ragana62

[ragana62]

Reblog if you are a fanfiction author and would like your readers to put one of your fic titles in your ask + questions about it

[ragana62]

I cannot stress enough how important it is to do silly, frivolous things that serve no other purpose than making you happy.

[ragana62]

People seem to be really resonating with this so I'm putting it over here too.

Original thread

[ragana62]

i post here like no one’s looking which is mostly true

[ragana62]

not naming names but some of you are genuinely really good people and i hope that you get everything your heart wants and needs

[ragana62]

i know romance introduced jinu to one (1) enemies-to-lovers novel and he was like “that. that’s what i want to be.”

romance being like “wait, you don’t have enemies, except for- YOU WANT TO DATE GWI-MA??” “NO DUMBASS THE HUNTRIX GIRL” “ohhhhhh wait what”

[ragana62]

a very proud librarian and a filthy, rude, complete scoundrel <3

[ragana62]

Am back!

Part 2: Cashmere/Enobaria (who has a name that wants to auto-correct with Emo Birria and now I want tacos and Fall Out Boy)

So, these two I think are very much opposite sides of the same coin. They are both different varieties of ‘popular’ for the Capitol taken to a very logical end, and they’re the archetypical ones from their districts too. Enobaria is standard bloodthirsty warrior expected from Two, now down to even the sharpened teeth so that her body is even more of a weapon. Cashmere is the pretty trinket expected from One, polished into a perfect matching set with her brother while still expected to dazzle all on her own.

Except that’s not who they are, that’s who they’ve been cast as. How many times has Enobaria cut her own lip or gums on her sharpened teeth because she forgot they were like that now only to be reminded all too painfully? How many times has Cashmere lost her sense of self, her individual identity, in being part of a matched set, or called anyone she happens to be partnered with at a party her brother’s name on instinct?

Oddly enough, and much unlike Blight/Brutus, I think their original interactions were for clients in the Capitol who wanted a bit of the Beauty and Beast act. They were forced together well before they would have been comfortable seeking each other out even platonically in the aftermath of their games. To keep them in that juxtaposition, hold them at odds, give them no reason to even try and seek out potential friendship or companionship or sympathy.

I think that makes the exact nature of their relationship a bit awkward at times, because on the one hand they understand more than even any of the others who have seen that side of the Capitol first hand can, what each other has been through. They’re just as much a set as Cashmere and Gloss are, in that regard. On the other though, that means that any physical affection between them has a tendency to flag as performing, whether or not they have that audience they’re both used to. So there’s a deep intimacy there, but one that doesn’t always show in the ways their friends or others might tend to look for to indicate they are together.

I do think this leads to other ways of communicating that affection though, workarounds they find. Neither of them is terribly interested in anything physical anyway, definitely not without a lot of therapy, and quite possibly not ever (personally, I HC Cashmere as fairly sex-neutral to sex-repulsed ace regardless of trauma). The two of them have a bit of a code though, signals, ones that started as ways of warning each other at parties of who might be more dangerous than others, of what friends they might have handy, but quickly became useful for other things too. Communicating when they didn’t want to be overheard, things they didn’t want to have to explain.

I do think they were fairly secretive about having an actual relationship though. Partly because it could easily have been weaponized against them, but partly because they want something that’s just theirs. Something that doesn’t belong to the Capitol or have to be shared with their siblings or fit with the role they’re expected to play.

More rarepair shenanigans, in the hopes it might encourage others to be more forthcoming with their own (and because I’m writing Hum while trying to strip this dye out of my hair and am more convinced of some of the adversaries to lovers arcs that are kind of taking shape there needing to happen):

I kind of like a lot of the Victors as assorted varieties of queer. It plays well with a number of random theories/notions of how the games work in fandom and in my own stuff (same sex relationships being illegal or at least very frowned upon in Panem in canon means they’re easy leverage for Snow to hold over them or indeed even reasons to have eyes on them as prospective tributes if you go all in on the ‘most reaping are rigged’ stance though personally I do not. They play well with the outsider narratives that are there for a lot of victors too, another reason that sort of separates them from the rest of their district in their minds, or at least something that can be weaponized to make them feel removed from their districts if the Capitol is trying to keep them isolated. Etc, etc.)

But this is rarepair weekend, so I should get specific. Since this is because Hum, I guess I’ll focus for now on the ones that I’m increasingly convinced will come up in there. Namely: Brutus/Blight, Enobaria/Cashmere, mayhaps a hint of Katniss/Johanna (though I don’t know if that’s a rarepair tbh, I’d have to look at stats.). I’ve already spoken a little bit about my OFC who I ship with Mags and who will be in there, and I’d do it again if asked, but we’re going to skip them for now.

First off: Brutus/Blight.

I definitely like the take of Blight being a bit of an unwanted child on account of his name. Most of the names in the Hunger Games are sort of versions of virtue naming, in a sense, given their relation to local industries/family trades/other things of value to their families. In a district oriented around lumber and forestry, blight is firmly not a positive thing to be named for. Even Johanna sort of reinforces this, in a sense, with her ‘he wasn’t much but he was from home’ line in CF. To the people who he should hold the most significance to, family members, co-mentors/former tributes he may have mentored, other victors, he very much comes across as an afterthought at best.

Brutus on the other hand, is a lot more prominent. He’s a vague threat on existence alone when in the CF arena, he volunteers to go back in and it’s speculated he likes the violence (admittedly by Katniss who doesn’t have much personal knowledge to go on, but the others do seem to see him as a potential threat/somewhat aggressive or at least assertive). The Capitol definitely hasn’t forgotten about his existence since his games in the way it seems they have or at least tried to with some of the over victors, even if he’s not one of the ‘popular’ ones on appearance alone.

Both of those are deeply lonely positions to be in. We don’t get much insight into their family dynamics or friendships outside of the games or even amongst the other victors in the way we get with some of the others (i.e. we are told Mags wears a wedding ring, Johanna and Finnick are clearly close enough to look to each other when making decisions, Beetee is said to be “with Wiress in his heart” after she dies in canon, etc.). In Hum, as prisoners in the Capitol, they’re still in very lonely positions at the start, made only worse by the fact that in Blight’s case he’s being held up as a traitor to his potential friends and in Brutus’s he’s being confirmed as exactly the person the other victors (or at least Katniss) always suspected he was.

For me, that’s kind of why they’re falling together as naturally as they are while I’m writing. They’re both deeply distrustful at the start, both very used to having to be self-reliant because they don’t believe at the end of the day they have support coming if they need it, they take Katniss’s paranoia around what people who got to grow up with support networks would see as neutral to kind gestures to extremes. But they are also both clearly used to looking for threats in everything and everyone around them, and they can see the same wariness in each other and know very well where that comes from. The transition from recognizing that same isolation in someone else, to trying to subtly communicate that you see that and will watch their back if they watch yours in an increasingly complicated environment, to finally reaching actual understanding is something I’m really enjoying in them.

So yeah, I kind of like the dynamic that’s shaping up between them in that fic and the others that have been coming to mind while thinking about how it might play out in that particular instance (and don’t see anyone else really doing Brutus/Blight which is probably because they’re both borderline non-characters in canon but still sad, though if any of you have recs of that please send them my way).

Phone’s dying on me, so I’ll pick up Enobaria/Cashmere and Katniss/Johanna in other posts on my computer once I dig that out.

[ragana62]

if you're in the throes of cosmic despair i cannot recommend museums enough. art or science or history it doesn't matter. oh we're all connected, all of us and everything, throughout all time and space, and no one, no one, no one is alone? awesome. that's what i thought i just wanted to make sure.

[ragana62]

sometimes i forget how reading is just. marvelous. just an absolutely fucking endlessly joyful activity. i’ll go about my life and not read one single book for months and be like why am i morose! why am i so apathetic! what is missing here!!!! and try to look for whatever it is that is lacking and never find it anywhere and i get so tired and sad and angry, and then i’m finally like i’m gonna stop everything for a couple days and read a really good book bc i don’t care about anything else. and suddenly i get motivated to work bc i know i’ll read when i’m on break. i get more creative. i want to watercolor again and bust out the shameful fabric stash with all my unfinished sewing projects. god even my dreams get more vivid!! what the fuck! and i’m like here is the magic i was looking for, why did i ever think i was going to find it anywhere else. it was always here!!!

[ragana62]

I hope that what Rarepair weekend is proving is that I am capable of shipping literally everyone and anyone given one or more of the following:

1. A vaguely interesting idea of how they might get together under a certain set of circumstances.

2. A good enough fic/piece of art of them together that convinces me it could be fun.

3. Enough messiness/drama surrounding the idea they might be together to be fun.

4. Vibes.

I need some people to understand that I will absolutely ship two characters who would absolutely never get together in canon simply because I want to. No I don’t think they’re canon nor will I look for subtext that they like each other. In fact, I don’t even want them to be canon. I just like the art and fanfiction man. Like their shippers low-key got something fire going on and I wanna be a part of that. It really isn’t that deep.

[ragana62]

More rarepair shenanigans, in the hopes it might encourage others to be more forthcoming with their own (and because I’m writing Hum while trying to strip this dye out of my hair and am more convinced of some of the adversaries to lovers arcs that are kind of taking shape there needing to happen):

I kind of like a lot of the Victors as assorted varieties of queer. It plays well with a number of random theories/notions of how the games work in fandom and in my own stuff (same sex relationships being illegal or at least very frowned upon in Panem in canon means they’re easy leverage for Snow to hold over them or indeed even reasons to have eyes on them as prospective tributes if you go all in on the ‘most reaping are rigged’ stance though personally I do not. They play well with the outsider narratives that are there for a lot of victors too, another reason that sort of separates them from the rest of their district in their minds, or at least something that can be weaponized to make them feel removed from their districts if the Capitol is trying to keep them isolated. Etc, etc.)

But this is rarepair weekend, so I should get specific. Since this is because Hum, I guess I’ll focus for now on the ones that I’m increasingly convinced will come up in there. Namely: Brutus/Blight, Enobaria/Cashmere, mayhaps a hint of Katniss/Johanna (though I don’t know if that’s a rarepair tbh, I’d have to look at stats.). I’ve already spoken a little bit about my OFC who I ship with Mags and who will be in there, and I’d do it again if asked, but we’re going to skip them for now.

First off: Brutus/Blight.

I definitely like the take of Blight being a bit of an unwanted child on account of his name. Most of the names in the Hunger Games are sort of versions of virtue naming, in a sense, given their relation to local industries/family trades/other things of value to their families. In a district oriented around lumber and forestry, blight is firmly not a positive thing to be named for. Even Johanna sort of reinforces this, in a sense, with her ‘he wasn’t much but he was from home’ line in CF. To the people who he should hold the most significance to, family members, co-mentors/former tributes he may have mentored, other victors, he very much comes across as an afterthought at best.

Brutus on the other hand, is a lot more prominent. He’s a vague threat on existence alone when in the CF arena, he volunteers to go back in and it’s speculated he likes the violence (admittedly by Katniss who doesn’t have much personal knowledge to go on, but the others do seem to see him as a potential threat/somewhat aggressive or at least assertive). The Capitol definitely hasn’t forgotten about his existence since his games in the way it seems they have or at least tried to with some of the over victors, even if he’s not one of the ‘popular’ ones on appearance alone.

Both of those are deeply lonely positions to be in. We don’t get much insight into their family dynamics or friendships outside of the games or even amongst the other victors in the way we get with some of the others (i.e. we are told Mags wears a wedding ring, Johanna and Finnick are clearly close enough to look to each other when making decisions, Beetee is said to be “with Wiress in his heart” after she dies in canon, etc.). In Hum, as prisoners in the Capitol, they’re still in very lonely positions at the start, made only worse by the fact that in Blight’s case he’s being held up as a traitor to his potential friends and in Brutus’s he’s being confirmed as exactly the person the other victors (or at least Katniss) always suspected he was.

For me, that’s kind of why they’re falling together as naturally as they are while I’m writing. They’re both deeply distrustful at the start, both very used to having to be self-reliant because they don’t believe at the end of the day they have support coming if they need it, they take Katniss’s paranoia around what people who got to grow up with support networks would see as neutral to kind gestures to extremes. But they are also both clearly used to looking for threats in everything and everyone around them, and they can see the same wariness in each other and know very well where that comes from. The transition from recognizing that same isolation in someone else, to trying to subtly communicate that you see that and will watch their back if they watch yours in an increasingly complicated environment, to finally reaching actual understanding is something I’m really enjoying in them.

So yeah, I kind of like the dynamic that’s shaping up between them in that fic and the others that have been coming to mind while thinking about how it might play out in that particular instance (and don’t see anyone else really doing Brutus/Blight which is probably because they’re both borderline non-characters in canon but still sad, though if any of you have recs of that please send them my way).

Phone’s dying on me, so I’ll pick up Enobaria/Cashmere and Katniss/Johanna in other posts on my computer once I dig that out.

[ragana62]

(Always love to see you chat rarepairs, you know how to have fun!) We've talked Cissamione before, not sure if that's a rarepair (and Bellamione definitely isn't). I do like Harry/Tonks a lot. There's nothing for it on here, <150 fics on ao3 when you filter everything else out, and next to nothing that fits my tastes. I've been interested in the idea of them since OotP was first released. They have an interesting, very under-served dynamic in canon; Harry is quite vulnerable with her and she's at turns cheeky and very mature around him, you're never quite sure how to place them. I also find it interesting that she is what he wants to be: a young, gifted auror; unapologetically herself. She is rather his type and it's easy to imagine how Tonks would be drawn to Harry in different circumstances- especially with how she's otherwise surrounded by much older folk (and in canon chases an unreliable, emotionally unavailable man. Man, there is so much to untangle in why she pursues that relationship).

(Well thank you, I do always enjoy getting a touch out there with it and have a hard time feeling like I can just let loose with ‘em as much as I do privately or might like to…)

I do really like Harry/Tonks too (though I’ll admit, he’s not my go to for pairing her. I tend to lean fairly sapphic with Tonks when not sticking with canon or being requested to do otherwise). But I do see it and I think you have some really good points there.

There’s definitely a lot of potential in a circumstance where she survives the war and isn’t with (or at least isn’t still with Remus) for a very solid mentor-mentee relationship that I do think very naturally could turn into something romantic, and at the very least they have a lot of very strong friendship potential, ironically for a lot of the same reasons I like her whether romantically or platonically with Fleur or Hermione. Tonks is a safe place to not be perfect, and for characters who have a tendency to NEED to be perfect I think that’s a powerful character trait.

She might be clumsy and goofy at times, but she’s decidedly competent, otherwise she’d not be on half the order missions she is or be treated the way she is by other characters like Moody for instance who clearly respects her even if he gives her shit at times for her clumsiness/more cavalier approach at times. She can hold her own and doesn’t need the care taking that Harry is used to sort of feeling obligated to consider. She’s also not going to run off and flip out if he needs to scream about something, while simultaneously very much not taking his shit. If he needs to have a meltdown because he’s stressed and this is bullshit, that’s fair play, but there’s no circumstance where I really see Tonks not pushing back on it the second it either becomes lashing out at the people he feels safe lashing out at or some self-defeating spiral.

In the reverse, you point out how under other circumstances Tonks might find herself drawn to Harry in part because he’s not going to treat her like the goofy little kid in the room, but I also think there’s an element of easy camaraderie to be found there. I think that Tonks and Harry actually work rather well in their out of wartime roles as parallels. They’re both half-bloods who were raised firmly with awareness at a bare minimum of the muggle world and culture and such, they both have rather complicated ways of interacting with the pureblood side of their heritage and how it impacts their lives. They have a way of being able to understand each other that we just don’t see a ton of in canon otherwise. Neither has to spend as much time translating for each other as they might around some of the others in their orbit.

Honestly, while it’s not a pairing I think about a ton, it definitely has a lot of potential. And, it’s definitely disappointing that there were so many almost moments of friendship and camaraderie in canon that just never got fleshed out how they could have (getting him from the Dursley’s house in OOTP, the aftermath of Sirius’s death could have been a good opportunity for another that didn’t happen at all, finding Harry on the train in HBP, etc.). At the very least, it would have been good to see them actually be the sort of easy friends/outlets they seem like they very naturally could have been for each other.

[ragana62]

Baby: We are gathered here today because someone- *glares at Jinu’s coffin* -couldn’t stay alive!

[ragana62]

Alright, I’m just going to yap to myself since nobody else is feeling chatty this AM.

Lucius Malfoy and Arthur Weasley are kind of the ultimate messy situationship no matter how you look at them.

Canon continuity? They literally nearly get in a fist fight in a bookstore while passive aggressively snarking about who is more of a disgrace. That’s messy exes right there, no questions asked. You have to be invested in someone emotionally if you are about to take a swing at them in front of your and their children while calling them an embarrassment during the back to school shop.

The fic potentials though? Endless. Did they date in school and have a falling out over family politics? Was there an aggressively one sided crush that felt rejected because the other didn’t even know that was a thing (personal HC for this one: Lucius had the crush, Arthur didn’t know and started dating Molly, and Lucius has been full tilt Good Luck, Babe variety pissed ever since)? Has it always been this messy will they-won’t they tension behind every single interaction while they fight over everything? Have they secretly been together the whole time and just have a standing agreement to do whatever needs doing to keep up appearances?

[ragana62]

No Archive Warnings Apply: this fic does not contain any content pertaining to the Archive Warnings. This includes: Graphic Depictions of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con, and Underage Sex. This fic may contain any number of other things, tagged or untagged, that can include: smut/lemons including a wide array of kink content, non-graphic violence (think generally the difference between an average Marvel fight scene vs. an average Tarantino fight scene), extreme angst, potential triggers of all sorts, dark fic tropes like kidnapping or forced marriage, etc.

Chose Not to Use Archive Warnings: yeah there might be something in here that is covered by Archive warnings that the author didn’t want to tag for some reason. Maybe they thought it would be spoilers for the story. Maybe they just weren’t sure what made something a GRAPHIC depiction of violence and didn’t want to mislead anyone, maybe they weren’t sure where to draw the line for Major Character Death for a fic that is more or less canon compliant in a fandom where like half the characters die by the end. Or, maybe there’s nothing in here that’s covered under archive warnings but the author wasn’t sure at one point while writing if maybe there would be a scene later on that could be so they wanted to put a blanket ‘maybe’ on the fic just in case. Either way, the author said “eh”, and it’s at the reader’s discretion if they want to continue to read the fic based on that and any other tags that may or may not be there.

i keep seeing well-meaning posts about tagging on ao3 claiming that 'no archive warnings apply' means a fic is fluffy and wholesome and maybe smutty but can be trusted contain nothing upsetting. and from the bottom of my heart, please, this is so wrong. like, even aside from the fact that 'upsetting' is a very personal definition, it literally just means that none of the big four archive warnings apply, and i promise you it's very possible to write a DEEPLY upsetting fic that contains none of those things.

[ragana62]

18 and 26 from your meet the fic writer post 💙💚

18. Do you title your fics before, during, or after the writing process? How do you come up with titles?

Already sort of answered this one, but all of the above. Idk, maybe it’s all the songwriting, but titles aren’t something I tend to struggle with like I know some people do. Sometimes I have titles before I even have fic ideas and I make up the idea to go with the title. Only real exception is prompts because prompts sometimes I title the second before I post them…

26. Which fic would you say is your wildest ride?

Yeah… I honestly don’t know. I write a lot of crack treated seriously or just straight up crack. I also write a lot of major twisty “oh look, it’s Character A who we all thought was dead with a folding chair!” nonsense. My most recent pure chaos is probably A Baker’s Dozen, because “everyone takes Peeta at his word and now Katniss is unintentionally starting up a babysitting service right in time for the cameras to turn up and wonder how they have 10-ish kids instead of 1 and half look several years too old, and somehow this does stop the games fully because Plutarch convinces the Capitol that reality TV would me more profitable and just as distracting for the districts” is pretty chaotic even before you get to Haymitch beefing with kindergartners or questionable district naming habits.