#Dante was the original fanfic writer

[closet-degenerate]

Fanfic writers!! Please keep writing! If Dante's inferno could become so revered today and inspire numerous adaptations of the 9 circles of hell, imagine what your Sherliam mpreg fanfic could inspire in the future

[olderthannetfic]

I understand that cheekily calling classics fanfic is a misnomer because, yeah, on a technical level, the concept of fanfiction arose in modern parlance thanks to IP laws which didn't exist back when telling stories based on other people's stories was just how storytelling worked--however, when someone is mocking fanfic by poking at its lack of originality, the comparison is relevant and warranted. If the thing that makes fanfic 'lesser' than Officially Published Works is the fact that it's based on the ideas, characters, worlds, plots, and concepts of those that came before, then the fact that a lot of Officially Published Works are likewise 'unoriginal' is relevant, and that includes (most) Arthuriana and The Odyssey and Dante's Inferno and etc etc.

Shakespeare's Richard III and Julius Ceasar were Historical RPF (among others, he did like eight plays based on historical figures lmfao). So is The Crown. The Scarlet Pimpernel is fix-it fic of the Reign of Terror, and it also kick-started the entire superhero genre (you can thank the Baroness Orczy for Batman's existence). Back in the day, writers could look at some story that someone else came up with, say 'hey, wow, that's pretty cool, I'm gonna rewrite this, stick in these bits too, and do it my way' and no one could say shit about it. That's what separates modern fanfic from the landscape of literary canon Back In The Day, but pointing out that if something were being created today in the modern literary landscape it'd be going on ao3 with a set of fandom/genre tags is relevant to the general 'fanfic is dumb and stupid because it lacks originality' argument.

--

[communistkenobi]

Only tangentially related to the post you made but I think the reason I find the dual attitudes of fanfic being the same as classic literature but also impossible to critique in good faith so funny is because they really seem to think that classical authors were never, like, challenged or censored or edited. It would be one thing if they were discussing fanfic which had gone through critics or editors, or had been in the works for years and undergone significant changes, but fanfic writers will knock out 200,000 words of the worst first draft I've ever read and then act like THAT'S of equal artistic merit to Dante's Inferno. It's very good

I think the most productive definition of fanfiction for this discussion is that it is a particular type of relationship a fan can have to art that is enclosed by intellectual property law. fanfic is “knock off” “unofficial” artistic articulations of a fan author’s interpretation of a text, which only makes sense in the context of privately owned and enclosed art. It’s not that amateur hobby writing has never existed, it’s not that people have never written derivatives of an original text before - those things have always existed. fanfiction is only historically noteworthy in the sense that it is constructed by a particular relationship an audience has to media IPs.

So like, yea fanfic is real art! that is a given. It is also not the same as professionally produced and edited work, which is good to remember when both criticising it and praising it. the only response fic tends to get is reactive - that is, there is no standard feedback mechanism that happens until after fic is written and published (betas/editors do exist but they are not universal or even common). and because of general hostility to critical or constructive feedback of any kind in the comment sections of AO3/FF.net (framed commonly as “well it’s too late to bitch now I already wrote it! What are you complaining about, you got free art!”), fic authors enjoy a very tight bubble of overwhelmingly happy, positive responses to their writing. Which is FINE, I don’t post fanfiction with the intent to get an essay back from people about what needs to be edited or changed, I wrote it for fun like everyone else, but that also means it exists in a very different social environment from commercially/professionally produced art, and as a consequence I’m not going out and proclaiming that I’ve written the next great western epic in the form a star wars fanfic, and if I were to do so I would be asking for a much larger public audience, an audience who is not going to consume my work as fun hobby writing but instead as serious literature, and respond accordingly

[wordsandrobots]

This week I appear to be thinking about my motivation for writing.

Specifically, I should say, for writing fanfic, although there is crossover with my forays into original works. And I started by thinking about the various times I've lost motivation for various projects, because the negative is occasionally a useful way of gauging the positive.

My Fullmetal Alchemist 2003 series Life After Equivalence represents the longest-running stretch of fanfic writing I've engaged in. I started it during my second year at university, right after watching the anime for the first time. A continuation of that continuity post-Conqueror of Shambala, it started out with what in retrospect was a fairly clunky set of plot-devices, but I'm rather proud of where it went. While recognising what an excellent piece of story-telling the manga is, I've always found more to engage me in the anime's adaptation. I think Dante is a fascinatingly shallow villain and what it does with the homunculi is deliciously horrific (in the genre sense). I greatly enjoyed think about where everyone could go next, particularly the more world-weary anime!Ed, and inventing new supporting cast for them as well as bringing more manga characters into the mix (sometimes in quite twisted ways). So much so that I was writing new fics for it as recently as 2021.

The problem is, working on an idea for over a decade and a half means that you're not the same person you were when you started. I have learnt and grown a lot in that time, as a writer and in general. I gradually became increasingly at odds with the original concept for where that story was heading and as much as I tried to change direction and salvage the plot, I don't think I can. Not comfortably. The sense that what I'd started was riddled with conceptual mistakes has gotten stronger and stronger, making it very hard to pick up again. I think as an author, you have to have confidence in your ideas, to properly sell them, and with this, I've lost that.

With my most fully-formed Transformers epic, This Is How It All Began, the explanation has more to do with a gradual failure of interest in the source material. It's not that I was ever beholden to canon with that story; it was an attempt to retell things using the elements I really liked, my own personal 'G1' redux. But as the Transformers franchise has ossified around that first generation of characters to the exclusion of any real innovation, there doesn't seem much point continuing. I can't explore someone else's worlds without them engaging me and Transformers increasingly didn't.

Nor can I write from spite, when the source 'lets me down'. Untitled Alternative Episode Nine represents me grappling with where I wanted the Star Wars sequels to go. I love The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi, as a story in which characters who think they know what their role is gradually learn better as the whole thing goes careering off the rails. There was tremendous potential in their tale, and sadly I knew at the time it would likely be squandered. But I didn't realise when I started working on this fic that The Rise of Skywalker would be such a sprawling shambles, about-facing on the promise of finally pushing Star Wars beyond rigidly defined stock arcs so hard, it felt like poor comedy. Increasingly, my story became framed by repudiating that re-enclosure, by the desire to get it right.

And while I still think my version -- where the First Order rips itself to bits in a power struggle between Kylo Ren and General Hux, where the Knights of Ren are actual characters, the remaining lost Jedi students, and Rey, Finn, Po and Rose all get the chance to work towards a future free of the endless, circular struggle set by the 'main characters' of the galaxy -- is a better story than the one we got, it doesn't change anything. I'm not really fixing anything and by defining my work as *not that*, I limit my own joy in it. I'm not in conversation with something I love but rather shouting into the void, to no great end. Once again, I couldn't see the point in continuing. Especially with the ongoing Star Wars media increasingly feeling like an exercise in box-ticking, as bad as anything the old Expanded Universe ever produced for sheer pointlessness. At least the older spin-offs occasionally got super weird. Live-action cartoons do not really offer space for that, sadly.

Then there are the times my motivation has been directly killed. Chris Chibnall's tenure as show-runner on Doctor Who, abruptly ending my longest-lasting fandom for me, as another promise of widening potential was squandered on dull, miserable, derivative ideas. That one Captain Harlock fic I was having a lot of fun with until someone came along to be extremely pedantic in the comments and struck a nerve so hard, I flat-out lost all the enthusiasm I had for the idea. Bad experiences that meant continuing or going back was too hard to contemplate. This is how it goes sometimes.

So. Invert all that:

Enthusiasm for an idea -- and more importantly, confidence in it.

Positive engagement, the feeling that I have something to say and that it is worth saying about this thing.

The sense I am not fighting the source material but playing with it, spinning it out in interesting ways, making merry with the rules of the canon.

And I can't count out the benefit of having good interactions over what I write; for all I am a fundamentally compulsive writer, I delight in knowing my work can touch others, in being told that it is good and a worthwhile expenditure of my effort.

All stuff I already knew, I think. But it's sometimes worth reflecting on what pushes you to create art and this -- this all makes sense.

Now if I could just leverage these things at will, I'd be unstoppable.

[polarisbibliotheque]

Hiiiii just wanted to say you're an amazing person and writer and I love your first with my whole heart, especially the nemesis one and jeshhsvejeyegehejwjj also I wanted to ask if the reader is based on being female or not? Any yea that's it love yyyaaaaaa xo

Aaaaaah thank you so much!!!! I'm always taken aback by so much love, thanks a LOT for taking the time to read my work and just be here, it's really special to me 🖤🖤 you are too kind!!

Me, whenever you guys decide to shower me with love

I always say the most precious thing we have in life is time - and the fact that you guys decide to spend that time here, reading and just enjoying ~the vibes~ holds a special place in my heart 🖤

Now, regarding reader's gender, that's a very good question!

My first language isn't English - I'm Brazilian, so BR Portuguese is my default and I've written A LOT in Portuguese. Interestingly enough, I think I spent so much time writing here, I'm currently writing better in English than in Portuguese *puts on fool hat*

In Portuguese, gender is a big deal, 'cause all our words are gendered. We don't have neutrals like "they" in English or "das" in German - so we kinda always have to pic a gender for characters.

I have some non-binary characters in other personal original stories and they are a PAIN to write in Portuguese, 'cause I don't have neutral pronouns/ways to call them T-T

When I used to write for PT-BR fanfic websites, my default has always been female reader character in 3d person - it's only when I moved to tumblr I started using "you", which was a VERY weird transition at the start, and I got hit with "oh my the person reading might not be female/identify as female".

I always used female as default because, not gonna lie, I used my name as default for 3d person, or friends names, and then I scripted/htmld the fic so in the website I posted people could change the characters names to their own names/own characters without the whole you/y/n thing.

The majority of people reading in this website I posted are women - and in my country, fanfiction has always been perceived like a female thing. So I never really thought much about that.

It's only when I moved here I found a more diverse set of readers. In English, gender isn't taken for granted, because you do have neutrals. And I kept thinking "what if people that identify with other genders want to read my work? What if they like it too?" and I decided to go as neutral as I can for the reader!

Granted, sometimes I slip up and you'll catch me referencing the reader as she/her - it's something I always have to keep an eye on because of my own language.

When I'm writing, I think more of a mature character rather than their gender, to be honest. It's a pet peeve of mine, but I'm always fuming that most female reader characters end up as damsels in distress or acting extremely childish, girly, cute or even bratty just because of their gender and I hate it.

I try to think more in a way that Dante and Vergil wouldn't be attracted to that - they're older, mature men and they want something else in a relationship. They want a partner and someone who can stand on their own, and power through hardships. Femininity is ok, but being a childish 12 y/o isn't really attractive to older men like them.

I'm turning 30 this year, hear the voice of wiseness HAHAHA

That made me have another sort of default when I'm writing. Now I'm much more focused on personality and what fits the characters rather than gender and all that - because I think sometimes we get too "blind" on what is expected from that gender rather than developing a good character.

A few examples I like:

(Below the cut, examples on female characters and my impressions, I got too excited and it turned into something huge, apologies xD)

Integra Hellsing, from the Hellsing manga and OVA, is an exceptional woman written without her gender being the first thing you get from her character. Appearance wise, she is very androginous, but her character per se, she is still a woman, feminine and all, but powerful as hell, strong-willed, with harsh decisions to make, imperfections and self-doubt, holding the most powerful vampire in the world on a leash. She has a ton of responsibilities and she doesn't have to be a sexy tomboy or a, again, sexy girlboss to pull that off. She is posh, regal and graceful even, but she smokes, swears and commands like a man... or like the woman she is. Which is brilliant. Love her absurdly.

Plus, she literally has te title of Sir Integra. Love this powerhouse of a woman.

Ellen Ripley, from Alien, was a character written primarily regardless her gender - and I think this is fabulous! They had the character done and said "ok, both a man and a woman can play this character" - when it came to casting, they decided Sigourney Weaver was the best choice. Ripley is smart, fast thinking and a survivor at heart, but she also shows fear and horror when she is put up against the alien. Her character was developed before her gender, and that makes her so amazing - by the second movie, Aliens, she is a powerhouse as well, hell-bent on saving people and not allowing anyone to get hurt by those dreadful creatures again. And we learn she had a daughter! That makes her grow attached to Newt, but not in that ~motherly overattached dependant~ way most people think women do, but in a protective "I'm gonna be your parent" way that all humans grow attached to children!

That's why the 3rd Alien movie is so awful to me. It's the only movie that puts her gender before her character: suddenly she is having sex with everyone and some guys try to rape her because suddenly she is seen as an object rather than a person.

I mean I always shipped her with Hicks and there isn't a SINGLE sexual thing between them rather than some looks of admiration from him and THAT hits harder than any of that cheap sexual thing from the 3rd movie in my ace opinion xD

Fun fact, we both share the fact we're INTPs xD

Now, another one I like, is Yennefer of Vengerberg - and she is written with everything of her gender taken into account. Why am I mentioning her, then?

I'm taking the books and games as reference here, but Yennefer is stunningly beautiful. She could be a perfect femme fatale, and she starts like that, but as you get into her character, there is a character there. And it goes so much further than just being a sexy woman who wants to girlboss and overpower men. Yen is traumatized and has traded so much of herself to become this powerhouse she is. No one likes to mess with her, and those who reduce her to being an woman-object suffer the consequences. She realized she wanted to have children when it was only too late and she is so freaking powerful she will go LENGTHS to make it happen.

It doesn't, but she gets Ciri in her life. Apart from that, Yen is a sorcerer and she does politics: when Geralt doesn't want that and they start disagreeing on their points of view/what kinds of life they want to lead, she is adamant on not leaving her freedom and being afraid on losing her independence to tie herself to someone else. So Yennefer remains as this mysterious, femme fatale of a woman, bewitching and breaking so many hearts because she will never abandon her freedom, her goals and her dreams for a relationship. And that, I think it's beautiful on a female character. Well done and something that ends up becoming a fatal flaw of hers - because, again, it isn't based on "I won't bow to patriarchy" it's based on "I can trust only in myself and I won't leave my fate in anyone's hands but my own", it has nothing to do with her being a woman. It has to do with her own will and who she wants to be.

She could be written as a man and it would work as well in my opinion mind you, you're welcome to disagree

HAHAHAHAHA so there you go. I'm so sorry I took your simple question and turned it into an essay about my own view on gender and female characters when I'm writing, but I saw the opportunity and I took it. I do hope you don't mind "^^

And thank you once again for the ask!! I hope to see you around more and I'm so grateful to have you here! 🖤

[amelie-isnt-french]

favorite medieval poem?

This answer might be lame, but I have to say the Divine Comedy just for how deeply it impacted the European image of hell / the afterlife. The Christian image of hell being comprised of different circles and even the specifics of our modern concept of "limbo" often having some sort of water present - it all originates in massive parts from how Dante portrayed the afterlife in his work, and I find that very impressive!

On the sillier side, I just love how it's basically self-insert fanfic with his favourite author of antiquity, like hell yeah I'd love to write an epic poem where Shakespeare leads me through the different stages of grief or something. I bet that'd be a blast to write!

Also, have you listened to Unreal Unearth? The Divine Comedy + Hozier, I'm telling you... I've unlocked a new set of premium emotions listening to this masterpiece (and it explores/explains the journey of the poem in a brilliant way!)

And lastly, lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate / abandon all hope, ye who enter here.

Have you ever read a more hardcore line? Yeah, me neither. It is SO iconic, it's been featured in horror movies (which I find delightful), it just slaps even 700 years later. Every writer dreams of coining such a phrase (but only 15 year olds on ao3 have that power nowadays).

Thanks for the question, nonny! This was fun to write <3

[thefreelanceangel]

🖊 BACK AT YOU - I expect at least seven paragraph minimum gogogogogo.

{Well, since I reblogged the poll about the Seven Deadly Sins, here's what the d'Latus (and C'allie) think on those. It rather informs on their personalities.}

The Seven Deadly Sins

Originally written by Evagrius Ponticus, a hermetic Christian monk, in 375 AD, the (originally eight) Seven Deadly Sins have become one of the most well-known theological concepts. Refined by Pope Gregory I in 590 AD into the more familiar list we have today, they encompass the entirety of human "sin" and the darker side of human nature. And really, we have Dante Aligheri to thank for the prevalence of the Seven Deadly Sins concept. Not only did he single-handedly reinvent Hell with his pissy, self-insert Bible fanfic, but he also cemented the notion of the Seven Deadly Sins with sin, damnation and Hell itself. …we could also have a massive discussion about how Dante arranged the sins in levels of severity, as well as the symbolism of the three creatures that appear in the woods after that fucking AMAZING line, but… I'll spare you. (For now.) Do you want an entertaining primer on the sins throughout history and how they've developed into our current ideas? The History Channel's got you covered. (So does YouTube: https://youtu.be/FgYAMWpzRGk) Now with the different perspective of the d'Latus on the very definition of sin, obviously Seifer and Anna (and those who associate with them) have a... unique perspective on the Seven Deadly Sins. Yes, those sins do not precisely exist within Eorzea, but 'human' nature is what it is regardless of where and when a story is set. And we writers do so love having tropes to fall back on. So, as Dante did, let's start with Lust.

Lust

Defined as "very strong sexual desire," there's a key word in that definition that really defines Lust.

Desire.

Desire is insidious. It's persistent. Desire isn't necessarily blatant or violent, but it gently, steadily spurs a character on towards chasing what they want. And their wants are always personal. This isn't a character that can be enticed easily to abandoning their personal goals in favor of helping others; their desires have to be appealed to in order to gain their aid.

A character defined by Lust can absolutely be sexually promiscuous or overtly flirtatious, but it's entirely possible to be the village bicycle and not be driven by Lust.

Lust is a subtle sin, appearing in far more forms than just the complimentary Au Ra that likes to lean over smaller women and smirk. It isn't always the wolf-whistling miqo'te or the ass-grabbing Hyur. Lust is the person who keeps angling towards something they desire, always letting that color their focus as opposed to thinking coldly or logically.

The desire that defines Lust is unending, subtle and steady. Specific desires may change, but a character driven by desire itself will never stop.

Wrath

Clearly, Wrath is just anger, isn't it?

Terrifying anger. Anger taken to the ultimate conclusion of unbound violence. Wrath is the spur to violence and it's Wrath that leads to many, many sins, such as murder.

A Wrathful character isn't always running around punching walls. Wrath is not necessarily constantly explosive.

Wrath is offended.

Anything that doesn't fall in with Wrath's idea of how things should work is incorrect. It's wrong. It's an offense and it's a damn well personal offense. Wrath does not take a trespass lightly; any disrespect must be punished immediately.

A character with the sin of Wrath isn't going to sit and think logically when they feel that offense, be it a refusal by a prospective partner or defeat in combat. They are going to want nothing more than to get revenge, hot or cold, and equal what they feel is a dreadful imbalance in how things "should be."

Naturally, Wrath and Pride go hand in hand, but Wrath is much, much more reactive. Just watch Anna respond to something that's made her angry and you can see it in action.

Gluttony

Hunger.

Unadulterated, pure hunger.

Gluttony isn't necessarily Greed; it doesn't seek to acquire for the display of wealth, for others to see what it's obtained. Gluttony is just a constant, unending hunger for more.

For everything.

Gluttony is a character that can never be satisfied, regardless of what they obtain. They're not interested in flaunting what they have, in courting others to gain more. All they want is to fill that gaping emptiness, to end the hunger that drives them onward.

Gluttony is ravenous and will never stop, regardless of what or who it consumes while trying to sate itself.

A character may feel hunger for anything, but the distinction between hunger and Lust's desire is that hunger is feral. Hunger doesn't care about the niceties of society or the game of luring in prey. Hunger just wants to be sated now.

Envy

Of all the sins, Envy feels they have the least in life.

And oh, how they see what others have and hate them for it.

Envy stems from a deep, deep insecurity that can't help comparing oneself to others. To how they've gotten what should've been yours. How they have what is meant to belong to you. It's hardly your fault that someone else was gifted with the looks, wit, wealth, love that you should've gotten.

As poisonous as the sickly green that it's known as--oh, that 'green-eyed monster'--Envy can drive a character to extremes to either possess or destroy what another person has.

Envy sees that others are enjoying life, enjoying love, enjoying the world around them and because that enjoyment is not theirs… it cannot stand.

Sloth

What often catches people off-guard about those who are driven by Sloth is that they are not, in fact, sluggish. They don't lack motivation. Nor are they incapable or unwilling to act.

What they are is efficient.

Sloth looks at a goal, a problem, a desire and thinks "what's the easiest way to get this?"

Sloth is ignoring all moral constraints to achieve a goal in the easiest way possible, be that theft, forgery, murder or other equally unsavory acts. If drugging someone will make them malleable to your will, why not do it?

Why not conserve energy and take the easy route? Why not steal instead of work, leech instead of produce, take instead of give? If there's a simpler way to achieve a goal, Sloth will find it.

Greed

For Greed, nothing is worth anything if it isn't what someone else doesn't have.

Sharing an insecurity with Envy, Greed, however, doesn't want what others have.

It wants others to want what they have.

Greed longs to flaunt their power, their wealth, their beauty, their superiority in someone else's face. Their assurance is found in the Envy of others, in the wistful stares or the low muttering. And Greed comes in several forms.

A Greed to collect as much as possible, to deprive others of what they want and sit comfortably, knowing that others are staring longingly at what they have. A Greed to flaunt what they have, rubbing it in the faces of others, to snatch a rare item before another can retrieve it. A Greed that subtly remarks on how costly or rare something is, how many others pursued their partner, how many vied for the house they got.

Greed only finds pleasure when others are witness to their success over them.

Pride

"It was pride that changed angels into devils." ~ St. Augustine

And indeed, it was.

Of all the sins, Pride is perhaps the easiest to crush, the easiest to damage, the weakest and the one most likely to dive into self-destruction.

Pride is hollow.

Nothing holds Pride up save their desperate need to be the All, the Ultimate, the Best. Perhaps in all spheres, perhaps only in one. Pride doesn't have the flexibility to survive because it can Only Do Things Its' Way. It can Only Be the Ultimate Arbiter of What Is Correct.

When combined with Wrath, a villain is like a magnesium fire--bright, hot and dies quickly.

Pride will cut its nose off to spite its face, will kill a lover to punish them for choosing another, will deny a promotion that came a day too late. The only real strength in Pride is that it will push a character to extremes no other sin can. Pride abides none above it, none before it and if that means killing themselves and the world around them to ensure that?

So be it.

[burnitalldowndarling]

(4/4) and yet you get all these young, new writers writing as if instead of using our language the way it should be used, create things that read as if they’re literally translating English syntax to the letter, with results that, more often than not, are unreadable and pretty cringe-inducing. Sorry, this is all very rambly, but it is to say: what are your personal thoughts on that? Do you write differently when writing fanfic vs original fiction, and if so, what are some of the key differences you can think of? (Besides the obvious) Is there even such a thing as a “fanfic writing style”? And would you say it’s fair to say some fanfic is actively on par with published literature? Because to me it seemed obvious until I started seeing all the online discourse around that, on both extremes. I’m very curious to get your in-depth thoughts on that, besides just reflagging a post and agreeing with its contents.

Sorry I couldn't include your whole 4-part ask, Anon friend! I didn't want to make this too long. Speaking of which, here's a readmore.

Okay. First: there's discourse about fanfic vs original fic? Again? Yaaaaawn. And to answer: I do alter my style for fanfic, mostly to match canon better. Like, in my Dragon Age fics, I try to use the same dialogue style that the games use. Cullen sounds posh, for example, and overly formal even when he's trying to be casual; Carver sounds more casual and uses more rough slang. In Mass Effect I mostly do the same, plus I sometimes use choppier narration for a militaristic, "macho" feel, again emulating the games' style of making everybody sound Extremely American and badass. Devil May Cry was more of a challenge because those games don't have a consistent dialogue/narration style to emulate, just "who translated this and were they drunk?" Instead I had to focus on character and motivations -- i.e. "Dante is always hilariously nihilistic but he really just wants a family and some peace & quiet." With Trigun I've been struggling a lot because there are three completely different canons with three completely different characterizations and narrative styles -- two of which directly contradict each other -- and then there are the six or seven different translations! I haven't really settled on a style for that fandom, but trying to blend everything is part of the fun, for me. I like a challenge.

I'm not "dumbing down" or negatively affecting my own style by doing this, I don't think. Playing with other voices, by other rules, helps me refine my own authentic voice in much the same way that improv helps actors and comedians. I think that's the case for anyone who writes fanfic, but it's probably easiest to see with the pros. Take astolat, for example. Some of her Aubrey-Maturin fanfics are more restrained than her Temeraire novels, even though the latter were inspired by the former. The restraint is because there probably weren't many dragons running around during the Napoleonic wars, and because she's sticking close to Patrick O'Brien's style on purpose. But then, in the Temeraire books, she discards these constraints, which to me is her doing the writing equivalent of this:

Then she just fucking goes ham on her readers. Kicks them in the head with one of the best alternate histories I've ever seen, rewriting colonialism from scratch and giving it a better ending. She replaces a deep human friendship with the closeness between a man and his bus-sized Chinese dragon, and it works. These are feats of literary derring-do that a lot of writers cannot emulate, and wouldn't dare try. And yet I've heard more than one reader complain that she "wastes time" on fanfic. Which to me is like complaining that Rock Lee "wastes time" wearing weights.

tl,dr; Most people who insist that fanfic is inferior lack the expertise to judge the real skill involved in making it. Doesn't stop them from opening their stupid Dunning-Kruger mouths, tho, does it.

[jailesbleu]

My TV show favourites of all time

Life on Mars & Ashes to Ashes - they cannot be bested. Goated shows.

Doctor Who - RTD era only. Nostalgia n that.

Black Mirror - UK series’ only. I first watched it when I was 13 and it was …memorable to say the least.

Bob & Rose - a wonderful creation by RTD. Despite its simplicity, this is really something special. Very funny and excellent dialogue.

Queer as Folk - Groundbreaking. Fun. Camp.

Cucumber - I think of this as as a sequel/modern day equivalent to Queer as Folk.

Line of Duty - Series 1-3 only. Intense.

Bodies - Jed Mercurio’s show. Rather underrated and unknown by most. Highly recommended, especially if you like dark humour

Frasier - The most British American sitcom ever. I enjoyed up until Daphne and Niles got together.

Waterloo Road - Series 1-8 were so much fun to watch whilst at school.

Misfits - A really funny show that also happens to have some great sci fi elements. I didn’t expect to enjoy this one so much. It’s like “Skins” but far superior.

Breaking Bad - a classic. Despite being slow at times, those last episodes at the end of series 5 more than made up for it.

The Sopranos - I once saw a great fanfic writer explain the show perfectly: “the sopranos is to television what Dante’s inferno is to literature”. There’s a good reason this one is always put at the top of those “greatest tv shows of all time” lists. Watch it and find out. My mistake was watching this show too young - many jokes went over my head. Definitely due a rewatch :)

Game of Thrones - Series 1-4 are excellent, and do (fairly) well to stay true to the books. Series 5 onwards isn’t worth your time. Highly recommended to read the books first before watching the show!

This is going to hurt - I enjoyed this much more than I expected. The guy who plays the main character of the show does it really quite well.

Peep show - As i age, this show only becomes more relatable. British humour at its best

Brass Eye - Chris Morris is the GOAT! The original Ali G.

Jam - Another Chris Morris show. Everything he’s made is of the highest quality. Jam just happens to be one of the darkest shows I’ve ever watched. It’s pure genius but not for the faint of hearts. Lovely ambient soundtrack as well.

The thick of it - Malcolm Tucker is an icon. An awful but hilarious, raging mad Scottish legend. The political satire is off the charts good.

Green wing - Very silly, but very funny. There’s a twist in the end of series 1 that is genuinely unexpected. One of the most unique sitcoms you’ll watch.

Nathan Barley - Chris Morris and Charlie Brooke, two geniuses, get together to create a TV show. Of course it was going to be fantastic. This one took me a while to get into, but once I did, it made me laugh a lot.

The book group - I have a weird fondness for this. Highly recommended if you’re a book nerd.

The simpsons - the golden years made it one of the best shows ever. And it will never not be weird how the Simpson’s managed to be spot on with its predictions.

It’s a sin - Made me cry. A lot. Educated me as well. It’s a RTD show, of course I was going to love it.

End of the fucking world - a show I watched ages ago, but I remember liking a lot. Can’t remember too much of what happened, but I had a lot of affection for the characters.

Sex House - online series that can be watched on YouTube from the onion account. Despite the raunchy title, it’s anything but that. It’s a lot smarter than you would think it to be. Watch it. But don’t expect much sex.

Last tango in Halifax - not the type of show I usually enjoy. But the sally wainwrights writing make the characters endearing, and what might seem like a slow boring show spring into something funny and special.

Happy Valley - Sarah Lancashire…Christ on a bike, that woman can act.

Clocking Off - Series 1-2 are surprisingly great. I was mostly invested in Mac’s character, but the writing for most of the episodes is quality.

Humans - Series 1 was really enjoyable. Don’t remember the other series that well.

The Wire - Tragically I have only watched the first series, but it was really super. One of those shows that’s tricky to get into at first, but we’ll worth pursuing.

Death Note - Can i include anime here? Of course. I usually turn my nose up at anime actually, but this one is different to most. There is a cat and mouse dynamic between the two main characters L and Light. This drives the plot. It’s a remarkable show, one I like to rewatch every now and then.

Killing Eve - My oh my, this show went downhill fast. I include it as a favourite merely because series 1 alone was utter perfection.

Goodness gracious me - Asians are funny. Also cuts deep into racism in the uk at the time.

Sugar Rush - I really enjoyed watching this when I was a teen.

Luther - like killing eve and death note, there is a cat and mouse dynamic between Luther and Alice (a psychopath) in this show which is what makes it something special

The traitors - a reality show like no other. The game theory, particularly in the early episodes make this really fun to watch.

Years and Years - Yet more RTD. This one made me cry as well, inevitably, but it was also warm and fuzzy in places too.

[honeyed-obscenities]

Dust and Gauzy Ribbon (House of Wax Soulmate AU)

Some might remember me from a stint of writing horror fanfic more than a year ago now. Originally this was an idea I'd tossed around with another horror writer, aggravatetheaxe, and recently found inspiration to write on my own. We never got very far conceptually outside of the MC being a ballet dancer and it being a soulmate au with a no-color-until-you-see-them flavor, so I would consider this to be more my own work at this point. Anyhow, I haven't edited this very much and I'm not sure I'll continue it but here we go.

Synopsis and Warnings: Dante is a ballet dancer on his way to a show, but the troupe gets lost in the back roads of Louisiana. Where Ambrose looks like salvation, they'll find nothing so pleasant.

House of Wax Soulmate AU (Greyscape to color upon meeting soulmate), OC insert, the usual death and such, drugging, vomit, minor implications of kidnapping. 18+ only, please (fair warning there's a large amount of exposition and the brothers aren't referenced by name at this juncture, but hopefully I did well enough making it clear who is who)

Continued below the cut

We got dressed on the bus. A troupe of dancers separated by sheets the makeup artists held up so the men wouldn't see the women and vice versa, getting into their dresses and tights and tutus and fussed over by the costuming team. Patrice put me in a bodice of lace and stretchy knit, the gauzy bows she tied over my shoulders trailing on my back and making me think something was crawling on me, and a skirt longer in the back than it was in the front.

“Legs are a ballet dancer's best quality,” she chimed pleasantly when I asked her why they cut the skirts so high in the front.

“Makes up for the state of their feet,” grumbled Malek, the fussier of our costuming duo.

Our costumes were all in dusty hues- or so I was told- to accentuate the somber tone of pieces we were dancing to. Patrice, having already found her soulmate, told me mine was primarily a lilac color, with the ties a dark ballet slipper pink. The colors meant little to many of us, but in my case I would never comment as much. My first teacher told us that the colors we wore were nearly as important as the steps we danced. “You will dance and dress as though your soulmate will first see you here,” she told the class. “For everyone in love, you will be beautiful. For everyone yet to find love, you will be stunning. But for the one you're meant to spend your life with, you will be unforgettable.” I don't expect I'll ever find my soulmate at a performance, but there's such a looming 'What if?' that it's almost a larger source of anxiety on the day of a performance than the actual dancing.

We were already late, or we never would have considered getting dressed on the way. Our makeup could be done in stages. Not everyone would be going on at the beginning of the show, thankfully. The most necessary of warm-ups would have to push the start time back a bit, if we were unlucky, but until then we made do by stretching against seats, still in our boots with our coats keeping us warm over the costumes. I kept my pointe shoes tied together and hanging around my neck so I wouldn't lose them in the chaos of the costuming and shuffle off the bus. Directors hated that I did that, but it was only the back-stage crew and other dancers there that night and I could do whatever I pleased.

“Dante.” I looked up from massaging the arch of my left foot. “Do you know what time the sun sets?” I quirked an eyebrow but picked up my phone. No signal.

“'Sets at night,” I offered. “Why?”

“It seems a bit dark, doesn't it?”

I glanced out the window. It was completely dark, actually. “It's the middle of winter. Besides, we're late but it's only five.”

“I thought the show was in a different time zone.”

Patrice looked up from fussing with a hem on another dancer's dress. “Is it really?”

“Remember? We were warned we'd have to leave earlier to account for the time change.”

“Does it go forward or backward, though?”

“Oh, God, man, I don't know.” The conversation continued on without me and my lacking knowledge of time, but I was already tuned in. Most people were just helping each other stretch and checking each others costumes for oddities. But at the front of the bus, the talk between Malek and our driver was getting heated. I pulled on my boot and stood, squeezing myself past those in the aisle and making my way carefully to the front. It was weirdly nostalgic to walk the narrow path of a bus in motion, even stranger to be doing so dressed in a way I never could on any other bus. Not peacefully, anyway.

“What's happening?” I asked Malek quietly, hoping to reset their conversation to a normal volume and intensity.

Malek huffed and hesitated to answer. “We're just a little lost.”

I opened my mouth and closed it again quickly, thinking for a moment before nodding. “Okay... Do we have a map to follow?”

Malek growled “Not unless you somehow have a signal.”

“I thought it was just down the highway until we got to the town?”

“It was. But-”

“You said you're late, so I took a shortcut!” the driver cut in. “Get off my dick and we'll get there fine.”

“You're lost, jackass! It's dark already- If we miss this show you can forget getting paid because we certainly aren't.”

“Hey,” I pressed my knuckles against Malek's arm solidly. “You wanna keep it down? They're already stressed about being late. I don't want everyone freaking out about being lost. Especially not like this. Middle of winter in the dark with no phone signal? Come on.”

Malek gritted his teeth but exhaled and glanced back to everyone else. “Alright, alright. Look, man, do you have any idea where we are?”

“As soon as I find a crossroads, we're in the clear,” the driver assured. “We're a little off course because of a road closure. You know how it is this time of year.”

“So we'll be fine! Besides, look at that.” I pointed out a billboard.

Malek squinted, forgetting his nearsightedness and the glasses perched in his hair. “Ambrose. What of it?”

“If we really need to, we can stop and ask for directions. As long as we keep everyone on the bus, it won't take five minutes.”

“That billboard looked kind of old. It better not be a ghost town dead end,” Malek fretted with an undertone of threat to the driver.

“Everything's old here,” I shrugged. “It's the back roads. Look. You see the lights? We'll be okay.”

˅˄˅

There was an indication of life. Lights, streets full of cars, the sounds of the theater escaping through the doors. And us. We hadn't seen the dip in the road- a wet ditch, really- before we ran right through it. Ballerinas tossed a foot in the air and all the accoutrement scattered across the seats and floor. 'Less than five minutes' I'd said, but there was no way that was going to happen. Malek and the driver held a shouting match over whether or not it was worth the time to check the bus for damage. Sense won out, as it always had against Malek's disdain, and not even his yelling could keep battered and bruised ballerinas in their seats while there was an opportunity to stretch their legs in the fresh air.

And yet, despite our clamor, no one came outside to greet us or even wonder what a bus full of people like us was doing here and blocking the road. The theater advertised its showing of 'What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?'. An arguably rude choice. Ever since film makers had regular access to color film, anything filmed purposefully in black and white had a mark on its name. Most found it mocking, as if they were saying not enough people watching would have found their soulmate for them to bother with showing color. The stance was bleak, but in the time where color would be more costly I could have understood the feeling. At least a little.

A tap on my shoulder made me jump and I turned to Patrice. “Malek is going with the driver to the gas station down that way to ask for directions. I want to keep an eye on the other dancers- Do you think you could go to the store over there and get us some snacks or drinks? Nothing heavy, okay?” She pressed a bill into my hand and nodded toward the small store.

I sighed. It was a step up from babysitting. “Yeah, sure. Should I ask about the time, too?” I grinned.

She smiled and pushed my shoulder. “Get me something sweet, too, okay?”

I crossed the street and passed between two cars and onto the sidewalk, looking into the theater as I approached the corner store. The greeter was wooden, staring dead-eyed out into the lobby like he couldn't be bothered to acknowledge us. Dickhead.

I was still looking into the theater as I pushed the door and found it wouldn't give. I paused, looking to make sure it was a pull and not a push and wiggled the handle. Locked. Glancing up, I was right when I read the sign as saying it was open 24 hours. Looking in, it was dim with no human presence. In a town so small, staying open 24 hours a day must have been more difficult than elsewhere. At least, I thought, the theater was certainly open. And most of those have concessions. A price gouge, maybe, but close enough.

Looking both ways reflexively, I crossed the street and saw Malek and our driver chatting with someone I couldn't see past the doorway of the gas station. At least they were making progress, it seemed. I pushed open the door of the movies and inhaled. What struck me first was the scent. It had been a while since I'd gone to the movies but I remembered the smell of popcorn being a heavy aspect. The popcorn smell was there, I was sure, but it was somehow wrong. Stale? Not warm, certainly. It didn't matter much. Popcorn wasn't the light sort of snack Patrice had in mind.

I approached the concessions counter and glanced halfway toward the ticket seller in his kiosk. “You know, the polite thing to do when you see people stopped with a busload of people like that is to see...” I trailed off as I focused on the concessions runner. “...If they need help.” I looked back at the ticket kiosk. Neither of these men were real, both covered in cobwebs with stock expressions and unnatural poses. I reached out to poke the concessions dummy in the cheek and rubbed the weird dust residue that stuck on my skin between my fingers. “Wax?” The billboard had advertised a house of wax, but this... This seemed like an odd gimmick for a museum.

A sharp, echoing crack wormed its way through the gaps in the doors. I crouched on instinct, glancing around for a shooter. The screams of a crowd of men and women came as a backing chorus to the second gunshot.

I'm not an idiot. I don't go looking for trouble by any stretch of the imagination. And I'm even less keen to search it out given that I'm a visibly non-white male and I was currently dressed in a bodice and skirt in what used to be a Confederate state. But if I didn't try to do something, I wouldn't have been able to live with myself.

With luck, the majority of people have never seen a ballerina fall. It often spells something grim for our careers- or at least something unsightly for those who have to see it- because the God's honest truth is that ballerinas do not fall with grace. I exited the theater in time to see a girl's chest to explode in blood and torn lace before she fell like a sack of rocks to the dirt. Blood is black when you can't see in color- Almost worse because when you're told blood is red for so long you can half convince yourself that it's not real. And watching my fellow dancers fallen and falling through the street, dressed in dainty outfits and screaming in a town that looked like a set piece, I wanted to believe this was a performance. A grim, one night only showcase that would sicken the audience, never to be performed again.

“Dante!” My skin prickled with the sound of Patrice's screaming. “Are you okay?”

“Y-Yeah. Come on, uh-” I looked in the direction she'd come from, seeing a large form rounding the bus. Not one of us. “Fuck, we have to hide. Here.” I urged her to retreat with me into the theater and behind the ticket booth. “What happened? I was only gone a couple minutes.”

“I don't know! It- He...” Her eyes glossed over with tears and her expression wavered. “I-I think he killed Malek. I heard the driver yell and he was standing weird and then he fell and I-”

“Pat, breathe,” I cut her off. Half because she was panicking in earnest and half because I felt like if I heard anything more I'd throw up. “God, what...” How are we going to get out of here alive? I didn't ask the question out loud. I startled and looked her over. “He didn't get you, did he!? You're okay?”

She nodded, still crying but trying to keep her breathing from being too chaotic. “I think he's got a uh a shotgun? W-We might be okay if we can get far enough away, right?”

“Maybe,” I breathed, wanting to look through the ticket booth to see what was happening, shots and screams still vying for my attention, but I was too scared about what I might see or the possibility of being seen. “I... I don't know how many of us got away. Do you... Do you want to look for anyone he- that we can?”

To my surprise she shook her head definitively. “Are you crazy? The longer we spend here, the more chances he has to find us.” She thought for a moment. “Do you know if the driver took the keys with him? You were up there with him and Malek, right?”

“I don't know uh...” I thought hard. They were yelling at each other, everyone was pressing at my back to ask what was happening, but the driver opened the door and left before Malek could stop him... “No, I think the keys are on the bus! Can you drive?”

“I've never driven a bus, but I don't think it matters. If we can get back across that ditch, that will be enough, right?”

“They never looked it over, I don't think. What if something's busted?”

“Then we run!” She searched my face to make sure I understood. And in her eyes I could see what she meant, really. This wasn't a situation we'd all be able to escape alive- It was far too late to think like that. If we could get away, we had to take the chance and not stop for anything or anyone. As I nodded her eyes darted up and widened enormously. She gripped my shoulders, forcing me to the floor, and shouted. But a heat and sound burst at my back and drowned out her words- and everything else, to leave only a ringing before her grip slackened.

I opened my mouth. I don't know what I wanted to say, if I wanted to say anything at all. All that came out was a choked sound as I saw a black puddle drip and grow in the space between her knees and mine and a warm, wet sensation on my forehead. My stomach squeezed and writhed when I lifted my head and saw a growing black spot on Patrice's chest seeping through her shirt and the edge of her coat. Her hands were still on my shoulders, twitching like she was trying to regain control of them. “Nnn-no,” I managed, my tongue slow and feeling like it would choke me. “No, no, P-Patty, oh fuck, oh god, I-”

A metallic click and slide stopped me completely, numbing me from head to toe in fear. A shotgun shell clattered empty to the ground and rolled into my knee. I could hear the smooth slide of bullets being loaded and the clack of the gun being cocked behind my head was harsh and deafening even with the shot from only moments ago dampening sound. My skin felt cold enough to make me shiver in place and it felt like goosebumps covered every inch of me. I was too scared to even cry and every breath burned me from my mouth to the inside of my lungs.

Patrice wheezed and coughed lightly and I flinched, becoming lightheaded as though reality had slowed in my stupor and caught up with me. I finally moved, bringing a hand up toward the still growing patch of black on her chest. “Patty, a-are you-”

“Move,” she muttered. She didn't give me the option to answer, fingers finding purchase on my shoulder and pushing me as she spoke again. “Run, Dante. Go.” With a shove I didn't think she could manage she pushed me aside and kicked upward.

“FUCK!” The cry was strained and I looked back to see the man falling into a kneel, supporting himself with the butt of his shotgun and gripping between his legs. He snarled audibly and looked up.

Blue. I know that's what it was now, but in the moment all I saw was something I couldn't identify. A color in an expanse of black and white that I'd never seen before. His eyes betrayed his demeanor and expression with their vivid and oddly soft color despite being shrouded in shadow by a dingy baseball cap. Even without knowing color for all it is, that much I could feel from its hue. As our gazes stayed locked, his skin began to flesh out with color, filling in like a stain spreading on fabric from his face to his hair and down to his shirt and the rest of him. The longer he looked at me, the more his face relaxed and as it did the full weight of what was happening hit me in all its awful gravity. I broke eye contact and looked back to Patrice and cried out.

Red. Red red RED. I could feel my skin tingling with panic as I scrambled closer to her, pressing my fingers against her chest and pulling them away just as quickly. It felt too real. Too urgent. I wasn't wearing a coat and the blood bubbled from the wound too quick to think I could possibly stop it with pressure alone. I couldn't think clearly. I'd never seen something become so vivid and alarming with something as simple as knowing it had color.

“Dante,” she exhaled, and I could hear the wetness of her breathing. I was a wordless walking corpse, opening my mouth and letting out nothing but meaningless sounds as I moved my hands uselessly to try and find anything I could do to help. “Run.”

A command, it seemed, was what I needed to stop me from acting like I could do anything to help her now. I looked her in the eye and my breath hitched. Her eyes were blue, too.

I didn't look back at the man that had killed Patrice until I was already at the door, when the sensation of the door handle's metal brought me to the realization that I didn't remember getting up and moving. He was looking at me, his fingers tight around the shotgun and his mouth set in a line. I shuddered and forced myself to look away, running out the door and training my eyes to the ground. I wasn't going to risk stepping on anyone. I couldn't handle that.

I looked around and slowed my walk the more I took in. Color. I made a point not to look too long at anyone's body but I could see the blue of some of the costumes with... dark patches on parts of the fabric. Dire or not, I couldn't stop looking at all the new colors until my eyes fell on the bus.

I knew for a fact that our bus was meant to be yellow. I mentioned to Patrice how I hadn't been on a genuine school bus since I graduated high school, asking her if it was yellow like most school buses, as well. I wasn't used to seeing color yet, but I was certain this couldn't be yellow as it looked exactly the way it had the last I'd seen it. I glanced down, grabbing my skirt and lifting it toward a light source. There was no way that could be purple, or purple was just like gray and no one had ever informed me as much. I couldn't consider color blindness of any kind a possibility. We're taught how see the signs of color blindness, and the first two colors I saw were red and blue which negated every type as an option.

Finding my soulmate was already the most horrifying and disastrous experience I could have had- The idea that something was wrong with how I saw colors too was just another brick added to the weight that grew in my chest since I met his eyes. Just thinking the word 'soulmate' made my stomach lurch as I stumbled toward the bus. Part of me tried to reason that it didn't always mean a romantic comparability but rather a friendly one but considering I'd met him just after he shot one of my best friends it was almost more sickening to imagine I could be compatible with him in even the most basic of senses.

I got onto the bus, holding my breath in the hopes I would hear someone else inside. “Is anyone here?” I choked out, my mouth dry. I swallowed hard. “It's Dante...” No reply. I took a breath, knowing it wasn't the strongest possibility before I'd spoken but having still held out hope. I reached for the bus' ignition, feeling around and finding no key ring or lone key. I crouched, squinting in the light that peeked in through the windows and saw the ignition empty. “No... No, no FUCK!” I felt around with my hands on the floor, slapping the seat and shoving my fingers into every slot and holder I could find but there was nothing in any of them. I pressed my forearms against the seat and let my head fall into the cradle of my arms, knelt at the driver's seat like I was praying, and breathed in and out. I couldn't panic, not until I could be certain I was safe.

I exhaled tightly and stopped breathing to listen for anything outside. I couldn't hear footsteps in the dirt, nor any more gunshots and screams. The silence was foreboding, but it gave me the confidence to look out the front window to ensure no one was ahead on the street. My options were to check the driver's pockets for the keys or to run. I was reluctant to act on the former as I couldn't be sure where he was, alive or not, and going back and forth would have me passing where I'd left the killer not once but twice. A risky enough maneuver without considering that I had no way of knowing if the bus would get me far enough away to consider safe. Likely, my best option would be to pick a direction and run.

I exited the bus slowly, looking both ways and considering my options. I didn't see him in the street, and being a larger figure than any of us from the bus he would have been hard to miss. I'd have been too easy to find on the roads, never mind that I had no idea where I was. It had the probability of being a bad idea, but I felt as though my best option was through the woods on the other side of town. I hadn't seen any cars on the road, anyway, and couldn't be sure how far I was from somewhere occupied by anyone but this killer. In a situation like this, I had no guarantees no matter which direction I chose.

If I was going to run, I had to dedicate myself to the action. I took a deep inhale and started, measuring my footsteps to the gaps between bodies and keeping my eyes trained on the path ahead. Between my focus and the sounds of my heartbeat and breathing I didn't notice anything, the wind knocked out of me by an arm clothes-lining my midsection and lifting me off the ground. I let out a strangled cry, inhaling sharply and kicking my feet to try and find the ground again.

“Hey, hey, just- Shit- I ain't gonna hurt ya.” His voice was deep and directly next to my ear, close enough that I could feel his breath on my ear. His arm around my stomach, tight enough to crush me, the warm sensation of his breath, just knowing who he was meant to be to me- My mouth filled with saliva fast and I gasped open mouthed as my tongue coated with an acrid breath that preceded a rush of vomit. “Oh Jesus...” I coughed and spit, thrashing hard until my elbow connected with bone. It hurt us both but surprised him enough that I could squirm out of his grasp. I stumbled but stayed upright and started running again, wheezing and coughing through the bile burn in my throat.

I couldn't run for long like that, skidding into tall grass and the brush beside a building a ways from the station and theater and staying close to the ground to look and see if he'd followed. I couldn't see or hear him, but I tried to keep my coughing stifled as I spit out what I could of the taste in my mouth and swallowed to try and soothe the pain. Once my breathing had leveled and the feeling of nausea wasn't so present, I lifted myself up off the grass. I scoffed lightly, realizing what he'd said. 'Wouldn't hurt me'. As though I could believe that. It was amazing that he expected I would. What a joke.

I set my hand on the outer wall of the building, pausing and pulling it back. Pressing the tips of my fingers on the wall I dragged my fingernails through the texture and felt it crumble and build up under the pressure. The building was wax. This was the house of wax from the billboard. I shivered hard, unsure why, rubbing the built up wax out from under my nails. I settled my palm on the building again, trying to ignore the creeping feeling it gave me, and followed along it to move further into the brush.

My boot caught on the rise in front of me, too high to step over and save myself the trip before I fell forward and onto a rattling set of doors. My heart caught in my chest as it bounced under my weight before settling in a dip. A cellar, most likely. “Fuck that,” I hissed, getting my feet under me and stepping carefully forward off the rise. The doors rattled behind me and my heart all but stopped and I paused, stupidly, to assure myself it was the doors adjusting with the absence of my weight. The door to my back swung directly into my spine, knocking me to the ground and keeping me paralyzed in pain. I twitched and felt a bolt of pain strike parallel to my ribs. Bad bad bad, very bad, come on move. Heavy boot steps pressed on old wood and I exhaled, hoping he just wouldn't notice me.

A hand gripped my upper arm, hauling me upward despite my cry of pain. 'Not going to hurt you'- I would've thought he could at least try on that front. I did my best to breathe through the pain and not sound too pathetic as I was dragged through the cellar doors and down. Luckily my spine stopped being in agony the moment before he threw me to the ground. It was dead hot and stuffy, dark and lit by something inconsistent and wavering. I braced myself on the floor and began to sit up but his hand closed around the back of my neck and held me in place. I had forgotten how big people's hands could be, his thumb and fingers pressing into both sides of my carotid. I yelped at the piercing feeling at my throat.

I breathed heavily as he let me go, blood resuming normal flow in a nauseating rush. Turning over and looking up, I felt lightheaded but I couldn't be sure if that was because I'd just been injected with something horrid or because of the realization that this was not, in fact, the same man. Just as large, clearly just as much of a threat to my life. His large hands held a syringe, the bag at his hip showing a number of tools I couldn't identify at first glance as well as the handles of what I had to assume were knives, the handles themselves shaped like like halves of a dragon. I trained my eyes up with some difficulty, finding the look of him past waist-height to not be any more comforting. Long black hair and a blank face that I realized to be a mask as he shifted. In the dark I looked into the holes where his eyes were meant to be and the backdrop around him began to shift from gray to color. The room filled with a gentle shifting light and the ceiling fleshed out with flickering shades and shadow like watercolor strokes of a lighter and sweeter red- orange and yellow, filling in some of the gaps I'd found earlier.

“You have to be fucking kidding me.” The words were slurred but I managed to get them out. My breath started to stick in my chest as he startled, tossing aside the syringe and crouching to lift me up. I tried to protest the touch but whatever he'd injected me we was working and kept my tongue from moving fast enough to talk. My head lolled to the side and I could see my legs, a hole in the knee of my tights and a the skin scraped and bloody, and my skirt caught on the edges of his fingers tucked under my legs. So that's purple. I couldn't see it for all it's glory, everything tainted by the strange lighting, but it felt strangely nice to finally know what Patrice had intended for me. Lace and color combined, it looked so sad against the dark of my skin. Exactly what we'd wanted.

[xieyouji-xiegushi]

This point about Shakespeare and Richard III is so spot on. The saying 'there is nothing new under the sun' is often attributed to Shakespeare (but is actually from the Old Testament, although he does reference it in Sonnet 95). The idea that something is of less value just because it uses elements of another source material is a relatively modern invention. Thousands of years of art and literature is basically rehashings of the same themes and archetypes - what gives it value is the unique voice of the creator. Dante's Divine Comedy, considered now to be one of the greatest works of European literature, is basically a self-insert AU Bible crossover fanfic that was so influential we actually derive the concept of 'circles of hell' from it. If Dante had Tumblr, the Divine Comedy would probably start with "Virgil rescues Y/N from being assailed by beasts and then Y/N follows Virgil into the Underworld. But what happens when Virgil and Y/N reach the Second Circle, where the inhabitants are condemned to hell for their sins of lust...?"

Personally, I write fanfic exclusively. I have next to no interest in writing original fiction. I don't enjoy world-building, or even coming up with complex plots particularly. I like writing snapshots of broken people who want to be loved no matter what it costs them, and that is so much more interesting to do when I can write about a fully realised character with relationships and backstory that I and other people know and love rather than just... some guy I made up.

Incidentally, when I was a teenager and explained fanfic to my mother (also a writer), she said, "oh, that's like those Twin Peaks stories my friends and I used to write in secondary school." I am sure that many writers get started this way but just won't admit it.

"In this world, nothing can be said to be certain, except death, taxes and fanfiction." - Benjamin Franklin (probably)

my dad–also a writer–came to visit, and i mentioned that the best thing to come out of the layoff is that i’m writing again. he asked what i was writing about, and i said what i always do: “oh, just fanfic,” which is code for “let’s not look at this too deeply because i’m basically just making action figures kiss in text form” and “this awkward follow-up question is exactly why i don’t call myself a writer in public.”

he said, “you have to stop doing that.”

“i know, i know,” because it’s even more embarrassing to be embarrassed about writing fanfic, considering how many posts i’ve reblogged in its defense.

but i misunderstood his original question: “fanfic is just the genre. i asked what you’re writing about.” 

i did the conversational equivalent of a spinning wheel cursor for at least a minute. i started peeling back the setting and the characters, the fic challenge and the specific episode the story jumps off from, and it was one of those slow-dawning light bulb moments. “i’m writing about loneliness, and who we are in the absence of purpose.”

as, i imagine, are a lot of people right now, who probably also don’t realize they’re writing an existential diary in the guise of getting television characters to fuck. 

“that’s what you’re writing. the rest is just how you get there, and how you get it out into the world. was richard iii really about richard the third? would shakespeare have gotten as many people to see it if it wasn’t a story they knew?”

so, my friends: what are you writing about?

[green-character]

Maybe italians fandoms are so cool because they're Dante and Virgile descent, the originals fanfic writers

[translationandbetrayals]

Of Fanfiction and "Real Writing"

As a person who has mingled in fandom spaces ever since I was very young, there comes a moment where you come upon fanfiction, and, consequently, the argument that it isn’t real writing. An argument that, even just reading it with no context sounds a little ridiculous. What are we using as the definition of “real writing”? A person wrote something, so why isn’t it “real”?

For the sake of this essay, even though I assume most already know what a fanfiction is, I’ll give the word a bit of a formal definition. Deriving both form the words “fan”, as in fanatic, and fiction, I usually describe fanfiction as a type of, usually written, story that uses and focuses on the themes, characters, storyline, and or setting, of an already existing piece of media, be it another book, a movie, comic, etc. Sometimes people tend to describe it as a “genre” but just like how “shonen” isn’t a genre but a demographic, I’d argue that fanfiction isn’t a genre. In fanfiction you can find most any genre, even if the majority leans into the romance genre much more, there’s still plenty of stories that don’t even include romance in the plot, so fanfiction, in of itself, isn’t a genre. 

Now. What makes real writing?

Let’s assume that fanfiction isn’t real writing. Why? What in our definition could exclude it?

Is it the quality? A bit of an ambiguous definition for real writing. Quality isn’t something you can measure, after all, it all depends on who is reading it. Some people may love the Twilight books, but I think they’re boring at best, and I’ve read plenty more fanfiction that is so much better. So we can’t really build a definition with such an ambiguous concept, all writing is different after all, and everyone’s perception of quality writing (or storytelling) is different.

Then, is it the originality of the characters, settings, plot, etc? That would not only exclude fanfiction from the definition, it would exclude plenty of other original (and some very popular) stories. Do you know what book would classify as fanfiction with this definition? Dante’s Inferno. Original setting, original plot, but using already existing characters side by side with original ones. Dante used characters from an already existing canon, the Bible, to write a story about them. Coincidently, wouldn’t that also mean every single book-movie adaptation is fanfiction? Every spin-off that wasn’t written by the original author? Arthur Conan Doyle didn’t write the Sherlock tv shows and movies, does that necessarily mean that’s fanfiction? By this definition, it does. So, maybe that’s not it.

Is writing real if it’s published? Well, to make it simple, no. Because then that means every book, before it’s published, isn’t real writing. And that, aside from being pretty contradicting, also doesn’t exclude fanfic from the definition of real writing, since fanfiction is usually available online (so, public), but it’s not really tied to profit (because of copyright). So that’s not it either.

Could it be who writes it? Well, then what about the people who write fanfiction makes their stories and works “not real”? Age? No, since writers come from all demographics, like Mary Shelly writing Frankenstein when she was very young. Education? Well, no. Since fanfiction has such a wide spread (fandom culture in general), it's more than likely professional writers have dabbled in writing fanfiction before. And aside from that, there’s plenty of writers that wrote their biggest novels without any prior knowledge of writing.

What makes fanfiction, fanfiction? What makes it “not real writing”, when there’s hardly any difference at all? For as long as humanity has existed, there’s been stories. And along with that, there’s also those who invent their stories because of a love of something, wanting to add something they think is lacking to it, or telling a story about that one hero they found was fascinating, just to send them in one more adventure. Fanfiction is a quite recent concept, but fan fiction has been around forever. We have always created stories from what we love, or what we admire. We tell stories because of love of something, because we’re, well, fans of something. The only actual difference between any other story, any other writing, and fanfiction, is the fact that it’s made with the love for a piece of media in mind. And even that is a similarity with other writing. Every story has a motivation behind it, a love, a passion behind it that makes a writer create a story. Despite the many spelling-mistake ridden stories, the multiple badly written ones, but also the great ones, the ones that change your brain chemistry for a whole day. Fanfiction is real writing not only because, well, anyone can write a story, bad or good. But also because, at its core, all stories are born like that, born from a passion, a love. And while for fanfiction it comes from a more concrete source, that has always been how writing has worked, for as long as it has existed.

So write that story, as cringe as you may find it. Yes, you may never publish it to make a profit, but that’s not really the point, is it? Love what you enjoy, and express it as you like. And may no one ever tell you that your writing isn’t legitimate just because it comes from that specific place of love.

 -Apolo Gaymer

[sleepfiles]

Breaking Stereotypes: The Diversity in Fanfiction

An essay in defense of fanfiction. Written on the 17th of December, 2020.

Fanfiction, commonly shortened to fanfics or fics, could be defined as a work of fiction based on a pre-existing book, movie, television show, play, etc. written by a fan of said media. Over the years, fanfiction has gained a double-edged sword reputation. Torn between being widely read by a large audience but simultaneously never being truly taken seriously. It is seen, by many, as a teenage girl's projection of pop culture. And I could honestly see where they're coming from, with the numerous self-insert One Direction fanfiction that granted fans to look at what lies in the possible, and even the infamous best-seller E.L. James' Fifty Shades of Grey starting out as a sex-induced Twilight fanfiction. However, while the term has gained popularity during the 21st century with the rise of the internet and fanfiction websites such as Wattpad, Fanfiction.net, Archive of Our Own, and many more, there is a deeper history behind these fan-written pieces of literature. Ahlin (2016) lists several classic works of literature that may be classified as fanfiction. The first on the list is John Milton's Paradise Lost, which essentially is his take on the characters from the bible. Dante's Inferno is a self-insert fanfiction about his journey with the poet Virgil in Hell. Even Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet was based on a poem entitled The Tragicall Historye of Romeus and Juliet. Others mentioned on the list were James Joyce's Ulysses, Virgil's The Aeneid, Alexandre Dumas' The Three Musketeers, and a few more. The main takeaway from this article is that, taking into account the definition of fanfiction without any existing biases, fanfiction is a large diverse genre that extends far beyond the work of an adolescent's naïve imagination. There exists both good and bad fanfiction. With every cliché Y/N one-shot comes along a brilliant reimagining of pre-existing characters. See, the diversity in fanfiction not only lies in what it is, but also in what it is for. In present times, it could be said that fanfiction is a form of expression. With a large part of the genre's demographic being adolescents to early teens, its main purpose is to serve as a creative outlet for these young writers to explore aspects of their imagination. And, yes, a lot of fanfiction tend to be cringey and filled with cliché tropes; but you don't crucify the thirteen-year-old preteen who wrote Harry Potter self-insert fanfiction for not meeting the literary standards. An article by Aragon (2019) presents a passage that perfectly captures the notion, "When I was 13, I had a major crush on a certain fictional character. My fics were full of phrases such as "gorgeous cerulean orbs," "manly hunks of muscle," and the like. Reviewers were kind enough to be positive about my amateurish fangirl postings—mostly because they also liked this character—but also pointed out my uses of clichés and overwriting. As a result, I learned to be sensitive to these types of bad writing. Today, I've published original fiction, and no one has ever called me out on a florid writing style. I think if a teacher had simply red-penciled my childish scribbles, I might have been so discouraged as to never write again". We all have to start somewhere, and fanfiction is honestly a good stepping stone for aspiring writers. It's essentially a platform where aspiring writers could post their works to a wide audience, there are no deadlines to be met, no standards to follow but one's own. Admittedly, that's where I started to. All the YA novels I owned only fueled my love for reading, but my interest in writing arrived the moment I considered writing Harry Styles fanfiction at age thirteen. Burt (2017) said, "Writers who started out with fanfic and then found the proper mix of critique and encouragement could go on to publish "real" (and remunerated) work". A lot of people who write fanfiction are also amateur writers trying to find their own voice. It's good practice. I, for one, as both an aspiring professional writer and a creative writing student, have tracked my noticeable improvements and transformation in my writing through the fanfiction I've written over the years. From writing predictable tropes with language that sounds too try-hard to being able to formulate coherent plot points and engaging character dynamics. Fanfiction, like any form of literature, grows. Moving on from amateur fanfiction, as we move forward in the spectrum, there lies in the shallow waters of the internet, well-written fanfiction. Fanfiction that is arguably better than some published YA novels I've read. Not all fanfiction is written by preteens or sex-deprived teenage girls, sometimes they're written by people with enough talent and knowledge to address the speculative what-ifs regarding some of our favorite characters — or in this incoming example, people. Real Person Fiction (RPF) is a subgenre of fanfiction that reimagines the roles and lives of real people, typically celebrities. I've read my fair share of RPFs, and some of them have ended up being my favorite pieces of literature to read. "I tap on it because the ticks are familiar to me. It blocks out the other noises." This is a line from one of my favorite fanfictions entitled Noisy Thoughts. It is said by the main character, Wendy, in the earlier chapters. It is such a compelling way to introduce the main character without giving too much away. See, in the story, instead of being a famous celebrity, Wendy is merely a college student with a strange affinity to sounds that 'tick'. Her seemingly quiet world is suddenly thrown into a pit of confusion at the entrance of her new roommate, Joohyun. Together, the two help each other deal with the emotional baggage cluttering their apartment. With an interesting cast of characters, each with their own depth and interesting subplot, the flow of the story keeps the readers on edge. As most fanfictions are, you might've guessed right that it is a romance story at first glance, but it is also so much more. This story deals with trauma and mental illness in a way that leaves me captivated, I feel for each of the characters and what they go through. I would go as much as to say it is better than how some professionally published stories tackle sensitive topics such as addressing trauma and healing from these traumatic experiences. I suppose the only downfall is that chapters are posted once every six months at the most; and with fifteen chapters into the story, it's still not finished. Another story I love from the same fandom (meaning Wendy, Irene, and other K-POP idols are also involved) is entitled The Purity Club. While this isn't as heartbreaking as Noisy Thoughts, it still tugs on my heartstrings and even makes me uncomfortable at times when the scenario just hits too close to home. The story makes use of the celebrities' birthnames as opposed to their stage names, so Wendy is referred to as Seungwan, and Irene is referred to as Joohyun, the same goes for the rest of the characters. The Purity Club starts with the characters attending the same boarding school, Joohyun being a devoted member of her church and Seungwan who always seems to cause trouble wherever she goes. It sounds like a cliché synopsis, and the premise is taken from an overdone trope of the troublemaker and the good girl. But the way this story progresses, it just left me speechless. This one tackles story arcs such as abuse, internalized homophobia, societal homophobia, healing from trauma and shaking off bad habits, and many more. It seems that every arc the plot passes has me holding my breath for what's to come next.

Although, my favorite aspect of this story has to be the character development. Joohyun's most notably, one of the characters who has gone through the most transformation throughout the entire story. She starts as the perfect daughter, almost blindly obedient to her parents' commands and with a straightforward grip on her religious faith. As she goes through and processes the events that transpire in the story, she learns to be her own person. Battling years of bigotry taught to her at a young age and coming to terms with her sexuality, and despite all the bad memories, she still actively practices her faith in God. All of the main cast has some degree of exceptional character development in this story, arguably better than how some mainstream TV shows like Riverdale develop their characters. The writer took their time in letting the characters grow without losing track of the foundation of what makes these characters click. Fanfiction is truly a diverse genre; it deserves more credit than people give it. It deserves to be taken seriously. As I've mentioned before, there exists good and bad fanfiction. But doesn't every form have its good and bad content? Frankly, I'm exhausted at the world's refusal to view fanfiction as a legitimate genre when some classical works can be considered fanfiction themselves. There exists a gold mine of well-written literary works with compelling plots and satisfying development deep within the confines of fanfiction websites. I believe it's time for the world to see it. REFERENCES: Ahlin, C. (2016, May 6). 11 Classics That Are Secretly Fanfiction. Bustle.      https://www.bustle.com/articles/159041-11-classics-that-are-secretly-fanfiction Aragon, C. (2019, December 27). What I learned from studying billions of words of online fan fiction. MIT Technology Review.        https://www.technologyreview.com/2019/12/27/131111/online-fan-fiction-learning-communities/ Burt, S. (2017, August 23). The Promise and Potential of Fan Fiction. The New Yorker. https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/the-promise-and-potential-of-fan-fiction Changdeol. (2017, March 27). The Purity Club.         https://archiveofourown.org/works/10468458/chapters/23099487 scarletstring. (2015, October 9). Noisy Thoughts.           https://archiveofourown.org/works/4964323/chapters/11399977

[exsultry]

The love you guys continue to show my work never ceases to warm my icy heart 💙

[decreare]

damn if your story about metafictional nonsense can't survive a grown ass man is there really a point? Write like dante the original of hateful shitpost fanfic writer

Mafia in undertale

Doopal is my mafia OC. These are doodles that I drew personally. There are so many images, so I'm going to upload them more as a reblog