#creative non fiction i guess

[tadpoledyke]

17/01/2025

It is only in hindsight i can think about how silly my thoughts are. How, as my name is called and I walk towards where they’re seated- I’m thinking about every time that I have rotated the tantilising thought in my head. Something like microwave popcorn in a bag. Each thought like the water encased in the kernels of popcorn corn. Only needing the right amount of heat to burst forth in a delicious cloud. This last week the thought was …god, how I miss the smell of secondhand smoke.

Secondhand smoke in the sexy way obviously and not in the, uncles playing checkers at the market,way.

We’re sitting opposite each other , she’s got her vape and a pack of cigs in front of her and I’m doing a, I think, stellar job at small talk. Ah yes, my old job, yeah doesn’t take me long to get here if the traffic is alright, I played Sims Medieval all day.

And now I wonder if my eyes gave away how charmed i was by the roundness of their jaw, accentuated so perfectly by their glasses. I learned recently that these flash deductions of attractiveness are made by a part of the brain called the paracingulate cortex. And boy, did it wake the hell up the moment i saw them for the first time. Just under a year ago now.

I couldn’t muster up more than a “hi” then. This is great progress.

I’m reading Odd Bird, a novel about a Bird Behaviourist struggling in his love life. He has just attempted to tell a woman he fancies about the courtship behaviors of bowerbirds but she has vanished into the crowd at the bar.

I wonder how interested they would be in Bowerbird courtship. They probably already know about it because, obviously, someone who has been on earth since the mid-90s knows everything.

[fandom-space-princess]

Title: "Today my grandmother is 94 and does not love me."

[file under: pseudo-autobiographical short fiction. things that are neither essays nor poems.]

“Call your grandmother,” my father says. Over the phone his voice is a flat buzz. “It’s her birthday.”

———

The last time I spoke to my grandmother, she asked me if I know what will happen to me after I die. I admitted uncertainty. This was the wrong answer. My grandmother’s devotion is unassailable — her devotion to her God, that is, to her religion. Uncertainty is foremost among the many things devotion cannot abide.

She told me I did not love my family. I had no idea how to respond.

———

“She’d love it”

———

I do not call my grandmother. I am trying to write a piece of science fiction, by which I mean that I am daydreaming about Venus: imagining lofted cities adrift in the Venusian troposphere, skittering away between clouds like daughters cut free of their families.

Science (noun): knowledge, especially that gained through experience. Fiction (noun): something invented by the imagination or feigned.

Venus is always accepting prayers. You can petition her for adoration, validation, for partners of every kind to know you with wanting hands and willing minds.

When my grandmother looks at me she sees a ghost of the person she wishes I had become. Here I stand, miserable revenant thing, un-woman, in the place where she expected a granddaughter to stand. She does not know me. I think perhaps she never has.

———

“if you’d call.”

———

If I didn’t love my family, wouldn’t I know it?

(Science: a girl is born with all the eggs she’ll ever have. My grandmother’s body knew me while I was only potential within her not-yet-daughter.)

Evangelicals love eggs, because they love nothing so much in other people as the potential for them to become what the evangelical wants them to be.

Potential is what you call uncertainty when it wears its Sunday best. Genetic destiny is what you call the gifts you inherit from your grandmother: broad hips and the ability to carry a grudge, predisposition to diabetes and the inability to hold a single civil conversation with your distaff relatives.

I talk to my grandmother like I talk to god, which is to say: mostly in my head. Because I am trying to cultivate kindness of spirit, and given that an inclination to forgiveness was not among her heritable traits, I also pray that no one is listening. ———

My father tells me to call my mother’s mother. On this same subject, my own mother is silent.

———

(Fiction: one day, my family might know me for who I am, and find this person worthy.)

The heat, the pressure — to stand on the surface of Venus would destroy a person utterly. Science tells us that once, the goddess’ world may have had an atmosphere very like our own, before a runaway greenhouse effect rendered her planet uninhabitable to life in the forms we understand. My grandmother does not believe in climate change, but she does believe that the path I have taken through life has ruined me.

Someday soon I will ask a doctor to reach into my body and excise my own womb. I will complete the divorce from potential I began on the day I started to become my own person (on the day I was born). I am motherland to no one: I will bear no daughters.

———

My grandmother asks me if I love my family. I hand her a page torn from a Bible, on which every word is crossed out save “begot.”

[edenspoem]

AUTUMN DIRECTORY, 2024. (KINKTOBER)

ORANGE BEGINS TO TRICKLE IN, meaning it's time for newfound romance and horrors written in blood. this index contains upcoming pieces—everything from oneshots, headcanons, blurbs—and instructions for autumntime requests! quite similar to kinktober, but this isn't limited to kinks, is open to requests, and is not restricted to a daily schedule (because that would be hell).

REQUESTING RULES:

I. see rules here for general, annual information that still applies. fluff, smut, angst and horror is allowed. only writing for tlou characters. II. to be within the autumn realm, requests must (obviously) be related to festivites, occurences, or genres entailed under fall. this encapsulates october and november; halloween and family gatherings—but is not limited to those. (e.g something like a date in a leaf-scattered park, intimacy in a carinval, or mundane settings such as a college campus, count.) III. halloween requests can be directly related to the celebration, or complete deviations into horror. i have a horror oneshot cooking up at the minute (quite a few, technically), so most requests will be written into blurbs or drabbles. mythological creatures, murderers, folk legends, and movie-inspired dynamics are some ideas. but some of you are very creative, so please, do bend and amalgamate tropes to your heart's desire! (e.g a posessed, ballerina murderess would be fucking insane—in the best way possible.) IV. you can still send requests for kinktober, but this is just here to announce that i'm taking anything autumn-related. multiple versions are allowed for different kinks (e.g sub!reader, dom!reader, would count as seperate versions). also, do be wary that i won't write every kink, especially if it violates my rules.

LIST OF FICTION TO COME:

𝐧𝐲𝐦𝐩𝐡𝐞𝐭𝐚𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐞 | vampire!reader x hunter!ellie [predator and prey dynamic, can you guess which is which?]

information: chances are, if you're an old reader of mine, you've seen this draft announced here and there a year ago—it has gone through metamorphosis. now, it has a predator and prey storyline to it. probably the only kink related oneshot, but it is not tied down to that. it explores a serious, horrific, non-sexual side of it, and gradiates into something more sexual. (using time skips)

𝐟𝐚𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐜𝐥𝐚𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐜𝐬 | jackson!reader x jackson!ellie [a request from one of my lovely anons. congratulations, it's a oneshot!]

information: this is where fluff, and romance, will nestle in a hearth setting. one of my anons requested a fic where ellie and reader cook dinner for joel and a special lady friend (yay for side charecter romance), ellie totally disgusted by the fact that joel has a supposed girlfriend now. (in a weirded-out, daughter type of way, y'know?) also ellie cannot cook for shit.

𝐬𝐦𝐚𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐩𝐮𝐦𝐩𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐬 | jackson halloween party, gone wrong! [title is a double entendre, you'll see why.]

information: so. funny little title. basically i just wanted to write something about a jackson halloween party, how it would go, what everyone would wear, who would be making out in the bathroom of whatever building it happens in—oh and some murder. it isn't a party in october if nobody dies, so.. yeah. (ellie and reader totally aren't the ones making out and getting freaky while someone gets killed. definitely not. heh.) this one will probably have comedic undertones to it. love us a good comedic fic, honestly.

(let me know if you want to be tagged for any of these)

SHORT WORKS:

every request for this directory will go here. check later!

[alexanderwales]

Reddit is full of advice threads and sharing posts, and this is a fertile field for people who like to do creative writing.

So you get a lot of really outlandish stories, and a lot of them are poorly written, but poorly written in the way that it's clear someone is trying too hard.

When someone who isn't a writer writes badly, they get the order of details mixed up, they introduce characters too late, they fumble the punchline, they ramble about things that aren't important ... there are lots of failure modes, because they're just someone trying to relate something and doing a poor job of it.

When someone who is a writer writes badly, they punch everything up a bit too much, they repeat their punchlines, they use stock characters, there's a sort of energy to their writing like they can't wait to spill the tea ... which often does not mesh well with a wife going through a bitter divorce, or a guy who just got fired from work.

In this ecosystem, writers beat out the non-writers. A writer isn't beholden to reality, and they in theory have pleasing narrative structure and they can get at the fundamental ironies and little meme phrases. So most of the stories and posts that float to the top are just pure fiction, or maybe very loosely inspired by something in the writer's life.

I would wager that most people know this, and yet ... this is still the currency of these places: authenticity. Without the illusion of authenticity, most of the stories would never be read. It's the aspect of "this REALLY happened to me".

So there's this element of hyperreality to it, a blurring of what's true and false, and I always feel put out by it, like ... I don't know, we're all in on the fiction, right? Right? And I'm looking around and worried that we're not all in on it, that people might agree that yes, this is a fake post, but also what's true and what's false is irrelevant, what matters is being entertained. It's a step beyond suspension of disbelief.

And there's this broader context of how we consume information, how much we care about the sometimes-blurred line between fact and fiction.

It makes me feel uneasy, I guess, like base reality is slipping further and further away every day.

[deepdreamnights]

Hey there, saw your post re: harassment around artists using gen ai and thought it was great esp with the debunking of data usage myths. Would you share your thoughts regarding concerns that models are being trained to copy specific art styles and thus pose a direct threat to the artists whose art styles are being used?

Well, there's several levels to that.

The main one is that on copyright grounds, styles are explicitly non-copyrightable. Moreover:

No one's style is unique

No one's style is unimitatable by analogue means.

The second point is important, because anyone can go on Fiverr right now and and find someone to replicate any given art style, and every competent draftsperson has to be able to do it to some degree or another. No major animation house, art studio, or comic company has ever hired someone because they couldn't find someone else that could imitate the surface-level aspects of their style.

The first point is just a matter of basic reality. Ex-nihlo creativity either doesn't exist or is so rare as to be a once-in-an-epoch thing. Everyone builds on the influences that they learn from, and if you think someone has a unique style what they really have is a different media diet than you.

For example, Don Bluth. Born 1937, aged 15 in 1952.

Same year Time released this this picture of Burlesque Performer Dale Strong.

Someone made an impression.

Marilyn Monroe was also a national sex symbol when Bluth was a teen, putting some context to most of his other ladies, but especially Goldie Pheasant (or maybe she's more Jayne Mansfield, hard to tell through the bird-ness). His art style has obvious roots with Tex Avery and I would guess he read Mad Magazine a lot as a kid.

And Not to hang the guy out to dry alone, I was a teenager in the 1990s, and most of my sexy fictional ladies are 9/10 some combination of Dana Scully, Peg Bundy, and Rhonda Shear.

The point being that style isn't something you create intentionally so much as an accumulation of influences, drawn from the commons. Attempting to claim ownership of such a thing is by itself an act of theft in my view, and allowing them to be protected under the law would mean a judge being shown exactly how many pieces of prior art the Walt Disney Corporation owns that your work superficially resembles. Why, they'll even run it through a style recognizing AI to make sure they catch them all.

But let's talk about style matching.

It just takes one image now, and doesn't require training.

Which I'm sure sounds frightening, but this has been the situation since February for Midjourney, and it was available in the Stable Diffusion ecosystem long before that. If the threat were as pronounced as feared, we'd have seen the impact by now. And we haven't, and we're unlikely to, for several reasons, several of them listed above.

The largest is that style isn't even close to the be all/end all of what an artist brings to a given project. And the kinds of execs who are making a 'replace 'em with a robot' kinda decision aren't the kinds of people who care about art style beyond how much it looks like the most recent successful thing. And nobody's ever needed a robot to ride coattails.

But the next largest part is that AI style imitations aren't really accurate because the robot doesn't see style in the same way we do. It's all just math to the robot, and it prioritizes what it notices, not what we do.

I'll demonstrate.

Jack Kirby will be my example, for several reasons.

He has a bold and identifiable style, he's arguably the most famous artist in western comics history, and he has many analogue imitators and homagers.

Using Midjourney and prompting "an illustration of dana scully by jack kirby, 1968, in the style of 1960s marvel comics --ar 3:4 --s 15"

Using the base model, on the first roll we get three complete style mismatches and one that's kinda close, though I'd say that's way more Sal Buscema or John Byrne.

Kirby's women had a certain, difficult to describe oddness about their faces that the robot doesn't seem to grok, and it doesn't touch on the kinds of wild patterns and bold black/white swatches that make Jack's work feel 'jack'.

Tom Scioli's take on Kirby is a sort of lovingly flanderized parody, but it captures the spirit of Jack's art much more directly even if a lot of individual details aren't period-accurate. He draws Kirby the way you remember Kirby from your childhood, but I don't question whether the page above is trying to be a Jack Kirby homage or one to Sal Buscema.

But Midjourney has style reference, so we can inject the Kirby right in. Using the picture of Sersei dancing from above with the same prompt, we get:

Well, the work is more convincingly period, but again, we're not terribly close to being on-point. In fact, they're not very consistent between each other. Top left is any 80s marvel fill-in artist. Top right is maybe Kirby-esq. Bottom Left is flat out Jim Lee, bottom right is very Byrne-y.

Using three reference images to give the best shot, I'm also moving to using images of a similar color style, and all with a woman as the central focus. I have included the infamous Crystal pin-up shot because as I said, Kirby women have a certain oddness to them (fondly).

Results (MJ 6.1 on the left, Niji 6 on the right):

It all says 60s-70s Marvel, but I don't think Kirby would be the first guess for any of them. Maaaaaaybe the lower-left Dana in image #2 if you squint.

And that's Jack Kirby. Massively popular and prolific with a career spanning decades. If anyone in the comics space should be impersonatable by this thing, its him.

I'm sure you could train a LORA to get closer, and sure, the tech is only going to get better from here, but by the nature of how the system works no generation pulls just from what is referenced. Every generation is both blended with other concepts and emphasizes only what the machine catalogs as relevant, not what we might.

There's not much to stop someone from imitating your style with a machine, but there was nothing stopping them from doing the same with an underpaid freelancer. The results are likely to miss the mark regardless.

If the client wants you, they'll try and get you. If they just want something kinda like you, they've always had an avenue to that.

Fortunately, you're more than your style, and whatever anyone can do with the machine, you can do better because you've got access to both.

[esoteric-joke]

Interview with Brooklyn_Babylon

(#Interview3)

Welcome to the next interview of the Dear Writer Project. This Sunday I’m here with Gina (twopoppies here on Tumblr). Thank you so much for participating and supporting my project. It was a pleasure to interview you.

Gina about her writing process, her inspirations and what she finds most challenging about writing:

What does your writing process look like?

Oh, you're going to call me out right from the get-go, huh? LOL! My writing process is that I am a complete pantser. I hate outlining and I'm not good at it (probably why I hate it). I generally get inspired by something visual and then build a story around that. The difficulty is that often, there's a concept, but there's no real story to tell. Or, I can't quite flesh it out enough to make it worth writing. But when something connects, I go bother India (indiaalphawhiskey on Tumblr) who is my beta/BFF/cheerleader and we'll talk through the story idea.

She's super helpful in terms of pushing me to think it through enough that I can write a very basic outline of what needs to happen to get from A to B. Then, I wing it. LOL!

What does writing mean to you?

From the time I was a kid, I've always been involved in doing something artistic--from fine art, to costume design, to writing, etc. I've just always needed some way to express myself, creatively. It took me a long time to get comfortable writing fiction because there are a few people in my family who are highly respected authors, and I felt I needed something of my own to sink my teeth into. But now that I've started, I realize how much I do love it (even when I hate it), and how much it allows me to dig deep into my own thoughts and emotions and be more self-aware. Beyond that, I think I'm at my most comfortable when I feel I'm helpful/supportive/nurturing. I used to write non-fiction that gave me that outlet. It's interesting that I can see those aspects in my fiction writing, as well.

Do you know before you start writing if an idea is going to become a oneshot or a longer fic?

I can generally tell if there's enough of a story to make it a chaptered fic. Sometimes the chapters just separate naturally.

Like, in An Invincible Summer, the story unfolded so that each chapter was a different month. But I had a basic idea of how I wanted the story to progress over that time period. I think, for the most part, I let the story dictate how it's going to flow.

You don’t write (or publish) as regularly as some other writers in the fandom. Why is that and would you like to write/publish more in the future?

Part of the reason is that I have a really busy life outside of the fandom (and writing). I also don't like to write just to fill up space. And I don't want to publish anything I don't think is the best I'm capable of at that moment.

On top of that, I'm just not one of those people who has a million stories in my head. I'm very visually stimulated and there are long periods of time where I just don't feel inspired. I also second-guess myself a lot and often end up shelving my WIPs. And... even when I'm inspired, I tend to write slowly. I like to take time to make sure I'm really saying what I want to say in the best way I can. I want to grow and challenge myself with each story I publish. I just don't see a point in doing it without that sort of intention.

On which of your stories did you write the longest?

I think An Invincible Summer probably took the longest. But it was also one of the easiest for me to write because the story just wrote itself in some ways. I had a much clearer picture from the start of how things were going to unfold. At the same time, there were moments that just happened as I wrote that ended up shifting the story from what I'd originally planned.

I recently went back and re-wrote that fic, adding another 10K to flesh it out better. I'm so much happier with it (even though I loved it before), but I haven't published the updated version on AO3. Not sure whether I will.

Which of your stories came together the fastest?

The first one (Whoever, However). But it's also only 9K. Harry dropped that Beauty Papers spread and my brain exploded. The story was all there. I think Hike Up Your Skirt was probably the next quickest (again, it's not terribly long), but that one I originally wrote for the Anonymous Unicorns collection so there was a lot of freedom in getting to write anything I wanted without fear of judgment. If I could only harness that, I'd be able to bang them out!

What fic of yours was the hardest to write?

I think Literally Making Love.

It was an unusual premise, in that it's about a robot and a human falling in love, but I really struggled with whether I should make it "more" than a love story. It felt like it deserved to be "more", or that it should have more about how AI changes the world and a conversation about loneliness and the way the world contributes to that. So I kept feeling like I wasn't going down the right path with what I was writing, but India reminded me that there's just as much value in a lighthearted story as there is in "serious" writing. We all know the joy of sinking into a comfort fic, or kicking our feet at something really sweet and happy. So I let Literally Making Love be what it wanted to be and I was ultimately super proud of it. And, in the end, I think I did a good job of dealing with the ethical issues, even though I didn't make that the center of the fic.

What inspires you most while writing?

Visuals to begin with. I tend to get inspired by photos or a piece of art. Sometimes song lyrics. But visuals keep me going so I make moodboards for myself and I find quotes or pictures on Tumblr that feel like they belong to the story. I think all of my fics have a link to an inspiration tag on my blog.

And then talking through things with India.

It's so helpful to have someone who gets what you're shooting for and who has the same sense of what makes for good writing. So I'll brainstorm with her when I'm stuck or give her sections to see if it's reading the way I want it to... It keeps me going.

I don't know how writers do it all by themselves. There are times when I've read something so many times that I can't even tell if it's any good. And I do the same for her... helping her get through her writing challenges or brainstorming her projects also makes me a better writer.

In the notes of Literally Making Love you mentioned a 9 month long writers block. What helped you out of it?

Truly it was just that piece of fan art I linked in the note at the start. I'd never seen that artist's work before and this drawing of Louis building an unfinished Harry ended up on my dash and I said, "Well, I'd read the hell out of that." Sadly, no one else was going to write it for me, so I had to do it myself.

While talking about this, I pointed out that I searched a few tags of this particular trope after I finished reading Literally Making Love and couldn’t find more than a handful of fics, which I was surprised by.

Gina thinks people are put off by the idea even if there are so many ways to handle it that could make for a beautiful story.

What do you find most challenging about writing?

I was about to say finding a title, but then I realized that I only had trouble with that in two of the five I wrote.

Hmm. Honestly, I think the most difficult thing for me to write are arguments/fights.

I tend to be really passive-aggressive when I argue, and that doesn't make for very good reading. So I really have to work at crafting a back-and-forth that feels natural but also packs enough of a punch for the scene to work. In An Invincible Summer, the argument scene was pretty pivotal, and one of my betas at the time made me re-write it three times before she signed off on it.

Is there anything you can tell me about future projects you’re planning?

I'm working on another historical fic at the moment. It's slow burn and longer than anything I've written before. So that's a challenge. It's set in the 1880s between the Belle Epoch debauchery and decadence of Paris, and Victorian London's rigid social structure and moral conservatism. Basically, Harry is a French ballet dancer turned sex worker/courtesan. Louis is a British aristocrat whose father has sent him off to Paris to get "the gay" out of his system before he has to marry. There are some twists and turns, and I'm having a lot of fun trying to keep things sexy and exciting for a modern reader while still being true to the time period.

I still don't have a title, and I'm still working on a brief description to sum it up. But... I'm about 60K in and I'm having fun.

When I told Gina that that sounds like you’d have to but lot of research into it, she said:

So much research! But I actually love that part. I get really into the nitty gritty and look up everything. For example, did you know the ice cream cone wasn't invented until 1896 (although not patented until 1903)? LOL! I had to change a scene I was writing because all of a sudden, I thought, "Did they have ice cream then? How did they keep it cold? How did they eat it?" I honestly hate reading something when little details are wrong. It totally pulls me out of a story.

For the next part of the interview, I asked Gina a few questions about her works in particular.

Gina about her favourite scene she wrote, her experience with writing before writing fanfics and being inspired by her own family’s history:

What work of yours is your personal favourite?

Hm. I think Literally Making Love is my favorite because it's the most unique concept, and I'm really proud of some of the writing in that one.

Hike Up Your Skirt is, I think, my most popular one. But that's not surprising because it's complete filth.

Do you have a favourite scene that you wrote?

There's a scene in Literally Making Love when they're walking the dog through the woods, and they're talking about the concept of being lonely, and Harry realizes he's the only one in the world who can understand anything he's experienced. I just really loved how that scene came together. To me it's very visual, and it's got that kind of poetic, dreamy feeling to it that I love to find in fics (and am forever trying to emulate, but I think that might be the only time I've succeeded so far).

I told Gina that this was a scene that definitely made me think about the concept of being all alone with an experience. Here’s what she said about that:

I like moments in a story that make you stop and think about more than just the story you're reading. I think these days, we can much more easily connect with others who can understand most of our experiences very deeply. Although, I imagine if you were the only highly advanced AI robot in the world, you might have some experiences no one else has had to grapple with.

Is there a work of yours that was planned to go completely different than it came out in the end?

There are definitely moments within the stories that I never planned on, and they changed some aspects of how the story ultimately came together.

For example, in An Invincible Summer, the idea for Harry to hold on to memories by getting a camera popped out of nowhere.

In Literally Making Love, the scene of Louis painting Harry's tattoos over his scars came in a dream and that meant I added the aspect of Harry's body dysmorphia. So, little things for sure.

Whoever, However was your first fic you published. Did you write in any form before that?

I did.

I wrote non-fiction for a bunch of magazines and online outlets. I've also ghostwritten three books.

Beyond that, no. Just lengthy blog posts about two gay boybanders.

What were your inspirations for gathered on wings?

There was a photo of Louis in some sort of haphazardly layered jackets and standing in front of these graffitied walls, and it had this caption, saying that he looked like a PhD candidate at the Sorbonne. That was how the idea started.

I had wanted to write a teacher/student fic without the creepy aspect of grooming and inappropriate conduct, and somehow my comment led to Harry having been his intern and them meeting again years later.

Then, the research on all the modern art and the high-end art world informed the rest of the story.

You didn’t go much into detail how successful Harry’s art got after ‘Comrade’ recommended his art for an exhibition at the Marlborough Gallery. Was that the push Harry’s work needed to get the attention it deserved?

It was.

He'd been relying on sugar daddies to pay his way and to give him the connections to patrons. But Comrade vouching for him opened the doors to him being able to do it independently. It's that feeling of, "If I could just get my foot in the door, I could show them what I can do."

That was his foot in the door.

Gathered on wings was my first attempt at writing a chaptered fic, and there was a huge learning curve. There are parts of it I really like and parts I sometimes want to go back and re-write.

Do you think Louis’ identity in gathered on wings always stayed hidden even after they got engaged (and eventually married)?

I like to imagine that as Harry became more widely known, people became interested in his partner. And Louis would then decide to reveal his identity with a new installation that they collaborated on.

Staying hidden when your partner is famous is probably a hard thing to do.

I think so. Especially if you're in the same field. In a way, it mirrors the idea of the two of them coming out at some point.

You said in the notes for An Invincible Summer that it’s inspired by your grandfather’s life. Was that your only inspiration for the story?

It's what set the scene. Other than that, I knew I wanted to write about writing and seeing yourself in a book or feeling understood by someone you never met but who's somehow written about you and your life. The concept of feeling really "seen" is something that shows up again and again for me.

You didn’t go into any detail about Harry’s relationship with his adoptive parents after he left at the end of An Invincible Summer, even though his mother tried to support him as much as she could when he had to leave. Do you think they held contact after Harry was forced to leave or if he/they even went back as a part of H & L’s adventures?

I think Harry managed to stay in touch with his mother secretly and to eventually reunite with his sisters.

When I rewrote the story, I changed the middle sister to a brother to show another way that Harry was treated differently. So I imagine Big Jim and the little brother digging their heels in and acting like he never existed. But Harry and Louis eventually had a beautiful and extensive found family.

The end of Hike Up your Skirt (And Show Your World To Me) is pretty much open. How do you think their relationship progressed and do you think they have a chance of having a normal (as in no power imbalance or manipulation) relationship?

Mmm. I actually started writing a second part from Harry's POV where you see that Harry is also playing a game to get Louis to fall for him. I see their relationship becoming a 24/7 Dom/Sub life. I think they're both way too kinky and maybe a little too depraved to have a "normal" relationship.

Are any of your original characters inspired by people you know in your day-to-day life?

No, actually. LOL! Very simple answer. They're all just figments of my imagination.

A lot of other writers in the fandom have difficulties or are just a little uncomfortable with writing smut. That doesn’t seem to be the case for you. Why’s that?

HAHAHAHA! No, I think it’s actually the easiest part for me to write. I’m not sure why. I don’t have a lot of hang ups around sex, so maybe that helps. And I love the idea of character development through intimate scenes.

How did you come up with the idea for your fic rec masterpost here on Tumblr and how did all of that start?

I think it just started because someone asked if I could recommend some fics in a particular category (If I remember correctly, it might have been dystopian fics). And I had too much time on my hands, so I decided to make a header and write little blurbs about why I liked each one I was suggesting.

Somehow that turned into a deluge of people asking for different things and, for whatever reason, I had the time at that moment. So I made rec after rec.

At some point it was annoying that people kept asking for the same things, so I just made an alphabetical masterpost.

Is there a specific trope or genre you’d like to read more of?

Oh, that's a good question. It's so much easier to tell you what I don't like.

Honestly, to me, it's really more about the writing than about the trope or genre. But I do really like a good enemies-to-lovers fic, and if you can write a new twist on a fake relationship, I'm all in.

Do you somehow track the fics you’ve read? And if you do, can you give me a rough number of how many you’ve read?

So, I only bookmark fics I've really loved. Obviously some I love more than others, but I currently have 655 fics bookmarked.

I've been reading in this fandom for 11 years. Some I won't have read all the way through, but counting those, I'm sure I've literally read thousands.

I've gone through periods where I've just got a lot more free time at one point or another. And when I entered the fandom in 2013 there were literally so many terrific fics I didn't know where to start.

And every time you turned around there was another. It was very addicting.

Are you reading anything right now? If not, what was the last thing you’ve read?

I have a hard time reading when I'm actively writing, so nothing really recent.

The last fic I read that I really liked was Danger I Can't Hide by CelticSky. It's actually a WWII fic but set on the airbase where H is a pilot and Louis is a mechanic. It's just so well written and so well researched. Highly recommend.

For the next part of the interview, Gina answered some personal questions about her experiences in the fandom.

Since when are you in the fandom and what made you become a fan?

Since November 2013.

I took my daughter (who was 6 at the time) to see This Is Us. Did a little research to make sure this boy band was appropriate for her and then fell in love with them. We ended up seeing the movie three times, then bought it and watched it at home. She was a Niall girl.

She was my concert buddy for a while. One Direction at the Rose Bowl in 2014 was her first concert.

The weirdest comment you got?

Oh, I get some doozies on Tumblr.

I think one of my favorites was from years ago when I used to do a lot of NSFW fan art. I got an anonymous message from someone claiming to be Harry's lawyer and they were demanding I delete all of my fan art of Harry. HAHAHAHA! Like an attorney would send an anon. Or even ask for something like that. I still laugh when I think about that one.

Harry or Louis?

It's very hard to choose because they're both amazing. I'm a Harry girl from way back. But I obviously love and support Louis, too.

Harry just really inspires me in so many ways. And his music is more my speed.

Your favourite Harry era and your favourite Louis era?

Oh, that's hard. I think Harry's recent era (Harry's House) might be my favorite because he seemed so happy and so self-assured and confident in who he is as a person. He looked fantastic too. Other eras are special to me because of what was going on with the fandom at the time, or because I liked the way he dressed or whatever, but in terms of just enjoying him, I'd have to say this last tour.

Louis is a little more difficult for me because I've had a really hard time with his image over this last tour and his doubling down on babygate. I'm very happy he says he's really happy and proud of his album/tour, but if I had to pick my favorite I feel like he looked the healthiest and most at ease during MITAM promo. Oh, he looked great during his Walls promo, too.

Your favourite movie with H?

My Policeman. It was a bit uneven, but he really blew me away in some of his scenes. He understood that character inside and out.

Your favourite writer(s) in the fandom?

I actually have so many that I like, although many aren’t in our fandom anymore.

It might be easier to link you to a Favorite Authors rec I made a while ago.

What are your absolute favourite fics in the fandom?

I’m going to make it easy on myself again and link you to a Favourite Fics rec.

Is there a fic that is not necessarily your favourite but still always kind of stuck in your head ?

There are fics that aren’t necessarily the most groundbreaking or complex, but something about them makes me keep coming back to re-read. Don't kill me, but... My Favorite Re-Reads.

I wanted to give you a favorite out of that list, but as I scrolled I was like, oh wait, that one! No, that one! So... sorry, you get them all.

What makes you want to stop reading something?

Hm. So many things, honestly.

Writing where people try too hard to be poetic, continuous spelling and grammar mistakes, miscommunication as the only tension, no tension at all, characterizations that make no sense to me, fics that go on and on and on with no attempt at editing, kid fics, etc. I really have very few squicks, but bad writing is hard for me to ignore (I know "bad" is subjective, so I hope no one takes offense at that... just because I don't like it doesn't mean others don't love it).

Your favourite song at the moment?

Chappell Roan is stuck in my head lately. So, I'll say Casual (although Pink Pony Club is a bop).

Your favourite season?

Fall. Absolutely. SO fucking sick of summer.

The most unusual thing that inspired you?

LOL! I'd have to say the Vintage "Sleaze" novel that inspired Hike Up Your Skirt. It was called "Horizontal Secretary".

Who would you most like to read an interview from?

Well, I'm obviously going to say India because I think she's a great writer. But she's also so well-spoken and interesting.

I'd love to read an interview with CelticSky because I loved Danger I Can't Hide so much and I don't know them since they're on Twitter!

Lastly I asked Gina to give every work of hers a colour. Here’s the outcome of that:

Whoever, However -- yellow

Whoever, However is yellow, because when I think about it, I picture the warm, yellow shade of the wood paneling of the room they filmed in.

gathered on wings -- blue

I’m not sure why gathered on wings is blue in my head. Maybe it’s just because that’s the main color of the mood board I made.

An Invincible Summer -- green

An Invincible Summer is green because the rural Georgia setting became one of the characters of the fic. When I think about it, I see the sprawling farm, the rampant kudzu, blueberry fields, lunch under the oak trees… it just feels green to me.

Literally Making Love -- red

Literally Making Love is red because so much of the story is about what it means to be human and even though Harry’s heart isn’t “real” at some point he says to Louis, “Sometimes I feel like you made my heart too small because it doesn’t hold everything I feel for you. I feel it overflowing everywhere.” Or, maybe it’s because it has “Love” in the title. LOL!

Hike Up Your Skirt (And Show Your World To Me) -- purple

I don’t know. The first thought that came to me was purple because I pictured Harry’s character with love bite bruises.

A huge thank you to Gina again. Thank you for being so open and honest while answering my questions. I had the best time talking to you and was so invested in every work of yours.

[just-here-for-the-moment]

Short story workshop! ✍️✍️✍️ August 2024

Y'all, I am interested in hosting a short story workshop to share my knowledge and my passion for writing and to help other writers who are seeking a place to connect with fellow writers.

However, I am so tired of seeing workshops that cost $200+ for just a few hours! If you're interested in attending a low-cost writing workshop, please read more below the cut...

I'm going to host video-call short story workshops at the very low cost of pay what you can! My suggested donation is around $30.00, but if cost is any kind of an issue, please put a note in the Google form and we can work something out!

8/9/24 Update: Our first workshop will be Sunday, August 11 at 3 p.m. Central US/4 p.m. Eastern US

There are additional times and dates on the Google signup form. Please let me know if you don't see something that works for you. (And rest assured, I'll be adding some European/non-US times soon! Please message me if you're outside of North America and we'll get something set up!) Sign up here at the Google form

FAQs... Who the hell are you? Hi! I'm Claire, I'm very friendly and have been here on Tumblr writing adult fanfiction since 2021. In my first year on Tumblr, I wrote 216,860 words of short story fanfiction. That's a LOT! Fanfic led me to getting back into creative writing, which was a lifelong passion but had been dormant for almost twenty years. Rediscovering writing saved me from one of the deepest depressions I had ever experienced, and I'm so grateful to it and to the other writers I've met over the years for saving my sanity.

What do you know about writing, anyway? A ton! I'm a huge nerd, and when I have a passion for something, I research endlessly and deeply and am always learning something new. Since I started writing fanfic in 2021, I have taken 3 college courses in creative writing, self-published my first book, and I read non-fiction "books about writing" more than I read all other genres combined. (I really love writing!) I'm also "that friend" who knows the difference between affect/effect, vice/vise, they're/there/their, and other really nerdy grammar and spelling and punctuation rules, and I've beta-read for over a dozen other Tumblr authors over the years. After self-publishing in September of 2023, I found that I enjoyed the process so much that I decided to make it my vocation. In March of 2024 I opened a small business to provide self-publishing guidance and author services to other independent authors. I am currently working with my first client to edit and hone a manuscript and query letters for pitching to agents, and I'm also co-editing an anthology of original short stories from some of my favorite Tumblr writers that will debut in January 2025, published through my company.

Why so cheap? I don't have $250 lying around for a one-day writing workshop, and I'm guessing you don't, either.

You write a LOT of smut; do we also have to write "spicy" stories? Nope! Smut is not required - this is a general short story workshop to help you craft any kind of story your heart desires! I love writers and writing, and I'll be your cheerleader no matter what genre of short fiction calls to you and makes your fingers fly!

What do we get out of this? The workshop will consist of two parts. The first will be a 60-minute group video call (time/date TBD), where I will present the basics of short story form, function, and several prompts. Each participant can use one of the prompts, or bring a short story that you've already started. If you would like to get some feedback, I'll ask you to send me your short story draft within 10 days. Two weeks after the first call, I'll host another 60-minute group call, share some of the stories from the group, and provide workshop feedback and guidance to continue your writing! It is totally optional if you want to share your story with the group, but at the very least I hope to provide a welcoming space to talk about writing and to expand your knowledge - you might even make a new writer friend or two!

What if I'm shy/prefer to remain anonymous? I am more than happy to set up a 1:1 workshop with just me and you! Please indicate that on the signup form and we'll set up a time to chat.

Sign up here at the Google form and let's talk writing!

[jeannereames]

How many love interest did Alexander have in all of his life? I just recently found out he had an affair with a prostitute named Camaspe and apparently she was the one who was the first to have a physical relationship with him although not for long.

Love your work! 💕

Alexander’s Reported Lovers

Just an FYI … Kampaspe (Campaspe in Latin, also Pancaste) is a character in the second volume of Dancing with the Lion (Rise), as I wanted a second female voice and also a slave’s perspective. Even better that she was born to privilege, then lost it. She was reportedly a Thessalian hetaira from Larissa, which was handy as the Argeads had a long history of ties to the city of Larissa. I wrote about her before in a post from the blog tour the publisher had me do when the books first came out. You can read it HERE.

That said, she’s probably a Roman-era invention, mentioned only by late sources (Lucian, Aelian, and Pliny) all with one (repeated) story: Alexander as Super-patron. Reputedly, he gave her to his favored painter Apelles when, commissioned to do a nude,  Apelles fell in love with her. Alexander kept the painting, Apelles got the girl. You bet I’ll have some fun with that. Kampaspe will remain a major character throughout the series…but not as Alexander’s mistress.

When trying to figure out how many sexual partners Alexander had, we must ask which were invented—or denied. Remember: ancient history wasn’t like modern (academic) history. It was essentially creative non-fiction. It inserted speeches, dialogue, even people and events to liven things up and/or to make a moral point. Or it obscured people and events, if that worked better.

Modern readers of ancient sources must always ask WHO wrote this, WHEN was it written, and what POINT did the author intend? Also, especially with anecdotes, look at the wider context. People are especially prone to take anecdotes at face value and treat them as isolated little tales. Yet CONTEXT IS KING.

A lot of our information about Alexander’s love life comes from Plutarch, either in his Life of Alexander or his collection of essays now called the Moralia. Another source is Curtius’s History of Alexander. And finally, Athenaeus’s Diepnosophistai or The Supper Party (really, The Learned Banqueters). All wrote during the Roman empire and had tropes and messages to get across.

Of the WOMEN associated with Alexander, I’m going to divide them into the historical and the probably fictional, or at least their relationship with Alexander was fictional.

Of the certain, we can count one mistress, three wives, and one probable secret/erased liaison.

Barsine is his first attested mistress for whom we have ample references across multiple sources. Supposedly, she bore Alexander a son (Herakles). Herakles certainly existed, but whether he was Alexander’s is less clear to me. As the half-Persian, half-Greek daughter of a significant satrap, she had no little influence. Monica D’Agostini has a great article on Alexander’s women, btw, in a forthcoming collection I edited for Colloquia Antiqua, called Macedon and Its Influences, and spends some time on Barsine. So look for that, probably in 2025, as we JUST (Friday) submitted the last of the proof corrections and index. Whoo! Anyway, Monica examines all Alexander’s (historical) women in—you guessed it!—their proper context.

Alexander also married three times: Roxane, daughter of the warlord Oxyartes of Sogdiana, in early 327. He married again in mid-324 in Susa, both Statiera (the younger), daughter of Darius, and Parysatis, youngest daughter of the king before Darius, Artaxerxes III Ochus. Yes, both at once, making ties to the older and the newer Achaemenid royal lines.

Out of all these, he had only one living son, Alexander IV (by Roxane)—although he got his women pregnant four times. If we can trust a late source (Metz Epitome), and I think we can for this, Roxane had a miscarriage while in India. Also, Statiera the younger was reputedly pregnant when Roxane, with Perdikkas’s help, killed her just a few days (or hours!) after Alexander died.

That’s 3 …who had baby #4?

Statiera the Elder, Darius’s wife. Netflix’s proposal of a liaison between them was not spun out of thin air. Plutarch—the same guy who tells us ATG never even looked at her—also tells us she died in childbirth just a week or three before the battle of Gaugamela, Oct. 1, 331. Keep in mind, Alexander had captured her right after Issos, Nov. 5, 333. Um … that kid wasn’t Darius’s. And if you think ANYbody would have been allowed to have an affair with such a high-ranking captive as the Great-King’s chief wife, I have some swampland in Florida to sell you. More on it HERE.

Now, for the probably fictional….

Kampaspe, I explained above.

Kallixena was supposedly hired by Philip and Olympias (jointly!) to initiate Alexander into sex, because he didn’t seem interested in women. (Yes, this little titbit is also in Rise.) Athenaeus reports the story as a digression on Alexander’s drinking, and how too much wine led to his lack of sexual interest. But within the anecdote, the reported reason for his parents’ hiring Kallixena was because mommy and daddy feared Alexander was “womanish” (gunnis).

Thaïs was linked to him by Athenaeus, almost certainly based on her supposed participation in the burning of Persepolis…which didn’t happen (or not as related; archaeology tosses cold water on it). Thaïs was Ptolemy’s mistress, and the mother of some of his children.

Athenaeus also mentions a couple unnamed interests, but all illustrate the same point: Alexander is too noble to steal somebody else’s love. Two are back-to-back: the flute-girl of a certain Theodoros, Proteas’ brother, and the lyre player of Antipatrides. The last is a boy, the eromenos of a certain Kalchis, a story related apart from the women, but with the same point.

Even more clearly fictional are his supposed encounters with the Amazon Queen Thalestris and Queen Kleophis of the Massaga (in Pakistan). Reportedly, as Onisikritos was reading from his history of Alexander at the court of King Lysimachos (who’d been a close friend, remember), Lysimachos burst out laughing when Onisikritos got to the Amazon story, and asked, “Where was I when this happened?”

Now, when it comes to his MEN/BOYS, the ice is thinner as no names are definitively given except Bagoas (in a couple sources, chiefly Curtius and Athenaeus). We also have a few generic references to pretty boys, as with Kalchis’s boyfriend mentioned above, and some slave boys offered by a certain Philoxenos, who he turns down, a story told by both Plutarch and Athenaeus.

Curtius alone suggests two more, but at least one is meant to show Alexander’s descent into Oriental Corruption(tm), so it’s possible Curtius made them up. At the very least, he used them for his own narrative purposes. Sabine Müller has a great article on this, albeit in German. Still, if you can read German: “Alexander, Dareios und Hephaistion. Fallhöhen bei Curtius Rufus.” In H. Wulfram, ed., Der Römische Alexanderhistoriker Curtius Rufus: Erzähltechnik, Rhetorik, Figurenpsychologie und Rezeption. Vienna: Austrian Academy of Sciences Press, 2016, 13-48.

Romans had a certain dis-ease with “Greek Love,” especially when it involved two freeborn men. Fucking slaves was fine; they’re just slaves. Citizen men with citizen boys…that’s trickier.

Curtius labels two youths “favorites,” a phrasing that implies a sexual affair. One is mentioned early in the campaign (Egypt) when Alexander is still “good”; the other after Alexander begins his slide into Persian Debauchery. These are Hektor, Parmenion’s son (good), and Euxinippos, described as being as pretty as Hephaistion, but not as “manly” (bad). Curtius employs Bagoas similarly, even claims he influenced imperial policy for his own dastardly goals. Gasp!

Yes, of course I’m being sarcastic, but readers need to understand the motifs that Curtius is employing, and what they really mean. Not what 21st century people assume they mean, or romantically want them to mean. (See my "Did Bagoas Exist?" post.)

What about Hephaistion? I’ve discussed him elsewhere in an article, but I’ll just remind folks that it’s nowhere made explicit until late sources, in large part because, by the time we meet Alexander and Hephaistion in the histories, they were adults, and any affair between them would be assumed to have occurred in the past, when they were youths. (See my “It’s Complicated” and a reply to them maybe being “DudeBros.”)

This is why we hear about Alexander’s interest in youths, not adult men. It would be WEIRD to the ancient mind (= Very Very Bad) if he liked adult men. In fact, by comparing Hephaistion to Euxinippos, Curtius slyly insinuates that maybe he and Alexander were still…you know (wink, wink). That’s meant to be a slam against Alexander (and Hephaistion)! Therefore, we cannot take it, in itself, as proof of anything. Alexander’s emotional attachment to Hephaistion, however, is not doubted by any ancient source.

So, all those people are attached to Alexander in our sources, but over half may not be real, or at least, may not have had a sexual relationship with him. There may be (probably are) some that simply didn’t make it into the surviving sources.

Yet I’ve mentioned before that we just don’t find sexual misconduct as one of Alexander’s named faults. Even Curtius and Justin must dig for it/make up shit, such as claiming Alexander actually used Darius’s whole harem of concubines or held a drunken revel through Karia after escaping the Gedrosian Desert. (Blue Dionysos and drag queens on the Seine at the Paris Olympics got nothing on his Dionysian komos!)

Drink, anger, hubris…he sure as hell ticked all those boxes. But not sex. In fact, a number of sources imply he just wasn’t that randy, despite his “choleric” temperament. Some of the authors credit too much drink (bad), others, his supreme self-control (good). He’s more often an example of sexual continence—as in the stories from Athenaeus related above. He also didn’t rape his captives, etc., etc.

Make of that what you like, but I find it intriguing.

[cursecuelebre]

All about me!

I just feel like it’s time to put a little post about me!

My name is Ashlyn and I’m from New England America, my pronouns are She/Her ~ Age is 22 - I am bisexual ~ Neurodivergent

I’m a pagan and a witch based upon my ancestry, Hellenic polytheism and Norse/Germanic paganism and witchcraft.

I’m mostly started out as a tarot reader then became a witch and a pagan, I practice mostly folk magic and Ancestral Magic. Right now trying to find a traditional magic practice. I do a lot of knot magic and needle work presently.

My guardian animal: I don’t know if that’s the correct term but Bears 🐻, I always had dreams/nightmares about bears since I was little and when I did a tarot reading on what my familiar spirit is the bear came up.

Why I started this blog?

I guess the main reasons to keep a digital record of my experiences, thoughts, lessons, etc. to share my experiences so I thought maybe it can help people find what they are looking for and learn about it. Also a chance for me to learn about other people’s perspectives and ideas. I’m always open to learn more and share more information the best I can.

Also I like to swear in my blogs because I like to, I don’t do it excessively but it’s prevalent if you aren’t comfortable with it.

My hobbies!

I read a lot. Not just one subject, Fantasy, Fiction, Historical fiction, Non-Fiction, and Classics. I might post some book reviews and recommendations on this blog. My favorite book is LOTR it’s my cozy and feel good book, Tolkien also had a lot of pagan inspiration for his stories.

I also write! Short stories to writing long stories about whatever comes to mind. I write fantasy and historical fiction, but also horror and thriller. At times I write poetry. Sometimes when I’m bored use my tarot for a creative writing project.

I like to do crafts. Especially when it comes to paganism and witchcraft. I sew and embroidered poppets, sigils, or symbols. I wouldn’t say I’m neat with a thread and needle but I get the job done.

Video Games I love Halo, Skyrim, Fallout, AC Valhalla and Odyssey, Animal Crossing, Red Dead Redemption.

Hiking and Foraging in nature

Witchcraft and Tarot cards (obviously)

My Likes!

Season: Autumn

Holiday: Yule/Saturnalia

Music: Anything that sounds good to me: Right now Opera is my most listen to. From Opera to Oldies to Folk music to Heavy Metal to Pop songs. R&B is a guilty pleasure of mine and a couple of rappers and hiphop artists. So again I kinda like everything.

Animals: I love cats I have three of my own, Rabbits, Squirrels, Deer, Horses, Bears, Ravens. I like any animals but those I wanna say are my top ones 😂

Insects: don’t necessarily like them but spiders and moths are pretty neat, but Honeybees or bees in general are my favorite they’re quite special to me. Hopefully one day I start beekeeping.

TV Shows: Penny Dreadful was amazing if you like dark horror, witchcraft, in a Victorian setting that incorporates a lot of classic horror stories like Frankenstein and Dracula highly recommended it with Eva Green and Helen McCoy. I don’t have a favorite movies or tv shows definitely but Legion, LOTR, Immortals, Harry Potter movies, the show Vikings. Are great and anything like it just 🤌

ASMR/Meditation ambiences

Smell of burning wood

Tarot cards and reading and finding anything that I can do with them that is new

[crosbyism]

Postmortem: Next Generation’s Best

whew, what an ordeal that was to write. I started out writing it several months ago, drafted what ended up constituting about 20% of the final post, and then let it sit for a while. Within the last two weeks, I was finally inspired (and had the time) to take it out of the attic and strip it down and retool it in order to write the final post. I think I spent at least 40-60 hours on it in total, which is quite a lot for just under six thousand words.

I think my main worry is that it’s too dense. I really chewed on a lot of these thoughts and topics during the writing process, and I know it’s just jam-packed with a lot of very intense material in a very tight space. I didn’t necessarily have the patience to draw it out more (and lengthen the wordcount by doing so, rip) and I think it works really well as it is, I just worry about a lot of nuance or some of the points I made getting lost in such density.

I rarely get so massively nervous about posting my work, but I think part of it might be that this one is definitely firmly in the category of non-fiction. I took the liberty to tell some of those stories in what I found to be an interesting way, but none of them are fictional— or even fictionalised. The amount of articles I hunted down about Eric Lindros’ near-death experience and Wayne Gretzky’s rookie season in order to get all the details right…

by the way, I still can’t stop thinking about Eric Lindros. What an absolute horror show that man had to live through. It’s also deeply interesting to me that twenty years later, Jack Eichel still had to fight with team management about medical issues. I guess these issues aren’t solved yet in any sort of way, but it’s crazy to look back at Lindros and then look at all the contemporary fights about the right to medical autonomy that’re still going on twenty years later.

Around the time I hit the 5k mark, I finally got over the denial of how long the post was and accepted that I’d probably have to put it over on ao3. The tumblr posts work better than I thought they would, but I do think the best way to read it is probably doing the “Entire Work” view over on ao3.

I don’t know why, but I definitely resisted the idea of putting it on the archive at first? for some reason I feel like meta posts are more for tumblr, although that’s probably a little silly. it’s an archive, after all, and there’s plenty of meta posts on there.

I do think that once I get around into turning it into a little podcast, that’ll be the best format for it. god knows how long that’ll be though, the longest thing I’ve recorded so far was under 3k and that was over twenty minutes of audio. I guess the whole thing will probably end up being close to an hour. I’ll see.

Right after I finished posting and adding links to everything I had this moment where I was like “I should’ve called it “LEGACY” and had each of the six parts be referred to by one letter in the word”. Then I proceeded to kick myself because it was too late for it. Missed opportunity. Ah well. You win some (finish the monster piece of non-fiction you’ve been sitting on for a while) you lose some (let the perfect title and naming convention for the parts slip through your fingers).

I’m definitely dying to get some feedback on this thing that I’ve poured so much time and energy into. I had this despairing moment right after hitting post that was like “Why did I write this, this is absolute garbage, no one will get this or care about it” but then I bullied myself into going to bed since it was two in the morning. Like with all creative endeavours, I guess I’ll have to be patient.

[morelikeravenbore]

🦋 Writer Interview Game

Thank you for tagging me @theladyofshalott1989! Everyone go read her Like Moths to a Flame series pls (it's on my to-read list and I'm really looking forward to it!)

When did you start writing?

I've been writing for as long as I can remember. When I was a kid, I used to hand write entire novels lol. At school, they'd assign us a little writing project and I'd show up with like 28 chapters, ongoing. I remember reading one story aloud once and the whole room was dead quiet after, and one girl goes: "whoa." anyway, eventually they were like, hey I think this kid is gifted (or autistic LOL but why not both.)

Are there different themes or genres you enjoy reading than what you write? 

Not really haha. My brain really goes: HEY WE REALLY REALLY REALLY LIKE THIS ONE THING AND WE'RE NOT INTERESTED IN ANYTHING ELSE. I mean, I do enjoy reading non-fiction, and I love the classics, but mostly I like fiction/romance/light fantasy stuff. 

Is there a writer you want to emulate or get compared to often? 

Nah. I just write like me. I guess the HP series had a huge influence on me since I was SO obsessed with it, which is probably why I write past tense/third pov limited. Sometimes I'll re-read a lot of Austen and end up using a bunch of old timey words in my next chapter, but mostly I just write and it comes out sounding like me. 

Can you tell me a bit about your writing space? 

I don't have one. I write 99.9% of my work on my phone wherever I happen to be. My brain is chaos but it works for me. (Right now I am writing this on the beach while my dog digs holes beside me.)

What's your most effective way to muster up a muse?

It's kinda rare that I can't find a muse. Usually I just burn myself out, so reading, resting and rotting helps restore my creative energy.

Are there any recurring themes in your writing? Do they surprise you?

HahahhA y'all this is too personal for me *sweats* but yes: grief and shitty parents. No, that does not surprise me. I also seem to have a thing about orphans and red heads.

What is your reason for writing?

I don't know how to stop.

Is there any specific comment or type of comment you find particularly motivating?

With fanfic, when people tell me my characterisations of canon characters are spot on, or when people tell me my original characters feel like canon characters, hehe.

How do you want to be thought about by your readers?

I don't want to be thought about by my readers at all, which is why I'll always write as an anonymous gremlin. And as far as my characters and stories go, I honestly don't give much thought to it. People are free to think what they like, it doesn't really bother me.

What do you feel is your greatest strength as a writer?

Getting inside my characters heads, I think. Understanding their motivations and writing them as real and flawed and human as I can.

How do you feel about your own writing?

Honestly, I love it haha! Sometimes I might cry for three days believing that I'm absolute garbage, but that's just life innit. Mostly, I write because it's one of the greatest sources of joy in my life and it just makes me happy.

Np tags: @galaxiasgreen @lyworth @gingerlegacy07 @sloanesallow @thesuperiorfeeling

[petitemortality]

Is there a best way to criticize editing without criticizing the writing? Such as a situation where I find the writing fine but find its inclusion not so great and something the editor should have caught or not let into the book?

Unless you're talking about e.g. the selection of pieces included in a multi-author anthology, or factual inaccuracies in non-fiction writing, it's harder than you might think for a reader to accurately guess which authorial decisions were made by the writer and which came from their editor. The relationship between a writer and editor tends to be a relationship of discussion and negotiation (even at major publishing houses where you might imagine the editor gets 'final say' over the content on the page).

For instance, let's say a writer is dealing with a delicate topic like race. Their editor might query aspects of the way it's dealt with in the text, and make arguments for altering or removing passages they consider too provocative. The writer might then agree with and accept some changes, but push back against others and make arguments for the importance of those passages to the larger work. If there is a strong financial or reputational risk, the editor may be under pressure to insist on certain changes, and the writer must then decide whether the inclusion of those elements is worth jeopardising the publication of the overall work. On the other hand (more common in small press), the editor might defer to writer on the basis that arguments have been made in good faith, and it is ultimately the writer's choice to deal with delicate subjects the way they see fit.

If a reader picks up the book and objects to its handling of race, who is then to blame? The writer for writing it? The editor for not insisting on the 'right' changes? The writer for accepting 'wrong' changes and allowing the work to be published in that state? At what point does the editor have the right to fundamentally alter what the writer intends to say? At what point does the writer bear responsibility for the changes they allow an editor to make? At what point is the editor at fault for allowing a writer to publish something they wouldn't have written themselves? At what point does an editor become a cowriter? And how much of this can even be discerned in the finished product?

I'm speaking as both an editor and a writer here, to be clear. Unless an author explicitly says that some element of their published writing was the result of an editorial change, I don't think it's possible to clearly disentangle the roles of writer and editor in the decision-making process that shapes a finished piece. Apart from anything else, there are so many different kinds of editorial relationship - some very intimate and involved, others more like a stamp of approval to say 'I looked at it and there's nothing outright dogshit in here'.

But to answer the question (and, again, I am speaking as a writer here as much as I'm speaking as an editor), I don't think you should be afraid to criticise writing holistically. You should be able to say what you liked or disliked about a piece of writing and trust that the author is capable of taking responsibility for their own work, process and all.

If you can clearly and constructively express e.g. 'I think this particular part of the book didn't deal so well with race and this is why', it doesn't matter if you can definitively say it's the editor's fault or the writer's shortcoming, or some marketing executive meddling with a manuscript. The writer should know what happened. And if a bunch of readers consistently dislike decisions that came from their editor, they should pretty quickly figure out they need a new editor whose creative vision more closely matches their own.

[fixyourwritinghabits]

hello! not sure if this is a weird question, but I was wondering if you know a writing equivalent to how artists do drawing/painting studies of something they aren’t experienced with (backgrounds/faces/hands)?

my best guess would be something like doing really short stories that focus on sth the writer wants to explore, like a genre/character/dialogue? but I feel like the benefit of a study is referencing a photo or real life in order to make your art more convincing, whereas there isn’t exactly a ‘realistic’ standard for writing so you wouldn’t be able to evaluate your writing to it

So the experience you're looking for is basically "a college intro creative writing class" which is not very helpful, if you have limited resources and/or a horrible experience with college creative writing classes.

However. You can easily replicate this experience for yourself (or in a small group) by getting together and thinking about what kind of writing you would do in this sort of class. A rough summary of would cover:

Poetry - writing some poetry (even if you think it's terrible!) can help you narrow your focus on what words work best in a limited setting.

Fictional short stories with various POVs - 1st person, 3rd person, and even 2nd person short stories can help you flex your ability to tell a story from a different perspective.

Non-fictional short story - I won a small college award for writing about how much I hated working at McDonalds, lmao. Non-fiction might be hard if you've never tried it before, but it can really help you gain perspective on how to project your personal experiences into a work of fiction later.

You don't have to stick to what you think a college professor would like - you can also branch into fanfiction and drabbles, video game scripts, journaling and comics. There's plenty of 'writing class' books you can find second-hand store, online prompt generators, and free classes on YouTube such as Brandon Sanderson's lectures.

The most important thing when practicing your writing is scheduling time to review, especially if you're doing it on your own without feedback. Not only do you want to write things down, you want to take time to read back and reflect. What did you like about the last piece you wrote, and what did you not? Where would you like your skills to grow in (dialogue, description, themes) that you can work into your next project?

While you should push yourself out of your comfort zone (trying to write in the styles of authors that don't sound like you, poetry), don't drag yourself through weeks of doing something you hate. If something is not working for you, switching gears to something else is perfectly fine. On the other hand, don't give up on something just because it doesn't feel write. Like drawing hands, writing skills will get better with practice.

[kaija-rayne-author]

Veilguard article thoughts.

Obligatory 'I'm not an asshole' disclaimer. Feel free to jump to the cut if you've read it.

Something came to my attention. I need to make it crystal clear that I utterly love the diversity in DAV. It's fantastic. I'm also a heavily left leaning, non-binary, queer as fuck reviewer, editor, and author.

I'm was media blackout while I played this. Please be safe and take care of yourselves. Arguing with incels and white supremacists is completely pointless. They sea lion worse than an actual sea lion. Your mental health is important.

Note. None of my writing on DA, but especially DAV, is edited. This is just my off the cuff writing. I don't have the time, energy, or heart to edit them properly.

Though., every single time the anti-queer brigade comes out for a new DA game, I sit there thinking 'have you bozos ever played any DA game, like, ever?' My guess is nope.

FWIW? I'm not one of the people who complained about DA2 and DAI. There's a pretty brown-nosing article running around that I'm not going to dignify with a repost.

It's another of those 'if you didn't like DAV it's your fault' nonsense pieces I suspect BioWare of paying for.

I only started playing DA around 3 years ago. And I've never been in Fandom spaces for pretty much anything.

So what's their bullshit paid and/or copium reason for why I hated DAV?

Wasn’t in Fandom spaces. Didn't play the games or say a negative thing about them when they came out. Only bought them near release. Loved The Keep. (I had my first kid not long after DAO came out. I didn't game except for ones I could drop really fast if a kid needed me for like, 10 years.)

I'm an editor and writer by trade. A good one, I'm extremely media literate. I have actual degrees in some of the media critique stuff. (English, Creative Writing, English Literature) and I have two braincells to rub together.) Some days, it's only two, but you win some, lose some.

Whoever spewed that article really loves binaries. It's not an either/or, love/hate, you're smart if you agree with me/dumb if you don't, you're with me or against me situation. Two things can be true. Even more!

I can be completely unhappy with the crappy writing in DAV and still appreciate the good things I did like about it.

I can be truly happy for people who enjoyed it, even if I hated it. I actually wanted to love it, y'know?

I can want a morally grey game with choices that actually do matter (no choice actually matters in DAV), and be against those awful things depicted in said morally grey game in real life because it's bloody fiction.

I can want a struggle for the elves freedom, without supporting enslavement IRL. Because completely brushing the morally grey and politically sticky issues previously set out in the games under the carpet leaves a very unsatisfying ending.

And yes, DAV is sanitized. It's disney-fied FFS! The devs were so afraid of complaints that they went way too far into mediocrity for my taste. And whoops, here the game is getting complaints anyway, because they were essentially cowards, instead.

When it comes to crafting entertainment, you have to keep the parable of the old man, the son, and the donkey in mind. You can't please everyone no matter what you do.

Gasp! I can even want the veil to come down, because in the Lore, (you know, the Lore they either retconned into illogical insensibility, or completely ignored? In favour of bum rushing us through a story that made no damned sense and was just badly written?) Anyway, in the ignored Lore, it's clear the veil is strangling both magic and life out of THEDAS. And that doesn't make me an awful person. 1. Because the Lore is clear. 2. Because saving the actual world (even in a game) is a good thing. 3. Because it's fiction.

It's so hilariously ironic that someone complaining about the lack of media literacy about DAV critiquers while writing that article exposed their own so ridiculously. 🤣

I legitimately don't care if you liked it or hated it. I did a review series under media blackout for DAV. I've never complained about much in the DA universe until DAV tbh. I don't fit any of those either/or binary choices in that article. So explain why I hated DAV.

Something I do care about? I do care if you're being an asshole or a decent person to other fans. Stop being dickshits to each other over a video game. I love gaming and it's an important part of my life. None of us are in kindergarten. Act like adults FFS (unless you're not actually an adult.)

Kindness is usually the right choice. No one truly understands what another person is going through. A kind word or a not-posted comment can make a world of difference.

[hetalian-veteran]

I think that the reason the Hetalia fandom seems impossible to leave isn't just the openness and room for creativity in the fandom (although that is definitely a factor), but because personifying non-human concepts is just a thing that humans have liked to do for all of our history. Things like ancient sun gods are personifications, and country personifications are also as old as countries themselves. But in our time, it sounds weird to say "My hobby is personifying nations!" If you like something fictional, it has to be connected to a specific media. So we simply refer to personified nations as "Hetalia", when what we're really doing is carrying on the timeless human tradition of personifying concepts that are important to our lives.

Sooooo... What I'm hearing is that the Hetalia characters could be our Gods.

Huh, I guess the Doitsuists were right!

[maximumwobblerbanditdonut]

Tobias Menzies had more creative licence with Manhunt role than The Crown

"[There was] a bit more leeway to create the character that we needed for the centre of this story."

By James Hibbs

Published: Wednesday, 13 March 2024

New Apple TV+ drama Manhunt dramatises the hunt for John Wilkes Booth, which took place over the 12 days following his assassination of President Abraham Lincoln.

The series stars Hamish Linklater as Lincoln, while Anthony Boyle plays Booth, although the real centre of the drama is Edwin Stanton, the war secretary who is tasked with finding Booth and getting justice for Lincoln.

Stanton is played by Tobias Menzies, who is no stranger to playing real-life figures, having previously portrayed Prince Philip in seasons 3 and 4 of The Crown.

However, with Stanton having lived over 100 years before Philip, playing the two roles is a markedly different prospect.

RadioTimes.com spoke with Menzies exclusively, and he revealed the ways in which preparing for the two roles differed.

He said: "The honest truth is you have a bit more licence, because they can't, like, point to the footage of him walking into a supermarket and go, 'That's not what he's like.'

"So, I guess, a bit more leeway to create the character that we needed for the centre of this story. And it goes without saying, it's not a documentary, it's a piece of reimagining."

Menzies continued: "I guess I was keen to bring to it a sense of the kind of political creatures that were running the US then. They were men of, I get the sense, great moral purpose, a great deal of vision about what the country that they were building should or shouldn't be, and they were also men of argument, I think.

"You know, they could speak to a room, hold an argument over probably many hours. When you read the books, the political debate at the time was certainly not short on words.

"So yeah, I guess the kind of heat and the fact that it was a country at the beginning of its story."

Manhunt is based on James L Swanson's non-fiction book Manhunt: The 12 day chase for Abraham Lincoln's Killer, and has been described as "a conspiracy thriller about one of the best known but least understood crimes in history".

Manhunt will premiere on Apple TV+ on Friday 15th March 2024 with the first two episodes, then episodes will be released weekly.

[https://www.radiotimes.com/tv/drama/tobias-menzies-manhunt-creative-licence-exclusive-newsupdate/]

Posted 14th March 2024