#and I think it's better than Harry Potter

[sunderwight]

I do want to point out that a lot of really good fanfiction has a ton of interiority. Not just incidentally either. Some of the chief genres of fanfiction are about adding interiority or guessing at what was going through a character's head for a particular scene or event. Character studies, navel gazing, examinations specifically of what drives the relationship between two characters, etc, these are all not only popular but notoriously fanfic-y approaches to writing. Fanfiction is a hobby, so it makes sense that many fanfiction writers actually do like writing for the unique strengths it offers storytelling.

Sometimes the reason why a lot of books read like someone is describing a movie scene is because the author is in fact writing the movie they actually want to make. I vote that this is actually a huge important factor to why so many books read like the author is just describing a scene they're looking at. Because that is what they really want to be making, a movie or a show, not a novel. But movies and shows and even independent internet video series are a lot more expensive to produce than writing, and require a lot more other people to get onboard as well.

I think a lot of people settle for writing as the more accessible medium they can use to tell their story, which causes their writing to read like something that is desperately trying to be a different kind of art. I also think that stories written this way are appealing as prospective "next big novel" style titles to publishers, because... well I mean just look at the series mentioned above. Harry Potter, Hunger Games, Twilight, what's another thing they all have in common, apart from being popular novels for younger audiences that took off with adults too? They all got adapted into lucrative film series. It's capitalism again. Published novels aren't really considered an end goal unto themselves now, they're treated more like the trial stage for intellectual properties that could be translated into movies, shows, video games, etc, the better to keep milking cash from a single cow.

Also an author who writes like they're already making the movie is way less likely to throw in significant stuff that's utterly impossible to translate into a visual medium, too. So. If you look at it that way, of course there's been a trend towards this sort of thing.

A lot of fiction these days reads as if—as I saw Peter Raleigh put it the other day, and as I’ve discussed it before—the author is trying to describe a video playing in their mind. Often there is little or no interiority. Scenes play out in “real time” without summary. First-person POV stories describe things the character can’t see, but a distant camera could. There’s an overemphasis on characters’ outfits and facial expressions, including my personal pet peeve: the “reaction shot round-up” in which we get a description of every character’s reaction to something as if a camera was cutting between sitcom actors.

When I talk with other creative writing professors, we all seem to agree that interiority is disappearing. Even in first-person POV stories, younger writers often skip describing their character’s hopes, dreams, fears, thoughts, memories, or reactions. This trend is hardly limited to young writers though. I was speaking to an editor yesterday who agreed interiority has largely vanished from commercial fiction, and I think you increasingly notice its absence even in works shelved as “literary fiction.” When interiority does appear on the page, it is often brief and redundant with the dialogue and action. All of this is a great shame. Interiority is perhaps the prime example of an advantage prose as a medium holds over other artforms.

fascinated by this article, "Turning Off the TV in Your Mind," about the influences of visual narratives on writing prose narratives. i def notice the two things i excerpted above in fanfic, which i guess makes even more sense as most of the fic i read is for tv and film. i will also be thinking about its discussion of time in prose - i think that's something i often struggle with and i will try to be more conscious of the differences between screen and page next time i'm writing.

[mask131]

I have seen someone say, to accentuate the fact a certain book needed a basic knowledge of Greek mythology to fully understand all the references and jokes in there, "You better have read the Percy Jackson novels, else you will be lost".

You guessed it: it bothers me (every time I begin a post like that, you can expect me ranting about something)

I don't know if this was said as a jest or not. If it was said as a sort of joke or as a light-hearted comment, I fully get it and I have nothing to say, because of course that's a funny nod. However I fear this was said in all seriousness. And even if this person was not serious, I have seen a LOT of people treat mythology... out of fictional works. Especially the Riordan novels (a similar thing is happening with Norse mythology where people start using God of War as a reliable source but that's a discourse for another day).

I get how popular and beloved the Percy Jackson novels are. I myself am a big fan of them. It was my butter and jam in middle-school. I never was a Harry Potter fan, but I WAS a Percy Jackson fan. So I get it, I get how it can be... But it doesn't mean these novels should be treated as a source of reliable and certain info on Greek mythology. People seem to forget that these novels are rewriting, reinventions and adaptations of Greek mythology. Back in the days, nobody would have went around claiming Saint Seiya or Ulysses 31 were reliable sources about Greek mythology, and yet today people treat stuff like Blood of Zeus or Wonder Woman Historia as almost primary sources when it comes to handling the Greek gods...

I guess it is due to a change of generations, and a change of point of view as time goes on. Today Greek mythology is treated, handled and accepted more as a source of narrative material, as a host of characters, as a compilation of folktales, rather than an actual culture, or a literary corpus, or a set of beliefs and rites linked to a religion. Probably because people are getting more and more used to Greek mythology being used for entertainment and narrative purpose - Disney's Hercules, God of War, Class of Titans... People don't have their primary contact with the Greek myths through classrooms and school lessons, they have it through movies and animated series and novels. And so for them, Greek mythology becomes "fiction" before "study".

Before, to make the point that you needed to know the basics of Greek mythology, someone would have said "You need to have read at least a Greek mythology encyclopedia". There's a SHIT TON of these around. Today it's just "You need to at least have read a Percy Jackson novel". I mean, again, if it is for humoristic purpose or for a light-hearted comment, okay, it's funny - but if it is serious, than it is as stupid as to say "You need to know about witches and witchcraft... so you need to at least have read the Harry Potter novels".

Again, I don't want to spit on the Percy Jackson novels. I adored them, I still love them, and I think it is great and amazing how it boosted and popularized Greek mythology and made it such a casual topic. But I always thought the series was much more enjoyable when you knew already a bit about Greek mythology BEFORE reading the books, instead of learning things from it. The reason I fell in love with these novels was because I was a HUGE Greek mythology fan as a child and unfortunately as a result the range of media exploring my interests was limited (Mission Odyssey, the classic italian Odyssey movie, The God Beneath the Sea). Until the Percy Jackson came along and I had a blast seeing how they reinterpreted, reinvented and reused things I was already familiar with. That was the fun of it, see their interpretation of mythology.

Because I am sorry, but if you try to learn Greek mythology with the Percy Jackson novels, you will learn a LOT of misinformation. You will learn that Athena can have kids, that Poseidon is one of the coolest Olympians, that Demeter basically has no role whatsoever in anything, that Venus and Aphrodite are one and the same, that the demigods all inherit the powers of their parents like super-heroes... In fact we do see today a lot of the effects the popularity of the Riordan books had (like the overblown and excessive villainization of Zeus). But that's something endless and eternal: as I pointed out, after the OvertlySarcasticProductions video about Dionysos with them having horns as part of his design, EVERYBODY on Tumblr and the friggin' Internet started putting horns on Dionysos. It wasn't just something that spread slowly, it was a real boom and fashion.

I was NOT expecting this rant to go that far, as usual I got carried away X) But here's kind-of my point: people originally brought forward the idea that "There is no "real" canon to Greek mythology because there's tons of conflicting versions and alternate tales" to defend the idea that fictional takes and adaptations could deviate from the dominating versions. It was nice and a needed reminder. Except... people of course used it wrongly and started use it to A) just allow themselves to do anything and everything while B) not bothering to do any research by pointing out how since there's no "canon" and not a set of defined clear-cut legends, they don't have to justify their adaptation choices.

Yes, there is a lot of variations, alternate continuities, rivalizing characterizations and conflicting elements in Greek mythology, as in all and every mythologies, from Norse to Indian. It doesn't mean however that the modern fictional works about Greek mythology have as much importance as the actual original texts of ancient civilizations... I get that you love your Song of Achilles and your Epic the Musical, but it doesn't mean that I won't judge you if you never bothered doing any research about what Greek mythology was about outside of seeing other people adapt it. (And don't even get me started on the so-called "devotees" of the Greek gods who aren't even true neo-pagans and are just fad-following pseudo-poets who bring forward random ideas as facts and literaly have "headcanons" about gods as if they were OCs... Random personal take but I have never seen any dog-loving "devotee" of Hekate ever question or mention how THOUSANDS of dogs were killed in the name of their "patron")

I guess it is because how people have a hard time getting what a "mythology" is about... I mean a lot of people really don't know the difference between a "mythology" and a "religion", and yeah, in mythology the gods are as much figures of worship/centers of cult as they are literary characters and narrative archetypes, so it's this weird in-between... I don't know, this rant literaly leads to nowhere so I'll just stop here and leave you to your own thoughts :p

[princesskenny1998]

happy new year ⭐! can you write a draco malfoy x reader? wherein draco has a loose tie and the reader fixes it so naturally that the reader doesn't notice how enamoured draco is looking at her and everyone around them notices but reader is still oblivious

Harry Potter | Draco Malfoy x Gryffindor!f!Reader ~ Crooked

Well hello, happy belated new year to you too ✨ I hope you like it! You didn't specify if you wanted them to already be in a relationship so I decided that they aren't in one. Enjoy ✨

The Potions dungeon was as dreary as ever, the dim light casting long shadows on the cold stone walls. You didn’t mind, though—you enjoyed the quiet focus Potions required, and the challenge of it kept you sharp. Besides, sharing the class with the Slytherins always added an extra layer of excitement, though it usually came in the form of snide remarks from Draco Malfoy or one of his cronies. Today, however, something felt different.

Professor Snape droned on at the front of the classroom, explaining the intricacies of brewing a particularly volatile potion, but you barely registered his words. Your attention was instead drawn to the boy sitting diagonally in front of you: Draco Malfoy. His tie was askew, the green and silver stripes hanging loosely against his chest as if he’d put it on in a hurry and never bothered to fix it.

You tried to focus on your notes, but your gaze kept drifting back to that crooked tie. It was bothering you more than it should have, a tiny imperfection that seemed out of place on someone usually so meticulously put together. Finally, as Snape ordered everyone to begin their brewing, you decided you couldn’t take it anymore.

You stood and made your way toward the supply cupboard at the front of the room, where ingredients were stored, passing by Malfoy’s desk on your way. Without even thinking about it, you stopped short beside him, leaned down, and reached for his tie.

“You need to fix this,” you murmured, your tone matter-of-fact as you deftly straightened the knot and tightened it just enough. Your fingers worked quickly, your movements so natural and unthinking that you didn’t even notice the way Draco froze under your touch.

The entire dungeon seemed to hold its breath.

When you finally stepped back, satisfied with your work, you looked up from his tie to find Draco staring at you. His usual smug expression was gone, replaced by something softer, almost vulnerable. His pale grey eyes were wide, his lips slightly parted as though he wanted to say something but couldn’t find the words.

“Better,” you said simply, giving him a quick nod before continuing to the cupboard to retrieve your ingredients.

The moment you walked away, the silence broke.

“Did that just happen?” Ron whispered loudly from the Gryffindor side of the room, his voice thick with disbelief.

“Merlin’s beard, she touched him,” Blaise Zabini muttered, leaning toward Draco with an incredulous grin. “And you’re still breathing.”

“Barely,” Pansy Parkinson added, her tone teasing but her gaze sharp as she studied Draco’s face. “You look like you’ve been Petrified, Dray.”

Draco blinked, finally snapping out of whatever trance he’d fallen into. He cleared his throat and adjusted his posture, trying—and failing—to summon his usual arrogance. “Shut up, all of you,” he snapped, though there was no real bite in his words.

From your station at the back of the room, you were blissfully unaware of the chaos you’d just caused. You set up your cauldron, carefully measuring out ingredients and focusing on Snape’s instructions. Harry, Hermione, and Ron, however, were not about to let it go.

“Did you seriously just—” Ron began, but Hermione elbowed him sharply in the ribs.

“That was… unexpected,” she said carefully, glancing between you and Draco, who was still stealing glances in your direction as he stirred his potion with far less precision than usual.

“What’s unexpected?” you asked, genuinely confused as you crushed a handful of valerian roots.

“That,” Hermione said, gesturing subtly toward Draco. “You just walked up to him and fixed his tie like it was the most natural thing in the world.”

“Well, it was crooked,” you said, shrugging. “I couldn’t concentrate with it looking like that.”

Ron choked on a laugh, earning him another glare from Hermione. “You’re something else, Y/N,” he said, shaking his head. “Honestly.”

Across the room, Blaise was still grinning as he leaned closer to Draco. “So, care to explain why you looked like she’d just kissed you instead of fixing your tie?”

“Shove off,” Draco muttered, his ears turning pink. He stirred his potion with more force than necessary, but his usual composure was nowhere to be found.

Pansy smirked, resting her chin on her hand as she studied him. “Oh, don’t deny it, Draco. You looked absolutely smitten.”

Draco glared at her, but it lacked his usual venom. He risked another glance toward you, his gaze softening despite himself as he watched you laugh at something Potter had said. His chest tightened, and he hated how powerless he felt in that moment, like you had somehow dismantled every carefully constructed wall he’d built around himself with nothing more than a simple, unconscious act of kindness.

“She didn’t even notice,” he muttered under his breath, half to himself.

“What was that?” Blaise asked, leaning closer.

“Nothing,” Draco snapped, turning his attention back to his cauldron and pretending not to notice the knowing looks his friends exchanged.

The rest of the lesson passed uneventfully, though Draco remained unusually quiet, and you continued to be blissfully unaware of the effect you’d had on him. It wasn’t until you were packing up your things that you noticed the way everyone seemed to be looking at you—your friends, his friends, even Professor Snape had raised an eyebrow at you once or twice.

“What’s going on?” you asked Hermione as the two of you made your way out of the dungeon.

Hermione hesitated, glancing back at Draco, who was lingering near the door with Blaise and Pansy. “Nothing,” she said quickly, though the knowing smile on her face told a different story. “Absolutely nothing.”

[short666bread]

nighttime routine in an au where the marauder’s map has pinch zoom

[lightningant]

And The Kitchen Sink

In the throes of potion-induced despair, Dumbledore informs Harry of his horcrux status. Harry can’t stomach what it would take to kill Voldemort once and for all, so he’s decided to escape the prophecy through some Unspeakable means. - “So you don’t want him to be physically attracted to it at all?” Neal frowned at Harry. “Wish you told me that before we started.”

Fic Cover Baby

[ceruleanblueshells]

Scorpius Malfoy who never really got over the trauma of the time travel, who's brain uses so much power to cope with being alive that it becomes harder and harder to excel in academics. Who used to have an eidetic memory but now all his memory is spent remembering the smile of his mother. Who used to understand assignments like the back of his hand but now he can't even recognise his own hands. Scorpius Malfoy who went through something, and has to live with it,and has changed because of it, ridden with academic guilt and the rot of his apparent golden mind.

[antsrust]

Diver! Marlene Mckinnon <3

Another addition to the Olympics AU I have in my head. Marlene is a diver for the Australian diving team.

[hannigramislife]

Sometimes, I am baffled by the way people choose to write fics and character dynamice when they're doing like, slice-of-life, no thoughts head empty kinda stories, and they make the flawed characters even worse than in canon, or flat-out evil.

Not that they're doing anything wrong, I just don't understand.

Like, I love to read fics where Endeavor does his absolute best for his children, and his children slowly heal and forgive and become a family. I am Dazai Osamu's greatest hater, but of course I would like to read about him regretting what he did to Akutagawa and wanting to fix their relationship because he cares?? Why wouldn't I want to read about Severus Snape realizing that not a single adult cares to actually raise Harry and automatically stepping in as a father figure??

Why would you make them worse than they canonically are, erasing some actions and intentions? Do people not like happiness? I write fics because I usually want my faves to have love and affection, always. To fix past mistakes. To resolve regrets. To be better, to love better.

Might just be me, idk.

[maki-nsi]

At the end of the day, she is just a girl

[hptrash-lookaway]

Idk if literally anyone else thinks about this, but I’m also always thinking about Harry being all sad because people don’t really see him when they look at him, they see the bwl or his parents

And yeah there’s a ton of people who do see Harry as just the bwl, but like,, outside of like,, the order and a couple of others, most people probably aren’t seeing Harry’s parents in him, like Lily and James weren’t famous till they died (outside of James being the sole heir to an old line, although it does raise the question of if people took issue with him marrying Lily since she was a muggleborn, anyways how many people would care that much about James being the last Potter outside of other old family lines?) so outside of the people they personally interacted with, most probably didn’t pay that much attention to them, whereas Harry is hella famous and has been that way for most of his life

Idk if I can actually articulate my point but anyways once again thinking about a lot of people from the marauders generation ending up in the hp generation, and Harry’s all worried about no one caring about him anymore because he thinks most people only care about him as a replacement for his parents, but a lot of the people from his generation are only excited to meet them because they’re Harry’s parents

Idk it’s also funny to me to think about it being like still in the middle of the war and the order really caring about Lily and James being back and feeling more confident, and outside of like Snape, most of the death eaters and Voldemort aren’t fully sure who they’re looking at for a few seconds, like they’ve just been so focused on Harry for so long, only caring about them when that prophecy came out

(and considering it had to have come out around when Harry was born because due dates are so fickle and he was 1 when they were killed, it had to be max a year till they were found, not too long in the grand scheme of things)

Also I’m imagining that this is more teenage James and Lily, so it doesn’t help that they don’t look exactly how they did before dying

(My reasoning for most death eaters not caring about James and Lily before the prophecy is that I believe the theory that most order members weren’t public knowledge, they didn’t have to go into hiding until the prophecy was made (if DE’s cared about them, no way they wouldn’t have been in a protected house from the start), we don’t really know what defying Voldemort means so it could’ve been anything, doesn’t necessarily mean it was in a way Voldemort would’ve cared about till he sat down to figure out which family the prophecy could be about and was like “oh wait”, and some other reasons that make sense only to me and idk how to word them)

(Like I really think they’d be in the same amount of being famous as Tonks would be pre-prophecy, she’s an order member, she’s an auror like James who probably doesn’t take shit from all those death eaters who should’ve been in Azkaban and are now living normal lives, and she has a dramatic family history, her mom was completely disowned from a very well known family for marrying her dad, when they didn’t even completely disown Sirius!! And then she had a baby with a known werewolf, yet there’s not ever really a sense that she’s that famous or that death eaters care that much about her)

[rewritingcanon]

what do u think albus would grow up to be like had he never met scorpius in hogwarts?? i need to know im running an experiment (writing a fic)

[cursedwithwords]

In a perfect world Teddy’s godparents would be Charlie/Chiara or Bill/Fleur, but I don't think fandom's ready for that conversation yet tbh.

[i-need-of-a-hobby]

 this  🤏 close to rewriting the "kings cross" scene in the deathly hallows with regulus appearing to harry instead of dumbledore

[eggmacguffin]

so so so sorry for talking about harry potter

but my brain has been chewing through each and every flaw with that series this past week (in a series of Slumdog millionaire type flashbacks) and what they say about the maniac who wrote it

and listen.

Azkaban.

Azkaban, the only wizard prison (they don't even appear to have, like, holding, it's just Azkaban for everyone) and how very little criticism the concept of torture-forever-prison received within the text despite 50% of named characters who end up sent there being completely innocent. Are there sentences to Azkaban that aren't life? it seems insane if there aren't but also insane if there are, because of how incredibly vindictive and punitive the wizarding legal system is.

Prison in the real world does not succeed in being rehabilitative, of course.

but it is blatantly obvious that harming people who "deserve" it is the primary function of the wizarding legal system. AND how readily acceptable this is to a narrative style very childishly eager to inform you what is right and what is wrong says a lot of things about JKR and like. the concept of prison abolition

a story about a grand revolution that safely returns you to the status quo is one very lazy bad thing. But the blithe acceptance of "offending the wrong politician or a bungled trial or a very casually, comfortably corrupt government can get you sentenced to naked in a cave w/ all your happy memories stolen forever"?

And our brave hero not only doesn't question this, but dedicates his post-series life to supporting it?

what the fuck was she thinking???

[the-beacons-of-minas-tirith]

Somewhere out there is a better timeline where The Hunger Games is getting a full-length book-accurate HBO adaptation instead of the mediocre wizard series

[achievement-hunter]

People making Mara/uders fanworks in the year of our lord 2024