But no, luck has never been on Dean's side. The hair is very distinctly from your head.
How did her hair even manage to get there? Damn it, I can't even escape her here... By myself... In the shower... When I haven't been around her for weeks.
He feels the frustration building and his fists clenching. Frustration at not being able to avoid you, at not truly wanting to avoid you, at his member having some semblance of contact with you but nowhere near the contact he desires. It builds and builds until he explodes, "Son of a BITCH!"
*
Y/N:
Sam rushes ahead of you toward Dean's yell, pistol already in his hands and raised by the time you both reach the shower room, ready for whatever fight he may find. You have a silver blade in your hand, fists raised, eyes scanning for a threat.
"What? What is it, Dean?" Sam asks urgently, not seeing any outward threats to everyone's safety. Dean spins around at the intrusion, eyes widening. You swear you see panic in his eyes when they connect with yours, then Dean frantically grabs his towel, wrapping it around his waist to hide his lower half. You try your hardest to stay focused and not get distracted by his bare chest.
"What is it? Look at it!" Dean yells at Sam, shoving his right hand toward Sam's face, thumb and pointer finger pinched together.
Sam slowly lowers his gun, looking between Dean's hand and his eyes several times in disbelief. "You yelled about a hair??"
"Look at it!" Dean insists, "it's hers!" He gestures toward you with his hand, still holding the pinched hair.
You furrow your brow, "so? It's just a hair? I have a lot of it. I'm sure that's not the only one in here."
"It wasn't just in here. It was wrapped around my head!" Dean yells.
You and Sam look at each other, shrugging. "I fail to see the issue here," the younger Winchester states.
"You know," Dean continued, "my head." He emphasizes the last word with a gesture toward his lower half.
You and Sam look at each other again, eyebrows raised, then Sam throws his head back and bursts into laughter. You lock your eyes back on Dean, a small smile tugging at the corners of your lips.
Dean's face is red with anger and what you think might be a touch of embarrassment. "Sammy, it's not funny. It was knotted and I had to pull it! What if it did any damage?"
"Oh, well Chuck forbid my hair do damage to your most prized possession," you mumble under your breath. Sam hears you, making him laugh even harder, doubling over and wiping his eyes.
"What did you say?" Dean asks, dropping his hand and, finally, the hair.
"Nothing," you say, looking away.
"That's it. Sammy, grab her. We're shaving her head," Dean threatens, taking a half step toward you.
"Dean, come on," Sam says, still lightly laughing. "You have to admit, it's kind of funny."
"Is it, Sammy? It's bad enough I can't stop thinking about her all the-" Dean stops himself, slamming his mouth shut.
Your jaw drops. You swear time stops. Have you been wrong this whole time? Could it be possible he has feelings for you too?
Dean quickly leaves, while you stand there frozen in shock. Sam watches his brother go, then turns to you, "you okay?"
"He likes me too, doesn't he, Sam?"
Sam just looks at you silently for a moment, then puts a hand on your shoulder. "I swore I'd never say anything. He thinks he's helping to protect you. He's... not good at this kind of thing."
You're in shock. Or dreaming. There's no other logical explanation. You're thrilled because he likes you too, but also heartbroken that he thinks this is protecting you. You, a hunter for your entire life, who did it all by herself until running into the Winchesters, who took down vampire nests and demons and everything inbetween with minimal or no injuries, are seen as weak in his eyes?
Leaving Sam behind, you storm down the hall to Dean's bedroom door and pound on it several times. "Go away, Sam," you hear through the door.
"It's me. We need to talk."
After several long seconds, you resign yourself to accepting he's not going to open it. Just as you're getting ready to leave, it opens just enough to reveal Dean, stone faced and fully dressed, wet hair sticking up at odd angles.
"Can I come in?" You ask. He wordlessly opens the door a fraction more and steps to the side for you to enter.
You walk past him a few steps and turn toward him as he closes the door. "I know you're better with actions than with words, so I'm gonna talk and I just want you to listen, okay? I'm not weak. I don't need you to protect me. I can make my own choices. And I choose you. And I'm not going to pretend to know what could happen in the future. But I know that if you watch my back and I watch yours, we can handle anything this world, Heaven, or Hell could throw at us."
You slowly drift closer to him as you continue, "I won't pretend to know every little thing about you, but I do know you, Dean. I know how loyal you are. And how you will always put yourself in harm's way to protect those you care about. How you blame yourself for every loss. How you like to sit outside on quiet nights and look at the stars, enjoying the peace that has been so rare in your life."
You're in his space now, and you reach up to place your hand on his cheek. He leans into your hand, closing his eyes. "I don't know how to do this, Y/N."
"Me neither, Dean. But how about we take a leap of faith together and we can figure it out?"
He opens his mesmerizing green eyes, and you notice unshed tears building up in them. Then, faster than you can blink, his lips are on yours.
You always thought the cliche of seeing fireworks was just that, a cliche. But you'll be damned if you're not seeing entire light shows behind your eyelids right now. Every nerve ending in your body lights up as if on fire. Arms wrapped around each other, you and Dean are pressed so close together, not even air can pass between you. He licks your lower lip, asking permission, and you open without hesitation. Your tongues battle for dominance until you can't breathe, and you break apart, both gasping for air.
"So I guess that's it then, huh, sweetheart?" he rasps, smirking, leaning his forehead on your own.
"Guess so, tough guy. Who would have thought my hair would be the key," you laugh.
#dean winchester#dean winchester x reader#female reader#supernatural#dean winchester x you#dean x you#spn imagine#supernatural imagine#spn#reader insert#fanfic#fanfiction#sam winchester#dean winchester imagine#dean winchester fic#dean x y/n#pov you#pov dean#keiththecat
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Dream Journal Rescue for the wip game, please
WHOO! Thank you for asking about this one, Nonny.
For the 2022 Dreamling Secret Santa I took a risk and wrote something that can be very divisive in fanfic and in fiction in general: first person narrative. I wrote the first half of i had a dream (i got everything i wanted) as a dream journal that Hob used to record his dreams after they came back when Dream got out of the fishbowl in 2021. It draws both from the early comics and from the TV show in terms of events/timeline. This fic got significantly less attention than the others I had written at the time, but it was also the one I was most proud of that year (and that's with Eros in Pragma and Hypnopompia turtur in there!). I am still extremely proud of it because it is, for me, I think very poetic writing.
However, the first version of i had a dream wasn't post-fishbowl, but actually started before the fishbowl. Hob still kept a dream journal, and it still started in first person, but the idea originally was that Hob would figure out that something had happened to his Stranger because of his dreams stopping. Which meant that they needed to have enough of a relationship/rapport by the 1910s that Hob would trust that Dream would not miss a dream "date" of theirs without very good reason. Hence, "dream journal rescue" as the name.
I only have pieces of the fic, but I keep them because I still viscerally love what I did with i had a dream SO FUCKING MUCH that I want to return to that style at some point. If you have read i had a dream you will see the bits I took from this and transferred to that.
This is totally G-rated and starts before 1889, as Hob is anticipating that next meeting, and then keeps going into 1914.
Here's what I have in that WIP file:
1:
21 October 1885
I think I need to write these down. Olive suggested I start writing these down. She is usually right about such things.
Maybe it will bring some clarity to this… mess.
I’m in the White Horse Inn. (It is always the White Horse.)
The year is not obvious from the decor, which is a riotous mix of 1389 and 1489 and 1789. Delicate teacups and straw-covered floor and fireplaces with chimneys. Of course chimneys. But I know, in the way of dreams, that it is the day of our annual appointment, the next one, in 1889.
I shake my coat and hat free of the London morning rain. I am many hours before the time of our appointment. This my usual - I always arrive early. To ready the table and, more importantly, myself for our meeting.
But in this dream I enter the White Horse to find the Stranger already there. He looks exactly as he did in 1789. Which must say something about my imagination since he has always been in impeccable fashion specific to the era of our meeting.
Or perhaps it is because he looks at me with the same burning intensity that made our last appointment so spectacular. His eyes devour me, just as they did when we parted last, and I am absolutely helpless to resist.
I am sitting then, across from him, cups of tea and venison pasties between us. His beautiful pale fingers trace around the gilded edge of the teacup. I am speaking, words tumbling forth, I can hear the droning vibrations in my ears and throat, but it is not where my attention lies.
My attention is riding the wave in his coalblack hair. My attention is wafting the bob of his throat above his high collar. My attention is tracing the sweet pout of his pink lips. My attention is flying through storm-sky eyes.
He reaches across and
Fuck. I can’t write this.
2:
[There are several attempts at starting entries after the previous one. None manage more than a sentence.]
[No attempts at entries are made after 1889.]
3:
1 November 1898
I woke up still drunk and still in very rural Wales (note: never ever always maybe return for Nos Calan Gaeaf in the future) and found this old journal in the bottom of my trunk, so I suppose I shall once again make a valiant attempt to take dear Olive’s advice to sort out the dreams of my Stranger that ever plague me.
(I have heard tell of work by a man named Freud who claims dreams can be used to better understand someone’s psychology and potentially even relieve psychosis. He'd have a field day with me. May I never come within 400 miles of him.)
My drunk mind lacks creativity for scenery and so when I sleep this night I find myself in the same village square I was in only hours prior… however, I am back in time about 400 years? Long before the industrialization of the region, before the extermination of these old traditions by the expansion of “civilization.”
I have just won the silly harvest mare from the clutches of the other young men bringing the last of the harvest in, a horse-shaped horror made from the final stalks of grain reaped. I am now expected to try to sneak this rustling beast into the home where the bulk of the feast is being prepared by the womenfolk without one of them dousing me with washwater. If I succeed in getting into the kitchen unscathed I will win their finest beer and an honored seat at the feast-table. I am always up for new games.
(This is all Iwan’s fault for convincing me to accompany him home for the holiday yesterday and for me getting drunk while they all told me stories of the Old Days. Let it never be said that I abandon a friend in their time of need.)
I easily weave through the crowds of women and children, in their dresses and aprons and smocks, clothing I haven’t seen in centuries but are still as real as yesterday, and cross the kitchen threshold only to find the room empty. An empty kitchen except for the crackle of the hearthfire and my Stranger sat on a barrel in front of it.
The large fire paints him in oranges and golds and he looks warm and inviting in a way that I have never experienced outside of my mind. It is the moment I know for certain that this is a dream.
When he looks up to me he appears confused, brows drawn, lips parted.
I am the first to speak, although words do not come easily to me. “What…?” After our parting in 1889 I can scarce understand why I am seeing him before me now. Although nightmares of the night plagued me in the months afterwards, I had been blessedly free of any night-time visits from my Stranger for almost a decade now. It has been an unexpected boon after so many years of dreaming of him more carnally. I know these facts within the dream. “Why are you here?”
He doesn’t stand, cranes his neck back to look up at me, and I realize he has a low collar this night, lower than it had been even in 1489. I can see flame-gold arcing around the shadowed hollow of his throat.
“It is a Ysbrydnos.” He explains in perfect Welsh, as if I am some child. I do not question why I can so easily understand him despite my mediocre grasp of the language. It is a dream, after all. “Many call on me such nights.”
I pinch the bridge of my nose. “Yes, ‘tis a Spirit Night and you a spirit.”
He tilts his head to the side, bird-like and distinctly not human. “Not as such. But I will attend the dreams of many who call me here this night.” The Stranger’s voice is just as rich and decadent as it is in person. This detail my memory - traitorous bastard it is - does not neglect.
“Of course. Even the version of you I make for my dreams gives non-answers and evasions.” I can feel my whole body hunch in defeat. I wrap my arms around myself, look to the floor. “Just why…” Even my dream cannot steady my voice. “Why does my mind show you to me now? Why this torment?”
“Ah.” Now his voice is choked and staccato. “You did not call me here yourself this night.” Perhaps he is surprised, or ashamed, I cannot tell.
Still, I want to scream. “After last time…” I grit my teeth and continue to stare at the floor.
I see the toes of his black shoes enter my field of view. His chest is perhaps a handspan from mine. “Do you truly wish to never dream of me?” This inquiry is a mocking echo of his usual question, but there is no mockery in his tone. “Given…" He shakes his head, unable to say the words. Say the words he should say: Given what I did to you… Instead he restarts the sentence, "It would be well within your right to request it.”
I sigh. He almost sounds remorseful. What a fantasy this is. How contrived. “No.” And if I ever doubted before that this was a dream the tiny bits of relief I see wash over my Stranger confirms it. His eyes soften minutely. His shoulders relax a hair's breadth. “This might be the only chance I have to ever see you again. And I would take the machinations of my mind, I would take delusions of your regard, over nothing.”
He hums, looking back to the fire as he takes a step away from me. I feel cold and bereft. “This dream is over.”
And then I woke up.
3:
1 Nov 1898 I have not dreamed of him in six months.
one year.
three years.
seven
ten
fifteen
4:
25 May 1914
After almost 17 years I found myself dreaming of the White Horse last night and when I focused upon it in my mind’s eye I almost burst into tears.
Wait, Olive always said that this was more effective if I narrated as if I was reliving the dream. That I would get more details back that way.
I begin the dream standing outside the White Horse Inn and knowing that I am dreaming. It is the first time I have begun a dream this aware and therefore it is noteworthy.
When I enter I feel his presence before I see it. Through the doors in the back, to the private room that had been set aside for us in 1789. He is once again in front of a fireplace, standing this time, hands clasped at the small of his back as he looks down into the flames.
(Note: Ponder this pattern more later, that I associate him in dreams with fire.)
The door to the room automatically closes behind me and he turns. Despite the venue, he is dressed, as always, in the pinnacle of fashion. All black - of course - but a suit with long jacket and waistcoat and tie nonetheless. The ever-present ruby sits heavy and dark just below his throat.
“I did not intend the delay, Hob.” And doesn’t that throw me for a loop. I did not know prior to that moment that one could get dizzy in their own dreams. “I sometimes forget that time flows… differently… for you humans. But I did think on our last conversation.”
Thirty questions stampede through my mind at once. Everything from ‘Did he just directly admit that he is not human?’ to ‘Which last time?’ I throw all of these aside and instead opt for a cautiously lilted “And?”
A magnanimous wave of his hand and we are sitting, the same tea and sweets that were present in 1789 grace the table between us. I hold my breath. “Perhaps we can pick up, as much as we can, where we were in 1789 before the Lady Constantine interrupted us.” I am so taken aback by the turn this dream has taken that I cannot for the life of me think of what to say next. Luckily, my mind does not require me to as he continues. “I believe you asked my name.”
I almost fall over myself to give him leave to avoid it. “Only if you wish it.” Just don't leave again.
He smiles, something brighter than usual, and it feels like looking into the Sun. “I have a list of titles, which we can get to later, but the simplest name is Dream.”
I clamp down on the anguish that’s in my throat, but it still comes out as a high-pitched wheeze from between my teeth. “Dream?! DREAM?!?” I let myself slump boneless into the chair, impropriety be damned, and splay my legs out in front of me, hands over my face. “Oh fuck my mind and these GAMES. Why can it not send me sweet dreams of you? Of COURSE you are named Dream… you are a dream! Has my subconscious no creativity? Christ in heaven…”
“Hob!” He shouts. He has never shouted at me before. I look to him through my fingers, meet twilight-blue eyes. “My name is Dream of the Endless and I am the King of Dreams and Nightmares.”
Shock, bright white and violent, runs through me and I quite literally fall out of my chair.
And then I wake up.
5:
26 May 1914
I do not think I have ever been more wrong about something in my long long life.
Fuck.
My Stranger is Dream. He lords over dreams and nightmares. They are his Domain, his Kingdom.
F U C K
I knew that he was something Other. But this. This.
We met again last night, in my dreams. I don’t need to work at this anymore (thanks for trying, Olive) because he asked me last night if I wanted to remember this, remember meeting him. Apparently he has some manner of control over such things.
I told him yes. Of course I said yes. But I think I want to continue to keep track of what has happened, what will happen, in my dreams, here in this journal. If only so that I have something to refer to later when I have absolutely zero confidence that this is real. Some proof that I haven’t gone completely barmy.
Last night we talked. Just talked. It was in a liminal space, barely distinct as containing a floor and walls and chairs. All monotone, in blacks and greys and faint whites. It still reminded me of the back room from 1789.
He - Dream - told me so much. More than he had ever said to me in one go ever before. He told me some of his other names: Lord Morpheus (or just Morpheus), Prince of Stories, Oneiros, Shaper of Forms. He has a kingdom, home to dreams and nightmares alike. They are not only his citizens, but he creates them. Creates!
I have so so many questions.
But I must parcel them out carefully. Each answer is a treasure I will hoard.
I returned his generosity with words of my own.
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Please help me tell people about my book!
Hi!
I'm publishing a book! It's HERE, just in time for Christmas!! It's GAY!! It's romantic!!! It's HOT! It has firefighters and background sapphic romance, and is exciting AF!!!
I'm very excited, too!
Both U.S. domestic and international friends can order shipped Paperbacks from me directly via my Ko-Fi shop (retailers take less of a cut):
https://ko-fi.com/castielslostwings/shop
Or you can order on amazon directly, this is the only way to get the KINDLE ebook option: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1945687126
Standard EPUB format is available to download directly from me for $1 cheaper than Amazon:
https://ko-fi.com/s/2a82c64d56
And WILL be available at other retailers soon!
Here's the thing: I had a pretty solid platform on Twitter, but since Elon took over, a lot of my followers left, the algorithm crashed, and the whole thing might go under. I don't have the same reach on other platforms, so I need some help! Please share this post if you like GAY SHIT and BOOKS and helping indie content creators be successful!!! Please follow me or check out my ko-fi for updates! Thanks!!!
Here's my pitch, hope you like it:
"Fire & Ice": The flaming hot queer romance novel where a foray into BDSM helps two best friends find themselves, each other, and what it really means to burn.
Summary:
"Firefighter Tripp Truett has somehow tumbled into a whole new kind of relationship with his quirky paramedic best friend, Lee, but mutual relief from their high-stress jobs quickly develops into something more. With all the missed signals and crossed wires, can these two ever figure out that they're so much closer to being on the same page than they think?"
****************************************
About the author (info dump ahoy!!!!) :
I'm Robin, sometimes known as Wings! I'm a 36-year-old, queer, autistic, disabled mom of 2 humans and 5 senior rescue dogs, former R.N. & paramedic. I'm a hardcore fangirl and a proud fanfic writer (and reader), and while I know some people will judge me for that, I am not ashamed!
I started writing as a hobby after becoming physically disabled and unable to work as an RN. Fanfic gave me an audience and an outlet, gifted me purpose and hope again. Transformative fiction is FUN! It fosters creativity and passion, heals wounds, and makes people happy. If someone wants to discredit me for that, then perhaps they aren't the audience I'm seeking.
Ultimately, I know I'm taking a risk, but since people seem to enjoy my fics, this book is my attempt to try and make ends meet through original fiction!
I know some people WILL discredit me. But I'm always about being myself and speaking on what I feel matters: Fanfic should be legitimized as a creative medium. I assure you, friends—the thousands of hours I've spent on my fanworks are as REAL as it gets.
The intersection of disparaging fanfic + sexism/misogyny can't be overstated—women (esp queer women)'s unpaid work is often treated as a "hobby," not worthy of uplifting. I'm here to uplift! The risk is worth it—I would have nothing without fanfic & I'm proud. Younger creators shouldn't feel shame about writing/reading fanfic. We should ALL approach it as a legitimate medium. In fact, MOST new media these days is transformative "fanwork" of SOME kind, whether it's inspired by, based on, or outright rebooting existing worlds.
Plus, we queer folk simply deserve to see our stories in the mainstream media and to see the characters we fall in love, identify with, and root for to get their happily ever afters.
TL;DR: I'm keeping my name and history. Hopefully, I'll be successful in original fiction, but if not, I'll still be a fangirl.
Please consider supporting me + other creators attempting to dip into original works. Follow or subscribe to my ko-fi for previews, updates, access to my discord community where I share exclusive content, and more:
https://ko-fi.com/castielslostwings
FIRE & ICE IS NOW AVAILABLE THROUGH MULTIPLE PLATFORMS!
Ko-Fi subscribers will have the option to buy signed copies & merch bundles! The link to purchase will also be posted there first.
A MAJOR thank you to my friends, editors, and to everyone who in my server for supporting and encouraging me to put myself out there and try something new. Love you guys so much. <3 Thank you to @chaoticdean for the beautiful cover. Many more thank yous to come.
P.S. If you are reading this and know anyone with a platform who might be interested in receiving a free copy in exchange for promo (only if they enjoy, ofc), please holler at me, I can use all the help I can get!
<3 Wings
#castielslostwings#my writing updates#original story#original work#bookblr#gay romance#queer stuff#queer books#queer romance#mlm love#wlw love#smut#contemporary romance#romance novels#debut novel#fiction#author#writing#publishing#queer fiction#lgbt books#lgbtq books#lgbtq fiction#indie authors#lgbtq romance#authors of tumblr#romance books#book tumblr
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I have really complex feelings about the idea (often implied or tacitly agreed to be true even when it's not stated outright) that realism in sex scenes (and specifically sex scenes in fanfiction because that's what I'm thinking about) is always preferable and desirable. That it's always better to be more realistic, and any kind of unrealistic or fictionalized portrayals of sex are inferior--or in some cases, worthy of contempt and an indication of the inexperience/immaturity/poor writing skills of the author.
I have mixed feelings about it because I do think there's a place for realism. There are things that add realism to sex scenes that I really enjoy. I enjoy watching certain characters communicate their desires and negotiate activities. In some scenarios I like seeing characters employ safer sex practices like barriers. I will always enjoy when an author takes the time to figure out a form of lubrication that's appropriate and believable in the setting! I can even enjoy when a character gets up to pee after sex before returning to bed to cuddle; it's a very human touch to the scene that can itself be comforting and enjoyable to read. I like it when people who have experience with certain types of sex create helpful guides to writing those things, offering details you might not think of or know about if you haven't had that type of sex. It gives authors more to work with! It's a tool. Realism is a tool, and one that can absolutely enrich scenes and make them more interesting and fun to read.
And at the same time, something really does rub me the wrong way when I see posts that express contempt for a realism gap in fanfiction and imply that anyone writing it that way must be a) stupid, b) inexperienced (while kind of implying that writing about sex when you haven't had sex is inherently a problem, which I object to fundamentally), and c) completely unaware that what they're writing isn't realistic, which kind of points back to A. It's less on the nose than it would have been like ten years ago, when a lot more people were willing to just come right out and mock "stupid girls writing stupid fanfic" (and all the assumptions that go along with that) but still... that tone lingers. I won't even get into some of the smug posts that used to circulate about anal sex that ended up coming across as "don't you know anal sex is GROSS" in a way that was kind of lowkey homophobic, intentionally or not. Nor am I going to get into the prevalence of queer people telling other queer people they're doing queerness Wrong (in fanfiction, in original writing, in life in general).
To bring a personal angle to this, I'm a nearly-40-year-old bisexual cis woman, married and monogamous, chronically ill, and with some lifelong undefined sensory issues that I don't have any kind of diagnosis for so I'll just call them that. For me personally, due mostly to sensory issues and some physiological quirks, sex can take a lot of energy. Sometimes it's just a lot of work! That doesn't mean I don't want it or enjoy it, or that my partner is failing in some way; I have an active and fun sex life with a very thoughtful and caring partner (and I am not looking for advice on this post, so let's not get sidetracked). There's just challenges! And sometimes I wish my own body made it easier!
So sometimes, when I'm writing smut which is definitionally for fun and primarily for me and my own enjoyment, I find myself caught between: do I want to make this character's experience of sex very realistic in a way that's relatable to me? or do I just want to indulge in the fantasy of sex being easy and low-effort?
At this very moment I'm having difficulty answering that question about some things! There's pros and cons to both, and I don't think either one is wrong. Because at the end of the day, my own enjoyment is the goal of this piece of fiction. It's self-indulgence either way. No matter what I write, these pixel people I'm writing about are not real and their sex scenes are still a fantasy. It's just a question of what kind of fantasy I want to indulge in.
There was a good post I saw recently about the fact that a lot of problematic tropes are problematic not inherently but by scale--in other words, because their prevalence reinforces ideas and narratives harmful to specific groups. And I will be the first to acknowledge that even in the realm of fanfiction--a sphere with relatively low impact on the culture at large--it can be frustrating to constantly run into the same tropes that we find unrelatable or just plain unenjoyable, whether it's rigid top/bottom roles or easy vaginal orgasms. I don't want to come across as like, scolding anyone for just being annoyed, or venting about that sort of thing. It's fine. Some people's forms of self-indulgence are irritating to me, and my self-indulgence is undoubtedly annoying to someone else. I also want to reiterate that talking about what is and isn't realistic in the context of fiction is fine and good and there's absolutely a place for it, and that I enjoy a lot of elements of realism in fiction. I just also want to leave room for fiction to be fantasy. I think that's okay. And everyone's gauge for just how much realism is enjoyable is going to be different. I think that's fine too.
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i think at the end of the day the reason why fanfiction and original fiction are not comparable or interchangeable is because they are fundamentally different forms. regardless of how extensive an AU is, fanfiction is at its core about engaging with another text while original fiction is about developing one's own story. fanfiction is far closer to literary/art/music criticism because it's predicated on the existence of Something Else created by Someone Else and how you as the consumer fit into that equation. filing the serial numbers off a fanfic for the sake of 'turning it into' an original story rarely works because it would be like removing any direct references to a specific text from a review of that very text—it just doesn't make sense on a formal level and on a content level there is something obviously missing even if the reader doesn't know what that is exactly. good criticism can of course be legible and meaningful to a reader who has not consumed the source text (ie reading an analysis of a movie you've never seen) but it would be absurd to say that the analysis itself could 1. exist on its own without the source text and 2. be as meaningful to someone who hasn't engaged with the source text on their own time. i think fanfic is more closely aligned with criticism than fiction because fanfic and criticism are about communicating one's own relationship to a text, how it fits into one's personal experience, and how it reflects the world in which it was created. fiction is about conveying one's own private vision.
it's kind of like comparing poetry to prose—some people are better at writing one than the other and some people prefer reading one over the other and that doesn't reflect the value or the quality of the content itself. you would never say "poetry is better than prose" because they're just...not the same and therefore can't be compared. they use different (though obviously related) skills to both read and write. there's always discourse around whether fanfiction can be compared to original fiction in terms of quality/intellectual value/creativity/skill/etc but these discussions are so dumb and circular because none of them ever acknowledge that they are simply two different things. and that's ok!!!!!! they just don't have the same goals or the same purpose or the same type of intellect and skill involved.
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*waves hand in the air like a beauty queen* Just Hello.*
Welcome to my professional tumblr. I’m Lincoln, and I’m a fantasy/science fiction author. I’m fond of murder mysteries, powers that come with a price, and mythology.
Most of you will probably know me already, actually, as tumblr user @letmetellyouaboutmyfeels. *jazz hands* Surprise, ‘tis I!
For a long time I resisted the idea of self-publishing. I didn’t want to start from the ground-up in building an audience because I’m not great at this whole social media thing and I hated that idea. However, I finally grew too frustrated with how the traditional publishing world treats its authors and said screw it. We’re gonna try doing this on my own.
And, uh, I’ve come to realize, I actually do have an audience. My lovely fanfiction readers.
My hope is that, since you all enjoy my fanfiction, you’ll want to check out my original writing, too. I will say up front that there are some differences such as a darker tone, heavier subjects, romance is not the main plot, etc. But, if you like my more plot-centric and serious fanfics, then I think you’ll like these original works of mine. I like to play around with themes and worlds similar to the ones found in those stories.
*vibrates with excitement* Which is why I'm launching my Patreon!!!
I have also, shocker of shockers to myself more than anyone, written a poetry collection. It's titled Manifesto of a Blossoming Supervillain and you can purchase it here on my website (I have a website!!!) in e-book with paperback coming in the next few days.
But my Patreon is where I'll be posting, chapter by chapter, my fantasy murder mystery novel A Masque of Shadows.
When the controversial regent of the city-state of Serenissima is murdered on the first night of Masquerade, Captain Matthias has to sort through spurned lovers, murderous family members, and scheming nobles to prevent war from breaking out. It's Murder on the Orient Express meets Game of Thrones starring a very tired autistic bisexual who's just trying to get through the holiday season.
What can I say, I want to see if you all can solve the mystery in real time. ;)
My Patreon is also where you'll get lots of sneak peak info about my other novels such as character art and playlists, worldbuilding info, deleted and bonus scenes, character backstory, and director's commentary.
The first novel that I plan to release in full is Pestilence, the first in my Horsemen Quartet:
When four women raised in a dead world come back to life, they find they're no longer entirely human... and the undead are no longer the worst threat they have to face in the wasteland.
It's currently with my sensitivity and beta readers, and the hope is to publish it in September (because I'm a masochist, I guess).
You also get pictures of my cats, Mr. Fluffernutter and Cuddlebug!
(They like to sit in the window and judge people.)
The audience I’ve built up with my fanfiction was rather like falling asleep. It happened slowly, and then all at once. I’m still blown away every day by the number of people who’ve read and enjoyed my stories on Ao3. I hope, if you are one of those people, that you will consider supporting me and join my Patreon to support my original work. These stories are near and dear to my heart, and I deeply love the characters in them. I hope that you all will, too.
*no I could not resist a MsScribe reference, sorry not sorry
#indie publishing#indie author#lincoln writes#lincoln's novels#manifesto of a blossoming supervillain#horsemen quartet#a masque of shadows
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There was a period in my life where I really didn’t understand why people write fanfiction when they could be writing their own stories and characters. But over time I eventually figured it out. People can’t see all the ideas in your head unless you write them, your characters need to have a substantial amount of writing and be of a certain quality for anyone to be able to get invested in them, and they have to be open to reading something completely foreign to them in the first place. But for fanfiction people are already invested in the characters, they already know stuff about the story and setting. The writer doesn’t have to do a ton of work setting all that up and can instead get right to writing the juicy scenes they want without committing to writing a whole bunch to establish everything. And at the end of the day theres no guarantee anyone else will like your characters, but if its a story about a character they already like then its so much easier to get people to read it. These definite advantages are very appealing.
That said, there are also disadvantages. Someone with no interest in the property it’s based on is more unlikely to read fanfiction than original work, both because they don’t have any interest in reading a work that is derived from something they have no connection to and because fanfiction expects reader to have at least a baseline understanding of the story. Another thing is that readers might disagree with your interpretations and headcanons about characters and events. It’s also harder to get published, and people who do “file the serial numbers off” a long fanfic are frequently looked down upon for understandable reasons. One of the major parts of it that I saw as a downside, which was the reason I used to not understand why people write it, is that it is ultimately a derivative work that cannot exist without its source material, and it is not a purely original work of your own creation.
That last part, about pure originality, is what eventually led to me realizing that “hey maybe a derivative fan work can still be valuable and gold”. As I was trying to work on my own things, and trying to be wholly original, I came to realize how impossible it is the come up with ideas that are not at least partially shaped by your perception of the world and how the things you’ve seen have affected your tastes. You can’t write a work of fantasy, sci fi, or any other fiction genre without reflecting the art in the genre that you have experience with. The most extreme version of realizing that no idea exists in a vacuum was when I was trying to come up with names for things. Coming up with a name for something without any outside influences is essentially impossible other than by throwing random syllables around and creating something that hasn’t been used by chance, and even then the syllables you choose will be reflective of the language you speak and other factors that influence your thoughts and who you are.
#idk where I was going with this. just thinking out loud#(I did this to procrastinate actually writing)#Cordelia babbles
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Until I read the comments on that one post I had no idea the Bechdel Test was a joke and wasn't supposed to be a serious measuring stick by which you gauged if something was feminist or not. Everywhere I'd ever heard it brought up, it was brought up as a very serious thing, and it was a failure of media if it didn't pass it. I remember the debate about Mako Mori from Pacific Rim and if she was a character you were "allowed" to like as a progressive person despite the fact that Pacific Rim doesn't pass the Bechdel Test, the discourse, the discussion of if the director was sexist for not writing in another woman for her to chat with about non-men related stuff, the camp of people trying to insist that having a fully realized character arc and being as developed as any of the male leads = good writing even if she doesn't talk to another girl...
And I've also had the remark about my writing not passing the test, just not to my face. I searched my fanfic's name once, curious to see if anyone was discussing it outside of tumblr and AO3, and found a Tiktok complaining about it not passing the Bechdel Test. The top comment was "motherfucker YOU don't pass the test but we still watch your ass". I cackled and moved on, but neither the commenter, poster, nor I had any awareness this wasn't Feminist Media Critique 101 theory and was, in fact, a goof.
Right now there's a segment of fandom debating if Blue Eye Samurai is feminist since when Mizu and Akemi talk, they do bring up men, since, y'know. Women aren't considered people with rights in their era in Japan and thus it's something they mention instead of only talking about being cool girlboss badasses who never bring up gender. If something doesn't pass the Bechdel Test, a smug segment of the internet high-fives itself and congratulates one another on being More Feminist Than Thou.
They then get really angry if you disagree, even though by this metric, Sleeping Beauty (the original animated one, where Aurora has only 16 lines of dialogue) is more feminist than Blue Eye Samurai.
--
*DYING*
Okay, so, nonnie....
Dykes to Watch Out For (1983-2008) was a long-running comic and major piece of lesbian media. I grew up buying compiled volumes at the bookstore. To be honest, that kind of 90s-ish lesbian culture isn't really my scene despite me being bi, but it was very nice to have this slice of life-y somewhat realistic, occasionally somewhat parody, look at the queer communities around me. It's up there with Tales of the City for me in terms of being a window into a particular culture and time and place.
If anybody is interested in queer history, in addition to looking up factual info, I think a read of the complete Dykes would give a really good overview of how people were thinking about things and what issues came up a lot. You'll see things like Barnes & Noble increasingly putting feminist bookstores out of business in the 90s, attitudes towards porn in lesbian circles—all kinds of cultural issues of the day.
I drifted away as I got later in my teens and found more genre fiction I cared about, but at one point, this comic was a very welcome antidote to the glurgey coming out stories that made up a lot of the more realistic media.
Anyway, here's the comic itself, reproduced in its entirety because I think it's important to actually understand the context.
This is from 1985, so the era of Rambo, Conan, and Death Wish, each of which you can see being made fun of here. It's based on Bechdel's friend Liz Wallace's actual rule for seeing movies.
That's it. That's the origin of this whole stupid test.
"LOL, fuck 80s action movies". That's it. That's the joke.
The fact that blockbusters still routinely fail to pass in the 2020s is shameful, but that was never the point of the strip.
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So, because I definitely care a Normal Amount ™ about Lionheart, I went back and re-read the entire thing in preparation for the last chapter of Book 4. It was such an interesting exercise because while I love reading serialized fiction (it's such a core part of what makes fanfic amazing) - it really does hit differently when you look at the story up until this point in it's entirety. (I could go on absolutely unhinged tangents about how much the way you have adjusted canon that just scratches the excema in my brain.)
However- on this re-read, the line that Draco says when he and Hermione have their seminal discussion in the owlery snagged my mind and I can't stop thinking about how Draco accuses Hermione of liking the fact that he's meaner than she is. Because on one hand - yes? He absolutely has less of a sense than she does about Right Decisions, because she always wants to do the "right" thing, but objectively its not always the right thing to do - its just moral relativism rearing its old ugly head again. But on the other hand, he's completely wrong because Hermione (at least in the original books) has this enormous capacity for cruelty that shes not even aware of - partially because girly does not have a single ounce of tact, but also because she wasn't brought up in the wizarding world. She lacks some of the context and cultural clues that allow characters like Draco and Daphne to navigate with an ease she likely envies. And while all the Slytherin bbs have high IQs and low EQs, I think they also are hyper aware of personal standing, so I could easily see Hermione blithely insulting someone without realizing it and completely RUINING their day/month/year etc.
I'm curious if you've thought any more about this dynamic between D/H - and what they think of the others capacity for mean-ness and cruelty??
YES! To all! Especially the bit about Hermione having "an enormous capacity for cruelty that she's not aware of," because yes, that's pretty much one of her cardinal faults as a character — the insidious combination of (a) not really prioritizing other people's feelings if/when they conflict with something Hermione wants or feels, and (b) not being at all aware that she has that quality, and in fact believing herself to be the most emotionally intelligent member of the Trio. (Remember "emotional range of a teaspoon"? I burst out laughing when that happened, because like... girl. The call is coming from inside the house.) At the same time, she's smart enough to recognize when other people are unkind or tactless, so there's this beautifully intricate hypocrisy to how she understands her own emotional intelligence — her pride and arrogance blind her to ways that she neglects others, but her sincere generosity, kindness, and desperate yearning to be helpful and good to other people actually do allow her to see when other people are bad at it, as well as propel her to... well... try. It's a really interesting combination. Hermione is so much fun.
I wouldn't characterize that as cruelty, though, and to an extent it's not necessarily meanness — not in the way that Draco's talking about in that conversation, anyway. Firstly, as a caveat, Draco is in the middle of a fight when he accuses Hermione of liking the fact that he's mean, so I don't think he's altogether sincere about it; I think if you asked him in a moment of repose, he would have a more measured and generous interpretation on their dynamic, even though he's not necessarily wrong. Rather, I think what Draco said is a very inelegant way of pointing out how Hermione uses Draco as a moral backboard: she enjoys the moral high ground, does Granger, and Draco is almost always completely happy to cede it to her. Being around Draco makes her feel like a Good Gryffindor, because while he matches and challenges her intellect/ambition/drive, she gives him direction and moral focus, which is a role he's explicitly told her she plays on multiple counts, and which she's expressed insecurity about in the past (their fireside conversation about "am I good?" and what that means — the idea of capital-G Goodness, and how it becomes increasingly difficult to find as you leave childhood, is one of the tenets of Hermione's arc.)
Secondly, I think Draco is just meaner than Hermione because when he is mean, he does it on purpose. One of the earliest moments of bonding that they ever have as people comes from Draco making fun of Ron's performance in Charms (while imitating his accent, to add insult). Hermione doesn't make the joke herself — but she does laugh at it. She finds it funny. Of course, that's before she's friends with Ron, and she has about 500,000 words of personal growth in front of her, but she still enjoys Draco's dry humor and his attention to detail, both of which he not infrequently uses to make fun of people on purpose. Draco knows this, and he likes amusing her, and sometimes he'll actively make a mean joke because he knows she finds it funny, and because he knows she won't make it herself. They're not the most likable people in the world.
Hermione may not have the same social graces as people born in the magical world, but when she insults people, she usually does it on accident, out of tactlessness, or because they've (in her eyes) well and truly earned it. She doesn't go out of her way to pick on people who haven't asked for it first, and I would go so far as to say her moral compass bars her from it. That's part of what Draco means when he claims to be the worse person, and while he's being wildly uncharitable in that argument, not to mention just an all-around arsehole, he is also a licensed expert on the particular subject of his relationship with Hermione Granger. He knows their dynamic very well, and she knows it.
#ugh i was clearly yearning to talk about this#but thank you for the ask!#dramione#lionheart spoilers
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When you are writing a new chapter for a fic, how do you decide what to put in, and what to leave out?
I see a lot of advice about killing your darlings - whittling the scene down until it contains only what's necessary to advance the plot.
But I also see advice that says it's okay to include more than this, because you need to advance the characters as well, by giving them quiet moments in between all of the plot advancing parts.
I really struggle to find the balance. I love writing the quiet moments, and fleshing the characters out, but sometimes these moments run away on me, and I end up with a bloated mess that barely advances the plot at all.
Do you have a process or a rule-of-thumb you follow, to help you decide what does or doesn't make the cut?
How easy do you find it to remove stuff later, when you realize the story is better without it? Do you cry and have wine while you bury your dead, or are you a ruthless assassin? :)
Oh man, great question.
I’m going to answer for what for my original fiction. I don’t heavily edit my fanfics in any meaningful capacity, as any of my readers can attest, since that is my hobby and editing is work. Also, since it is my hobby, I am pretty self indulgent with what I include. I meander and wander all over the place with my plots and don’t keep them as tight as they probably need to be.
Exhibit A, the visual representation of the plot of Thus, Always 2.0 (one line being present day and the second being the past):
But for my original fiction, there’s a very long, drawn out process of editing.
For House of No Return, the current book (known as The Venetians in my tags), I wrote out the first draft. In that draft I put all the self indulgent stuff I wanted. Character studies, side plots, random asides, plot cul-de-sacs, and so on.
Then, when done, I rewrote the entire thing. Top to bottom second draft. This is because, by the time I was done with draft one, I knew my characters a lot better than when I started. I knew, more clearly, the story I wanted to tell. I had a better vision of how the plot should work.
Once the second (or third) draft is done, I let it sit. Ideally, you should let it sit for a few months. I don’t have patience and am riddled with a deep need to always be writing, so I can usually only make it a few weeks.
When I take it back out, I print out the manuscript and read it in one or two sittings. This is because I need to remember what the fuck I was doing. As I read, I make margin notes of where I bump or where things drag a bit. My second read through is much more methodical. I sit with a note book and jot out a detailed outline as I read. When I eventually type them up they usually look something like this:
As I read through the outline, that’s where I can see if there are baggy parts that need trimming. When I note them, I decide whether to completely remove, or shorten, or shift to another part of the story, or if I can convey any central information in other areas.
Sometimes colour coding helps – highlighting all the parts that are faster paced in red, the slower bits in green, the pure character study bits in blue (or what have you). The visual representation helps me, at least, see if there’s a part that’s bunched up with only one colour and may need to be broken out a bit.
I make edits to my outline in blue, usually, of what needs to be added or changed when I go to do the next big rewrite.
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Throughout this whole outline review process, I’m also thinking through what sort of plot pattern/design best serves the story. There are a lot out there and each has a purpose and can strengthen aspects of the story that’s being told.
Good reference: Meander, Spiral, Explode: Design and Pattern in Narrative by Jane Alison.
For House of No Return, it’s a pretty classic mountain form: start | rising action | point no return | climax | resolution.
Something a bit like this with the little plateaus representing times when the plot slows for a bit to allow the reader a break and an opportunity to sit with a character or an emotion or some new information.
These breaks can also ratchet up tension and help keep people on the edge of their seat. The horror genre is a great example of this. You know that when we’re having a quiet character moment, or a humourous moment, we’re about to get something horrific on the other side of it and we’re in trepidation until it happens. But the book can’t be all horrific moments or else the audience gets bored.
(Unless the author is Doing Something/There’s a Purpose Being Served in having 85,000-100,000 words of only horrific moments. Which can abosolutely be the case! Again, it’s about what you’re trying to do, how to best tell the story, and fundamentally what that story needs to be.)
Grief and trauma writing also benefit from the breaks. I think about this in fics where it’s all bleak torture and there’s no resting or lighter moments—it’s hard on the audience. Which, again, can be the author’s intent! And that’s fine! But usually if you want to keep people going with you on the journey you need to give them breaks. That is just reality.
So, when writing the classic model I would say write, write, write. Get every thing onto the page. Every little indulgement moment, every little character study etc.
Then think about how you want the story to be paced. Do you want it a heart pounding fast paced piece? Then yeah, trim it down to mostly bare bones with just enough breaks for character study/get the audience invested in who they’re reading about and to give them a bit of a breather. But it should be super tight, over all.
Steep, steep, steep – little moments here and there for a break – then shattering fall and people should be reading going “what the fuuuuck is going to happen next??” (Grady Hendrix is a master of this.)
Some traditional mountains, though, are slower.
There's a long, langurous start. We’re all along for a gentle ride then it begins to build bit by bit until we realize we’re riding down the Tuscan hillside in a cart with no breaks.
This is the sort of story where you can really relish your character studies and soft moments between people and little side bits. But you do need to keep enough movement to keep the audience interested. This is one that is harder to pull off because the balance can be tricky.
I tend to write like this. Hilary Mantel has books that hit this kind of approach. Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s Mexican Gothic is a good example of a slow burn start but a good ride at the end. Laura Purcell’s The Silent Companions is another example.
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All that said, not all stories need to follow the traditional approach! Some are meant to be tangled meditations. A lot of weaving, a lot of introspection, the story is more about the journey and not the destination. Sometimes the plots look a little like this:
Peak Literary Experimental Fiction shit right here. This can be a lot of character study, a lot of philosophical musings, a lot tangents or backtracking or jumping around a little. Justin Torres’ Blackouts is a great example of a meandering story that is as much about the characters and their conversations as it is about queerness and history.
Other stories are meant to be rolling hills or waves: up and down, up and down.
Jane Austin has a bit of a wave quality to some of her stories, not all, but some. Long, drawn out family epics that span generations tend to have this quality to them. Books like Pillars of the Earth tend to be more wavey than mountain climax.
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Anyway. I've done a diversion myself. Back to editing.
When I’m doing my trimming, I don’t have an exact process for determining what makes the cut or what stays. I go with my gut on a lot of it. Sometimes, there are scenes that are hitting the same note but coming at it in different ways.
Cristof’s anxiety over his friend’s gambling addiction, and his guilt around feeling as if he is enabling it, is something I overwrote in the first few drafts because I was trying to understand the psychology of their friendship and Cristof’s own inner demons. Therefore, as I trimmed, I picked three key things that the audience needed to know about Cristof and Jacopo and made sure those were captured. I cut and trimmed accordingly.
However, I do have some babies that get reused in different places once I realize the original scene wasn’t working.
This stupid joke was originally in a completely different scene and was said by different characters but that scene wasn’t working and so I had to cut it. But I was very enamoured with this little interaction, so I found a way to incorporate it.
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It’s also important to remember that some character studies/the resting pauses can be brief. By all means write out the full seven page version but I bet it’s possible to trim it down to a really powerful short beat that can pack a bit of a punch. Writing out the full seven pages is sometimes necessary to get at the heart of what you’re trying to say. Then cut it back.
I had a full multi-page version of this paragraph:
But it’s a rest-beat in the middle of the apothecary/barbershop scene that is moving the plot along, and therefore this memory/character beat needed to be tight. Still, we get a bit of a glimpse at Cristof and Nicolo through it, and while it might not seem important on the surface, we do need to care about these two idiots and the fact that they’re dumb about each other and in love.
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Quiet moments can also be interspersed within action. You can weave them through, so you have:
Active Scene/Plot Moving
Restful introspection or memory
Back to the Active Scene.
If done right it can give a bit of a melodious, wave-like quality to what you’re writing. It’s not for every story, nor every scene, and shouldn’t be overused (I may be guilty of that), but it allows you to still get in those meaningful character moments without stopping the plot too much.
As for the ease with which I kill darlings? Depends on the darling. Some are easier than others. Some I like, but if I can incorporate the important bits in another fashion then I’m fine with it. The more I write, the more I edit, the more ruthless I become.
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A lot of this is, fundamentally, all about practice and doing it a lot. And also all writing rules aren’t rules so much as broad guidelines and each story has its own needs and requirements to make it work.
Apologies for the long reply. I'm not sure it's what you're after but I hope it helps. There is, unfortunately, no "quick trick" that I have to do it. It's really just a very involved process.
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FanFiction Recommendations
before I disclose my favorite Pedro Pascal character-related fan fiction here, a few caveats and disclosed biases: I’m a woman of a certain age. I was your average English lit major. I’m the dork who - upon listening to Jewel’s debut album and hearing the lyric “you can be Henry Miller and I’ll be Anais Nin” in the mid 1990s - legit hauled my ass to the local public library and looked up Anais Nin - using the Dewey Decimal system - to read her elevated smut. Right now I’m a content but exhausted, ragey American woman in a mid-life crisis. I hate bullshit, I have an ok attention span, I scroll/read after the family’s gone to bed.
if you look at my semi-neglected Tumblr page, you’ll see I’m relatively new to the Pedro fandom. What a privilege to dive into really superb writing. This is clearly not an exhaustive list and reflects my tastes (and to each her/his/their own)! But if you’re an exhausted parent in a mid-life crisis and have no time, this may be for you!
in no particular order...
@fuckyeahdindjarin - masterlist - Cee describes herself as a writer who pens romantic comedies - and she does a stellar job with them - but she sells herself short and fails to mention the sex scenes she writes are hot. especially love the consent series (dieter bravo), the grays 2-part series (frankie morales), and of course, the ongoing joel miller/pin series. a delightful mix of angst, sweetness, spice. and a thoughtful writer with an inclusive mindset.
@absurdthirst - masterlist - if you told me Keri has a few stories published in several “best of erotica” anthologies, I’d believe you. good smut is fucking hard to write. this is great smut. this is smut you read and then take a cold shower afterwards or do whatever it is you like to do to get yourself off. it’s smut that even as a non-smoker and knowing all the terrible health risks you may think goddamn I need a cigarette. I'm partial to a few Javier Pena and Agent Whiskey pieces, but you’d be satisfied reading any of her stories.
@something-tofightfor - masterlist - Rachael should give a master class on how to write the best slow burn. Her Joel Miller stories stand out for several reasons including - 1) she thoughtfully incorporates elements of the original canon/game into her fanfic which is uncommon in the PP fandom (from what I’ve seen/read at least), 2) every Joel story/chapter is compelling and well imagined. Her current series on Tim Rockford has me on the edge of my seat and I'm eagerly awaiting the next installment. And judging from the titles of her stories, we have similar music tastes (ha!).
@disgruntledspacedad - this writer hasn’t updated in several months, but their Javier Pena multi-chapter fic (and folks, there are MANY out there) called Better Love is the one that kept me going and going and wanting to read more (see mention of short attention span in a tired mama above). being in the healthcare field, I also arch my eyebrows out of curiosity when someone weaves medical stuff into their writing and wonder what line of work they do. (yes I'm a terribly biased nerd, I’m a sucker for when someone puts a f!physician reader into their PP-character related drabble).
@jomiddlemarch - she is a great friend and a gifted, amazing writer who always makes me wonder “how does she do this and how does she do this so well and so quickly while the rest of us plebes are just getting through our day.” she writes for MULTIPLE fandoms (and judging from the notes on her posts, I think her readership is more into those than Pedro and the Last of Us but it’s ok!), and started writing Joel Miller and an OFC (she created!) named Grace Yang (NOT ME - but maybe there’s a chance she created this OFC to shut me up since I’ve been rambling on and on about how besotted I am with Pedro 😂). If you’re into OFCs, read her stuff. Check out the (ongoing) entire series on her AO3 here. Here’s one story that you can find on her Tumblr. Two of the five stories are Ted Lasso crossovers - all her stories are written so richly and so layered - she’s the star in your writing workshop who’s showing and not telling - I’m still thinking about how there’s so much to unpack in the latest one. :)
#fic rec#pedro pascal#pedro pascal fanfiction#javier pena#joel miller#agent whiskey#tim rockford#dieter bravo#frankie morales#fuckyeahdindjarin#absurdthirst#something-tofightfor#disgruntledspacedad#jomiddlemarch
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