#Author Q and A

[sarahowritesostucky]

2023 In Review : Authors' Edition

What’s something new that you tried in a fic this year? How did it turn out and would you do it again? I wrote my first drabble. Plan to do more as part of my compliments to fanart that I like and reblog.

How many fics did you work on this year? (They don’t have to be finished or published!) 28

What’s something you learned about yourself as a writer? I overuse semicolons and dashes and the first step is admitting you have a problem.

What piece of media inspired you the most? Handmaid's Tale, Snowpiercer (And of course MCU just b/c of Stucky)

What fandom(s) did you write for this year? Marvel/MCU, Actor RPF, Supernatural, Fresh, Snowpiercer, Knives Out

What ship(s) captured your heart? Stucky already had my heart. I really got into other C.Evans and S.Stan characters paired with OFC's, this year though.

What character(s) captured your heart? I liked exploring Curtis Everett and Lloyd Hansen. But I still ride or die for Steve&Bucky.

Did you write for a new fandom or ship this year? Yes!! Lots of new M/F pairings, and 5 new C.Evans characters.

What fic meant the most to you to write? "The Carter Academy for Omega Excellence"--because this was my first commissioned fic and I'm super proud of that. Plus, I've formed a friendship with the person who asked for it!

What fic made you feel the happiest to work on? No clear winner for this one, just a ton of ties. Fluffiest fic was "Angels Are Avian Adjacent"

What fic was the most satisfying to finish writing? "The Merging: A Union" - just b/c I've left the SN fandom and was glad to have given the story an end.

What fic was the most difficult to write? Did you finish it? "Medically Necessitated" - because there is SO much I want to include in the plot of this one and it just is hard to keep it all straight in my head sometimes. Plus I'm rarely in the mood to write it because I hold the tone and quality of the writing so dear to my heart, that I don't want to just phone it in or half ass it. It is not finished (yet!).

What fic was the easiest to write? "Wet Dream" was written as a Bingo fill, and it felt like it came pretty easily.

What were your shortest and longest fics this year? "It Started with Helga the Lunch Lady" - 863 words "Medically Necessitated" - 91,000 words

Rec a fic you wrote or posted in 2023 "Medically Necessitated"

What were you go-to writing songs? "Wicked Game," "Enjoy the Silence," "I want to," "Like U," "Say It," "Falling," "Insomnia," "Should Be Higher," "Daddy Issues."

What were your go-to writing snacks? Kratom, caffeine pills

What was the hardest fic to title? Hydra Sanatorium - the title was actually something else that I decided I didn't like, so it got changed.

Share your favorite opening line A 3-way tie between: 1. "As a gigantic fucking Duh, hiking that last mile home with an ass full of cum is no fun." (BB & his 1001 Fetishes, ch 34), 2. "The Morning When Steve Finds Out What Bucky Wants to do to His Dick:" (Modifications & Improvement of Functions), and 3. "Sebastian’s in the middle of taking a dump when he hears his phone out in the kitchen. “Ah, crap.”" (I Prefer Girls Who're Not Afraid to Cry)

Share your favorite ending line A 3-way tie between 1. "What the hell kind of simp-ass Dom even calls themself something stupid like "Bucky," anyway?" (It Started with Helga the Lunch Lady) 2. "And then, nodding at the box of Midnight Black #106 that the other man is considering, furtively advises, “... don’t do it.”" (Merry & Bright, part 2) and 3. "Well, Bucky utilized his super soldier stealth skills. Steve tripped into the floor lamp." (Good Ol' Fashioned Values)

Share your favorite piece of dialogue I couldn't sort through ALL of the dialogue, lol, but it would definitely be the dirty talk in one of them. A recent one that comes to mind is the sexually tense and taunting back and forth Bucky has with his half-sister in "Make it Stick", or the banter between Ransom and his ex-GF in "Who'd You Have to Blow to Get That Part?"

Share an excerpt from your favorite scene AGAIN, too too many to sort through them all, but I love the scene in Good Ol' Fashioned Values where Steve and Bucky are making love, and Steve is emotional over wanting to be the omega mate he used to be for Bucky, and Bucky tenderly reassures him that he's still the perfect mate: [[“Buck, oh, p-please …”

“Uh huh. That’s right Honey. So soft. You work so hard to go soft for me, don’t you Sweetheart?”

Steve whimpered in a way he rarely did anymore, hands flying up to cover Bucky’s on his neck. “Yes, yes,” he gasped. His fingers curled into Bucky’s metal ones and held on almost desperately. “Please. I can be good. Buck,”

It broke Bucky’s heart a little bit, and he cooed sadly and shook his head. “Aw, Stevie, no.” He changed his pace, slowing down and fucking in deep and staying there to grind them together. “You’re always good, Honey. Always. Even when you can’t.” Steve’s eyes got misty at that, and plaintive, sad sounds started working their way out of his throat alongside the moans. Bucky hushed him. “Shh sh sh, Sweetheart.”]]

Share the final version of a sentence or paragraph you struggled with. What about it was challenging? Are you happy with how it turned out? The last paragraph of Modifications & Improvement of Functions, because the tone of the fic was so lighthearted and so twisted at different points, I wasn't quite sure which tone I wanted it to end on. [[Steve’s old junker of a heart gets another ding in it. He pulls Bucky in close to be the little spoon, and lies there kissing at the back of his neck for a long, long time. “You always work right, Buck. You’re always perfect. I love you.” He traces the edges of the star that’s carved into the nape of his neck, and eventually he whispers, “We’ll go to the piercing shop tomorrow.”]]

What's something that surprised you while you were working on a fic? Did it change the story? That a 16 year old character may NOT be written engaging in even non-explicit sexual relationships in a Tumblr fic. I had to reformat a few details to be safe (but I increased the age gap super much instead, so nah nah! 😝(Got my abusive Tumblr Staff Troll 🧌to thank for that one.)

What did you use to write? (e.g. writing programs, paper & pen, etc.) Google Docs. Sometimes I'll jot something small down straight onto a Tumblr post.

If you had to choose one, what was THE most satisfying writing moment of your year? I'm just really satisfied with the themes and unique way the narrative handles the subject matter in Modifications and Improvement of Functions, I think. As well as how I navigated the half-sibling incest depicted in "Make it Stick"

Did you do anything special to celebrate finishing a fic? When I achieved 5 in a rows on Bingos, I posted the masterlists. First time doing that!

How did you recharge between fics? Sleep, binge eating, elliptical machine/gym, Youtube videos.

If this were an awards show, who would you thank? My supporters who have commissioned fics, my most frequent commentors/rebloggers, and the people who supported me when the Tumblr Staff Troll 🧌 started abusing her position. (@smlmsworld, @autumnrose40, @pia-bartolini, @pandafishao3, @albymangroves, @rogersbarneses, @cobaltmoonysart, @justsupersarahthings (@and the others who I probably forgot!)

What’s something that you want to write in 2024? I have a fic I was writing for the @stuckyhistoricalfiction challenge that I never finished because of an injury/recuperation, but I truly love the fic concept and what I have written so far, so I'd like to finish that this year, even if it's just a shorter version than I'd planned. I also had two fics I was supposed to write and another fic I was supposed to draw for, for the @stuckybangs, which I didn't complete due to the injury. I'd love to collab with those partners and fulfill their visions! BUT MOST OF ALL: I want to finish up many, if not most (or all 😅) of my WIPs that I have going. I love them all so much and have no intention of letting any of them remain unfinished forever!

[dionyrtal]

"Pain and pleasure usually have the same sound. The horror of seeing the heart of your lover on a silver plate is also thrilling. Deep in your bones, you already know. Matter to matter. Blood gives blood. You'd rather die than not eat away what you love."

Vertigo Peaks by Dion Anja (2024)

[bookshelf-in-progress]

I love how a well-written romance is so often structured as a mystery. A person starts with a certain idea about another person, and over the course of the story, they uncover more evidence that gives them a fuller picture of who the other person truly is. They learn about layers to the personality and backstory that give the other person more depth. They learn how the other person's personality meshes with theirs. Even the third-act misunderstanding fits the mystery structure--it looks like they've uncovered the final secret to the other person's identity, which is that they're not the worthy person they seemed to be, but then discover that they misinterpreted that evidence, or the other person takes steps to apologize and repair the level of trust. When the mystery is resolved, they've reached a full understanding of each other and know they've found a partner they can trust their whole future to.

[grimvestige]

I finally got around to reading my Vampire Hunter D ebooks so I wanted to do a little fanart of everyone's favorite pretty dhampir~

[soracities]

Ilya Kaminsky, from "Author's Prayer", Dancing in Odessa

[aroaceleovaldez]

Something something Jason feeling like he doesn't quite fit as "Greek" or "Roman" as a metaphor for bisexuality, particularly the semi-canonical bi-coding in his half of experiences during the Cupid scene and how Favonius and Cupid speak to him in parallel to the scenes confirming Nico is gay.

Something something the camps as metaphors for traditionally acceptable forms of relationships and Nico living as a rogue outside of them, rejecting expectation (ergo in himself representing a metaphor of queer identity and living outside of boxes and defined/usually hetero-allonormative/binary ideas of what love/relationships should look like) versus Jason struggling with the expectation to conform to a label and even discussing with Nico both of them remaining at CHB together.

Something something the inverse of Jason shifting away from the camps after he breaks up with Piper, feeling lost and unable to find a place between the camps as he begins to explore his queer identity properly for the first time versus Nico only remaining at CHB because he has entered a relationship. In this essay I will-

[princington]

“I’m…” she finds herself stuttering. “I’m his… Well I— uh…”

“She’s my Bea!” Diego says then, dragging her out of her panic well as he throws his arms in the air, and Beatrice laughs even though he almost punched her in the nose.

"Right," she says, smiling at him. "I'm his Bea."

the village ch 13 by icantfindanusernameLETMEIN

[kyouka-supremacy]

We should talk more about Akutagawa seeing Dazai in Atsushi and being revolted by him, that's such a juicy concept to explore

[theoffingmag]

Magic realism uses tropes — for example, ghosts — not in a way that horror uses ghosts. It uses ghosts as a way of uncovering what has been buried. The ghosts are pointing to something that has been erased, and they are revealing themselves in the corporeal world in order for the living characters to finally discover and acknowledge it. Magical realism is a way of mythologizing something that has been forgotten, and in that mythology the reader is now unable to forget it, because it is now myth. And so magical realism is a savior of memory.

— Q&A with John Manuel Arias, author of Where There Was Fire

[curator-on-ao3]

fic author q&a

I was tagged by @deadheaddaisy for a fun and great fic author game. Thank you for tagging me, @deadheaddaisy! ❤️ As happy as I am to be tagged, the thing is, y’all, I’ve done that particular game a few times already and, even though it’s a great game, I was in the mood for something different. So, I’ve made new questions — and answered them — and I’ve tagged some folks in case they want to answer them, too.

1. Why do you write fanfic?

Life can be stressful, and writing fanfic can be like a little vacation. It’s not my life, anymore, it’s the characters’ lives.

2. Which of your posted stories do you think about the most, even though the story is “finished”?

I think about Malleable and Unmalleable Orders (Mirror Pikeone, E) probably because it’s so different from what I usually write. I also think about The Light Before Dawn (Pikeuna, M) because, even though it would have bogged down the story, I do think they eventually get married and the details of all that sometimes cycle through my brain.

3. If you could give yourself fic advice from when you first started writing fic, what would that advice be?

Enjoy this time of not really knowing fic conventions or expectations.

4. What’s your relationship to fic stats?

I try to avoid them. I love every kudos and comment and bookmark and subscription. But I don’t go looking for the numbers unless I have to.

5. Is there a pairing or scenario or friendship you miss writing? If so, why? If not, why not?

I miss writing Kathryn Janeway/Tom Paris. I had a lot of fun with that pairing for a while.

6. What motivates you to write?

If I don’t write the stories down, they get stuck in my brain. So I guess setting them free (in good ways) is my motivation.

7. Why do you write for the fandom(s) that you write for?

I really do believe in the ideals of Star Trek — IDIC and peaceful coexistence and all that stuff. Even though I often write for the spin-off series, not the original Star Trek, creating stories in that universe lets me be part of it, even in a small way. Also, as a bonus, I do think Trek readers are great about comments, kudos, etc., and that helps a lot.

8. If you’re stuck writing a WIP, what do you do?

I might work on something else or take a break. The problem will rotisserie in my head and probably work itself out if I don’t push it too hard.

9. What do you wish people knew about comments?

That any nice comment is welcome and appreciated and, if the person doesn’t want a reply to their comment, they can just say so and it’s easy enough for the author to honor their wishes.

10. Maybe there’s a question you wish had been on here. What’s that question (and answer)?

How about, “Do you read public AO3 bookmark notes on your stories?” Yes. Because of bookmarks like these on The Autobiography of Kirsten Clancy (Gen, T):

Tagging with no pressure: @deadheaddaisy, @iamstartraveller776, @fiadorable, @sun-lit-roses, @coffee-in-that-nebula, @grissomesque, @enterprise-come-in, @starrybouquet, @lorcaswhisky, @marymoss1971, @emilie786, @cnrothtrek, @elephant-in-the-pride-parade, @pc-corner, @divinemissem13, @meddow, @missparker, @jazzfic, @the-lady-general, and you. If my tag anxiety got the best of me and I didn’t put your name here, please consider yourself tagged. ❤️

[a-neverending-story]

❝I have licked the fire and danced in the ashes of every bridge I ever burned. I fear no hell from you.❞ 

Cora Sophie Marren aka 𝙻𝚒𝚕𝚒𝚊𝚗𝚗𝚎 𝙼𝚘𝚒𝚛𝚊; a walking disaster ☾ ─── ⋆ 32-year-old reincarnation of a witch who roams America (and the world) in search for answers. Constantly running away from her past. In the perpetual company of shadowy women that no one can see or hear but her. She is addicted to the pleasures of life and spends most of her time in bars and clubs on the hunt for the next drink or pill that will make her forget the presence of her spirits.

21+ - MDNI!, crossover and multiverse-friendly, Smalltalk Deeptalk+Plots, mutuals only, low to semi activity, currently 𝙾𝙿𝙴𝙽 for Plotting. Crafted for but not limited to FakeVZ. ⸻  CARRD

𝚊 𝚜𝚝𝚞𝚍𝚢 𝚒𝚗 : ⋆ witchcraft ⋆ ghosts ⋆ jobhopping ⋆ drgs ⋆ childhood trauma ⋆ trust issues ⋆ chaos ⋆ abuse ⋆ twin-brother ⋆ violence ⋆ knives ⋆ crime ⋆ pickpocketing ⋆

[unknownteapot]

This is a list of things that are quite frankly crazy:

fake dating amangela

amangela roadtrip

fuckboy!angela

there was only one bed

horny cottagecore

family reunion

impromptu singing!

drunk gay!!!!

aunt Maria

hugging trees

HA! plot twist! 10/10 of these things are in my amangela au 'habits'. this is me inviting you to read it because i don't know how else to dfhdjkj

[bookshelf-in-progress]

Having story thoughts about the fourth wall:

It defines the difference between allegory and applicability. An allegorical story leans on our world to find its full meaning. Ideas, characters, settings, all symbolize something else that's in our world, thus obliterating the fourth wall and bringing the two worlds together. This can be useful for a message-forward story, but it has the side effect of making the world and characters seem less real, because it's not a place with its own independent existence--it relies on our world.

In an applicable story, the fourth wall is firmly in place. The character is a character. The setting is its own setting. They have an independent existence within their own little world. We can draw parallels to our world, but even without that meaning, the characters and setting still feel like they exist in a real, independent world.

An applicable story often has more impact and a stronger message, because the message comes out of the story and character, rather than being pulled from our world and pasted on top of the story.

As an example--I was thinking about this because I saw Ratatouille recently. In Remy's situation, there are a lot of parallels that can be drawn between his world and ours--an oppressed subculture, a life of poverty--but instead of trying to map that onto a specific real-world situation, they're still just rats, living in this weird version of Paris where sometimes the worldbuilding elements are just weird. The actual message of the movie is about art, which comes from character, not from the way the world is built. Compare this to something like Elemental, which started out as a way to explore real-world racism and the immigrant experience. Because the message is built into the world, commentators get distracted by the ways it doesn't map onto our world, and have a harder time connecting to the characters.

The fourth wall is also important to romance. The reason so much of the romance genre feels so fake and unreal is because it's so often concerned with the effect the story has on the reader--reaching through the fourth wall to give the reader things the reader finds romantic or arousing, regardless of anything that's specific to the characters or world of the book.

In a well-done romance, the fourth wall is firmly in place. The characters are not avatars for the reader and their romantic ideal, but people with their own independent existence and relationship. They live in a well-built world that has shaped both of their personalities and affects their relationships. The development of their romance is specific to these two people, and would exist independent of any audience reading about it. The story has more impact on the reader, because it's coming from outside our world and gives the reader unique characters to love, instead of just pulling the reader's desires out of our world and pasting them on top of the story.

[bleue-flora]

idm the cdiscduo demon angel take but only when its not used to be like 'aw imp ctommy' infantilizing shit and justifying his height based on it like when people draw him like a toddler and then say hes an imp. also dont like the ''demon turned good'' just keep it as demon but probably not hell born and very different to c!bbh. Angel c!dream is fine but people try to twist it to be like he is obsessed with rules and order when c!dream canonically enjoys chaos at times. Also seen people say hes like adam from hazbin hotel which I think is odd. I think the hc of c!disc both being human is slightly better than demon-angel imo with c!wil, c!punz, c!george being humans too

Also I respect hcs but angel!c!tommy is just not possible.

Yup. I’m pretty much the same. I mean - you do you, boo - and if demon or angel dsmp member makes you happy then whatever, but to be honest with Badboyhalo being a demon it doesn’t necessarily make sense to say other human characters are also demons because why wouldn’t they look the same (obviously you could derive reasons but still). Plus their is canon specific mythology of the dsmp with Mumza and DreamXD that doesn’t relate to the Biblical doctrine. So there’s no reason to say whether either of them are angels or demons besides Bad, as there is no such evidence to support that. Is the Nether not Hell? Eryn is from the Nether is he too a demon? Where is Heaven?… are just some starting questions. Again you could theorize or make up answers but meh.

On the other hand, while I don’t think Dream is an angel, he is certainly connected to the divine in some way. He is considered the “admin” of the server and as I’ve touched upon before [here] Tommy’s comments in the finale basically confirm that Dream’s op is canon in some capacity. Additionally, god looks like him, which he explains by saying Dream is the first person he saw but still, is that also why he’s considered the admin. And on top of that, Church Prime is canonical but the founding is based in some part in Dream enlightening people as a Jesus or god. So I suppose there could be some evidence to support Dream being an angel, or at least likely some sort of divine being, but he’d be quite the flawed one that’s for sure. Technically, I suppose he was possessed by a dreamon so… he isn’t a “demon” but was perhaps a demon in the form of possession or something. But anyways, all that to say, the duality and dynamics of demon and angel I think is interesting mythology and even literature lense to look at things, however, I’d almost argue with how messy morally the dsmp is it is hardly a good application. In a world where again, morality is undefined and not according to our standards, and biblical elements like heaven don’t explicitly exist, I’d say it doesn’t work well. There are many narratives where it can be applied and looked at but I don’t think this is one, in my opinion at least. It just doesn’t work well. And that’s coming from someone who has drawn the parallels between Jesus and c!Dream and does believe in angels in real life…

[shantismurf]

"The Mushroom Mine" sign by @shantismurf, with assistance from @tickles-ivory

As part of the celebration of the one year anniversary of the Bagginshield Book Club, we asked the lovely @chrononautintraining a few questions about this wonderful work.

June 2024 Author Q&A with Chrononautical

Q1. What name would you like us to use and what are your pronouns?

A1. Chrononautical or Chrono, She/Her

Q2. How many years have you been writing? 

A2. Most of my life, but posting publicly for about 15 years.

Q3. What do you think of as your writing style - are you a plotter or pantster?

A3. Pantster, primarily, though I've learned my lessons and do like to know where a story is going to end when I start it these days so I try to plot. 

Q4. What’s your favorite genre/trope to write? 

A4. Speculative fiction: stories about magic or science fiction, primarily. 

Q5. Is there a genre/trope you haven't written as much of yet that you're excited about for future writing?

A5. I'd like to do more comedy.

Q6. Was there an idea or scene that inspired A Passion for Mushrooms?

A6. Passion for Mushrooms is one hundred percent inspired by the quote I used for an epigraph: "Hobbits have a passion for mushrooms, surpassing even the greediest likings of Big People." - The Fellowship of the Ring, J.R.R. Tolkien. 

When I decided to write it, the fandom already had more than a few stories about Bilbo planting gardens and deciding to stay in Erebor with a miraculously alive Thorin. I was completely here for all of that, of course, but I wanted a story where the garden wasn't special because of gold or rare plants bought with gold. I wanted there to be a treasure that Bilbo could appreciate with the Baggins half of his heart, as well as the Tookish bit. And I know next to nothing about mountains, but I do know mushrooms do okay in caves, so... 

Q7. Did you do any special research before writing the work?

A7. If you're asking this because I go deep on How To Pluck A Chicken In A Medieval Kitchen during the cooking scenes, you're right and you should say it. I am a middling cook, but all of my ingredients come from grocery stores. I had to do a fair bit of research on the cooking aspects of the story that were furthest from my own experience. Fortunately, the professor already put tomatoes and potatoes in Middle-earth, so I didn't have to go Full Historical. 

Q8. Did the story change from how you originally envisioned it? Were there scenes or plot elements you had to cut out?

A8. It absolutely did. Because I am, as previously said, a pantster. I wanted a bigger bang for the ending of the story than I was set up to get. I could have stopped with Bilbo and Thorin getting together and had some simple falling action, but that didn't perfectly tie the subplot of Dis and Tauriel back to the main pairing, which I knew I wanted. Having Doron try to poison Bilbo was actually a late in the game choice. If I'd planned that from the start, I would have threaded him into more of the middle sections of the novel. 

As for cutting things out, the additional stories in the series started as deleted scenes/reader requests that I couldn't find use for. So most of what I cut didn't end up in the rubbish bin. Anything that wound up there really wasn't worth posting. 

Q9. Do you have a favorite moment from the entire series?

A9. I still really like "A Spy In The Shire" a lot. I know it's so self-indulgent to say that about a story focusing on an OC, but if the point of the Battle of Five Armies is to reclaim Erebor for the dwarves, then I want that to mean something. I want the average dwarf to be in a bad place. I want the average dwarf to need Erebor the way Thorin needs Erebor, to be willing to do anything to get back to the Lonely Mountain. Because if that's the case, then all the sacrifice means something. When I talk about this one luckless dwarf on the world's silliest quest to figure out how to help the king hook up with a hobbit, I'm talking about hope for the future. I'm talking about all the people who long for and dream of the home that Thorin was willing to die to reclaim. I think about them going back there and living better lives. It brings me peace.

[magiefish]

Something I've kind of noticed about a lot of the academic scholarship I've read about Frankenstein / Dracula / Jekyll & Hyde is that everyone just seems to completely dismiss/ignore the characters as actual characters most of the time unless they're the Main Guys. Like, they'll go really in depth about Victor or the Creature's motivations and backstory and spend ages talking about Jekyll's relationship to Hyde and stuff, but the second it comes to characters like Enfield and Elizabeth or Lanyon and Clerval or frankly the Entire Rest of the Cast of Dracula, they just immediately seem uninterested. They'll just sort of vaguely gesture in their direction and go 'Oh yeah X and X thing happens to this character and here's a one sentence summary of their personality which doesn't really matter because this entire cast is interchangeable, anyway, onto the next theme' and half the time their One Sentence is just textually incorrect (looking at the New Woman/Traditional Woman descriptions of Lucy and Mina). And the reason I find this so baffling is because with other analysis I've read (e.g. Great Gatsby stuff) people seem to actually slow down and consider the characterisation and motivations of the cast as a whole with like. Nuance. Like they sit down and treat the characters as multifaceted and complex and having actual relationships with one another, and then you get to these books specifically and no one seems to care? Like they'll go really in depth with various interpretations and historical context for the Big Guys, and then never apply the same sort of examination to anyone else, and if they do, very rarely and probably only for one other character e.g. (Utterson or Mina).

If I had to posit an explanation, I would say its a combination of the archetypal nature of the title characters and the admittedly patchy writing of these books (which arguably lends to their archetypal status). I think academics kind of assume that the primary draw of these books are The Big Guys and the expansive themes and ideas they cover and that everyone else is just a pawn there to enable the narrative around the Big Guys, and the propensity for film adaptations to scrap or rewrite characters probably compounded this impression. And while I think this is at least partly true, the thing is, these characters were not always archetypal Big Guys. They originated in stories alongside *these* other characters *specifically* and it is worth asking what it is about the rest of the cast that makes the story interesting as well. Because, let's be real, if there was approximately no interest in the fucking *narrators* of Dracula, the best friends of Henry Jekyll, or the victims of the Creature, the original readers would have been completely bored out of their minds for most of these novels and public interest in them would not have been as great as it was. All of these novels were stories before they were myths, and academics should not be letting pop culture eclipse them unless they're specifically talking about the relationship between the two.

Overall, I just feel like academics are not only shooting themselves in the foot, but also doing a disservice to these stories by not bothering to investigate the other characters because frankly. It's lazy. It's lazy to dismiss an entire cast and basically skim read any sections involving them just because it's easy to focus on The One Guy. If you people really cared about themes, you'd understand that characters are inextricable from them. Like shit dude I see more care given to characters in essays about Greek tragedies, you guys are waaaay fucking behind