#jamie’s fanfic wip hell

[jamiehashands]

I feel like I’m putting too much angst into my fic, like okay you’re sad, and???? I don’t know if people would enjoy 3k+ words of someone just being sad???

whatever go my tomodachi life ellis mii

[coldpintglass]

💖👖💭👀 for the fanfic asks!

RIVER!!! Thank you so much for the ask, you’re a babe. Also a great compliment because I love your stuff so much 💖🥺

💖What do you like most about your own writing?

I really enjoy the sort of personable way I write a characters POV/ internal dialogue! Take this snippet from “you’re my baby, say it to me” where Southgate has a clanging realisation about his future:

“He has to quit.

He sits with the thought for a minute, it’s been rattling around his head for days, shadowing him every step of the way. He knows they’ve been calling for his head back home, pundit and public alike.

He should have quit already.  

Fucking hell, he thinks, and then swigs the whole mug of whiskey in one go.”

Because that’s how people think through events. They talk in their head! They bat it around and imagine scenarios and have horrible moments of clarity. It keeps you up at night! 

From a writing perspective: it makes it easier to understand motives, to make a fic memorable plus, frankly, it’s so much fun to both write AND read as if you’re in the characters shoes. Not just watching them from the outside! 

👖 Are you a planner, plantser, or pantser? Is it consistent

BOTH. A rough outline of what I want to go down will get plotted, plus I’ll probably spend some time mulling it about my brain to see what jumps out (or more recently, chat about on discord with likeminded folk, HELLO CARRAVILLE DISCORD, LOVE YOU 💖) 

Catch is, I think I have it plotted out and then fuck me, this is taking a turn isn’t it? Whoosh, out goes the plan and in come the vibes. So, swing and a miss tbh. This has happened with all 3 fics I’ve published so far…! 

Like “Amensalism” started life as something else, in fact the section where Southgate dreams about Harry agreeing to letting him care for him was the first part I wrote. It was meant to be much much much more bleak and grim for Harry.

💭 What is a headcanon you have about your own work?

That it is painfully obvious that I am English and grew up on British comedy 😔🇬🇧🍺💷

 I think it was Sara (@storyshark2005) who asked in the comment of “i thought maybe we could kiss tonight” if I was British because of my dialogue I’d given Jamie!!! I actually quite love being able to flag that sort of regional U.K. dialogue with words/phrases. Think it puts a nice stamp on the work and also makes me feel I can do a decent job at fleshing out characters. 

👀 Do you have any WIPs that you would never let see the light of day? If yes, what are they about?

I think I want this WIP to see the light of day BUT it’s probably the most unsavoury and grim thing I’ve written. I’m not sure how many people would want to imagine it, let alone read it. Anyway, as mentioned above, I totally intended Amensalism to be a much more bleak and nasty fic. I literally dubbed it “SouthKane Misery AU” when writing it as a draft header. 

And then I realised actually where I wanted to go with this. Let’s just say it’s slowly becoming more “Dead Dove: Do Not Eat” then I care to admit. 

Here is a snippet of it.

NB: warnings for abandonment, unhealthy relationship, and BDSM. Probably rate this section as a hard T, so nothing explicit. Sorry don’t know how to describe this more specifically but you’ll know fairly quickly if you want to touch this or not. Behind a read more it goes:

“Come on Harry, it’s not difficult” He tugs his hair sharply “Be a good boy now”

“P-please, please I’m sorry, boss, please-“ he chokes on a sob. 

It’s exceedingly easy to get Harry to cry, that’s not a problem necessarily, quite the opposite. But Gareth is almost suprised it’s this easy to start seeing cracks in him - he’s a ugly crier, lips pulled up high, nose and eyes streaming, blotchy red face. 

However, tears means he’s making progress.

“All you have to do is let go, I’m not sure why that’s so hard for you” Another tug, another sob. 

“I-I’m not a dog” he croaks out “Boss, please, Gareth -“

Defiance and using his name? Christ, can’t even piss outside without making a huge deal about it. Gareth tuts, it’s a shame really, two steps forward and one step back. 

Still, nothing a night outside in the stables can’t fix. 

He lets go of Harry hair, turns on his heel and locks the door.

*

Gareth finds he’s almost tempted to flick the heating on, it’s gotten chilly this morning, a welcome reprieve after a week of hot afternoons and muggy evenings. Woven silk threads are scattered across the grass, coated in dew, glinting in the dappled sunlight from the trees. He couldn’t ask for a better a view out over the window by the kitchen sink. It’s times like this hes especially glad for the house, even if it needs constant matience and having to wrangle around the council if he wants to do anything. But a Quick Look at the vistas outside and all is forgiven.

Speaking of. 

He grabs a bowl from the cabinet, filling it with tap water, and pulls a banana off from the bunch in the fruit bowl. He’ll give Harry something a bit more substantial once he’s inside and got him to ask for it nicely. It’s finding the right balance that’s tricky, he does love him, honest, even after everything. 

But that doesn’t mean he’s above correcting Harry when he goes wrong. 

As he opens the door, the cold nips at Gareth, that’s a little bit fresher than he was expecting to be. Well, he’s not a monster, he throws the dogs blanket over his shoulder. He pulls on his outdoor shoes he keeps by the door and walks across to the stables, the dawn chorus starting to wind down to make way for the rest of the day. 

A quick turn of the key in the lock and he is greeted by Harry blearily staring up at him from the floor. He’s hit by the stench of piss and body odour as he step inside, a dark puddle shaped stain on the concrete beneath Harry.

He puts the bowl and banana down in front of Harry, bending down as he reaches round to click open the lock on his wrists and is taken a back by how grimy Harry feels, specks of dirt and dust covering his goose flesh skin. His skin blossoming under different shades of pink and red, the chill slowly creeping around his body. 

Not a peep from Harry. No crying, no whinging, no sharp comments. It’s lovely. Gareth can’t resist indulging him with a kiss to his temple, he’s done so well, wrapping the blanket round his shoulders. 

“You ready to be nice and listen to me now, sweetheart?”

Harry manages a shallow nod, his hands shaking as he tugs the blanket right around him. 

“Good boy, have a drink and I’ll feed you after” 

[alvfr]

I was wondering ( as long as your ok with it ) if you have any headcannons about any of your OC’s from any of your projects that you would be willing to share !

So, apparently, when they're your own OCs, it's not really headcanons anymore, it's just... canon hahah. Or facts, maybe. But yeah, I have lots of those about my OCs. Not sure if you meant fanfics or original wips, but I got both so...

Harmony Baines (Ex from Hell)

hates smoking, hates menthol, smokes menthol cigarettes to punish herself

thinks of herself as an outcast and does not recognize her privilege the slightest

dislikes pigeons (thinks of them as flying rats basically)

Kieran Montgomery (Rot)

lost a fight to his older sister when they were eight and ten years old and has never gotten over it

surprisingly good at needlework

has a motto of trying everything once, rarely does

Marje Anna (Nådegåva)

forces herself to drink beer to look cool

really good at math but never does homework

greatest ambition in life is to get a job where she can wear a business suit

Joe Delgado (The Skeptic)

straightened her hair religiously to the extent where it became really damaged before she went to juvie (where she shaved it off)

secretly a huge J-Lo fan (and was devastated when she learned J-Lo doesn't really sing in any of her own songs)

loves to sing, horrible at it

did most of her partying before she was 18, was really over it by then

Jamie Henderson (Just like Spiderman)

used to be really close to her dad before he moved, but has not had time to process her parents divorce because of all the stuff going on

has a secret storage of house paint in case she needs to cover up damages after her experiments

she and her cousins broke a couch during their fighting when they were in middle-school, fixed it to the best of their abilities, but was busted when their plump great-aunts sat down and consequently snapped the couch in half

[kaylinalexanderbooks]

fanfic that I'll never touch again sounds interesting!

Thanks for stopping by! (From the WIP title game)

Interesting indeed.

This is the folder where I keep the shitty fanfiction I wrote from ages 13-16. I have nothing against fanfic except for my own :)

Fanfic #1- Warriors Cats

Sparrowpaw looked around and realized he wasn’t in SunClan territory anymore. “Where am I?” “StarClan’s hunting grounds,” Rosecloud answered. “Sparrow- paw, please don’t pester Daisypaw. She must walk her own path.” Sparrowpaw couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “But the prophecy-” “Daisypaw has her own destiny,” Rosecloud interrupted. “Then what was the point of the prophecy?!” Sparrowpaw screamed. “The prophecy was so you could be prepared,” Rosecloud said, calmly. “When it comes true, you need to help Daisypaw. But only you. You can’t tell anyone about the prophecy. You must follow your destiny….”

I did my own OCs, my own Clans, and it really helped me grow as a writer. I made my first outline, tried writing morally gray characters. I actually had a decent plot! Problem was pacing. I may revisit the ideas I had but make it original.

Fanfic #2- Hamilton AU

“Pardon me,” a voice behind Aaron said. “Are you Aaron Burr?” Aaron took a deep breath. It was early. But he couldn’t ignore whoever this was, or they’d keep annoying him. Also, who says “pardon me” anymore? “That depends,” Aaron said, putting his book down and turning around to the kid who had spoken. One of the advantages of being quiet was you could pay attention to everyone around you. Aaron might not know their names, but he knew everyone here by what they looked like. And the kid in front of him did not look familiar. “Who’s asking?” Aaron asked.

I wrote like a singular chapter of a Middle School AU and this is the least painful part of it. Don't make me discuss this further.

Fanfic #3- MCU AU

Idk if a vaguely described birth needs a content warning, but heads up

Peggy’s screams ring through the air, causing a pain to pierce my stomach, though I know the pain is not as bad as what she’s going through. “Just breathe,” the midwife, Dorothy, says. “YOU BREATHE, DAMMIT!” Peggy screams, tears flowing down her face. “Peggy! Peggy!” I say, kneeling down next to her. I take her hand. “Peggy, look at me. It’s going to be okay. It will be over soon—” “GO TO HELL, STEVEN!” Peggy lets out a cry as she has yet another contraction. “Okay, Peggy, I need you to push,” Dorothy says. Peggy screams again as she pushes. She squeezes my hand and I let out a cry of pain. My fingers are losing their color as she squeezes tighter, and tighter. “I can see the head!” Dorothy exclaims. “Push, Peggy, push!” I close my eyes as I see Peggy go through some of the worst amount of pain a human being can experience. I can’t watch her like this. It hurts too much.

It was an AU in which Steve Rogers was not frozen in ice. I cannot read further than this because I was in physical pain from cringing.

Uh may reread it someday but not yet.

Fanfic #4- Supernatural

Content warning: leviathan decapitated head description

It was my oldest, Jamie, who found it in the yard. I was inside when I heard her scream. I raced outside as fast as I could, only to find my daughter standing in the hole we’d dug in search for more oil. She was covered in dirt, and appeared to have dropped the shovel she’d been using. “What’s wrong?” I asked her. Jamie just looked down at her feet, eyes wide in terror. I slowly crept toward her, thinking maybe she’d found a colony of worms or something. But when I leaned over the side of the hole, what I saw caused my heart to stop. At first glance, it appeared to be the head of a man, but his face was anything but human. There was no face. It was just a wide, open mouth with rows of sharp teeth. I was in so much shock, I didn’t realize that the creature’s head was not connected to the rest of its body, which was nowhere to be found. The deformed head was alone, sitting in a pool of black liquid that I’d once assumed was oil, but was now certain that it was the monster’s blood.

All I wrote was this prologue but it ain't bad. Just had no ideas, but this guy, Steven, is an OC

Anyways, hope you enjoyed! I didn't!

[urrone]

20 fanfic questions

Tagged by @swaps55 (thank yooooou)

Tagging: do you wanna do it? man just do it. have fun. go ham.

How many works do you have on AO3?

26

2. What's your total AO3 words count?

216,983

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Currently? It's mostly Dragon Age and Mass Effect, but I've also written hockey rpf, popslash (which is not included in the works count or the word count), Supernatural, SPN RPF, LotR, the Hunger Games, and Julie and the Phantoms.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

What Remains - SPN, Dean goes missing, Sam tries to find him

Shape I'm In - hockey RPF, Tyler takes a hard hit during a game, Jamie gets in a fight, this is the aftermath

Never Lived a Time Better Spent in Love - hockey RPF, Sid/Geno many years down the line, adopt a baby together

Actually, Plenty - SPN, a coda to What Remains set 15 years after that story

Everything Changes, Everything Stays the Same - SPN, Sam rescues Dean from hell, things change for them after that

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

Always, I've had people comment about the fact that I'm still responding to comments on fifteen year old fic. If you're going to read and take the time to comment, I'm gonna say thank you. Plus, community is the best part of fandom, how can you have community if you're not talking?

6. What's the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Oh it's for sure lathbora viran which is the only story I've written that I had to tag "no happy ending." Although honestly swaps would probably say that For a Single Yesterday was also pretty fuckin' angsty. But Kaidan finds peace, my poor inquisitor absolutely did not.

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Probably my Julie and the Phantoms fic, gravity, though I did absolutely take people through the ringer first.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

When I first got into hockey I ended up on the anon hate list for a hot minute because it was obvious from the first fic I posted that I didn't know anything about hockey because, well, I didn't. I'd never watched it before I got involved in the fandom. So it was valid criticism even if it was mean spirited.

9. Do you write smut. If so what kind?

The smuttiest thing I've ever written is a PWP threesome for the Oilers boys called Hold You Down. I enjoy reading smut but as a noted ace I feel awkward as fuck about writing it.

10. Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written?

Yes. Crazy is such a subjective word, but I've written the hockey dudes into the Pacific Rim world and I fixed the shit about the Pac Rim world that never really made sense. I had a much more in depth story plotted out but I lost steam on writing RPF.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I've ever been told?

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yes, but that fic is no longer online.

13. Have you ever cowritten a fic before?

Twice. I had fun both times but prefer to set my own pace through a fic.

14. What's your all-time favourite ship?

I don't really have an all time to write, they're all my favorites.

15. What's a WIP you want to finish, but doubt you ever will?

I still feel very guilty about a popslash WIP that I know will never be finished.

16. What are your writing strengths?

Pretty prose.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

I try to avoid writing action sequences because I have no idea how to make them sound cool.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

If I can have a native speaker assist, yes. If I have to run it through google translate, absolutely not.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

I was writing extra scenes into the Princess Bride when I was 12 years old.

20. Favourite fic you've ever written?

Idk, they're all my children. I love them all equally. I think in general I'm most proud of the Julie and the Phantoms fic, because I just really feel like I nailed the thesis of it, because I had a thesis, and it wasn't just "a meets b and they fall in love." (Which isn't a diss, this is what I usually write, that fic was just different.) But yeah, they're all my favorite. YOU tell ME which your favorite is.

[galacticlamps]

writing asks!! 22, 26, 30? o:

22 - What is it about watching the same two idiots falling in love over and over again?

I couldn’t figure out a short way of answering this. It’s under the cut.

26 - What would you describe as OOC?

Something that doesn’t earn its keep. I think I can be convinced a lot of things make sense in context if a text is persuasive enough, but when it introduces/implies character traits that either conflict with things that were established before it, or are new but big enough to then become conspicuous by their absence in earlier appearances of that character, without sufficiently addressing the discrepancy with a good, believable reason for the change/omission, then I put it down to being OOC. And of course, the burden of proof is proportional to the size of the thing in question.

((Because of that, the feeling also applies to canon stuff in lengthy series like Doctor Who or Star Trek, especially when it feels like a failure of a particular writer to capture existing characters well, rather than an intentional decision or a plot twist to take them in a different direction. So the question of “does it feel earned?” and even “does it feel like you at least tried to earn it, and knew you had to earn something, whether or not I think you succeeded?” are probably what determine my feelings there.))

In fanfic & other written mediums though, even more often than interpretations of a character I struggle to make sense of, the thing I most often find myself considering OOC is dialogue. Maybe that’s just because dialogue is even less often explained than actions - only rarely will narration elaborate upon why a character chose to describe something in a certain way, so there’s less of an opportunity for those justifications I seem to judge by - but for some reason, OOC actions make me think “What are you, Writer, making [character] do???” and OOC dialogue makes me go “Well that’s not even [character] then, is it?”

I think I’d feel this way anyway, spending as much of my time as I do around plays where what’s said & how it’s said is such a large part of a script, but let’s face it - one of the characters I most frequently write & read fic for speaks what ranges from a dialect to an accent depending on who’s writing him, and phrasing/word choice with him never doesn’t feel significant. I know it’s certainly something I spend a lot of time thinking about when I write Jamie - whether he’d use a Scots word/expression or not depending on the context of the scene, who he’s talking to, how he’s feeling at the moment, hell, even the words directly surrounding it & what sounds like it’d flow more naturally, given all those other factors, in that exact sentence - and I’m sure many of those choices I make are too small to read as being meaningful most of the time, without even getting into whether or not someone else would agree with my judgement. But I still wind up doing that every time I write him (admittedly, more in the edit than the first draft) not because I think I’ve got such a mastery of language or even because I believe everyone that reads it is running through it with such a fine-toothed comb, but because hard-to-swallow dialogue is just one of those things that pricks up my ears and takes me out of a story quicker than any other way in which characters could be OOC.

30 - Describe a fic that almost happened, but then it didn't.

To be honest, I don’t actually have any fics that I consider abandoned - partially bc I’m quite content working on a wip for a long time before committing to finishing it one day, and partially because even when I am sure that’s my goal, I’m aware of how slow I can be - so even if I haven’t made any progress on a particular story in months, that isn’t enough for me to think of it as officially “not happening” anymore. The closest I can do is describe a fic that I thought was much closer to completion than it turned out to be, over a year ago:

At its inception, it was a one-shot told from the Doctor’s perspective, in which Circumstances have forced Jamie to admit his feelings for the first time in a very unideal situation, and he’s especially upset about this because he swears he was planning on telling him soon, he just really wanted to go about it correctly. Pretty standard fanfic fair, shouldn’t be too hard.

The thing was, I wanted there to be some irony in that this confession happens only a number of days after the Doctor came to terms with his own feelings, decided they were unrequited, and promised himself never to tell Jamie about them - and I wanted the audience to be aware of that the whole time, to’ve seen him make that decision before Jamie’s confession even began. So I knew that meant I needed a prelude set in the recent past, plus the plot details that would give sufficient context to the Original Scene - all the dialogue of which, start to finish, and even a little of the narration, didn’t even come to 2k. I already knew what all the explanations were, I wasn’t blocked or anything, but when it came to turning them from Facts I Knew About The Fic into actual storytelling, they were way longer than I was happy with. Which I know isn’t evil in itself - if I wasn’t okay with writing things that turned out to be longer than I originally thought, there’d be even less on my Ao3 page - but in my head this was very much meant to be a fic about those 2k words, and now it felt like the stuff that was supposed to just be there to support it was instead completely overpowering it, maybe even drowning it out, and that I didn’t like, so I stepped away from it.

I still work on it every so often, but I haven’t figured out what my goal should be - to keep it under 5k at any cost, or to turn it into a multi-chapter adventure-style story even if that means the focus isn’t what I want it to be on anymore. I do quite like both that original 2k and the context in my head that makes it make sense, so I’m still convinced I’ll get it on its feet somehow, eventually - but the two options are so different from each other that I have to make a firm decision before anything I do can be considered “progress” so it’s the most-stalled WIP I have at the moment.

Writing Asks!

Back to ‘why these two idiots over & over again?’

I’m not sure if this question is supposed to be about the appeal of fanfic in general or not, but being me, I’m just gonna make it about Two/Jamie. Which I think is fitting not only because it’s 90% of what I talk about here but also because even though I’ve been in fandom since high school, and shipped lots of things and had plenty of opinions, and even written fic before, I never had anything I’d call an OTP before them. So without getting into what I love about them either as individuals or a ship, I think they have a very specific appeal to me as a fanfic pairing - partially because their relationship sits right at a sweetspot between fleshed out and undefined in their source material, and partially because of what that source material does & doesn’t leave me wanting, and a certain level of inexhaustibly they also share with other characters from that era of the show.

We’ve talked before about how infrequently they make announcements about what they mean to one another, how most of the time it’s demonstrated in their behavior rather than declarations about being best friends, and I know I’ve also mentioned that I don’t think said behavior would change all that drastically before & after starting a romantic relationship. Their actions are consistent and make up a significant part of their relationship, and yet there are some pretty basic questions they still leave unanswered from a shipping perspective. They have good, instant chemistry, which could easily rush things along - but they also have believable reasons for stalling both recognizing and acting upon their feelings - they both come from cultures that would frown upon a relationship between them for various reasons, on top of the typical Friends-to-Lovers conundrums of ‘Are my feelings a betrayal of our friendship?’ and ‘Even if they aren’t, is confessing them worth risking our current relationship?’ And since it’s so hard to pinpoint how or when they’d get together, the relationship could be in basically any stage of development at just about any point in their continuity. Personally, I could see them acting upon their feelings for the first time in Season 4 or 6 (or even 6b) with pretty much equal likelihood, and I don’t believe there’s any kind of fandom consensus on the timing either, even though so many people are happy to refer to them as married.

And that’s great for the whole ‘same two idiots falling in love over and over again’ thing for a couple reasons - on the one hand, it obviously offers a ton of variety since you can read or write about it happening in so many different ways, and with different supporting characters, situations, and levels of personal history involved leading up to it, and still accept that’s how it goes as long as the story’s executed well - but it also means there’s no part of canon that’s like, The Gay Part - the whole thing is. Sure, there are episodes with more Good Bits than others, and the first few stories when they’re both newer to each other & also sharing the screen with two other main characters are the ones that feature them interacting the least - but generally speaking, any time you’re watching them, you’re watching the relationship you like, there’s no waiting for it to get good or develop into the version of it that’s shippable, because it’s so beautifully consistent across their era.

And that’s the other thing I find uniquely appealing about them & why derivative, transformative, interpretive works suit them so well - I think a real strength of their relationship (not even as a couple but as an element in a narrative) is its very stability, which is tightly connected to the kind of story it originated in: a long-form serialized episodic scifi tv show where the plots are driven by mystery & adventure, to which the consistency of the main characters’ relationship provides a comparatively solid foundation & contrast. In short, they’re characters that thrive best on being plunked down into various scenarios the audience can watch them weather, and they’re people we can get very attached to without ever having focused on too too hard on, in the source material. And that already makes them a goldmine for fanfic potential, but there’s another element in there that I think is harder for me to explain.

Initially I wrote an even longer-winded explanation for this bit & got really pretentious citing different dramaturgical approaches & everything, but basically, it boils down to this: I have never wanted their source material to be more about their relationship - not simply because canonicizing it might limit the otherwise limitless possibilities for imagining how that relationship came to be - but because I think something fundamental would have to change (be lost!) in these characters that I know and love if they existed on a show where inter-personal drama and romance were major elements of the plot & narrative.

And because of that, when I look at works of fanfiction (or even EU materials, which in this respect really are the same thing) that aim to ask ‘what if,’ explain things canon doesn’t, or further explore things canon incorporates but hasn’t exhausted, I never feel like it’s a consolation prize or some kind of second-best to what could’ve/should’ve been onscreen, because I think those are the spaces where an exploration of their relationship really belongs - not as a sideline, but as a more natural habitat where they can freely thrive. For different characters originating in a different work, fanfic might mainly serve to speculate about what could happen next or even to correct something disappointing that canon failed to do - and while Two/Jamie can do stories like that too, they aren’t bound by it. If you’re going to fic for those reasons primarily or even exclusively, I think there’s a chance of finding the “fic to end all fics,” and feeling like the box has been ticked and the need met and then some of the motivation & appeal would go with it.

But with the Second Doctor & co, even setting homophobia and eras and the realm of possibility totally aside for a moment, I don’t have some fantasy about a Drama- Romance- Genre show about the evolution of their relationship or anything else I turn to fanfic for - I love that their relationship primarily exists as the status quo in a show of a different genre, and that the times when it’s put under the magnifying glass are only rare moments on tv (like being one of several plotpoints in Evil), or EU stories that exist specifically to let audiences spend more time in the company of characters no longer current, or Fanfic that purposely defies genre to make a scifi serial briefly into a character piece or a romance instead, either because it’s telling the story of an event that’s truly different from Life As Usual, or just because it’s looking at that routine from a different angle. I like that you have to look at the story from an angle distinct to the one from which the tv show is told to see the other facets of what is conceivably there. No, their source material was never about the Doctor & Jamie being in love - but since they are, you can choose to make it a story about that if you watch it with 3d glasses on - if you engage with it in a space that zeros in on the personal, the mundane, the things happening when the main adventure is not.

For me, the medium & genre combo that produced these guys means that I never actually wish something would or did happen onscreen - all I ever want is the ability to believe it could be part of their story anyway, and as a derivative work, fanfic very much offers that, so “watching the same two idiots fall in love over and over again” doesn’t get old, because that’s an end unto itself, and specifically the only end I want when it comes to these particular characters.

[crash-hawk]

Dat Hermbi Lyfe

Dedicated to all of my friends and mutuals on the Hermbi Discord server, every one of whom has made my life for the last four months immeasurably brighter.  

Young Gods, Christin friends 

Hermbi lifestyle origins

Gaslight gatekeep girlboss wives

Smajor is a whore

Three, Wingless, Hurricane

Empires fandom brings the pain

"Conversation" saturation 

Dog at the Door

New friends, "FRESH MEAT"

Hermbicraft is pretty sweet 

Jornoth, Flower Husbands brawl

I Can Be the One You Call

Smajor's in a holding cell,

Last Life leaves us all in hell,

Hermbi minecraft server lore,

I can't take it anymore!

We didn't start the fire

Argo sent the invites,

Now we're stuck here for life

We didn't start the fire

No we didn't light it,

But we sure won't fight it

Boatem Hole death tracking blog

Empires Flower Husbands pog

Sadie’s thousand WIPs

Writerbitch, PK, and Meeb

AU section, Mother Spore

Idols, Dragons, Gods, and more!

Bloody Seasons, high school tropes

Malicious World, Kaleidoscope

Grian copypasta speech

Masterpost containment breach

Hundred members, holy shit!

Hermbi Discord Server’s lit!

We didn’t start the fire,

Argo sent the invites, 

Now we’re stuck here for life

We didn’t start the fire

No, we didn’t light it

But we sure won’t fight it

What’s a King to a God

Jamie finally server mod

Mod Hunt, Argo wins

Hermbicraft with Origins

Empiressona rivalry

Luna’s fanfic trollery

Last Life Session 7 pain

Hermbi’s blasting off again!

We didn’t start the fire 

Argo sent the invites

Now we’re stuck here for life

We didn’t start the fire

Server’s always on

We just ramble on, and on, and on, and on...

[martelldoran]

I'm right on it 😘 14 & 17 lovely Ali

Kel! 🤗🤗🤗

Right let’s do this. I’m taking both of these from the still untitled fake dating story! I’m having a hell of a time trying to think of a title and so far have absolutely nothing decent. The closest I’ve come is ‘Fool’s Game’ but that’s a bit shit. Anyway.

14. (For authors) Post a line of dialogue from one of your WIPs without context.

"Why didn't you tell me that your new boyfriend is friends with the Black fucking Widow. Jamie." There's a dull thump from underneath the table and Bucky winces.

17. Describe a fic that is still in the ‘ideas’ stage.

God, isn’t this most of them at this point. Okay, so let’s go for the Budapest fic. Currently the working title ‘Arabesque’ which I like a whole lot more than ‘M for Murder’ which I had originally.

This is my Natasha-centric fic looking at her past, Budapest, the Red Room etc. I’m keen to do a split narrative so part of it is set in the present, in Budapest, while the other half is set during her time in the Red Room. I really love that narrative structure, I’ve never tried writing it myself so it’d be something new. I want the two narratives to intertwine and there would be the two arcs going on simultaneously. Is this me biting off more than I can chew? Mayhaps. 

But the overarching idea here is that she and Yelena are sent to Budapest to dispatch some significant political threats. Their first target they take out at some gala. Clint’s there but they don’t know who he is yet. They go to dispatch their second target and something goes wrong (don’t know what yet) and that’s what makes Natasha start to waver. 

That’s really all I have so far. I don’t know where a lot of it is going to go tbh. 

Thank you!!

Send me fanfic asks?

[aikainkauna]

Fanfic trope meme

Apologies to those of you who see this for a third time, as I’ve crossposted it to both LJ and Pillowfort. Feel free to comment over on there (or my other posts) if you like. And of course, feel free to grab this one and do it yourself, if you like.

***

Grabbed this meme from a couple of people on LJ. It's... well, apparently about fanfic tropes. Some of them more terrifying than others.

I have written:

-Hurt/comfort (Yeah, baby! Most of my fic is this.)

-Body swapping (Sort of? Souls slipping into each other's bodies for a bit? Jaffar feeling what Yassamin feels? Sex swap, I've definitely done.)

-Soulmate identifying marks (tattoo, red thread of fate, etc) (I have! The Throne of Solomon. And maybe The Past Forgotten counts, in its way. I may have written more, but I forget.)

-Snowed-in cabin/isolated together for extended period of time (The Jaffar/Pwinzezz Cavefic!)

-Found families (I guess the Samarkand gang counts for poor old Fadl? Even if Jaffar *is* his brother, so technically it is his family. But he does have his religious congregation and Zainab, and is... well, he always does seem to be seeking something, so he's the kind of guy to go for this trope.)

-Fairy tale/mythology AU (And not just when I am  writing in *actual* fairytale/mythology fandoms. Which I am doing most of the time, what with Thief of Bagdad being a 1001 Nights fanfic anyway. So I'm writing fanfic about a fanfic of some age-old RPF (fantasy AU!) about historical figures from the late 700s/early 800s...)

-Enemies  to friends to lovers (Yes, please! Aplenty. I'm surprised that  enemyslash/FoeYay/Hero(ine)/Villain(ess), whatever you want to call it,  isn't mentioned on this list.)

-Characters swap roles AU (Uh... I've written sexual switching in some isolated chapters? Like when Laura  briefly doms Torsten in The Fall of Angels, to help him get over some traumas?)

-Friends to lovers (With RPS, Veidtbone in particular, and Theta/Koschei. This also seems to happen whenever I write femslash.)

-Magical  connection (telepathy, etc) (Doctor/Master basically ruined me for all  my other ships what with their telepathic ability. So that now, it feels less interesting for me to write love/sex that *doesn't* have telepathy.)

-Fake dating/fake marriage accidentally turns into feelings (see next trope)

-Royals/political marriage turns into feelings (These last two are pretty much the same thing in ToB, as I've had Yassamin marry Jaffar a couple of times--like The Past Forgotten and The King's White Falcon, but without him laying a hand on her for up to a year, until she finally grows a brain and realises how loveworthy he is after all.)

-Seemingly unrequited pining (Emphasis on the "seemingly." Jaffar's unrequited   pining is painful enough in the movie, so there's no point in making him  suffer any more.)

-Accidentally fell in love with the mission target (Well, *kind of,* what with Torsten. Lars-Erik was definitely his mission target in the original film, and at the start of Because The World Belongs to the Devil, he made no bones about having wanted to kill Laura Erika [the teenage girl version of Lars-Erik in this AU, to those of you just joining in] when she was born.)

-They break up (but then they get back together) (With Jaffar/Fadl.  Fadl's stormed off in a huff at least twice in the past. And Doctor/Master is always the same old on-off car crash, isn't it? Although this is not a favourite trope of mine, as the setup would usually necessitate them being an existing couple in the first place,  and I tend to not write canon or "plausibly lovers" ships because   they're already happily together. What do Two and Jamie, Holmes and   Watson etc. need me for? They're already as good as married. Let them have their happiness.)

-Supernatural creature/human romance (Sort of. I've written Time Lords/humans, humans/djinn at least. And surely wizards count as supernatural romance, anyway?)

-Reincarnation/'25  Lives' AU (What's with the 25 lives? Is this some big fandom thing again? One of the darkest, most fucked-up fics I ever wrote was the Master killing the Doctor during sex and fucking him as he regenerated around him. As you do. And there's reincarnation in one of my Jaffar/Pwinzezz fics,  but I won't spoil it for the new readers by telling you which one it is.)

-Selfcest (possibly due to time travel) (I am scratching my head trying to remember when I wrote this and in which fandom, but I have the distinct feeling I've written it. I've certainly whacked off to  that World Of Simm!Masters clusterfuck what with the pink dress so many  times I... I think I broke two clit buzzers during that time. I've certainly drawn it. And drawn some Connies on Connies. And then there's, of course, Sarosh the Sexbot  who's a clone of Jaffar, looks-wise, but he is very distinctly just a robot, not a living character as such--not the sort with which you could  have a real, interpersonal dynamic. My problem with selfcest, in general, is that I like having that character dynamic--and that requires  the characters to be different from one another. If it's two characters  that are too similar--if they fulfill a similar role in the canons--it's hard to create a dynamic between them and to make it   interesting.)

-Polyamory (Swinging away ALL the bloody time with the Roses!Jaffar and Yassamin, and Torsten/Laura. Sometimes I miss the monogamous 'verses.)

-Amnesia (I've got a post-movie "Jaffar comes  back from the dead" WIP I'll probs never finish, because it doesn't seem to get off the ground. If I wrote this trope, I would have the characters gradually regain memory, though; complete mind-wipes are   horrid. I did have Handy lose the majority of his cognitive/motor/Timey skills in No More  and that was the main reason I had to... well, I'm not going to spoil it if someone hasn't read it yet, but it wasn't the cheeriest of fics. The Past Forgotten *sort of* has this, but I don't want to spoil as to how that happens.)

***

I could write:

-Daemons (Why the archaic spelling? I have written djinn, so I almost put this in the 'have written' section. I can't remember if I actually *have* written real demons, because I might have. Surely, Torsten counts...)

-'Everyone is evil'/mirrorverse AU (Well, mostly, if I want to explore "evil"   characters, I write about those types of characters in the first place, without having to turn anyone evil. Devilry is the 'verse for that. Hell, usually it's the other way around; I try to look for the human elements of the baddies, or at least explore their logic--what makes them tick, what makes them the way they are. So, IDK, I could've also   put this in the "unlikely to ever write" section.)

-And they were roommates! (This would be terrible and also hilarious, whatever characters ended up becoming my victims. Even if I'm more interested in those hurt/comfort plots, overall. And I have always found it *impossible* to live under the same roof with other people because I need peace and quiet and solitude too much. So this is almost a bit too much like the sorts of negative RL experiences I don't really want to get more of in fic.  But I *could* write it as a comedy for cheap lols, especially if the stress were resolved by hot bonking, ASAP.)

-'They  all work in an office' AU (Otherwise, I would've put this in the "just  no" category, but... the Barmakids were civil servants. So I *could*   write Jaffar and Fadl drowning in paperwork--"WHY DID WE EVER introduce paper into THIS EMPIRE?!?" and cursing their fates and Jaffar restraining Fadl from braining Harun al-Rashid with a paperweight. Same with Lina doing Zainab's books and trying to hold back The Fist of Death when Fadl carelessly drops a piece of his lunch over her perfectly calligraphied accounting.)

-'Falling for a coworker/teammate is a bad idea' except this is fiction so it works out (Maybe. Just maybe. But it'd also be in a medieval ToB context.)

***  

I will probably never write:

-'Groundhog  Day'/karmic time loop (I just never got the appeal of this. Sounds like the sort of thing experimental writers would like? The sorts who really  like filling in bingo cards and challenge lists?)

-Vampires/werewolves  AU (I'm not that big on either. Super-unpopular opinion coming up: I prefer sex to the sublimation of it that vampires are often all about; bloodsucking in lieu of sex, and/or being seen as way better than sex just always feel to me like a cheap cop-out from writers who are disappointed in sex, or afraid of it. I've never grokked it any more   than that stupid, stupid "chocolate is better than sex" quip from women who don't know what masturbation is--yes, it fucking well is sex, TYVM! I much prefer to make partnered sex better than it is IRL by adding supernatural stuff like telepathy to *that*. Immortality alone is interesting to explore, as are Gothic themes, but all the usual themes that vampires *specifically* usually represent just... either hold little interest for me, or then, I can explore them in other ways.)

-'Pride  and Prejudice' AU (I don't hate Jane Austen, but it's not my fandom. That kind of society stuff and being witty over teacups in bonnets has never really been my thing--if anything, I usually have my characters exist in their own bubble, isolated from society and its restrictive mores and social stresses.)

***

JUST NO!

-Coffee  house AU/food service AU (AUGH! Please, no coffeeshop AUs for me; the world is full of them already. Maybe I could write it as some terrible, short parody? Or doodle it? But no more than that.)

-Hogwarts AU (Haven't read HP. Young Adult isn't really my genre. I know, I know; I've just lost all my WLW cred.)

-High  school/university AU (I've done Time Lord Academy-era stuff with Doctor/Master, but I expect this means a sort of American high school/university AU with jocks and cheerleaders and shit. Hell, no. Again, the exact sort of horrid society stuff I would rather have my characters escape from.)

-Adopting/raising a baby (Erm, not unless you count Jaffar/Yassamin adopting a cheetah? They do have kids in some 'verses but there's none of that everyday baby stuff that this question/trope probably implies. I'm squicked by   babies, sorry.)

-Unusually specific occupation AU, like, the Author clearly has the same job (It worries me that this is, by virtue of its inclusion here, apparently seen as normal and acceptable..? When it's crap fanfic, inserting yourself into something that should be about the *established* characters instead. Jesus, I don't want to go in expecting a fanfic, and then find out it’s your diary instead! Unless you're Anaïs Nin. And even if you really *do* want to write about yourself, then just... write original fic? An autobiography? A blog? Write an OC that has your job. Don't do this false advertising where you insist it's fanfic when it's not. That's a dick move towards your readers.)

-Loyalty kink (see next trope)

-Alpha/beta/omega (Too creepy. I can write about piss, shit, incest, necrophilia and cannibalism, but not these last two. Any more than I can glorify the Nazis I've written about; I either take the piss out of them, as with Strasser, or just step outside of their politics and bring them into the land of happy sexings like with von Kolb, with the aim of dragging him out of that madness and leaving it behind.)

-Hot single parent(s) (Please. Rundvik: "You love children." Torsten: "I loooooathe themm.")

-Unrequited pining (Too much of an emotional squick. Has to be requited. I write fanfic to fix things, to avenge wrongs, to set things right. I don't write them to make the characters more miserable than they already are. Unless it's for temporary, character-development purposes, that is.)

[mistresspandora-archive]

Hey! The Fray Is a Year Old Today!

One year ago today, I succumbed to temptation (and @levisqueaks unfailing encouragement and enabling) and posted The Fray, my first Jamie/John story.

This story is pretty near and dear to my heart, not because I think it was that spectacular (I am proud of it, but there are some things I would do differently if I rewrote it today), but because of what it represents.

The Fray is the story that...

Brought me into the OL/LJG fandom

Saw me leaping gleefully aboard the Jamie/John ship (more of a rowboat at the time lol) and start paddling merrily along

Introduced me to this wonderful niche of people who I consider real friends now

Ended a (roughly) two year hiatus in which I wrote nothing (I cannot stress the importance of this enough; I didn't even write for myself and it was utter darkness)

Made me fall in love with storytelling again

Led me back to a passion (writing) and to a support system (my fandom friends) that carried me through an exceptionally difficult year

Got me thinking about the real importance of fanfic as an art form and made me additionally passionate about that

Helped me to believe again that my stories are worth telling

When I posted The Fray last year, it was honestly just to make the John-voice in my head shut up. I thought it was going to be a one-and-done, fade-back-into-the-shadows situation. I had been a relatively unknown Destiel writer; I figured no one would notice and it would be lost in the thousands of new Jamie/John stories posted every week, like my experience in Supernatural.

Boy, did I misread that situation.

Last September, I officially added The Fray to my Gods of War series, as part 1. My goal for Gods of War is that when I've covered all the ground I want to cover, I'll have a novel-length story. Someday, when it's finished, and I print and bind myself a copy, The Fray will be Chapter 1.

So, thank you, to everyone who's been so supportive of me and my stories over the last year. Especially in those early days. I can't stress enough how much that encouragement meant to me at the time and still does now. I don't talk about my writing hiatus much or what happened there, but looking back on it, there was a hell of a lot riding on The Fray for me. Probably more than there should have been, and certainly more than I realized at the time.

And here we are, one year, 47 stories, almost 400K words, and a bunch of amazing friends later... Happy Birthday, The Fray, you funky little angst bucket, you. To celebrate, later today I'll post the title and cover art for my current Jamie/John story still in production. And maybe a teaser of it for WIP Wednesday?

All that said, if you've never read The Fray before or are feeling nostalgic, you can find it here on AO3.