#if anyone would be interested in doing a collaborative creative thing

[thaliagrayce]

hnnn.... my roommate is participating in a fandom bang and it sounds really fun..... ive always shied away from them bc when i'm not crazy about an idea it takes me forever to write it but i think being paired w someone else who was excited about it and making stuff would help........... i wanna do a bang

[shadowxamyweek]

An Amy, by any other name, would have to be called, 'Rose.'

Okay. 

A while ago, I got this ask: 

And you know, that’s an interesting question…When did we all decide that Shadow would call Amy, ‘Rose’? Shadow most certainly has never done it in any canon before. Still, we, as a fandom, latched onto the idea and have made it a keystone in just about every shadamy concept we have. Even non-shadamy shippers occasionally have Shadow call Amy, ‘Rose.’

Why? 

Well, I replied to the question basically going, ‘No idea, but it’s a fun concept, right?’ and left it at that. 

@sweetlittlebrie however, took it to the next level. 

They ended up doing some digging on their own, and what they found was excellent! I then reached out, and we kept picking away at this together. It’s been a joy and a delight working on this with them. So, without further ado, here’s what Brie and I were able to find out about Shadow calling Amy ‘Rose,’ and the history of her being referred to as ‘Rose.’ 

2005: Crafted Chaos published ‘Red Roses are the Sweetist.’ This fic, published in August of ‘05, is the oldest fic we came across where ‘Rose’ is used. I specify the month because it came out almost 4 months before ShTH05. Out of all 5 chapters, Shadow only calls Amy ‘Rose,’ once. However, it’s right before he admits to her (and himself) that he loves her. It got pretty decent traction, but this is not, we believe, where the concept really took off. 

I must take a pause here. Despite what anyone’s personal preferences may be, we, as a society, owe porn a great deal. It presents freedom of expression and thought and living in a way that many other works won’t. It goes where others fear to tread. And so, I’d like to take this moment to thank porn and it’s many artists, writers, and cinematographers. 

We’re also pretty sure porn was the venue through which the concept of Shadow calling Amy, ‘Rose’ started to really enter the zeitgeist. 

2008: Shade by the Raven published ‘A Flower Wrapped in Darkness’. This is the first example we were able to find where Shadow calls Amy ‘Rose’ through the entire piece, and it was exceptionally popular! A lot of people tuned in to read and engage with this work, and from here, we do see a bloom (pun intended) of instances in which Shadow calls Amy ‘Rose’ or refers to her in a similar manner. (Heads up, if you want to read it, Amy tries to kill herself in the first chapter.) 

2012: xShadowxRocksx published ‘Without the Mask.’ This is the second most reviewed story for ShadAmy on Fanfic, and, crucially for our purposes, the most popular fic in which Shadow calls Amy ‘Rose’ throughout the work. It’s absolutely a term of endearment, as well as characteristically establishing the difference between the characters. Shadow calling Amy ‘Rose’ is nothing like Sonic calling her ‘Ames.’ They represent two different types of people and two different types of relationships. 

Aaaand here we also have porn. 

2012: Lolly Shane published ‘My Pink Roommate.’ This is a very highly reviewed and well-received fic. Once more, Shadow calls Amy ‘Rose’ through the entire piece. Crucially, it starts as a way to maintain distance, a formality, and then ultimately becomes a name of endearment. This will eventually become a linchpin in many fics where Shadow calls Amy ‘Rose!’ 

I’d like to take this minute to point out an interesting thing I noticed. ‘Without the Mask’ was published May 12th. ‘My Pink Roommate’ was published May 29th. These were literally being written at the same time. They also both were last updated in 2014. It is not out of the realm of possibility that these two writers were aware of each other's work, if not actively participating in the same circle of artists and collaborators. This is probably one of the clearest examples we have of the ripple effect creative ideas can produce when put out into the world for others to enjoy and share with each other. 

And that seems to be where it really took off! From there, the concept of Shadow calling Amy, ‘Rose,’ only grew in popularity. Now, it’s so engrained within the fabric of the shadamy shipping zeitgeist, it’s nigh impossible to imagine it ever having been absent. It is as ubiquitous to the ShadowxAmy ship as ‘Ames’ is to the SonicxAmy ship! 

That’s not all! There are also variations that have spun up across time that lean on the concept of Amy being referred to as, ‘Rose!’ 

Rose used to DESCRIBE Amy, rose girl/rose female/rose hedgehog Rose used as a METAPHORICAL DESCRIPTOR, ‘Amy, like a rose’ / ‘rose of a girl’ / ‘rose petal’ Rose used as JOKE, ‘ladies and roses first’ ‘a rose for a rose’  Rose used in OWNERSHIP, ‘My rose,’ or even ‘My Rose’  Rose used as a LAST NAME, ‘Miss. Rose’ / ‘Dr. Rose’  Rose used BY THE VILLIAN to be threatening, including in ShadAmy enemies-to-lovers fics.  Rose being the name decided by THE WRITER OR AMY (Amy changes her name to Rose for Reasons and anyone then will call Amy ‘Rose’ in this.) 

So this is a summary of everything we found! Hours spent chatting and combing through old works on A03 and FanFic.net have brought us, at last, to here. 

I want to take this moment to point out something else that is amazing. 

The two oldest fics for the ShadAmy ship that we were able to find are as follows:  

2001: Angelwind publishes ‘Shadow of a New Dawn.’ Here, Amy is home, alone, trying to process the events of SA2. She is haunted by the memory of Shadow. Then, out of the dark, he appears. Shadow has come to tell her thank you… and goodbye. Amy convinces him to live, talking him through the night until dawn. In the end, Amy, trying to get Shadow out of his dark thoughts and also get him used to the idea of living, offers to take him on her shopping errands. As they run towards the market, Shadow decides that, now that the Earth is safe, his next mission is to keep Amy Rose safe, and in his own way, he’s happy that he has a choice in making that decision. 

2003: Nara- Mia published ‘Cry.’ Amy finds a Shadow who has survived their fall and finds themselves adrift. They should be dead by now, and they aren’t. Where could they possibly go from here? Amy has no answers, but, as always, she has an immense amount of kindness and hope to share. The piece ends with her offering Shadow a place to stay, and the two setting off together. 

There’s… a lot that goes on when it comes to the representation of these two characters, both on the official side and the fandom side. Even now, as I write this, people are arguing over the characterization of both these beloved hedgehogs. I find though, in reading both of these, a certain delight. Many of the traits ShadAmy fans give to both Amy and Shadow are found here, in these two works. It’s been over a decade since their publications, but frankly, I cannot tell the difference between these and some of the current works being published on A03. 

Funny how some things just keep coming back around. 

As a departing thought, please note- this is just off of what we were able to find. Many people, for many different reasons, delete or have had their work expunged from databases. It is entirely possible there were other examples, maybe even older examples than 2005, where we would have found Shadow using ‘Rose,’ or even Amy just choosing to go by the name, ‘Rose.’ If there were, they are lost to time, and now, it is a truth held only between the writer and the quiet hum of the universe. 

To you out there who make art- you who write and draw and dance and sing and film and edit and make music with your heart on your sleeve- please know your work has value. It makes an impact, it matters, even if you never see how <3 

[frodopotter7]

The memories of Edwin Payne

(Or an interactive fanfiction)

Note: I had the headcanon that Edwin‘s notebook contains all his personal writing including the writings from his life as an Edwardian boy. So I wrote those entries in his notebook. Now this book is obviously all of Edwin‘s personal thoughts and I thought it would be fun to do a collaboration. So if you are a writer yourself or creative in any other way, feel free to use this entries as a starting point for another fanfiction. For example Charles finding the notebook and reading it or Crystal reading it or anything else. The only rule that I set is that you clearly mark my text and tag me, because first of all it was a lot of effort to write it and secondly I want to see what cool things you came up with. And if you don’t want to creatively interact with this fanfiction, then you can obviously just enjoy it by reading it.

Summary: Edwin Payne‘s most treasured item is his notebook, because it contains so much private information that no one else knows about him. Not even Charles. Including the struggles of a posh, gay, autistic Edwardian boy and his times before hell, in hell and shortly after hell.

Triggers: bullying, implied suicide, dolls

Shipping: Payneland, but you could also include other shipping in your part

The song that I thought of while writing:

One of Edwin’s most treasured objects was definitely his notebook. He had it all the time and he used it for every case they had. It meant a lot to him, since it was with him when he died. It was with him in hell and it was with him in his detective career. The reason why he never gave it to anyone, not even Charles, was that it had been with him even as a child. Well, back then he had several notebooks, but as he died every personal writing of his got transferred into it. The notebook always had enough pages and was still not getting thicker and his pen was always full of ink. And still even though it contained so many different notes, Edwin navigated through it without any problems. It was his own writing after all. His family sigil was carved into the black front cover and the word ‘Payne’ was written underneath it.

If anyone would open it and tried to start from the beginning, he would be greeted with Edwin’s signature under the printed words. ‘Family member:’ After that the handwriting would be harder to read. Scribbly, crossed out spelling mistakes and spilled ink from a little boy, who was writing for the first time. If you manage to identify the words it would read:

1905

Greetings,

my name is Edwin Payne. I am the only child of the family Payne. My father says, that mother wanted more children, but just failed every other time. You probably have heard about my family’s name. The family with the best lawyers of England. When I’m grown up, I will be a lawyer too. Lawyers are like detectives says my father. I like that. I like detectives.

My nanny told me to interact more with others. Why would I need to talk if there is no one to talk to anyways? My parents are often absent and my nanny is just not understanding me. My father says that I am too slow for my age. My motion skills too clumsy. My spoken words only contain information from detective books and I cannot properly respond to people yet. I know a lot of novels by heart though. Others just don’t seem to like talking about crimes as much as I do. Father sometimes lets me have a look in his older cases. They are interesting.

We visited a doctor again today, because of my slow development. We visit him quite often. Actually since I can remember. I don’t feel sick. He says there is nothing wrong with me. Still I know that something is wrong. I overreacted at loud noises. A lot of things stress me out.

1906

I haven’t writing about Cordelia Primrose Surname-von-Hovercraft. She is annoying, loud and a restless soul. She runs around the house and breaks rules just to get the attention. She is a bit younger than me, but that doesn’t justify her actions. I don’t like her. Although sometimes she be helpful. Like the time she stole the biscuit jar and gave me one of the special biscuits. They had to expel one of her nannies for this. But Cordelia had plenty nannies anyways. No one stays long with her. I had my nanny since I was born. I don’t like changes. Cordelia sometimes scares me with ghost stories. She says she would see them and that my fortune says that I will die a painful and early death. I don’t believe in this unscientific nonsense.

I take piano lessons now. It’s is fun. My mother seems to enjoy it. It is somehow the only way to get her attention for me.

Additionally to my regular private lessons I go to school now. Simon obviously needs to be in my class as well. I don’t like him. He bores me and he is too clingy. And sometimes he says mean things to me.

I had an outburst in class. Everything was just so loud and I was frustrated. The teacher hit my finger with the ruler and send me in the naughty corner. I don’t see why I get punished, when the other boys are clearly the distraction. Overall I am a good student. So it will probably not affect my grades.

My favorite subject is Latin and literature. I love books and translating old languages. It is like solving a code or a riddle. I don’t like maths, since it is all just numbers and no words.

1907

I had another outburst in class after Simon tried to touch me. He kept tapping my arm and I don’t like that. The teacher called a nurse, but I was too overwhelmed to respond to any of her questions to my health. I wanted to go home and I told her that again and again, but she didn’t understand. They called a priest. He said something in Latin. I think, it must have been biblical words. I tried to focus on translating them, but there was so much panic around me that I barely focused on anything. But I managed to calm myself after what felt like hours due to exhaustion.

My parents had a talk with the priest. He says that I am possessed by a demon. So now he straps me to a table and mumbled something in Latin again and again once a month or whatever I have an outburst. The robes around my wrist hurt. I am afraid. It is scary to know that there is something inside of me.

1908

I hate being possessed. Although I start to doubt that I have been in the first place. I did some research in the library and the real demonology books aren’t describing my symptoms. Even Cordelia, who usually always tells spooky stories, agrees with me. She said, if I was possessed she would have been the first one to know. She is a mystery to me.

1909

Today I saw a nice looking man across the street. I told my nanny that he looks like a basket full of oranges. My father uses that term a lot when he talks about young women, so I thought it is just a term to use if you think someone looks nice. She gasped and hit me lightly with the newspaper. It didn’t hurt but I didn’t understand what I was doing wrong. She told me that a man cannot say that to another man. I guess the saying is reserved for women then.

1910

I started to mask my uncomfortable feelings in public. It is difficult, but it helps. My parents and the priest both think that I am healed.

1911

I got called a Mary Ann for the first time. I asked my nanny and she started to mumble to herself how she must have failed. I told her that she did a really great job, since I would consider myself very well behaved and educated. She ignored me and told me to not tell my parents. How should I tell them if they are never there in the first place?

I did some research again, which mainly was asking Simon. I know, getting down on his level is a hard sacrifice. He told me that a Mary Ann is a boy who behaves like a girl and isn’t manly enough so they love other men. I thought about that for a long time. What is it about me that makes me a Mary Ann?

The writing in the book started to get better and appeared way more elegant. You could find little drawings here and there. Edwin was quite a good and realistic artist. Drawings of flowers, buildings, his nanny, his mother or Sherlock Holmes.

1912

Mother is constantly coughing loudly. It is irritating. Not even cocaine will help. They don’t let me in her room. They fear I would catch it too. Not that I was ever close to her before.

Mother is in a special hospital now. She took the train far away in a hospital in the mountains. No one ever returns from there. I know it. Everyone does. I will not see her again.

Mother died of tuberculosis. I miss her, I guess. I don’t know what I miss. It is a change. I hate changes.

1913

Father is sending me to a boarding school for boys. He says it’s for my education. I know, he just wants to get ride of me.

I hate the new school. Simon is here and people are still calling me a Mary Ann. Simon started to join them. I guess he sees it as a new opportunity to mock me.

I take fencing lessons now. It is nice, since it is not required any sort of touch with other boys. Nothing that I can be blamed for.

1914

I found a hideout in the school attic. It is a great place to read in peace.

The world has started a war. It worries me. They tell us that we are save in the school. But in the end all you can do is pray.

I came back home on Christmas. My nanny was gone. Father said they would be no need for her any longer, since I am in school now anyway. He looked like he knew something, but wasn’t going to tell me.

1915

The next page had some blood drops on its pages.

I want to go home. I want to be back in my room with my detective books. I want to be healed from this darkness inside of me. My nose is bleeding from another attack by the other boys. They started to get more violent now. Simon isn’t joining them, but he watches.

I came home on Christmas, but it wasn’t my home anymore. Just a house. My father didn’t speak a word. I asked him, if it was about the war and he looked up towards me. I could feel his cold gaze from across the table. He took out a letter and slammed it on the table. It was from my headteacher. I was confused. I am class best and the best behaved student in class? The only reason why I get to stand in the naughty corner is if I got caught reading in my comics or books. In my defense I am usually already finished with the exercises if I read in class. What could possibly be a problem with me? The letter was about the other boys calling me Mary Ann. And that they didn’t wanted a boy like that in their school. That I should stop whatever was wrong with me. My father told me in his absent voice, that he was not having a son like that either. He had exchanged letters with the headmaster for quite some time now and I didn’t seem to get better. I asked him that I had no idea. He interrupted me as always. Told me that the only way to make me a man would be to send me to war. I started to cry and he continued holding a speech about heroism and that his generation had understood this so much better than mine. I am too young for war, he knows that too. He told me that the only thing rescuing my life is my good grades. He sees potential in me as a lawyer. He has talked to the Surnames-von-Hovercrafts they agreed that I should marry their daughter as soon as possible. I mean I knew that I would be married to Cordelia one day, but not already when I turn 16. That’s only some months away.

As the train brought me back to the boarding school and as I saw my father standing in the doorway of the house with his usual expressionless face, I knew that this was the last time I would see him and that he wished to rather have no son than me. I just knew it.

1916

Simon stole my hat. I wouldn’t mention this minor form of his bullying, if it hadn’t been a special hat. My mother and I bought it, when her disease hadn’t been noticeable. It was too large back then, but it suits me now. Or rather suited. I don’t think I will see it again as Simon comes up with the best ways to either destroy or hide it. I cried about it. Childhood is over, but honestly I don’t think it ever started in the first place at least not for me.

The numbness is spreading inside my body. I think about the military and the forced marriage daily. I am too young for this. I cannot even properly cope in a classroom. How am I supposed to cope in the war? My hands are to soft. My brain is too precious. Please, spear me. They won’t. It is just a question of time.

I went to the lake today. It is spring and still fairly cold, but I went inside non the less. It was cold. Ice cold. I went under water and yelled out some poetic nonsense. I thought about staying under water. Turning into Ophelia. But I reminded myself, that this is something a coward would do. A Mary Ann. I would proof everyone’s suspicions as correct. Scared to live. Scared to die. I got out of the water. My gaze landed on my clothes and the letter. My father had written me that the marriage would be held in some days, since I am 16 now. I ripped the paper in half and tossed it into the ocean. Letting the water destroy the writing on the paper. Of course this would make nothing undone. I would still need to marry. I would still need to go into the military. I would still need to die. I am frightened. The other boys seem unbothered. They laugh and play like the world isn’t ending around us. Well, their world is probably not ending anyways. They will live. Their parents are rich after all. They have the privilege. I would have had this privilege as well, but they took it from me by putting this name on me. I took it from myself with my impure thoughts.

Cordelia sent me a telegram that just read that I would need to be careful as death was approaching me in the worst way. I hate her for that. As if I wouldn’t know that. As if I wouldn’t know that I needed to go into the army soon. Not a single word about our forced wedding. I thought we had always agreed to both be against it. But then again she isn’t even trying to love me. Not that I would try. Not anymore. I tried when I was younger, because I was told to. But Cordelia has just no idea how to react appropriately to a gentleman. Her behavior makes it hard to believe that she is from such a high rank.

I saw Simon with a weird book today. He told me it is from his brother and that it is about demons. I told him that this was total nonsense and that he should get a grip on reality. He didn’t spoke to me again after that. Weird for someone who is as annoying as him. I am going to put my notebook in the pocket of my sleeping clothes tonight just to make sure Simon cannot steal it. I have a bad feeling in my stomach. My heart is aching for absolutely no reasons. I am afraid as I try to sleep tonight and the worst thing is that it is irrational. I am going to die alone, this is all my head produces right now.

?

Now every page was covered with blood at the side of the pages and sometimes even on the writing itself. There were no drawings to be found anymore. Just drawings for the escape plan and hierarchy of hell.

I don’t know if my dates are correct. I don’t know how time works in here. I don’t even know how long I am able to write without this thing waking up. This thing with the many doll heads. This spider like creature that kills me every time I move or make a sound. I sometimes wonder what happened to the other boys.

I try to change my perspective. It is hard when you are in so much pain. My brain learned to be sharper now. I can think and act quicker. I need to see this as one of my old detective games or as the times that I had to run away from my bullies. Everything is achievable with logic. Although I would say after being in hell for such a long time that might be a delusional optimism.

1988

I think I made it out fairly well. I am still uncontrollably shaky when I hear any noises. I fear that this demon might comeback to get me. I am back in the old school attic where they strapped me down on the table and sacrificed me. I learned a lot from hell and from the books in the attic. Like the basic ghost rules or that my death and the death of my bullies were labeled an act of god. I compared hell to the war a lot. After all I would say that hell was definitely the worse death. Much longer torture than war would have been. In the war you die just one death after all. But maybe a Mary Ann like me would have ended up there anyway.

I finally was brave enough to get out of the attic. I figured out that the year is 1988 from a newspaper that one of the teachers was reading. 72 years of torture. I wonder how often I was torn apart in this time. But I shouldn’t think about that. That reminds me of the pain and of the times when I tried to count my own corpses. The school hasn’t changed a lot. The teachers are less violent, but still rather strict. They have more lower class people here now. I can see it by the ways they behave and by the clothes they wear. That is especially confusing for me. So rude, so explicit, so freely. It is not a boarding school anymore. Luckily that gives me the freedom to have my peace after dark.

I started to watch a specific boy. I am not a stalker. At least I wouldn’t use this therm for a ghost. He is just interesting for my scientific research about this time. The boy has a darker skin. Some children in this school have this skin and get picked on, but somehow he isn’t the one who gets pick on. He wears very interesting clothes. Especially the golden earring. Something I would just see a woman wear, but it fits him so much better than it could ever fit a woman. His clothing is mostly black, though I would say that the red shirt he once worn fits him best. His lips have always a smile on them and he cracks loud jokes. But I see the sadness in his eyes. I recognize my own sadness in his eyes. His name is Charles Rowland. I heard the teacher yell it at him. A little trouble maker in class. He seems to never be able to focus. Maybe he is also possessed like I was when I was a young boy. But after experiencing hell, I doubt that the priest back then had any idea what a demon was really like.

The following page is filled with a very realistic drawing of Charles, who is smiling so iconically and his eyes seem to be filled with emptiness and some smaller doodles of Charles playing Cricket or talking to others.

Charles Rowland. His name repeats itself in my brain. I am not obsessive. He is just the best way of distraction I can find in this school. Distraction from the fear of hell. The fear of death coming back for me. Analysis and observation keep me away from those horrible thoughts. I have less panicle outbursts since I started my observation of this boy. Although when I am alone at night in the school attic I often start to cry in silence and my breathing races again.

Charlie. That is what his friends call him. It doesn’t suit him. Charles is his name. Not Charlie. I don’t like his friends. They are rude. They remind me of the boys in my old life. I wonder why I like Charles then. Maybe because he points out obvious misbehavior of the group even if they mock him.

The most interesting time is when Charles thinks that he is alone. That is mostly in the dressing room, when he gets ready for Cricket. As a short notion he is a fabulous cricket player, but he always waits till the other boys have changed and are out of the room. He pretends to struggle with his shoes or shorts. Even if that sometimes means that it is getting really dark outside. His smiles fades completely then. I saw the scars on his body. I feel bad for even looking at him in that state. Seeing a boy my age without a shirt is clearly inappropriate and it triggers the Mary Ann inside of me, but sometimes my detective senses is taking over too much. Especially after I saw all the scars and bruises. You don’t need to be that clever to understand that his family probably his father beats him. Although beating may be a too mild verb for those scars. I appreciate the absence of my father when I see him. My father and teachers used to beat me as well. With a ruler or the flat hand though not as much as my classmates. And after being through hell, that all seems like nothing in comparison. But even in my time no father would have mistreated their sons like that. I speak from a higher class, maybe it had been different in the lower class, but they were happy if their sons made it through childhood without a disease or scars so they could work properly. Although maybe they did this with the child workers. Is Charles secretly a child worker? Is there still child labour? Why would someone bruise their son like that if their son could provide a great income for the family? Or how many things was Charles doing something seriously wrong?

1989

His friends talked about me last night. They had cricket practice until the sun had settled and on the way back home I heard them talking about a school ghost. The janitor must have heard my weeping last night. My hysteria yesterday was indeed a lot. Too much to handle for myself. I think I was shaking till dawn. This vivid fear must have crossed over into the living world. They told Charles, that this had scared the janitor and he quitted. Then they told him of Mary Ann who was sacrificed 1916 and killed all the boys that night. Charles questioned this logically, since it was an all boys school, so there probably was never a girl. I certainly appreciate his thinking, but this just triggered a lot in me. Being called a Mary Ann even after all this years. Being remembered only as a Mary Ann. Being blamed as the murderer. Those boys clearly had no idea of what the term Mary Ann actually meant, but it just triggered me so badly that I started to panic again. My panic must have bursted through the worlds again, because the boys suddenly turned white and ran home. Charles stayed a little longer. Looking in my direction. I know he couldn’t see me, but maybe he could sense my panic more than the other boys could. Again we are much a like if you observe closely. After this strange second of him just starting into nothing and me starting back, he ran away as well.

I need to leave this place. But I am too scared. Too scared of the outside world. Too scared of the changes.

I wanted to leave today, be brave enough. But I heard Charles ‘friends’ talking bad about him behind his back. How weird he behaved. They had no idea about his scars. Then again if I would be his friend, which is rather unlikely, I wouldn’t confront him. I know how horrible I panic if someone says the word Mary Ann, I imagine that it is a similar situation for him with his scars. I stayed. I don’t know why. Again irrational fears.

I wish I would have left. I saw Charles defending a boy who got bullied by his so called friends. I felt tears in my eyes, because this was the kind of protection I had wished for when I was alive. I definitely feel too many emotions at the moment or maybe it just feels like more emotions because I was mostly numb in hell. The younger boy could escape with only a few bruises, but his friends still were in this blood lust. In this moment of still wanting the fun even though there was nothing funny about the action in the first place. I have seen those faces before. The faces of murders who only realize their actions when it is too late. They stoned him in the cold water. The water of the lake in which I once thought about killing myself a long time ago. I wanted to help. I wanted to stop them, but I had no idea what I could do. I am too new in this ghostly body. I tried desperately, but I ended up only pausing them by holding them back for a short time. It gave Charles time to ran away to the school building. He hid in the attic. I wanted to help him. The least I could do was by giving him a light. He was in a state where a floating light probably was his least problem. It turned out that he could see me and that was the moment I knew it was too late for him anyway. It was a strange sensation to properly speak again. I had never spoken in hell and in my ghost form I had only weeped. Hearing my own voice was odd. I was shortly surprised that I still knew how to use my voice. Reading to him from one of my old comics in the attic calmed him and gave me the opportunity to adapt a bit to talking for a longer period of time. He stayed with me, which honestly stresses me out a lot. I am not made to be a friend. I have been isolated for too long to be a good friend. I have been in hell for so long that I am probably a horrible person myself. I haven’t talked in so long. I am just adapting to just have conversations, how should I teach him to be a ghost, if I haven’t figured it out myself? Even if that all would not be the case and even if we would not be from different times, still I never have been good with other people. I never had friends. The only person a bit close to me was Cordelia and she was always more a sister for me. And still he chooses a stranger his own afterlife. From my observations I would blame his intentional behavior. He sees something and does something without thinking long. Although this decision might be too big for only this explanation.

I really can’t understand why Charles is choosing me over his afterlife. I just read to him once and gave him a lantern. He barely knows me and now he follows me everywhere. I showed him some ghost tricks and somehow I can really impress him by everything I say or do. But he made me smile for the first time in my life. So I am impressed by him as well. Whenever I read in this book, I just tell him that I like to keep record of things. That I would plan were we can go next as we no longer can stay in the school and waking around without plan is never good for too long. It is partly a lie I really am making a plan. But I do this in my head rather than writing it down, but it is an excuse for not letting him see my private writing. I tell him that it is rather boring planning and he believes me. I feel bad for lying to him, but if he would know about my past he surely would leave me and I would be all alone again.

We mirror traveled together to London. Charles felt a bit sick after it. He seems to still need to adapt to his ghost body. I was a bit overwhelmed with his sudden mood shift. I have been too selfish all my life and in my death so much that I don’t know how to help. He didn’t notice or he just didn’t say anything. But we had to mirror travel, it was too dangerous in the school after Charles died. Besides Charles is a talented and athletic boy, he will get the grip of it. In addition death could have caught me in the attic. I didn’t tell him why I am on the run. Not yet. I fear that once I tell him that I was in hell, he will think I am evil. Maybe that is true. Maybe I am just doomed. I feel like it was my fault that he died. I watched him so long with this incorrect feelings of mine. Maybe this cursed him like in a Greek tragedy. For now I just want to make sure that Charles is not alone. I had been alone for too long to know how dreadful it can get and he is much more social than I am.

We visited his family in London. A real rural area. His mother was crying over the loss of her son. His father just seemed to see it as a natural thing to happen to those who aren’t careful enough. I made a mental note to haunt this man every year to Charles’ death day without telling Charles. The school, once again, swept the problem under the carpet and made it appear like an accident. How can someone possibly stone himself while being in the water and then run in an attic? No clever detective would see that as the solution. I said that out loud and it turned out that Charles and I both share a passion for detective stories. That was something to make him smile. But he started to cry again as he saw how desperate his mother and sister were. He hugged me, which was a lot. I never have been hugged before and at first it felt like this demon from hell was gripping around me again. I froze in place and pushed him away in a reflex. Charles stopped. I didn’t tell him about the hell part, but I told him that I am not used to hugs and touches in general. He took it in surprisingly well, but for his own sake I added that I might could get used to it. I hope that I am able to get used to it. Charles sees it as something that he can teach me.

It was just a matter of time till my hell trauma wouldn’t be able to keep hidden anymore. We were in an abandoned apartment, since we both are not staying out the whole night. We don’t have to sleep but it is just too awkward. He usually talks through the whole night and I like his voice even with his weird way of talking. He likes me reading to him. He even carries all my books for me. But as we explored the abandoned house, I discovered an old doll. I overreacted I know. But there was just so much panic inside of me all of the sudden. My fight or flight mood was activated again. I don’t know what Charles did. I don’t know how he managed to stop me from repeating the word ‘Please spare me. I don’t belong in hell.’ I vaguely remember his hands securely holding my head and his shining dark eyes and his calm voice, but I don’t remember his words. He was confused by my sudden changed behavior, but he tried to not show that whole calming me. Once he had calmed me, I obviously had to tell him the truth. I gave him the opportunity to leave me again, but he stayed and he understood, said that this is probably the worst thing someone could have been through. We didn’t speak the rest of the night, but we continued the next day as if nothing had happened.

It is harder to continue my writing as Charles could find out and I don’t want him to know about this. He is so lively. He is jumping and sprinting around, while telling me things and just appears from behind. I cannot risk that. We have a detective agency now. We don’t want that others have their deaths so badly twisted as ours. Another reason was that he had introduced me to a game called Clue, which is basically a detective game, and then we both came up with the idea of starting our own detective agency. He is the brawn and I am the brain. It fits perfectly. We even managed to get a abandoned flat in London. I probably have no time to continue this memoirs, but I will make sure to use my notebook as a case lock book from now own.

I will never tell him about the real meaning of the word Mary Ann. I will never tell him that I had been in the school for a whole year and not just shortly before his death. I will never tell him that I have watched and observed him. I appreciate him now too much. I don’t ever want to lose him.

After that only a whole lot of cases and notes and questions on them followed.

[d-criss-news]

Actor Darren Criss Discusses Bringing ‘Maybe Happy Ending’ To Broadway

[UHQ] Darren Criss attends the "Maybe Happy Ending" Broadway photo call at Tempo by Hilton New York Times Square on September 16, 2024 in New York City. (Photo by Dia Dipasupil/Getty Images)

“An original, new musical on Broadway - can you believe that?”

That is the excitement that Emmy and Golden Globe-winning actor Darren Criss brought to our new conversation this week about his Maybe Happy Endingproduction coming to Broadway, with previews starting October 16 and its opening night set for November 12.

Previously known for his memorable performances on hit television series like Glee and The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story, as well as his previous involvement in celebrated live theatre productions including American Buffalo, Hedwig and the Angry Inch and Little Shop of Horrors, Criss, 37, is now preparing to play Oliver on-stage, a robot referred to as a Helperbot 3 that has been long retired and is considered obsolete, now spending his days in isolation in his one-room apartment on the outskirts of Seoul, South Korea. That all changes when Oliver forms an unlikely connection with a fellow Helperbot neighbor named Claire (played by Helen J Shen).

I sat down with Criss in New York City, New York, just down the street from his Maybe Happy Ending’s upcoming Belasco Theatre venue, wondering first how this production and his interest in this rather unique character of Oliver initially got on his radar.

Criss said, “Two men that I’m very grateful for in my life, Mr. Jeffrey Richards, whose the lead producer of the show, who I have had a long standing relationship, as far as doing theatre on Broadway is concerned. We came in contact more than a decade ago when we were doing a reading of American Buffalo, which I would do basically a decade later with him. He’s always sent me cool things and cool projects. Separately, Michael Arden has been a friend for a very long day. He has been in sort of more my friends circle than my professional circle - I went to college with his husband. I’ve seen almost every single thing he’s ever directed - I think I missed one thing. These are two guys that I have always admired and appreciated, as far as their output was in the theatre community. The Venn diagrams became one circle when Jeffrey sent me an email about this several years ago. Michael was a part of it and wherever Michael is, I run!”

Being a musical set in Asia and Criss being half-Filipino himself, with several other Asian artists working alongside him on this project, I was curious if Criss takes extra pride in being able to tell a story like Maybe Happy Ending live on on-stage and soon get to share it with our world.

“Of course, I do,” Criss said. “There’s obviously a huge amount of personal ‘woo-hoo’ to the idea that this is predominantly an Asian, Asian-American company - on-stage and off-stage - but I’m always weary to categorize this as an Asian show or an Asian story. This production happens to celebrate and represent Asian-ness to a really fun degree, but there’s so much universal-ness to it and accessibility to the story that I hope in perpetuity, this is something that can be done anywhere, with anyone, at any time. I don’t think I’m trying to say that to be inclusive of all things and people. It’s me being pragmatic - this is a story about a future world - about sentient robots that really doesn’t have any particular cultural background, other than the cultural background of technology, which is based in the human experience.”

Criss added with his Maybe Happy Ending collaborators in mind: “I think all of us enjoy sharing our sort of Asian heritage with each other, and obviously, that’s a large spectrum - that’s not one thing. So, there’s already an eclecticism between all of our Asian experiences that’s fun to bring to the table. Yes, it does take place in Seoul, it is from South Korea, but this show has already had great success in Korea, Japan and China - which while all Asian, make no mistake - are very different cultures. So, if that’s any indication of the ability for this show to resonate with all people, then I think we’re in good shape.”

He is not the only person on this production embracing this collective experience. Shen says of interactions so far with co-star Criss, “I think he’s been really generous with his energy and his time. As a person who, I can sometimes feel a little young in this space, I feel like I’m new to this. I’m making my Broadway debut - there’s a lot of imposter syndrome and words of doubt that can be flooding my brain. He is always the first person to say, ‘You belong here. You deserve to be here. You’ve worked very hard - and just breathe and take up space.’ That has been so invaluable to have somebody understand what this feeling can be, of how scary and overwhelming it can be, and be like, ‘This is an exciting moment! We’re present here - let’s soak it in!’ He’s been such a champion of that.”

Arden, who is the director of Maybe Happy Ending, said of Criss, “Darren is so incredible. He can do everything - it’s really somewhat annoying. He understands things from the inside out and the outside in - and so, to meet him and the rest of this company, honestly, in the process, it just means that we get to kind of like create this thing together. It’s not like my vision upon them - it’s something that we can all create together.”

Hue Park and Will Aronson, who have led the way with the music and lyrics in Maybe Happy Ending, have nothing but respect and admiration to say about Criss.

Park said, “I think he’s just perfect for the role - his sense of humor, his acting skills, his sensibility creating this character based on our text and music. It’s just so exciting to see.”

Aronson added of Criss: “He has a boyish innocence, which really is perfect for this show - and his creativity. The great thing about live theatre is that it’s already true in the rehearsal room - it’ll be true in the theatre, once it’s running - that the actors are creating it every time they perform it, meaning that the jokes are different every time, even if the text is the same. The chemistry is different, depending on what the actors are creating in their scene together. The cast is just incredible, so of course, they’re finding that and they’re creating that.”

Dez Duron, who plays Gil in Maybe Happy Ending, said of Criss’s character and his performance so far, “Oliver is a really big role - he’s on-stage pretty much the whole time. I’ve been loving watching him tackle this role, and explore it and discover it. I’ve been a part of this project for five years, so watching [Criss] kind of like get into the script and the changes he’s bringing to it and the new life he’s breathing into it has been really inspiring to watch.”

Marcus Choi, who plays James in the new musical, said of his co-star, “So, Darren Criss has always been on my radar - we’re all very familiar with his body of work. He’s been incredible for so long, but when I got a chance to go to Elsie Fest last weekend, I really got to see him shine. He is just such a force on-stage and just oozes charisma. I mean, I’ve always been a fan but I just have a deep appreciation for him now and just how hard he works.”

Even though this can be perceived as a sci-fi production, being that it centers around robots that are no longer seen of use in the world, I asked Criss if he sees the parallels towards humanity within our real world with this story about love and still finding connection.

Darren said, “Yes! The Helperbots in our show are somewhere between servants, pets and children - and old folks. If we did a show about old folks in a home, it might hit a little too close to home - it might be a little too on the nose. I think some of the most human themes that I’ve been taken with are stories about cartoon animals or toys - things that represent the human experience in a way that I actually am more likely to internalize and pick up on. So, I think that’s what one of the great devices of the show is - to sort of displace the human experience through that of a sentient robot. Yes, we all - surprise, surprise - we all have a shelf life. We are all at some point going to be, in the eyes of society, obsolete in some respect. We all have a battery life. This is less talking about the idea of mortality and concept of transience, and the idea that we can only spend our battery life on so much, thinking about What are you going to spend your battery life on? So yes, that is going to hit audiences, hopefully, in a profound way.”

As I concluded my conversation with Criss about his Maybe Happy Ending Broadway production, I wondered what Criss would want to say to Oliver, after embodying him so far in rehearsals, continuing to better understand the character and preparing to share his compassionate story with our world throughout the fall season and beyond.

Criss said, “The same thing that I think hopefully the show will posit, which is - It’ll be okay. It’ll always be okay.”

[doodle-zine]

So. The zine is finished! And while I initially only planned this as a one-time thing, it was really fun, and I’d like to leave the option open for future issues. So, let's do another version of that poll I posted back at the start of all of this.

For anyone who’s new here: Doodle Zine is a collaborative zine where anyone was invited to submit whatever kind of scribbles or shapes or little creatures they doodle in the margins of notebooks, because art doesn't have to be formal or polished to be worth celebrating. When organizing it I hoped to capture something as close as possible to the DIY photocopier-and-scissors vibe of traditional zines, to facilitate that same kind of creativity and connection through the internet. There’s no selection process--I included every submission I received. If you’d like to see how the submission process worked for issue one, that post is here, and the completed issue one can be found here (free to download and print for yourself!)

All that said:

(If the time of year affects your ability to participate, let me know in the notes what would be a good time! I'm working around a school schedule, so around the new year and next spring/summer are times I'm more likely to be able to organize another issue.)

[gogandmagog]

Guys! Yesterday I had a book-shaped piece of mail, and inside of it was my copy of Children and Childhoods in L.M. Montgomery: Continuing Conversations being returned, from another very dear user here! I bring this up only because some-months-ago I promised to copy out a particular article from this book, for yet another user here, who was interested! Interested because it’s on the the subject of a Fan Favourite thing... fan fiction. And better still because some of our (basically famous) mutuals here are mentioned by name! If you’ve ever wondered if the Montgomery scholarship is reading your fan fiction... the answer is yes, they are! They totally are. More than that, they also have some thoughts to share… as well as recommendations of their faves too! This article even covers the F/F and M/M fan fiction presented by fans in LMM’s universe, and I’m personally super excited to be able to begin reading these works, as soon as I can find them all. I’ve done my best to link what I could immediately find, but some of the mentioned stories were unavailable... potentially due to changes in usernames? (That said... if anyone knows of the works indicated here, that I haven’t provided a link for, please do share!)   This article, by the way, was written recently... in 2020! It’s very current, and it covers a few stories that were still being actively updated during the pandemic. The focus of this article is less so on canon (or really just the Anne/Gilbert pairing), though, and seems to prefer demonstrating the versatility of mixing relationships (Anne and Emily, for one!) and the wider more general universe-building aspects (the entanglements of future generations/Anne’s grandchildren) that fans have been expounding on for nothing less than decades. 

Okay, here we go! xx

Continuing Stories: L.M. Montgomery and Fanfiction in the Digital Era by Balaka Basu

Fanfiction – the recreational (re)writing of texts – is a literary genre of rapidly growing significance. Abigail Derecho in her brief history of fanfiction identifies it as “a genre that has a long history of appealing to women and minorities, minorities, individuals on the cultural margins who used archontic writing as a means to express not only their narrative creativity, but their criticisms of social and political inequities as well.”

Insightfully defined by Francesca Coppa and Mary Ellen Curtin as “speculative fiction about character,” fanfiction can be even more precisely understood as fantasies about the diegetic positioning of characters in the context of various settings, communities, relationships both textual and paratextual, and eventually all manner of cultural mythologies.

Kristina Busse and Karen Hellekson describe the production of fanfiction as “part collaboration and part response to not only the source text, but also the cultural context within and outside the fannish community in which it is produced.”

They point out that the shift in the method of dissemination of fanfiction from newsletters and zines to internet archives means that “ever-younger fans who previously would not have had access to the fannish culture except through their parents can now enter the fan space effortlessly; financial resources have become less of a concern because access to a computer is the only prerequisite; and national boundaries and time zones have ceased to limit fannish interaction.”

The nature of fanfiction allows participants to cross-generational and socio-economic boundaries in an ongoing exchange of responses to a source text with which they share a fascination, developing new texts that in turn elicit their own responses. While the creation of fanfiction is evidence of an affective, loving, communal relationship with the source text, this genre of writing is still dismissed in many quarters as overly emotional, purely erotic, and even perverse, a type of amateur and immature engagement with popular texts that produces writing necessarily divorced from literary significance. Produced in staggeringly vast quantities by subcultures with complex vocabularies and traditions that can intimidate the casual reader, fanfiction is perceived by many to be more of a cultural practice than a literary genre, variously denigrated for its pornographic potential and its lack of originality. However, close examination reveals that fan writers are able to create a critical dialogue with the originating author in acts of communal storytelling that incorporate allusions and reference points to which other dedicated fan readers and writers may respond.

In this chapter, after examining how L.M. Montgomery and her writer heroine Emily themselves engage in practices now associated with fanfiction, I survey four forms of fanfiction that remove Montgomery’s novels from her seemingly idyllic and timeless island settings, contextualizing her characters and plots within history and other genres: the sequel set during the Second World War, the modern AU (alternate universe), the gap-filler, and the slash fic, all of which allow the young readers who grow up with her novels to engage in dialogue with the stories they love, a type of literary conversation that Montgomery herself models within her texts. Emily’s reading, which is active rather than passive, resembles twenty-first-century fans’ ownership of the texts they love, provoking creative responses. For instance, after reading works by Lord Tennyson, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and Matthew Arnold, Emily writes, “Teddy lent me 3 books of poetry. One of them was Tennyson and I have learned The Bugle Song off by heart so I will always have it. One was Mrs. Browning. She is lovely. I would like to meet her. I suppose I will when I die but that may be a long time away. The other was just one poem called Sohrab and Rustum. After I went to bed I cried over it. Aunt Elizabeth said ‘what are you sniffling about?’ I wasn’t sniffling – I was weeping sore … I couldn’t go to sleep until I had thought out a different end for it – a happy one.”

The reactions Emily catalogues are those of the fan; they are viscerally felt in the body and attempt to dissolve the boundary between author and reader, producer and consumer. She inscribes Tennyson within her heart in order to possess the poem she loves; she creates a relationship between Barrett Browning and herself; and, most significantly, she interjects her own desired happy ending into Arnold’s tragic narrative, a corrective desire that is at the core of many works of fanfiction. Emily’s diaries and her story reflect Montgomery’s own experiences from childhood to adulthood as reader, writer, and reader-turned-writer discussed in the introduction to this volume. Depicting Emily as a voracious reader and a life-writer like herself, Montgomery places the child Emily’s voice in conversation with that of the narrator through Emily’s letters to her dead father in Emily of New Moon and through her diary entries in Emily Climbs and Emily’s Quest, creating a form of joint authorship that is referenced explicitly in “Salad Days,” the second chapter of Emily Climbs: “book is not going to be wholly, or even mainly, made up of extracts from Emily’s diary; but, by way of linking up matters unimportant enough for a chapter in themselves, and yet necessary for a proper understanding of her personality and environment, I am going to include some more of them. Besides, when one has material ready to hand, why not use it?”

The narrator’s willingness to use the “material” that is “ready to hand” reflects Montgomery’s and Emily’s practices, and also validates other writers’ use of the material Montgomery places at their disposal. As with many fans, Emily’s reading frequently makes itself felt within her writing.

Like Montgomery, Emily learns her trade through mimicry, from her first poem in blank verse inspired by James Thomson’s Seasons to her unwitting imitation of Kipling that is pointed out by her teacher, Mr Carpenter, in his review of her work. Like Sara Stanley of The Story Girl, whose compelling and fascinating stories are rarely if ever original, Emily is a fan of the oral traditions of her community, incorporating and building upon them in her own writing, transforming and recreating, for instance, the story of “The Woman Who Spanked the King” in Emily Climbs.

The retelling and versioning that Emily practises signal her immense admiration for the source texts she adapts, just as the creation of fanfiction does for Montgomery’s readership and fans. The possibilities inherent in versioning and adaptation are illustrated in Emily’s Quest. When Montgomery depicts Emily undertaking the reworking of someone else’s narrative, she is adapting an episode from her own experience while working for The Echo in Halifax, which she records in her journal. Montgomery, like Emily, was asked to create an ending for a serialized story, “A Royal Betrothal,” after compositors had misplaced the original text.

Like Emily, she claims that her “knowledge of royal love affairs [was] limited,” and that she was unaccustomed “to write with flippant levity of kings and queens.” Nevertheless, Montgomery manages to create a conclusion that passes muster, since “as yet nobody has guessed where the ‘seam’ comes in.” She is, however, curious about the original author’s reaction to her unauthorized adaptation, and while she never discovers this in real life, she does imagine it in her fiction when she introduces Mark Greaves, who is horrified by Emily’s new ending for the story but enchanted by its author. Neither Montgomery nor Emily engages in this sort of writing from a place of fandom; they have no previous attachment to “A Royal Betrothal,” and both are writing professionally. Nevertheless, the ability to solve the puzzle of the story and the weaving of their work into an already extant text are the very project of fanfiction: ludic narrative composition that recalls the way children play make-believe with the narratives they love, reworking and extending them. It is telling that Montgomery uses the metaphor of the “seam” to describe this particular craft. Jane Dawkins, writing about her fanfiction, which is inspired by Jane Austen, describes her fan novel Letters from Pemberley as “an old-fashioned patchwork quilt, where in place of the scraps of fabric reminding one of the favorite frocks or shirts whence they came, there is a line or a phrase or a sentence from one of [the original] books or letters stitched alongside the lesser scraps of my own manufacture.”

Montgomery’s final book, framed by the two world wars, is just such a patchwork sequel, albeit providing only brief glimpses of the characters that readers met as children and who have now grown older. When a version of the book was published in 1974 as The Road to Yesterday, these glimpses, lacking the interstitial materials, became even briefer, mirroring the more forced insertion of beloved characters that the two earlier collections, Chronicles of Avonlea and Further Chronicles of Avonlea, display. Only two of Anne’s grandchildren – Gilbert Ford and Walter Blythe – are obliquely referred to, in the story “A Commonplace Woman,” where an unpleasant young doctor reflects on both of them as potential rivals for the affection of a beautiful girl he himself hopes to pursue.

However, the full novel, The Blythes Are Quoted, published in 2009 and comprised of short stories about the people in Glen St Mary and over the harbour, is interspersed with poetry by both a young Walter and an adult Anne. The poems are cut with tiny slices of dialogue that suggest the continuing lives of fans’ favourite characters and how they might have developed. In “‘Dragged at Anne’s Chariot Wheels’: L.M. Montgomery and the Sequels to Anne of Green Gables,” Carole Gerson notes the mixture of feelings from pleasure to frustration that Montgomery records in her journals as she prepares to write her first sequel.

While Montgomery wrote the first installments of her various series out of inspiration, she was certainly aware of what her market desired from subsequent installments. She often regretted the necessity of marrying off her characters, but was aware that her fans demanded this conventional outcome for the characters they had come to love; these traditionally romantic endings, when not offered by Montgomery herself at the instigation of her publishers, are regularly deployed by contemporary fanfiction authors building on the source texts.

Indeed, long before the original structure of The Blythes Are Quoted was revealed to readers in Benjamin Lefebvre’s afterword, fanfiction writers were spinning off lengthy narratives that included a third generation of young Blythes, Fords, and Merediths dealing with the onslaught of the Second World War. While earlier installments in the Anne series – such as Anne of Green Gables and Anne’s House of Dreams – depict the deaths of Matthew, Anne and Gilbert’s first daughter (Joyce), and Captain Jim, Walter’s death in Rilla of Ingleside is somehow more striking. Unlike Matthew and Captain Jim, he has not yet had time to grow old; unlike Joyce, readers have had opportunities to get to know him as a child in Rainbow Valley and as he grows into young adulthood in Rilla of Ingleside. His death is unnatural and, therefore, all the more horrifying. These two aspects of Rilla of Ingleside – the evocation of history by a nostalgic fictional world that is still tied to real time and the use of high drama, tragedy, and romance – provide fanfiction authors with a model they can use to appeal to the emotions of those readers who are immersed in the next generation of Montgomery characters.

The Second World War, then, provides an entry point into the series for fanfiction authors, who can deploy real history coupled with beloved characters to create a tale that feels absolutely authentic. One example of this is a short story, “The Pen and the Sword,” written in 2007 by MarnaNightingale. Here, mimicking the style of Dorothy L. Sayers’s The Wimsey Papers (a series of Spectator articles published between 1939 and 1940, which interestingly also continue the story of First World War–era characters during the Second World War), MarnaNightingale employs epistolary excerpts and newspaper articles to tell the story of a family going through the horrors of war for a second time. Grounding her fragmented story – like The Blythes Are Quoted, a mixture of genres – in the accounts of novelist Mollie Panter-Downes (1939) and war correspondents Ernie Pyle (1940) and Ross Munro of the Canadian Press (1941), whose articles are attributed to Kenneth Ford, she offers a story that, like Rilla of Ingleside, is anchored to the historical moment, while also nostalgically focusing on the character development that comes from Gilbert Ford’s death, Rilla’s and Faith’s reactions to the war, and the lives of their children. Here war also serves as an opportunity for new experiences, particularly for women and children: Rilla takes a factory job as a machinist, liking it better than working in Carter Flagg’s store; one of Anne’s grandchildren, Susan, plans to be a doctor; and Faith, who worked as a Voluntary Aid Detachment nurse in the First World War, mentions how she can sympathize. As well, the daily tidbits that flavour the pages of Rilla of Ingleside are there: one article, attributed to Anne, includes the recipe for Susan Baker’s war bread, reminding readers of the problems of wartime rationing, even in the Americas. Real life events – like the Canadian forces trying (and failing) to make a beachhead at Dieppe – arouse the passions of the reader. Unlike Austen – who also famously wrote of three or four families in a country town, but kept the Napoleonic wars firmly in the shadows – Montgomery brings the passions and high drama of the world stage into the sleepy villages of Prince Edward Island, which inspire fanfiction spinoffs.

The long novel Cecilia of Red Apple Farm, by a fan author who posts under the pseudonym ruby gillis, also directly reworks passages and scenes from the whole range of Anne books, set in the late-nineteenth century, to The Blythes Are Quoted, set in the early years of the Second World War, to highlight the similarity between her new generation of characters and their ancestors. Cecilia is the daughter of Una Meredith and Shirley Blythe (characters often married off in fanfiction). Like MarnaNightingale, ruby gillis provides period flavouring in the styles of dresses and behaviour and in references to 1940s popular films and songs. Simultaneously, this setting offers new opportunities to her female character: Cecilia wants to be a doctor, and rather than staying in Canada, she joins up to be a nurse in England. She has a series of romances – one with Sid Gardiner (before he marries May Binnie), and one with her cousin Blythe Meredith, who is this generation’s poet – before finally ending up with Marshall Douglas (the son of Mary Vance). Just as Anne initially refuses Gilbert Blythe in favour of Roy Gardner’s resemblance to her ideal man in Anne of the Island, ruby gillis’s Cecilia is fooled by the allure of Sid and Blythe as Roy Gardner–like romantic heroes into believing that she does not truly love her fun, practical, “Gilbert-esque” friend. Published in 2004, Cecilia of Red Apple Farm further illustrates the opportunities presented by reusing and reworking a body of texts through its incorporation of Montgomery’s poem “I Wish You” as the work of Blythe Meredith. Montgomery includes this poem and attributes it to Anne in The Blythes Are Quoted, although ruby gillis could not have known this when writing. The repetition of names and circumstances might seem derivative, but for readers who have read and reread the original books so many times, the extension of the story world is prized, even if – perhaps even because of – its callbacks to the original text. Due to the tendency of fans to fixate on “the good bits” in a reread, these parts can be taken for the whole.

Austen fanfiction demonstrates this aptly. Indeed, Helen Fielding’s second Bridget Jones novel, Bridget Jones and the Edge of Reason (1999), illustrates just such a reading of Pride and Prejudice: she shows Bridget, a fan, watching the scene from the 1995 mini-series in which Darcy, dripping in a wet see-through shirt, exits the lake, and then rewinding and rewatching the scene multiple times. How many times might a similar fan reread Walter’s letter from Courcelette? This repeated reviewing of selected portions can replace the amplitude of the original novel. With this delimited focus, narrative is no longer seen as a progression, but as a single moment of pleasure, sustained as long as possible. Reading the Second World War as a repetitive sequel to the First World War further highlights this possibility.

Even Montgomery seems to do so, as demonstrated in The Blythes Are Quoted, with its new generation of characters confusingly named after the old: Walter, Jem, Rilla, Di, Anne, and Gilbert. A variation on Marah Gubar’s kinship model, this kind of continuation highlights the blurred boundaries between child and adult characters who are literally related to one another and whose adventures mimic one another.

In a third example of fanfiction set during the Second World War, Weeping May Tarry, a long novel by ElouiseBates, Meggie, the heroine, is Shirley’s daughter (and also, surprisingly, Paul Irving’s granddaughter). In this story, which like Cecilia of Red Apple Farm is an installment of a longer series, Meggie is sent off to a conservatory of music to study singing, aptly combining the traditions of the nostalgic boarding-school novel with “Girl’s Own” wartime fiction. Following the tradition of Magic for Marigold, which explicitly suggests in its second chapter that the Murrays of Blair Water and the Lesleys of Cloud of Spruce exist in the same universe, @e-louise-bates (like many other fanfiction authors, including ruby gillis) suggests that all of Montgomery’s characters exist in a single universe: Meggie partners briefly with the grandson of Sara Stanley (The Story Girl and The Golden Road) and is close friends with Jane Stuart (Jane of Lantern Hill).

Going even further, @e-louise-bates introduces the grandchildren of the What Katy Did series as friends for Meggie and includes Betsy from Dorothy Canfield Fisher’s Understood Betsy as Bruce Meredith’s wife, creating a world where all the characters of early-twentieth-century girls’ fiction seem to have truly lived, where their descendants must cope with victory gardens and dances with soldiers at the Exhibition Grounds, and where kisses are much more commonplace than they once were.

These particular continuers of Montgomery are also desirous of membership in the community of her fans, seeing their literary endeavours as productive of approval from a fellow readership. Likewise, the novels are notable for their sociality – they seem to offer the reader not only a fantasy friendship with the characters themselves but also the very real society of fellow readers of the works. Thus, these fan authors attempt to diversify their stories so that they represent contemporary beliefs regarding multiculturalism; ruby gillis, for instance, introduces into the family by way of marriage a French girl who has had to flee the Nazis due to being Jewish, a situation Montgomery and her contemporaries might have had some difficulty accepting, considering early-twentieth-century attitudes toward interreligious marriage and Montgomery’s othering of the German-Jewish peddler who sells Anne green hair dye.

The Second World War thus offers writers of Montgomery fanfiction the loom on which to weave new, more diverse stories, even as The Blythes Are Quoted, which also traces the characters’ reactions to this new war, demonstrates how these readers-turned-writers followed Montgomery’s own trajectory, not knowing that they were doing so. On the subject of fanfiction, young-adult author Patricia C. Wrede writes: “The thing that fascinates me about fanfiction, though, is the way that it models the decision tree that writers go through (whether consciously or unconsciously) to get to their final product. For those of us who do this part mostly unconsciously, it can be interesting and instructing to see the multitude of alternate paths that a story could have taken, all laid out more-or-less neatly in different authors’ fanfics [… taking a slightly different fork in the road] resulting in the plot veering in a completely new direction. Friends become enemies; enemies become friends; goals and objectives and results shift and change.” Within these pieces of fanfiction, then, fan writers are able to follow these decision trees with subsequent generations of characters as well.

Another avenue of access occurs when fan authors transpose historical narratives into the contemporary moment. Perhaps the best-known example of this modern alternate universe [AU] conversion is the television program Sherlock, which takes Arthur Conan Doyle’s Victorian detective into the twenty-first century. While new cultural contexts appear, the essence of character is meant to be retained. Just as Sherlock uses text messages and blogs to substitute for telegraphs and handwritten journals, fans of Montgomery reimagine the relationships between her characters as if they were taking place online.

For instance, “Work in Progress” (2012) by verity postulates a friendship between Montgomery’s most famous heroines, Anne and Emily. In this piece of fanfiction, Emily circumvents Aunt Elizabeth’s injunction against fiction during her time at Shrewsbury High by becoming a blogger who is restricted to the “truth.” The story’s online summary, a part of which reads “Anne rolls her eyes. ‘Is your aunt really going to know if you cheat on your nonfiction with some hot prose on the side?’” shows how the story preserves the character qualities that Montgomery laid out, complete with references to the Murray pride and Anne’s orphanhood. Mr Carpenter’s admonitions are spelled out at the beginning of the story:

“Emily Byrd Starr has a sticky note on her desktop. It reads:

ITALICS

CAPITALS

!!!!!

“just”

“really”

CTRL+F!

It is almost like having Mr Carpenter in the room with her.”

Verity creates humour through the juxtaposition of contemporary social media and allusions to Montgomery’s source text. Another story by verity detailing Rilla’s romance with Ken Ford and her friendship with Una Meredith, “Rilla of Toronto,” takes place mainly through instant messages. In this story, Rilla reflects on her life from eighteen to twenty-five, tracing a continuum from her child self to her new adulthood, underscored by verity’s translation of Montgomery’s work into contemporary millennial language.

A third type of fanfiction narrative, the gap-filler, focuses on and expands the implications of the source texts. Moira Walley-Beckett’s Netflix/CBC series Anne with an “E,” as Laura Robinson shows in chapter 12 of this volume, is somewhat fanfictional in and of itself: as Robinson points out, the show fills gaps by bringing to the fore the darker currents that have always been beneath the seemingly untroubled waters of Anne of Green Gables, including Anne’s potential post-traumatic stress disorder from the disturbing life she led before coming to Green Gables. This kind of versioning and adaptation tacitly permits fan authors to feel that their versions are just as valid as those produced by professionals. Gap-fillers frequently expand on romantic pairings and in fandom are often referred to by portmanteaux of characters’ names that perpetuate some inside joke or work as puns. “Shirbert” – a moniker for Anne and Gilbert – is the latter, and demonstrates how fans posting on sites like Archive of Our Own (Ao3), Fanfiction.net, and Wattpad (this last generally populated by younger fans) develop their own language to identify their stories within the community for which they write.

One such story, “You caught me staring, but I caught you staring back,” by Anuka, clearly inspired more by the television series than the novels, begins with an author’s note that reads, “I decided to write some fluff for these two, because I need more Shirbert moments, and season 2 is so far away. I added gifs to make it more vivid.” Here, the romance between Anne and Gilbert as depicted by Montgomery and Walley-Beckett is not sufficient for the reader-turned-writer. Anuka wants the gaps in the narrative to be more fully explored than they are on either page or screen and to be made more “vivid” by the inclusion of images that help make the story come alive.

Similarly, “Rilla Blythe’s Wedding: A Not Entirely Comprehensive Account” by Scylla also fills a gap: Rilla and Ken’s wedding day, a scene that Montgomery leaves to the reader’s imagination at the end of Rilla of Ingleside. Modelled upon other accounts of weddings within Montgomery’s fiction, the story also suggests that accounts of Walter’s death have been gravely exaggerated, as he makes a stunning appearance at his sister’s wedding. In order to align her work with Montgomery’s novel, Scylla ensures that Little Dog Monday’s awareness of Walter’s death remains, but makes it only a technicality, writing, “His heart had stopped for a full ten seconds – long enough for his Captain to feel for his empty pulse and for Dog Monday to be jolted with the fullness of his death. Little dogs, after all, can only have tender dogs’ hearts. Grief to Dog Monday was an all-consuming thing, and when Walter’s heart began to beat once more, he was deaf to its spark of joy.” After meeting with his eldest sister, Joyce, in heaven – which is, as he had always hoped, Rainbow Valley, Walter is returned to life so that he may write of peace as well as war (as he did when he was a boy), marry Una, and repair the broken hearts of readers who did not want to lose him.

While heterosexual pairings are the most prevalent in Montgomery fandom, there is room for queer imaginings as well.

This very popular genre of fanfiction, known as “slash,” is generally defined as stories that centre on samesex romances between characters, particularly between men. Montgomery slash fiction usually stars Walter Blythe.

One slash story, “but i don’t know who you are” by @freyafrida, imagines a bisexual Walter. Told in an enduringly popular sub-genre of fanfiction often referred to as Five Things Plus One (which involves a series of thematically linked but not necessarily chronological scenes), the story is summarized by @freyafrida as “Five people Walter thought he wanted, and one person he didn’t notice until it was too late.”

This last person is original to Montgomery’s text: Una, whose apparently unreturned attraction to Walter is woven through Rilla of Ingleside. The other five potential partners are all alluded to as Walter’s close friends, beginning in childhood with Alice Parker from Anne of Ingleside and Pat Brewster from The Blythes Are Quoted and then carrying on through adolescence and young adulthood with Faith Meredith, Ken Ford, and finally Paul Irving from Anne of Avonlea. While his feelings for Faith and Ken are clearly unrequited, Alice, Pat, and Paul all express their own desire for Walter. The inclusion of the famous poet and Walter’s “model” uncle, Paul Irving, in particular, particular, illustrates how traits of sensitivity and aesthetic appreciation that challenge traditional ideas about masculinity are frequently interpreted as queer by fan readers and writers.

In another slash fiction, cero_ate’s “The Moving Finger Writes, and Having Writ Moves On,” Walter discovers his homosexuality while fighting in Europe:

He wrote half truths and lies once more, when he wrote his Rilla that he could not form poems of the depths of the war. For who could write his sister of the phallic love he had found? He had found his reason in a tow-headed American boy. He meant so much more to Walter than mere friendship could explain. He wanted to write, as sweethearts write, of the tempest of joy in the darkest night. But how would they understand? How would they even try to understand he sought not the Dark Lady of Shakespeare but the youth, fair and Wilde? When he was presented with Una’s faithful heart, he spurned it. When his tow-headed darling presented his own, Walter took it, greedy for him. His grecian style love, the boy who’s [sic] eyes danced, even in the darkest of days. He would do anything to keep him safe. But he could not present him to his family, for their scorn or pity. War had broken him, but made him as well.

While male/male pairings are generally the most popular stories in fandoms, Montgomery’s novels, peopled as they are by communities of girls and women, require that readers who want to queer the text must explore what is called femslash (that is, slash fiction featuring two female characters).

Such relationships have been explored within the academic setting. For instance, Laura Robinson remarks in “Bosom Friends: Lesbian Desire and the Anne Books,” that the relationship between Anne and Diana uses “the language that readers associate with adult romantic love rather than girlhood affections,” even as it is expressed through the heterosexual paradigm of marriage.

One fanfiction author, ArcticLava21, makes it clear that such fan written stories are not speculation but instead address key issues of representation. The author’s note to ArcticLava21’s short Anne/Diana story, “Nature,” reads, “Hello everybody! Hope your [sic] having a wonderful day. Before anyone yells at me for ‘sexualizing platonic friendships’ please note that this is for all those queer kids who grew up pretending. Pretending that he ended up with him instead of her, or desperately wanted representation. Are we good? <3 Enjoy yourselves lovely people.” The intended audience of the story, “queer kids who grew up,” again establishes the transgenerational kinship between Montgomery’s child and adult fans.

All fan fiction, shared on the Internet, exist in dialogue not just with Montgomery’s fiction but with the author herself, and between the fans who read the novels as children and adolescents and the adults that these readers become.

Whether fan writers extend the narrative or fill gaps, transpose chronology or to queer the text, these pieces of fanfiction allow fans not only to insert themselves into the narrative, but also simultaneously to revivify the original novels, published a century ago. In performing interventions to the text, Montgomery’s young fans grow up to reply to the discussions that she began long ago in the pages of her journals and stories, ensuring that all three – author, reader, and text – are continually reborn into a conversation that will never end.

[imonthemoonitsmadeofcheese]

Seeking works by former and current D2 writers...

The thing I have always loved most about Destiny 2 is the writing.

Multiple writers have lost their jobs today as a result of the most recent layoffs from Bungie.

The thing about collaborative creative work is that, so often, people contribute to things but no one knows their names.

I know little of the individual people who have caused so much beauty to exist within the writing of D2. Of the names I know, I do not know if they publish under pseudonyms or write outside of games at all.

They made something I love. And now the thing they worked on so hard and for so long has been ripped away from them.

If anyone knows of works published by D2 writers, current and past, I would greatly appreciate being linked to them, given the titles of their creations, what names the writers publish under, etc. I am interested in what other games they've worked on but I am far more interested in standalone works they may have created themselves, outside of an industry that has chewed them up and spit them out as though they were nothing.

They are not nothing. They are humans who have made beautiful things which have spoken to me and inspired me. And I love them for it.

I would like to buy their books, purchase anthologies they are in, bookmark their websites and follow their work elsewhere. They helped to make a thing I love. It is likely I will love other things they do.

Please help me make a list, so that those who made and continue to make this thing we love can be supported and appreciated even after they are no longer working on it.

There is not enough love in the world. Those who tell stories we love are to be cherished, not tossed away like garbage.

Help me find them. I want to read their words.

[moshieee]

Hello it is I, random anon who does not know you and has never interacted with you before, what is your opinion of your mutuals?

Oh hi @bixell-pixell I'll include you even if we're not mutuals I think you're pretty chill all things considered

That's kinda it idk you that well

Anyways

You didn't specify so I'm going to list all my mutuals in the order of oldest to newest on my following page that I remember sorry of I missed anyone and for the @ s

*inhales*

@e-the-village-cryptid (I don't have a tag for e yet but it would probably just be E)

Not only the first person who I became friends with here but also the first one I ever started sharing my stories with, even if we don't talk too much I'm glad Every time we do and I see them on my dash, (they bring some of my favorite posts and when I do send posts sometimes I mix up and send them their own reblogs) I'm so glad we're still friends, thanks for letting me ramble about stuff for 6 hours hehe

@jaqofallgenders (no tag for jaq yet either)

my in person friend and the longest friendship I've ever had with someone, love you 🫶. I'll be more specific on Monday if our ADHD doesn't kick in and make us both forget

@strawberry-seal77 (seal-berry!!!)

Hi hi hi yellows my friend 👋 the person I consider to be the second ever friend I made on here, a lovely person as well and wait waaa and an amazing artist too 👀??? Love you silly goofball and the amazing posts and jokes you have we should chat more often I thinkith.

@rabid-mercenary16 (Rabid jumpscare)

Hey hey hey .... BWAMP! Hope you feel better soon

I probably have the most to say about Rabid but all try to make it a bit shorter. besides being the first artist to do art jokes and include me, with we also became mutuals and interacting around a time when my life started to get a lot better. Even if she's not the only factor in that I definitely associate her with stuff improving, and she did play a big factor in it (I already explained a lot on my Valentine's Day gift to her and the others). Also she's just an awesome person to spend time with and be goofy, amazing sense of humor and I just love being friends with such an awesome person and artist.

@dia-smthidk (Dia fren)

I'm assuming you don't want a bowl of soup

I also said a lot about them in my Valentine's Day gift, but we've become closer friends sense then even if we don't get to chat as much as I'd like to. I relate a lot and am surprised how we have so much in common. Amazing artist and person as well and I wish we could hang out more, idc if they think they're bringing down the mood when/if they bring stuff up about irl, and maybe I won't figure out their timezone but oh well, please take care of yourself gender sibling.

@bunnybunnsowo (BUN BUN BROTHER!!)

little brother 🫶🫶💝💞🫶✨👋❤️!!!

(I could have sworn we became mutuals before Dia?)

another person I shared a lot about with the Valentine's Day gift, I love you my little brother! Seriously one of the kindest people I've met and I'm so glad they have bug in his life. Bun deserves the world and they keep sending me opposum images!!! Gona die from cuteness and his kindness one of these days istg

@spookykittyzzz (greaah why don't I have a tag for you???)

A very kind person and artist I don't know too much sense we're not that close yet but love the few chats we have had so far. Hope we get to hang out more even if I'm awful at reaching out to others and saying hi.

@glitchyk (goop buddies)!!

Nooo the parallels

One of the first people who was interested to deep dive into my creations and ask about my stories and worlds They're probably competing with Rabid with how much I have to say about her/silly. Seriously it's incredible how much we have in common and now I get to share and collaborate our sonas stories together it's amazing. And as someone once said "you can yap for hours". I love how creative and clever they are, I just wish they would be kinder to herself. One day I'll make glichy see how awesome she is.

@unfunnyaceartist (Floridian disadvantage) I feel like I should change that

When I say I was shookith when ace asked to be friends I mean I was shookith first person so show up and ask that (the others kinda just happened). Amazing artist and don't believe her lies she is funny. I'm so heckn glad we're friends., love the goofy and silly idc if she's a bit of a simp they've helped me a lot start to understand slang and references I'm supposed to understand shhshsh (such is the curse of how I grew up) we need to make our mafia sonas interact at some point I can already imagine the chaos /silly

@neptunestoast (plushy slime)

Hugs hugs hugs*

Trying my best not to baby talk I swear. amazing person first person to show up and be like "hey I Wana do something for you and your friends". Love their humor and another gender sibling!!! Hugs for ever for as long as they're ok with it. I love their creativity as well and Noodle is so adorable. I just want to pick them up in a hug so much. Kibbity/silly

@ner5y (no tag woops ill figure something out)

What are you doing here??? How are we friends???

I was absolutely confused and startled when they followed me especially since it was during a spoons argument . Amazing artist like holy heck I wish I was allowed to curse on this blog. Their humor also took me by surprise when I got invited to the discord, and even if they doubt how well they're running it I think they're doing amazing. And I love our silly interactions like this one

@vexation-816 (chaotic ADHD buddy!!!)

Why did it take me so long to follow you istg

ADHD ADHD ADHD my buddy oh pal we both got that and it's driving us insane/silly. Love how creative he is and the ideas for his sona and character lore. Also one of the first people who shared a character they added to my nightlight au. This is getting twords the end and I'm tired of whiting so much and am on a timer oh no. But your amazing dude don't ever forget thag

@butlerbugbunny (anxiety bunny buddy)

This is why I didn't respond to the DM yet hshsh

New friend who I feel anxious talking to sometimes but a wonderful kind bunny who I'm also incredibly happy to be friends with. Love his art so much it's amazing (shoot shoot timer is going off) I'm glad he's their for bun and wish them the best I possibly can 🫶.

@lilithloves-you (lillith my be-loathed?) need to change that

Don't you dare bring up grilled cheese

Glitchys friendo who I'm also friends with now. We don't interact too much but I've sent her on missions to go hug glitchy (to help both of them feel better but shhh). I hope we become closer friends in the future.

[lutiaslayton]

Hey guys, I felt like giving you a bit of a heads up: now that the transcription of the Japan-exclusive Eternal Diva novel has been completed, I am now working on its translation. And I thought -- hey, why not share this translation here as I go?

The website's translation is meant to be as accurate as possible and is filled with annotations and comparisons with the Japanese version, but if all we're interested in is just reading the darn novel like it's actually meant to be (read: a story that is actually enjoyable to read), then this translation really isn't going to make that happen.

(Just look at this. This is awful. Translation accuracy: 9/10. Reading enjoyment: WhatTheHeckIsThis /10. Do not recommend.)

---

So yeah, I'm actually working on two English translations 👀 First one is from the website and meant primarily to study Japanese and (sometimes) get the juicy lore, and the second one will be posted here! This second translation will actually be meant to be read like a novel / fanfiction, in the sense that I'll rephrase things and try to make it as enjoyable as can be. It may mean that a thing or two might be changed along the way, but I'll try to keep my creative juice under control and try to stay as close to the original as possible.

If anyone wants to criticise this translation and bring suggestions if you think that I took too many liberties, feel free to let me know so we can rephrase things! It'd be much cooler if this were a collaborative project rather than the work of just one person who might end up putting in her own biases, whether consciously so or not.

---

I can't tell when exactly I will start uploading since I'd like to have some buffer before starting, but when I do, I'll try to have some sort of schedule. Like one "chapter" or so every week, something like that. (The novel doesn't have "chapters," but it does have sections with titles. So I guess we might as well call those "chapters" for commodity.)

Anyway, that's pretty much all I wanted to say -- just a little teaser and some context for something I've been working on and will hopefully start posting soon-ish, and which I'd like to share with you guys as soon as I can! It'd be cool if this could be something I could post while my PhD is slowly ending and my workload is getting heavier and heavier -- just imagine if I had some buffer that I'd just put in my queue, and then boom, a chapter a week while I'm off dying while preparing my PhD defence and whatnot hahaha. No promises, but it would be really cool if I could pull it off.

[oliolioxenfreewrites]

Writer Questionnaire ❦

Taking a break from writing to catch up on my tags writing 2 books at once is not for the weak 😭 so thank you @drchenquill for the tag as always!

- how long have you had your writing tumblr/writerblr? a fast and loose estimate is fine!

At least since April or early May!

- what lead you to create it?

I wanted to connect with other writers and creatives to make new friends!

- what's your favorite thing about the writer community?

My favorite part is the absolute powerhouse of creativity and innovation. You all have this incredible knack for coming up with unique ideas that never fail to inspire me. Plus, they're hilarious! Their sense of humor adds a delightful twist to everything we do, making even the wildest ideas feel approachable and fun. Honestly, being around such talent and laughter is a constant source of my motivation and joy!

- what’s one thing you'd like in mutual to know about you?

No notification I receive on this app goes unnoticed. I'll be at work, smiling because someone found my writing and enjoyed it! It means so much to me and only makes me want to write even more!

- is there anything you'd like to see more of on your dash?

I would love more collaboration and interaction in my messages. I am open to discussing and exchanging ideas with another writer. I’m particularly interested in co-creating a planetary system and bouncing creative ideas back and forth.

- which wips or writing projects are you noodling about lately

I'm currently working on fleshing out a novel titled Journals from The Whitmore Estate, which is a modern/historical fiction story. The novel explores the slave and civil war era, and also delves into our near future. It centers around the actions of a power-hungry ancestor who sought to shift power dynamics, and the resulting centuries of generational backlash.

- how long have you been working on them?

Its been about a few months, I had to take a break to give myself new perspectives and coming to a decision on who the main character was!

- do you remember what inspired them/what got you started

I was looking at writing prompts and came across one that said something along the lines of “Your character inherits a manor from a distant relative. Upon moving in, they discover what lies within its walls, answering why your family has been plagued by bad luck for as long as anyone can remember.”

- how much time, in your best estimation, do you spend thinking about them?

Wayyy too much! Now rhat I've found the main character, I can't put it down!

- when someone ask the dreaded "what do you write about?" question what do you usually say?

“I write whatever comes to mind!” Or “You can read my writings to find out.” 😗

- name any characters you created. Side characters, protagonist, antagonist, characters who’ve never been written, the first original abomination you ever pulled from your ass; whomever you’d like!

Kirjani is my favorite oc to date! Her chosen family: Rick, Raelin, and Lena. The three sisters from the Isles of Aurorith! Imani, Jade and Jasmine, the first ocs I ever created, they deserve their story to be told. (I’m working on it!!) My scrapped character folder is at about 60 something, but the one I just couldn't figure out completely was their grandmother Queen Amara, those who've followed me for a while probably remember her! She was just a bit too sinister and I tried to work around certain motivations and rationality kept getting in the way 🤣 I might use her for another story of mine I've been thinking about

- who’s the most unhinged?

I think it would be between Amara or Kirjani for sure. One of them is justifiably so, the other… not so much LOL

- who comes the most naturally for you to write?

Jules a gay sophmore in high school who is grieving the sudden loss of his mother (I haven't introduced him yet!) He's the first character I've ever based on myself or someone like me rather.

- do you ever cringe at them?

Oh yeah, that’s when I'm writing his best romantic scenes. Love, especially teen romance is supposed to be cringy and awkward at times. That's what makes it so!

- how much control do you feel you have over your characters? do they ever “write themselves,” refuse to cooperate, or do things you didn’t expect? to what degree? are some less cooperative than others?

They literally form their own lives that I just go with, its their world I’m just living in and writing it! I'm considerably outnumbered lmao

- do you enjoy people asking questions about your characters? and do you have a preferred means of receiving said questions? for example, as asks, as replies, as reblogs, as tag notes, as comments on ao3, etc.

More than words can express, that's why I love sharing my characters and their personalities. I want to open discussions on humanity and how the human condition can create dynamically and perplexing people!

- what makes you want to follow another writeblr account? do you follow ‘em as you see ‘em, or take time scoping out the blog to make sure you align with its content? do you follow based on wips, or vibes?

I don't really have enough mutuals or followers, so I follow people based on their creativity and if they're on Writeblr. I don't have much discernment at the moment :)

- what makes you decide against following?

Just depends. I guess I haven't found a page I've ever said, “Oh no, can't follow that,” too.

- do you interact with non-mutuals often?

Not really, and if I follow you and you don't follow me back, I will give you 24 hours before I unfollow. We're all creatives here; no one is more creative than the next person, in my opinion.

This was so much fun to answer, I have so many more tags to do, but I’m not gonna stress ah finishing them all today 🥲 I have some short stories I wanna post as well from the weekend.

I tag @leahpardo-pa-potato, @slenders1ckn3ss, and @coffeewritesfiction. + open tag to any writer interested!

[blacktoothcomics]

YOU CAN CLICK THE TAGS BELOW TO FIND THINGS I HAVE WRITTEN &/OR CURATED FROM OTHER USERS IN REBLOGS. 8D neet.

because i am SH*T at remembering things, here is a masterpost chat and contacts list (only mutuals can respond and reblog, safety first chickadees!) :

@blacktoothcomics -- ezra, he/they. unemployed and officially disabled. i share a town incredibly accidentally with jason mewes, like sold the man groceries during covid and had a fun little chat; certain now that kimmie's ghost has been watching over me.

@clearlyafandomblog -- rae, ezra's very strong wife. internet curation and social justice. extrovert. icon. genius. i lose all my grammar when i am around her. turned the proudest man you know into a simp. settled this bachelor. adopted this hobo. holder of ezra's lifedebt, but firstly and foremostly a loyal comrade.

@cuppa-decaf -- jeff, may or may not be pretending to be 15 again with ezra, they were well past age 21 whenever they drank together in public but it was still good anarcho fun to play chicken with the cop under the fireworks that night.

@silentlia -- silent, she/her. super groovy author, illustrator and social theorist that ezra met on roleplay repository dot com. excellent taste in wrestling theater, cultural migrant awareness, and games both video and tabletop alike.

@gracelithorizon -- the comic collaboration between ezra and silent, for free to everyone to enjoy or ignore at your leisure! (please share any similar projects of your own, if you wanna contribute blog curation or make requests and changes to this masterlist also, or do none of that cos im not ur parents)

@bettie-jettatura -- bettie, she/her. childhood cousin (?) to jeff and teenhood chum to ezra. no beatnik movement would be complete without a bettie, and that's all i'm gonna say about [redacted] with the body in that factory down [redacted] street, lmao, you know the one.

@anurognathusvilheimium -- vilheimie!! kermit noodle arms flappy yayyy dot gif!! a beleaguered STEM professional living in chemical-train-crash-noxious-fumes country. doing his best at all times and deserving of as much vacation as you could possibly give.

to get list:

vilheim, he could use some goofiness poor mans working with factory town republicans

marissa, for obvious reasons

reggie if he's down for only strictly clowning (no bad vibes allowed, no music supremacy)

oh, melee!!

and peanut.

AND WHERE IS BRENNAN MI BOIIY

codeine + crew, possibly

and anyone YOU people think would enjoy dumb radical performance art in a supportive and science-positive everything-ology interest group. to be taken as seriously or as stupidly as you wanna, baybee, ezra had to smoke a lot of weed to be comfortable typing in the third person (but that's just, like, creative journalistic formatting shh it's fiiine)

yell @ ppl here! message me (blacktoothcomics, ezra) to get your user or blog name added to my follow / mutuals and thus tagged access to reply in this post. i have to know you irl to list you here, sorry!

[deardiary1899]

ok new ramble (about newsies ocs) today so sit tight inside roosevelt's carriage and enjoy the ride

FIRST, I very much adore the world of newsies and the cast, and I so often think how interesting the story would play out with different roles or new characters--

SECOND, Sue me, but I like x readers, i LOVE x readers, i WRITE x readers and i love ocs and self inserts and If whoever reading this has rummaged through the newsies x reader tag, they'd see that quite often, the reader or oc is a newsie, or, a girlsie for whatever reasons, and, while that's pretty fun, I think that we could all totally have some fun with other types of dynamics and professions!!

I believe that Miss Medda and her theatre deserved to have a bit more lore and connection with the story OUTSIDE of Miss Medda herself. Do the newsies frequent the theatre? Are they friends with any of the singers, dancers, whatnot? Have THEY performed there once? Who's to think that the newsies haven't collaborated with Miss Medda to use her creative resources for activism during the strike (that would be very cool)?

Oh, and nothing gets me giggling, kicking my feet and feeling all giddy than a theatre romance-- Your OC/Reader performing the hell out of the show when they see a certain newsie in the audience? Writing a poem/song based off them, or, hell, for platonic feelings sake, dedicating a play to their strike?

And, hey, what about journalism? What about being Katherine's best friend? If you'd still like your oc/reader to be a newsie, what about for intentions different than "because I had to"/"I felt different"/ or the like? Maybe your oc is a journalist undercover as a newsie to get the latest details? Or, working under Pulitzer to spy on the newsies during their strike (Could lead to many different kinds of conflict, imo)

Maybe some of my examples could be leaning dangerously on the edge of historical inaccuracy, but, truthfully, I honestly don't care much? Might be a bad thing to say, but, so long as it isn't ENTIRELY inaccurate, I, personally, am not too nitpicky about any details!

This is not to say "Stop making your ocs newsies!", but, if you're writing with the idea to diversify or bring something new to the table, deviating from the common stuff is pretty cool. But if you're not, that's cool too, so long as it's not hurting anyone or everyone's having fun :-)

[imagobin]

⚪Johnathon Ohnn Rivals to Friends HCs⚫

Had a fic plot with this in mind, but since I change my ideas like- 10 times a day I decided to just turn these into headcanons instead. In this, the reader is also a scientist, but has an artistic side to them as well, hope you enjoy!

Fateful Meeting:

In his high school and college days, Johnathon was an avid participant at science fairs, he'd work extremely hard, day and night, just to bring his inventions to life and showcase them.

He might've been a pretty awkward teen/young adult, but if there was one thing he was confident in, it was his projects, which were made with great care and meticulousness, although he never really focused on their visual appeal, firmly convinced that such things had little importance. The only important thing was getting the devices to work flawlessly.

This belief of his would however be put to test the first time he lost a competition to you. Johnathon's project was great, no doubt, it worked exactly as it should have, and surprised everyone who'd come to observe it... but yours was flashier, had a more eye-catching design and was overall more creative, and by the end of the fair, it had won first place, with Johnathon's coming in close second.

Losing to you lit a fire under him, and that fire grew larger when he discovered you were both following the same courses at college! He wasn't going to lose to you anymore, science was all he held dear, he wasn't going to be bested by anyone.

Rivalry:

From that day onward, Johnathon declared himself as your rival. You didn't take him seriously at first, but soon found it impossible to ignore that. He'd do ANYTHING to 1-up you and take a higher grade than yours.

Obviously, you weren't going to let him win effortlessly. You weren't that competitive of a person, but his determination to do better was admittedly contagious, and soon you recognized him as your rival as well and began putting more and more effort in your studies and inventions, not really to show you were better than him, but because you were curious how far he'd take this rivalry.

You two seemed to be at basically the same exact level, with 'victories' alternating between you and him and sometimes even ending in ties. The professors eventually began to notice how you two were basically motivating each other, but never put a stop to it.

What Johnathon did not expect, was eventually finding himself growing closer to you through that. He still didn't fully understand your vision or why you valued aesthetics, at least way more than he did, but he admired your intellect and capabilities. He'd thought of asking you to collaborate on a project once or twice, but his pride would always get in the way of that.

Friendship:

You were the one who first grew tired of just being rivals; it WAS fun, but you also wished to know more about Johnathon other than how good of a student he was. So one day you casually approached him during lunch break and tried talking to him.

Needless to say, Johnathon felt extremely awkward all throughout your first talk: he didn't really know what to say, but he seemed to be happy to be talking with another talented student, and once he found out you two had a couple interests in common aside from science, he got a bit more talkative.

Your occasional talks did not stop there, quite the contrary, they became more frequent. You always met up during lunch or in the library to study together. The rivalry slowly taking a backseat as you found yourselves collaborating to get the best results possible together.

Johnathon felt like he could rely on you for anything, even outside of college matters. He tended to overthink things a lot, but you always seemed to know how to fix his troubles. ... Even years after you two graduated and now that Johnathon's body has been horribly mutated... he still wonders if you'd be able, or even willing to help him fix his problems like you always did in the past.

[flowercrown-bard]

Why is the Roche/Ciri ship always only crap for you all?

Hey, i once read a draco x apple fanfic. I have no room to judge anyone's ship and I don't think I ever did that (outside of private conversations). What i am judging is someone ruining the fandom experience for other people. If you really are as upset and hurt by people hating on your ship as you say, I'm sure you understand why people don't like you hating on their ship. (btw it's hilarious that you sent me hate for rorveth and cirys. Literally the only character included here that i even know is Ciri. If you sent me geraskier hate there would at least be context since i actually ship it, but i have absolutely no opinion on those ships you mentioned. I don't even know them) You've been told by others why they are annoyed by your asks and obviously it has no effect on you, so i won't bother repeating what they've already said, but i do occasionally love hearing myself talk so i wil still write a far longer response than i should So this isn't a hate response, it's a love letter to fandom. So here's what made being in a fandom so special to me:

The support.

Fandom to me is, at its core, strangers sharing their excitement, inspiring each other and admiring what other people do. When i started writing i was so self conscious, i couldn't sleep after posting a chapter because I was so anxious. And i received so much support even for works that are really not that great. There's something so wonderful about cheering others on and getting cheered on. That sort of open and heartfelt support is not something you experience in real life and it made some hard times much better for me. It's incredible knowing that people across the globe collaborate, send each other prompts or getting really excited about something someone else did.

2. The possibility to just…not engage in conversations i don't want to be in.

It's so freeing to have the option to block people of just not respond. There's always some sort of controversy or just some takes i don't like. How wonderful that i can just not look at those things

3. Getting to be creative and knowing it makes people happier

Your fic or art isn't brilliant? Who cares. It's so freeing to create something out of love, for people who love the same thing. I started writing for the first time since i was a child because of fandom. I dabbled in creating fanart (and realised the medium isn't for me, which is also great to find out), i wrote poetry (which I never wanted to do) and badly recorded songs (which i felt so self conscious about). Was it all good? Ha, absolutely not. But i got zo try it out and i wouldn't have done that without fandom. There is no external pressure to be good (or if there is pressure from other people to create and be good, there are always a ton of others telling you why this pressure is unfair and should be ignored). There are no grades, no deadlines. Just the love and joy of creating and sharing your creation. Or not sharing them, if that's what you want. Both is fine and that's the point

4. Seeing people of all skill levels share their works

And all of their art is beautiful and meaningful, no matter if they qre a master of their craft or someone who pickef up a pen for the first time to try out this medium

5. Seeing different interpretations

I don't like many of them but it's so interesting to see how others are interpreting something. That can be anything from the question of who's a top to some in depth meta analysis. People enjoy different things and it's so cool to see what they focus on

6. The people in general. I pretty much left the witcher fandom months ago (i tried writing for it again but it was so hard that I gave up) but through it, i met incredible people, some of who have become irreplaceable parts of my life and i am so thankful for fandom for bringing us together like this. When i was in the fandom, i got to know people are so talented, unbelievably creative, kind, funny, supportive and so many other wonderful things (even those i never talked to directly. If you left a comment on something i wrote or made my days brighter with your own creations, you are amazing and i appreciate you a lot)

Basically, fandom for me was an experience that brought me joy and a sense of community. It's on you to seek out the fandom experience you want to have. If you want that experience to be one of bitterness and hate, I'm really sorry for you. But more than anything I'm sorry for the people who you drag into this by harrassing them even after they blocked you. If you want to stew in bitterness over shipping a rarepair, that's your decision. But if other people want to enjoy the fandom in a more joyful way, then that should be their decision too and you don't get to take it away from them and ruin their love. Because ultimately that's what fandom is to me and i treasure the memory of that love more than I value the opinion of someone who apparently takes joy in trying (and hopefully failing) to take that love away

[smallandalmosthonest]

Oliver would do us all a favour by finally snaping. The people asking thes damned Buddie questions are as transparent as it can get- they know their audience and it is not 30 to 40 year old gay men or Nadine from Nebraska who like the Tommy fella. So they will ask as long as Oliver lets them. The fandom pounces on him the most and he gets these questions the most because he is the most receptive to them. Ryan was on the "Eddie is straight" tour last season and is on his "fight against toxic masculinity" tour this season. He also is not as reactive to Buddie stans complaints as Oliver is on his SM. JLH and Kenny flat out said people should get over Buddie.

Nobody is saying he should go out and flat out deny Buddie will ever happen, he can´t. But a simple "Buck is with (insert: Taylor, Natalia, Tommy) and not interested in anybody else" could help to stop that line of questioning in the moment. Because all the hedging and all the `I don´t knows' and 'we´ll sees' clearly don´t cut it.

ultimately i don't think it's oliver's responsibility to prevent any of this.

they're actors. their job is to perform the characters as written by the writers and as interpreted by collaboration between themselves, their directors, and the rest of the creative team. i think whether or not anyone is more or less "receptive" to questions about a ship is irrelevant in the extreme, especially since these actors do not have the luxury of refusing to answer questions in things like a promo interview they are contracted to participate in with questions that have been vetted by a publicity team. we don't know what their media training looks like; it's very possible he's contractually not permitted to do more or less than give those "vague" answers -- my argument is he shouldn't be constantly getting these questions.

what it all comes down to is that a) artist harassment by "journalists" and "fans" is a labour rights issue we don't take seriously enough, b) inserting shipping culture/priorities into every press opportunity is fundamentally disrespectful to the actor and their craft, c) it is my opinion that constant fan bombardment around shipping is borderline if not out-and-out sexual harassment, especially since people do not uphold a distinction between character and actor.

i cannot imagine what it's like to walk into work every day and know that any interaction your character has with their on-screen best friend is going to be hyperanalyzed by thousands of obsessive strangers on the internet -- especially when you have almost ZERO control over what those interactions look like. i cannot imagine trying to build trust with a coworker playing your love interest, knowing the degree of harassment and vitriol that actor will face simply because they're the "wrong" person being paid to pretend to be in love with you. to know that no matter what you get to do with this character, there is a vocal minority who will not be satisfied unless you're stagekissing one particular person. oliver stark was a newcomer who landed a starring role on a show boasting names like angela fucking bassett, and the only thing anyone can fucking talk about is who his character is or isn't in love with?

fundamentally i believe the fandom firewalls need to go back up. i think we all need to keep our shipping shit to ourselves, as a matter of simple fucking courtesy.

[qqueenofhades]

Hiii! I hope this is not too random but you always have such good advices and it's always interesting to hear your opinion about different things.

So, I have this idea for a serialized web-novel that I really want to stick with, write it and actually publish it. But I'm afraid that I'm not good at writing and I'm not sure how to improve. As an academic/teacher who writes fiction, is there anything in particular you would recommend? Like the list of books?

Also, everyone says you can be good at only one thing so you should invest your time in mastering that one thing, otherwise you are going to always be mediocre, Jack of all trades. I have BA in Philosophy, work as a video editor and dream of writing that particular story. Am I too over the place? I thought that I could connect writing to philosophy as there are a few philosophers who write fiction, and connect it to video editing bearing in mind that video editing is also a form of storytelling and can be connected to scripting, in a way.

Ideally, I'd want my story to be in a comics formats, but then I'd also have to learn drawing, which I would absolutely love to do, but then will I be turning into mr. Jack even more? Lol.

First off, my chillun, I am here to safely inform you that the idea of "jack of all trades, master of none," thus implying that it's stupid to do a lot of things when you could devote your time to Doing This One Thing Only, is a pile of crap. What is life even FOR, if not to try new things, experiment, see what you like, make mistakes, and learn how to do it better? Especially when it comes to art??? It is the primal and timeless impulse of human beings in all ages of the world to make art, the end. Someone who has written a "bad" story or drawn a "bad" picture is still 100x more of an artist than some yokel who feeds stolen art into an AI algorithm and presses a button. They have made something original and creative and maybe it's not as good as those who have been doing it more or for longer, but WHO CARES? You can try again! You can laugh it off or pretend it never existed or whatever, but honestly, you should NOT be ashamed.

This whole "do only one thing and don't waste your time with unproductive side hobbies" idea is also an extremely capitalist conceit: you should spend your time being Financially Productive At Your One Skill, and not doing things that bring you joy solely because they bring you joy (even if not money). It presupposes that the only purpose of life is to be generating Profit at all times, which you can't do if you're not "good," etc etc nonsense. (Clearly, I have strong feelings about this.) So if you want to learn how to write and draw in order to make a web comic, you should do that! It doesn't matter if this is totally unrelated to anything you've done before. You don't need to justify it to anyone. You can just go "you know what, I want to do this" and do it!

That said, if you want to produce it to a publishable level in a reasonable timeframe, in this case it might be good to partner up with a person and/or persons who have more experience than you. You can be the storyboarder/show-runner/ultimate mastermind, but you can also reach out to writers and artists who have already practiced to the level needed, so you don't have to spend years becoming good enough (whatever your definition of that might be) to produce a quality product. You have experience with video editing and production; great! You can find someone else whose skills enhance and collaborate with yours, and who can do something that maybe you can't. But if you practice in the meantime, you'll understand more about how it works, what you want to do, and how to translate that into narrative/art form.

As ever, my only advice for people who want to learn how to write better is a) write, and b) read. Find writers whose style you enjoy, whose particular technical skills you want to emulate (is it character development? World-building? Plot twists? Smooth prose? All of the above?) and see how they do it. Sure, there are plenty of writing books out there who purport to tell you How To Do It The Right Way, but honestly, I don't think I've ever read them. I started writing around the age of 7 and worked at it ever since (along with a lot of reading, so yes). Some people might benefit from a more structured/guided approach, so if you think that sounds like something you want to see, even if it's just someone putting words down on a page about the basic technical craft of writing, then I do encourage you to check it out. But if at any time you go "eh, this doesn't feel like my style" or "I don't want to do it that way" or "this isn't quite what I'm looking for," you can shut that book and try something else. This, too, is entirely fine.

I realize that for many of us, writing is the Mortifying Ordeal of Being Known, and it's hard to share it if you feel like it's less than perfect, but at some point, you will also need to start doing that. The nice thing about fandom is that we are all amateurs (i.e. not being paid for it, not necessarily "bad," since I have seen plenty of professionally published books that make me go YIKES), and there's generally a forgiving and supportive atmosphere. If you want to write about two blorbos kissing or not kissing (as the case may be) or whatever else, chances are there is someone out there who wants to read that story, and they will enthusiastically respond to you about it. Strangers who offer unsolicited criticism on fanfic are obviously dicks, but there are also beta readers, people who read your writing to support you and also suggest what can be made better or more polished or otherwise better. So if you think that's a feedback structure you might benefit from, put your toes out and see what kind of response you get.

Anyway, this is all to say: write, draw, make art, do it badly, do it again, you'll get better, and don't feel like you have to excuse it or explain why. In the case of this particular project, if you have a strong artistic vision but not the technical skills to execute it to the level you want, consider reaching out to people who DO have those skills and might be interested in collaborating with you. Write a lot. Read a lot. Find what works for you. And have fun.