#i had to cut this short. it's the longest review i've done yet ;-;

[priafey]

Gwilin of the Day: "Gleaming" Gwilin

Today's Gwilin of the day is brought to you by: LadyTanithia on ao3!

Dalliances with Dunmer [Chapters 46 & 47]

Published: June 18, 2023

Rated: Mature

Length: ~12,500 words

Featuring: Fem. OC, Teldryn Sero, Temba, Wilhelm

Set in: Ivarstead

REVIEW

Gwilin's no Dunmer, but boy did he get dallied with!

If you know what went down between the author's OC, Miranja, and this Gwilin the last time I wrote about them here, you know I thought their reunion was long overdue. Miranja thought so, too, and the story begins with her seeking to rectify the situation–with her taking a little detour to visit Ivarstead's resident Sweet Bosmer Boy, whom she discovers is overjoyed to see her again. A little dawdling between them follows, even after Miranja admits to Gwilin that he's the main reason she traipsed into town. They part as Gwilin sets off to work, eager to see Miranja's words of promise materialize, and Miranja sets off to hang with her companion, Teldryn.

As they talk, Miranja fills Teldryn in on her history with this Gwilin, which isn't much, and confesses she's having second thoughts about bedding him. I found her reasoning for this (that he might become attached to her or the sex and feel despair in its absence) a bit presumptuous, and not at all mature, as Teldryn opines in the story. More than simply disagreeing with her reasoning, I think it doesn't make sense given the fact she and Gwilin hardly know each other; the bedrock of the logic behind her reluctance to sleep with him seems to simply be his inexperience. And though it's not completely out of left field to think someone who's never had sex before will miss it once they have, I crudely ask: why are they so sure Gwilin can't pull bitches? (Side note: I found the idea of Teldryn –or anyone, really– immediately being able to spot a virgin extremely funny, in a good way. Added to that is Miranja just assuming he doesn't have a girlfriend or anything. They really looked at Gwilin and said "TOTAL ingenue over here".)

A little later, Gwilin catches up with Miranja and she tells him she thinks it's best they don't sleep together, in a way that I found somewhat condescending. This Gwilin truly is a saint to not have reacted with at least a little indignation to her words. Instead, he watches-without-really-watching a beetle on the ground, a moment of pause which I loved, before giving a tempered response: he asks for but a kiss from her. She agrees. There's a little moment during the kiss where she notes the maddening scent of some essential oil he put on before meeting her, which was such a succinct way of illustrating Gwilin's character. It says he's a scamp not afraid to use his playful wiles.

Soon after comes his true response to what she said. It's one which I would've liked to have seen him express more readily, and with greater passion, earlier on. But passion often entails something more messy than the rather long and always level-headed responses the characters in this story tend to give each other.

That level-headedness left me hungry for some real conflict. The way this Gwilin assured Miranja he was certain he wanted to have sex with her was very straightforward, unoffended, and based on the absolute best-faith interpretation of everything she implied about him. Feelings are rarely this clean and tidy. If they are, it's because there's a ton of trust between the people sharing them, a trust Gwilin and Miranja simply don't have. I suppose that, narratively, the point of Miranja making the assumptions and externalizing them towards Gwilin as she did was so she could stand corrected later, thus appearing to have learned something. Insofar as this bit of "conflict", I was left confused and unconvinced.

However, there's a myriad of luscious little details about Gwilin peppered into this story that sculpted an irresistible likeness of his character. One such detail was that perfumery of his I mentioned earlier, another was his curious spying on Fastred and Bassianus' tryst in the woods, and another still was his kissing lessons with Lynly. All of these say much more about the kind of person he is than those paragraphs of his dialogue scattered throughout the story, which give the impression he's addressing the audience rather than Miranja. They paint a portrait of a man consumed with want, at once anxious and resolute to taste sex as one would taste wine for the first time, and who is ready to accept all the inquietude its drunken splendor might entail. That's a Gwilin one wants to know more about.

The audience is afforded a greater glimpse into this portrait of him as the story progresses. Miranja and Gwilin do end up sleeping together, and it goes well (perhaps a little too well, for being Gwilin's first time, but it doesn't feel too over-the-top). Again, this Gwilin's expressions, his gestures, and his candor are what really carry his characterization. At one point, he admits to Miranja –after dancing around the words for a minute– that he wants to come inside her. The admission comes after she asks him this directly, and he can only muster a cringey nod of his head in reply. It's so honest, endearing, and heartfelt, and it's just the perfect tinge of playful self-awareness to inflect his feelings in that moment.

Moment that my mind chose to fixate on: There were many. Gwilin's cringey nod was a highlight, as was his eyes flicking bashfully in Miranja's direction when he was getting ready to eat her out. Also, Teldryn saying he'd like to make Miranja late for her appointment with Gwilin was delicious.

But my absolute favorite moment, the one that threw my mind into a complete whirlwind, was when he kept himself from cumming. His effort to keep it all in was INSANELY hot. Type of shit that reminds me we are born of the flesh and die of the flesh and all that.

I. Compellingness

I must confess that I was hard-pressed to feel drawn to this Gwilin outside of the more sensuous tidbits surrounding him in the story. By which I mean, any compellingness of his was, for me, limited to what I extrapolated from those little details about his life that were mentioned in passing. This alone wouldn't have been a good enough reason to deduct points on this metric, but the dialogue of this Gwilin did not work in his character's favor. I elaborate on this below. 6/10

II. Swagger

This Gwilin could've used an extra push of assertiveness to really bump up his swag levels, which are decent regardless. For some reason the most swag thing I feel like he did was when he mimed the pregnant belly to let Miranja know he didn't want to get her pregnant. I think this is the first time I found a considerate gesture in a Gwilin fic to be more swag than charming. That alone deserves an extra point. 7/10

III. Talent

We have another Command Animal Gwilin! That description of him communing (?) with nature was one of my favorite visuals of all the Gwilin fics I've read thus far. The fox on his lap, the torch bugs dancing around him... he's in his element.

Morever, this is a real kissy Gwilin. Not a lot of Gwilin fics place special emphasis on his kissing abilities, as they should. 8/10

IV. Backstory

We are given only some slight gleams into this Gwilin's past, but, given the smutty focus of this fic, the lack of backstory is understandble. 5/10

V. Pleasure of Reading

[I had a lot of notes on this metric, and, for the sake of simplifying the process of condensing everything I wrote, I'm going to separate my observations here into the strengths and the weaknesses of the author's writing. This was not easy to do, since, as is usually the case, strengths and weaknesses are born of each other and love to intertwine.]

STRENGTHS

The big words the author occasionally uses | Some of them could’ve been incorporated more artfully, but in general I think their usage enriches this story. There is, I think, a woeful lack of big words in many works of fiction, and it’s not just about the words seeming fancy or fun to say. Sometimes weird, out-of-left-field words are the most accurate for what one wishes to convey, and the reader won't feel accosted by them if they're used sparingly.

Gestures and positioning | The author does a great job of describing the characters' body language and movements in relation to each other, both within and outside the sex scenes. I really enjoyed imagining the actions described in the order they were presented. It was usually easy to see the interactions between characters as they unfolded, speaking strictly in regards to physical sequencing.

WEAKNESSES

Withholding information | This story would be much improved if some more information about Miranja (as well as other characters') thoughts were withheld from the audience.

Writing tends to be much more compelling if the reader feels they are being given a puzzle to put together. If the puzzle is too complex, one loses interest; if it is too easy, one might feel like the pieces were already put together for you. This story leans more towards the latter. The author being just indirect enough to make the reader feel like they "figured out" an image or idea makes for a much funner reading experience.

If I may give an example, instead of

“Hello, Miss Miranja!” Gwilin greeted her enthusiastically.

what about...?

Gwilin’s brow jumped up as she came near. “Hello, Miss Miranja!”

or even...?

Gwilin’s brow cocked vibrantly. “Hello, Miss Miranja!”

Dialogue running long | What it says on the tin. The problem here lies in part with the structure of the longer stretches of dialogue and in part with their content.

Structure – “I” statements in dialogue can get old fast. Getting creative with “you” statements and sentence structure keeps things interesting.

If I may posit an example from the story again, instead of

“What brings you to town, Miss Miranja? And how long are you staying?” “I’ll be honest, Gwilin: you’re the one and only reason that brings me to town. I have no other business in Ivarstead. Although now that I think of it, it might be nice to go up and see Paarthurnax while I’m this close. I haven’t been up to see him since I came back from Sovngarde.”

how's about...?

“What brings you to town, Miss Miranja? And how long are you staying?” “Honestly, Gwilin? You’re what brings me to town. I have no other business here.” “Really?” [some action from the character to indicate whether this made him feel more flattered, pleasantly nervous, cocky, etc.] “Yes, though, now that I think of it, it might be nice to go up and see Paarthurnax. Haven’t done that since I came back from Sovngarde.”

Content – In order to subtly give the audience insight into the characters' thoughts, values, and beliefs, one must ask which says more about a person's character: what they say about themselves, or what they say to others (and how they choose to say it)?

Another example. What if Gwilin said not this:

“Wilhelm says the same thing almost every day. But I tell him Miss Temba is more bark than bite, and it really doesn’t bother me when she’s grouchy. I just look around me at the beautiful view I get to enjoy every day, and I breathe the fresh mountain air, and I remember why I settled here. Maybe someday I’ll be able to build a house of my own here.”

But this...?

“Wilhelm says the same thing to me every other day. But I’ll tell you what I tell him: Miss Temba is more bark than bite. It doesn’t really bother me when she’s grouchy. Getting to enjoy the beautiful view and breathe this fresh mountain air every day reminds me why I settled in Ivarstead… maybe someday I’ll be able to build a house of my own here.”

The best bits of dialogue in this story were concentrated in the more brief exchanges. Unlike a lot of the other Gwilin fics I've read, the shorter lines of dialogue presented by this author rarely feel quippy or trope-y, which is a real breath of fresh air.

Shifting focus | Shifting focus multiple times in a single line of dialogue or in a single paragraph can be disorienting for the audience. In real life, though thoughts and speech can be scattered, disorganized, and sporadic, such qualities in fictional writing can detract from the verisimilitude of the story. It also has the potential to come off as jarring, which was my general impression of how this story flowed.

You can have introspective characters. You can go for a stream-of-consciousness approach. But it's not an easy thing to do well. Word choice and where the author chose to place paragraph breaks ties into the execution here.

Word choice | While personal preference dictates in large part which words someone might think more apt to express this or that sentiment or convey this or that idea, some words can "take one out of it", pluck you out of the story world just as you're getting lulled in. I was plucked in this way far too many times as I read this story, which tore me up inside because I really did love the finer details the author crafted, wanted to live inside them and let them cradle me until I read the last word and lamented there wasn't more. But I could not.

All in all, this fic had some issues with narrative and structure, which are… not exactly insignificant elements of a story. BUT, the dreamy is in the details here... even if most everything else felt a bit out of place in comparison to those details, focusing on them brought me to an understanding of this most exceptional Gwilin. What more could I really ask for? 7/10

[As a closing note, I would simply like to say all of the issues I mentioned here are issues I've struggled with, and continually struggle with, in my own writing. Saying a lot with a little, connecting characters and ideas, weaving a story that sparkles with wit... is fucking hard.]

VI. Horniness

One of the finer examples of the specific brand of horniness Gwilin brings to the table. And boy, was it brought. 10/10

Final Tally

My

autistic ass

gives this Gwilin a 7/10!

[jaelijn]

Fic Writer 2023 Review

Based on this. I always want to do annual reviews but then don't get around to them and then it feels weird doing them in February, so here we go for once. Under a cut because long (There's 30 things and I ramble. Not sorry.).

1. What’s something new that you tried in a fic this year? How did it turn out and would you do it again?

I suppose that I wrote a fic from Blake's POV counts. I didn't have a big plan for trying something new for Whumptober this year, but I always find myself doing it because everything starts to feel stale if you write 30 fics in so short a timeframe. So the POV was supposed to be what I tried with that fic, but the fic got away from me a bit, so in retrospect the unusual (for me) POV feels comparatively insignificant. There was also more Jenna this year - I think I'm getting there, so yes.

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

I have no idea. I have a very long list of WiPs that I am sure I have added a sentence or two across the year, or maybe I just opened them, fixed a few typos and closed them again, and then I have a few handwritten things that I haven't typed up yet. But *at least* it's 35 published things (31 of which are Whumptobers) and the longfic, so 36. Put like that, it sounds terribly prolific.

3. What’s something you learned about yourself as a writer?

I enjoy creating without expectation - immersing myself in the longfic with no idea when it will be done or how long it will get was terribly freeing. The downside is that I also realised that I'm not really intrinsicly motivated to post and share anymore, or at least that thought generates no positive pressure at all because scales. It would be really easy for me to never post another fic right now, but I'm not stopping writing.

4. What piece of media inspired you the most?

Always and ever, Blake's 7. There's nothing else that makes me want to write right now.

5. What fandom(s) did you write for this year?

Accordingly: Blake's 7

6. What ship(s) captured your heart?

Avon/Vila. Though they had me already.

7. What character(s) captured your heart?

See above.

8. Did you write for a new fandom or ship this year?

No. Since a lot of my writing, Whumptober aside, went into the longfic, I didn't do much experimenting - not even during Whumptober, really.

9. What fic meant the most to you to write?

Longfic aside, because as ongoing project that obviously matters, possibly Wet Towels, because it feels like I nailed a tonal direction I want to go in with my Avon/Vila.

10. What fic made you feel the happiest to work on?

By far, the longfic. Some of the Whumptobers were just the right kind of painful, but the most joy creating - yes, the longfic.

11. What fic was the most satisfying to finish writing?

Impending Destiny. I know I keep harping on about this fic, and maybe I'm the only one who thinks it's the best oneshot I've written this year and everyone else hates it, but it was so intense to write and so satisfying.

12. What fic was the most difficult to write? Did you finish it?

I did a few "second takes" on Whumptober this year, so I guess those and no, but then again the second take wasn't difficult, I just wasn't happy with the first and haven't touched those since. Fic I stuck with, possibly either Ghastly Aftermath, because ouch (it's difficult to write while you're crying at your own writing, all right?) , or Mistaken Trust because the final scenes were difficult to get right.

13. What fic was the easiest to write?

Nothing strikes me as particularly easier than the rest, really, but then what published writing I've done has been mostly in my comfort zone either way. So I guess all of the ones that weren't difficult?

14. What were your shortest and longest fics this year?

With Every Single Kiss has literal drabbles, so that, though all of the drabbles together are longer than my shortest oneshot. Longest is the ongoing longfic (duh) currently sitting at approx. 91k.

15. Rec a fic you wrote or posted in 2023

I am once again begging you to read Impending Destiny, lol. But if that isn't you're cup of tea, try Mistaken Trust or Spun Gold.

16. What were you go-to writing songs?

I didn't have many, this year. There's usually at least one or two, but I had a weird year with music, I feel, with few new songs that I really fell in love with, so there's been lots of playlists on shuffle and there's no song I could point to.

17. What were your go-to writing snacks?

I don't really snack when I write for fun, and I've had to cut down on my chocolate intake, so unless it's a chocolate praline, none.

18. What was the hardest fic to title?

Is "all of them" an answer that's allowed? I guess I could say Free Fall, not because of the fic, but because it was the first Whumptober and I was trying to figure out the "title format" for the rest of the Whumptobers. (I don't know if anyone has noticed that the Whumptobers have had title formats for three years now, but either way...) Other than that, the no-longer-so-untitled longfic was the one I put most thought into titling, but I'm not telling yet.

19. Share your favorite opening line

So... the thing about Whumptober is that it makes you *incredibly aware* of opening lines, or the format of opening lines. I try not to start all of them the same way, but I also tend to... slip into self-referential facetiousness doing that, in that all of them become funny when considered side by side.

I suppose "Avon was high." and "When the rebel forces of Carin IX finally managed to fish Avon out of the river, he was drenched to the bone." still amuse me (Spun Gold and Wet Towels, respectively).

20. Share your favorite ending line

Now I have to open all of them again, haha! Uh, let's do a not-Whumptober for once:

But lying curled up in the embrace of his most trusted companion, his link with and buffer against the world, Avon sometimes wondered whether it had been a curse at all. (The Price, from R&F #7)

21. Share your favorite piece of dialogue

Uh... spoiler for Impending Destiny, but I keep it vague and not post the whole thing?

“Whoever said that love is the most powerful force in the universe was a bloody liar,” Avon spat, “or a colossal fool. [....]"

22. Share an excerpt from your favorite scene

Oh for... just... just read Impending Destiny, okay?

23. Share the final version of a sentence or paragraph you struggled with. What about it was challenging? Are you happy with how it turned out?

Oof, I guess the final lines of Mistaken Trust. It would have been so easy to just let them hug and kiss but Avon resisted and once that line was there I had to do something with it that didn't feel unkind to Vila in a plot that... wasn't kind to Vila. I think I managed the balance and once Avon had said no I didn't want to go back to the easy ending, but it wasn't easy to get right.

24. What’s something that surprised you while you were working on a fic? Did it change the story?

... Impending Destiny. It was supposed to be a fix-it fic!!! It's... not a fix-it anymore. The shift was so striking that I made a tumblr post about it.

25. What did you use to write? (e.g. writing programs, paper & pen, etc.)

Word and paper & pen, very occasionally a note app on my phone. All of the Whumptobers had a paper version before I typed them, but I've only written snippets of the longfic on paper. I enjoy not writing at a screen every now and then, but it *is* slower.

26. If you had to choose one, what was THE most satisfying writing moment of your year?

I don't know, because my writing has been so unevenly balanced (very slow but steady progress for most of the year and A LOT of writing in September/October). I suppose finishing the Whumptobers again? Or perhaps when I realised that the longfic was going to be longer than BDaS without it feeling forced.

27. Did you do anything special to celebrate finishing a fic?

No. Once the longfic is done, maybe I will.

28. How did you recharge between fics?

Recharge? What's that? Or rather: between fics? What's that? Hahah.

I know what I would have *liked* to do, which is read a fanfic once in a while, but there's not much new out there to my taste these days. I guess watching other shows counts. I have resorted to rewatching B7 as final measure.

29. If this were an awards show, who would you thank?

The numerous people who kudosed, the few people who commented, @oxideblack for the incredible art and for the appreciation of my fics from their circle of fans, @quordleona03 for the inspiration, and @comarum and @foreignobjecticus who know why.

What’s something that you want to write in 2024?

Ah, it would be nice to finish the longfic this coming year. But I'm not making any plans. With how I feel about the sharing & posting, I'm counting it as a win if I don't lose my motivation entirely.

[thessalian]

Thess vs The Longest Week

So, more work updates.

Scruffman hadn't put a Teams meeting in the diary like he said he was going to, so I dropped him an email to ask. He said he'd "give a bell" on Tuesday instead so he'd have a better idea of the shape of the rest of the week. I pray he decides that I don't need to actually go in. This week has been bad enough, and it's not technically over yet.

This week has seen me doing nearly ten hours total overtime over four days, and looks like I'll be putting in some work on Saturday too. Thing is, even with Scruffman in, not a whole lot of typing was getting done by anyone but me. Add to that a whole bunch of long complicated bullshit, not to mention a couple of them who fucked up their dictations beyond all recognition and obliged me to drop them an email going, "You forgot the block key, I couldn't hear this word because you were sitting several feet away from your microphone, you took your foot off the footpedal at an inopportune moment and cut out a whole bunch of measurements, please tell me this was meant to be 5mm or 0.5cm and not 0.5mm because you don't do slices that thin in these things..." and on and on and on... Also the ones who miss things and wind up having to go back to the macro three or four times in the middle of the block key without giving any indication of where in the macro report the new stuff has to go, and the ones whose sentence structure is abominable even when English is their first language (for those who don't have English as their first language, I tend to cut them some slack). In short, I'm having to clean up an awful lot of messes while still trying to do the job of multiple typists.

Part of the problem at this point is that we have so many more junior doctors, and everyone - junior doctors included - are in a massive hurry, and so they kind of foul things up. And of course, we're understaffed. When we had fewer doctors doing dictation and two extra people in, we were just a little bit overstaffed, and that was comfortable because if a lot of unexpected absences happened, we could still carry on well enough. But we had two people leave last year - one having moved on to greener pastures, one just having walked right out - and more doctors, so now we're massively understaffed and can barely keep our heads above water when we have everyone working, never mind when we have so many unexpected absences. Head Honcho really has got to get us a replacement for Sunshine at minimum, but it's been ages and it hasn't happened so I doubt it will.

Anyway, so that's why I've pulled a total of nearly ten hours of overtime this week, and why I'll be doing some work on Saturday as well. Because people come in and report on weekends on top of everything else, and there seems to be literally no one else to type things but me. I am so exhausted I can't even begin to tell you, but despite that, I haven't slept properly for most of the week, given pain and stress. Even my breaks were generally to get essentials done - trip to the corner shop, ordering the monthly grocery shop, stuffing something resembling dinner into my face, bath to hopefully soak out some of the aches, stuff like that.

I guess there's some good news, though. Today was payday, and there were things that required ordering. Like, for instance, a kitchen scale for those annoying times when recipe ingredients lists go by weight. And some cake tins. And some gluten-free self-raising flour that has good reviews and doesn't require me to know how much xanthan gum to put in the damn thing. I mean, bread is definitely on the list of things I want to make, but I also intend to make the absolute most out of Baking Yesteryear. So tomorrow, in between having to go out for a couple of errands and the never-ending overtime, I intend to make Admiral's Gingerbread. I will very much deserve a treat after this clusterfuck.