#love fanart love fics love everything inspired or sourced or otherwise

[thebad-lydrawn-sanses]

Are we free to tag you in fanart [3 ?

PLEASE IT WOULD MAKE ME SO HAPPY

[wolfstar-in-color]

July Creator Spotlight: Desicosplay

Hello, lovely people, and welcome to our second creator spotlight!

Each month, we will highlight a different creator in our lovely fandom who features diverse characterizations of Sirius and/or Remus. We will invite you to get to know them better through questions and answers, Fandom Discourse(tm), and a featured prompt created by our guest.

For our second spotlight, we are absolutely honoured to having the presence of @desicosplay, an incredible cosplayer and writer that if you don’t follow, you should do right away. They’ve gifted us with many, many amazing gifsets, a lot of them about Sirius. Below you’ll see a little snippet of the interview and Mastani’s prompt. Under the cut you’ll be able to read the full interview. Don’t forget to share and interact with this post, and if you have anyone you’d like to recommend for a spotlight, shoot us an ask!

“Diversity means celebration. So in fan spaces, that means actively seeking out creators that you might otherwise miss. It means trying out new perspectives, or listening to new perspectives on your favorite characters. It means standing with your peers, being loud in your love and support of them. I’m not saying you have to reblog or comment on everything. Diversity is not just visual, it’s also mental. Diversity needs to be intentional and active, even if that takes place just in your head.”

Mastani’s prompt: Muggle AU! Sirius and Remus at Harry’s sporting event!

Hi! I’m Mastani, she/they/he pronouns, I’m a 1.5/2nd Generation Indian-American, and I cosplay and write fanfiction!

Q: How did you start creating in the fandom? What did you wish to bring into the fandom?

A: Almost five years ago, Laina @ohtheclevernessofme1972 convinced me to join the HPRP community. She and everyone else were so supportive of my desire to bring my culture and background to the Harry Potter characters. Eventually, I also started writing fanfiction again!

Q: What things about s/r as characters or in their relationship inspire you to create around them?

A: I think that they are very complex characters that really demonstrate how external factors affect your life, whether you like it or not. Their relationship, whether platonic, romantic, or anything in-between or outside, is also so fascinating in its potential to evolve. Wolfstar is constantly changing, and all its interpretations are totally feasible to imagine.

Q: What things would you like to highlight about the Wolfstar fandom and your experience in it?

A: My main dips into the fandom are when I cosplay Sirius, and every time, I feel so much love. The fandom is so open to any interpretations of Sirius, and it does wonders to make someone feel accepted.

Q: What type of content do you wish you saw more in the fandom?

A: This is entirely self-indulgent, but Godfather/Uncle!Sirius just make me feel so warm inside. There’s a love inside Sirius that only gets touched upon inside the books. AUs where he gets to interact with Harry as a child or teen outside the pressure of a war are just so calming and warming.

Q: What is your favourite wolfstar fancontent (fic/fanart/gifset/etc) and how does it inspire you?

A: Y’all, I have so many Wolfstar fics saved that are just stunning and several that are comfort fics. I think the biggest takeaway from all of them is the comfort the boys find in each other. All of them are AUs, and I’m inspired to depict my Wolfstar as something kind, gentle, and communicative.

Q: Which of your own identities inform your creative processes? How has that process been for you?

A: All of them! But more specifically, my racial background informs most of my process. My process is… Sporadic, to say the least. However, when I do get struck with an idea, I have to create it almost instantly. One example, Wolfstar-related, is that my Sirius cosplay has long hair, half-up in a bun. I feel like desi!Sirius would celebrate his heritage by growing his hair long, which also is a nice, “screw you,” to societal and familial constraints.

Q: What advice do you have for other content creators with diverse backgrounds in the fandom? What would you say to people that might feel they don’t have the “right” history/experience/characteristics to participate in the creation of content related to Wolfstar?

A: think the best advice for participation I have comes from the iconic Jay @siriussly-serious, Rest in Power. “Go. Get in. Dive in. Fucking head first. Fuck that, cannonball your butt right in there and make a damn splash…” There is no, “right,” history/experience/background. These characters are fictional, but they can reflect our world. Our world is not homogenous. So why should fictional worlds and characters be that way? These stories are ours, and we shape them to be whatever we want them to be. If you want to create, that’s all the prerequisite you need.

Q: How could we build a more diverse fandom?

A: This blog is a great example of how to build a diverse fandom. Celebrating creators with diverse backgrounds and being loudly supportive of them makes us want to stay. Finding communities that celebrate, not just accept, can make a world of difference. So, raise your voice and love on your favorite creators.

Q: What’s your favourite thing to modify in Sirius’s or Remus’s characterizations to bring new perspectives to them?

A: I’m a huge communicator, so improving character communication is something I love to do. I like to create fluff, and this change lets me focus on the gentler parts of Sirius and Remus, or the parts that need some love, e.g. mental health. It also lets me flesh out their senses of humor more, like their dislike of cats (in my headcanons).

Q: What does diversity mean to you? What does that encompass in fanish spaces?

A: Diversity means celebration. So in fan spaces, that means actively seeking out creators that you might otherwise miss. It means trying out new perspectives, or listening to new perspectives on your favorite characters. It means standing with your peers, being loud in your love and support of them. I’m not saying you have to reblog or comment on everything. Diversity is not just visual, it’s also mental. Diversity needs to be intentional and active, even if that takes place just in your head.

Q: What are your ideas about the notions of culture and ethnicity? How do you relate to those notions?

A: I find culture and ethnicity to overlap in many ways, as they both pertain to group characteristics. I’m not an anthropologist, so I don’t know the detailed differences between the two. However, in my quick searches, it feels, to me, that culture is a bit broader and ethnicity is more geographic. So, I’m culturally Indian-American and ethnically Gujarati Indian (Gujarat is the state in India). I find these notions to be helpful when defining and describing my experiences. For example, among desis (and other brown folks), saying I’m generation 1.5/2 tells them that I straddle American/Western and Indian culture. If I tell another Indian that I’m Gujarati, they instantly know the kind of foods I grew up with and the language my parents speak. It’s a streamlined way of explaining my experiences, and as a science brained person, it makes life easier for me.

Q: Is there a page/organization/institution you would recommend for fans to search/read when it comes to learning about diversity?

A: With the tool that is social media, there are so many activists and creators that are willing and able to teach about diversity. On my page, I keep a page titled, “Resources for Justice.” This page has a wide variety of social justice resources on it. Google is great, but you also want to cross-check your sources. However, I feel like the best way to learn is to ask questions. Do so respectfully and ensure the person you’re asking has the energy/time/compensation to answer. Especially if you’ve done some research ahead of time, I find that many folks are willing to have a discussion - but again, check with the person first. Trust is paramount in these conversations.

Q: Is there a project/organization that you want to hype?

A: Oh, I could name so many. However, the ones I want to shout out here are Chrysalis - Gender Identity Matters and Raze Collective. As many of you know, Jay @siriussly-serious passed away recently, and in his name, we’re promoting/donating to these charities. Chrysalis - GIM offers online and in-person mental health support for trans and nonbinary people in his area and Raze Collective supports LGBTQIA+ performers. Ami @ami-acts and a few others (I apologize for not remembering exactly who - I’ll message the mods if I remember/please add on if you know) organized this. Links are below.

Donate to Chrysalis - GIM here.

Donate to Raze Collective here.

Q: Leave us with a quote or work of art that always inspires you

A: Is it too cheesy to say all of our fandom? To be totally honest, that’s who/what inspires me most of all. It’s a work of art, all the people in it make our fandom a work of art!

[not-poignant]

Hi Pia! Hope you don't mind if I ask you a question... Both of the fandom I'm in I've been in for awhile and I love them but I've gotten kind of burnt out on them... I used to write fics and be really involved but I can't anymore because the fandom have started to make me hate everything about it, especially my fave ships :( I want to get involved again but I'm scared and don't know how... What did you do to help comfortable to stay writing again for rotg?

Hiya anon!

You might not like my response, so I’m going to give you two responses lol.

Response one:

I dealt with toxic shit in the RotG fandom by leaving the RotG fandom. I finished out my stories (at the time finishing ISWF was really hard, and there was covert harrassment in the tags re: what I wrote), and I unfollowed most people connected to the fandom or who were reblogging stuff to do with the fandom, and I stopped reading fanfiction connected to it, and I took like...god, about a year and a half off.

In that time I wrote two RotG stories without re-engaging with the source material or reading any RotG fics. I didn’t tag surf, I didn’t discuss meta with anyone else, and I usually knocked back requests to engage in the fandom again. The only RotG thing I’d engage on, was SAL. 

I didn’t do it to cope with the fandom, I did it because I was thoroughly over the fandom and its bullshit. There were a lot of folks at the time who wrote the majority of the early, popular fics who actually all checked out at that time (or over the following six months), and almost no one has come back. The drama was just too blech, and even a year and a half ago / two years ago, people talked about like...how ‘dead’ the fandom was. People moved onto other things.

So, this is probably not what you were expecting. As a coping mechanism, if I based any advice off that, it would be ‘leave the fandom and stop writing your fic until you want to write it again.’

When I came back to RotG it was because I really wanted to, but in order to avoid drama, I still don’t follow many RotG blogs and I don’t tag surf except on the rare occasion.

Response two:

So let me talk about another fandom that I came to mostly despise and yet still wanted to keep writing a really long fic. And that’s the Dragon Age fandom. *takes a deep breath, sighs it out.*

When I started writing Stuck on the Puzzle I began to follow fandom blogs and meta blogs and I think all in all I was following about 20. Dragon Age, at least when I was writing SotP was filled with tons of callout posts - often very aggressive and based on dogpiling and outrage culture. No one was free from this, regardless of what they were doing, and the character I was writing (Cullen Rutherford) drew a great deal of ire from people I respected. I didn’t like blind Cullen love, which often meant I was dealing with blind Cullen hatred. Or alternatively fans who sought to ‘prove’ that they could be Cullen critical to the popular, dogpiling crew of the time.

The push to guilt-trip readers for not commenting has a huge piece of heartwood in this fandom too. So there was just aggression everywhere. The readers weren’t good enough. The writers weren’t good enough or writing the right themes or doing them well enough. (It’s incredibly crushing, btw to keep writing in this environment). If writers quit it was the reader’s fault, or Tumblr’s fault. If readers quit it was the fault of the writers, or Tumblr. Basically everything was always someone else’s fault and people didn’t really own their shit. This was the place where I got introduced to like, preliminary purity and anti culture before the words ‘purity’ and ‘anti’ became words.

So here’s what I did:

- I unfollowed everyone except about 2 people in the DA fandom on Tumblr. Yes, this meant dropping a lot of people, even people I really liked. If they supported the drama, they were out. - I stopped tag surfing everything except my incredibly rarepair. - I went back through my DA tag and specifically looked at artwork and all the things I’d come to love that inspired me to write the thing in the first place. - I re-engaged with the source material.

In other words, I dropped out of fandom while still producing a fanwork. It was the best thing I decided to do. It was never really the meta and shit that inspired me the most anyway. It was always the source material and my interacting with that. And it was maybe a few pieces of fanart. Otherwise, everything came from my brain anyway, and I didn’t need anything else. I certainly didn’t need the drama, and getting the occasional awesome piece of fanart floating across my dash wasn’t worth everything else happening.

And those two/three people I kept around still posted awesome fanart and stuff from time to time anyway. Also they’re awesome people.

But yeah, I never stayed comfortable writing for RotG. In fact, for a while, I hated it. I’d been really hurt by certain things within the fandom, and the drama hit too close to home, and I decided it wasn’t worth it. It’s fine to do that by the way, you’ll find another fandom eventually (I found many), and if you’re meant to find your way back to the fandom, you will.

If you really want to stay in the fandom though, I do recommend some pretty drastic actions to stay in it. Fandom drives a lot of fanwork/content producers away sometimes.

Also, additionally, it’s just normal to kind of not want anything to do with a ship or a fandom for a while? Even if you love it? Burn out is normal, and may just signify that you need something from a fandom that your current fandom / ships aren’t giving you. Being in that space between one fandom and another kind of sucks, but it may be worth using this time to like...explore other things you love, watch some new shows and movies, read some new books, and remember the joy of what it is to engage in the source material in the first place. I wish you luck!

[ed-edward-blackbeard]

@rootingformephistopheles posted a looooooooooong list of fanfiction questions right here.

I answered every damn one of them before I realized it was probably meant to be an askbox thing.  SO, here you fuckers go.  (it’s five pages long, wtf.  so it’s under a readmore to save your dashboard)

Fanfiction Questions

Fandom Questions

 1. What was the first fandom you got involved in?

Xenaverse, including Hercules: the Legendary Journeys.  I did PBeM (play by email) role play, and then moved to fanfic, and then slash fanfic.

2. What is your latest fandom?

I have three, technically.  Doctor Who, Hannibal, and Gotham

3. What is the best fandom you’ve ever been involved in?

Hannibal.  Fannibals are the best, by 100 miles.  I’m sure there’s bad parts of the fandom, I’ve just never yet run across them.  

4. Do you regret getting involved in any fandoms?

As far as the people go? Highlander.  There was a lot of overlap, at the time, with The Sentinel, both shows I enjoyed.  I just feel like there were a lot of assholes in the Highlander fandom who disliked me and my writing because of the people I was friends with, not because I sucked (and believe me, I did.  I have the fic to prove it.)  

5. Which fandoms have your written fanfiction for?

From my AO3 dashboard:

Smallville --  The Sentinel -- Hannibal (TV) -- Doctor Who (2005) -- Supernatural -- Buffy the Vampire Slayer -- Veronica Mars -- Stargate SG-1 -- Actor RPF -- Charlie Countryman/Spacedogs -- Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling -- Adam (2009)/Spacedogs – Brimstone -- Supernatural RPF  -- Stargate Atlantis -- Yami No Matsuei | Descendants of Darkness -- The Fast and the Furious (2001) -- Sherlock (TV) -- The Blair Witch Project (1999) -- Star Trek: The Original Series -- Sense and Sensibility (1995) --  Law & Order: SVU -- Lost Boys (Movies) -- Watchmen (2009) -- Lost (1) -- Smallville RPF -- Marvel Cinematic Universe (1) --  Gargoyles (TV) -- Dogma (1999)

6. List your OTP from each fandom you’ve been involved in.

Oh my fucking God. Okay, here goes:

Xena/Ares and Xena/Autolycus, Xenaverse; Clark/Lex and Lionel/Chloe, Smallville; Jim Ellison/Blair Sandburg, the Sentinel; Hannibal Lecter/Will Graham, Hannibal; Doctor/Rose, Nine/Rose/Jack, Doctor Who; Dean/Sam, Supernatural; Buffy/Spike, Giles/Ethan, Spike/Angel, Buffy the Vampire Slayer; Logan Echolls/Veronica Mars, John Winchester/Veronica Mars, Veronica Mars; Jack O’Neill/Daniel Jackson, Stargate SG-1; Ezekiel/Lucifer, Brimstone; John/Rodney, Stargate Atlantis; Muraki x Tsuzuki, Yami No Matsuei; Dom/Brian, the Fast and the Furious; John Watson/Sherlock Holmes, BBC Sherlock; Nigel Lupei/Adam Raki, Spacedogs; Kirk/Spock, Star Trek; Christopher Brandon/Eleanor Dashwood, Sense and Sensibility; Rafael Barba/Olivia Benson, Law & Order SVU; Elisa Maza/Goliath, Gargoyles.

7. List your NoTPs from each fandom you’ve been in.

I don’t really have NoTPs in the fandoms I’ve written in.  I have a few NoTPs in general, though, although I’m not listing them here because wow, would I cause some hurt feelings.

8. How did you get involved in your latest fandom?

I saw the gifsets from The Wrath of the Lamb, and I saw the name Hannibal Lecter being bandied about, and I fell in love because I’ve loved Hannibal Lecter ever since Red Dragon.  I don’t know how I missed out on hearing about the show when it first came out, but holy hell, am I sorry.  I’ve been a Fannibal ever since.  It was the same story with Gotham.  I’d actively avoided Gotham because of the debacle of Smallville, but it was the Nygmobblepot gifs and Oswald Cobblepot/Penguin that finally drew me in.

 9. What are the best things about your current fandom?

Fannibals are fucking awesome, yo.  They’re the best thing about the fandom; hell, they *are* the fandom.  I love them all, every one.  From well-thought out meta to cracked out gifsets to the supportive fanfic community.  It’s amazing.

10.  Is there a fandom you read fic from but don’t write in?

Because I write, I try not to read a lot, because I don’t want to accidentally crib from someone else’s story, or steal someone else’s idea, because I know what it’s like to pour your life into things.

 Ship Questions for your Current Fandom

 11. Who is your current OTP?

Hannibal/Will, Doctor/Rose, and Oswald/Edward

 12. Who is your current OT3?

Nine/Jack/Rose. That’s pretty much it.

 13. Any NoTPs?

None I’ll share.

 14. Go on, who are your BroTPs?

Jim Gordon/Harvey Bullock, and I’m sure there’s more that I can’t think of right now. 

 15. Is there an obscure ship which you love?

I think I’m probably the only person who actually ships it, but John Winchester/Veronica Mars.

16. Are there any popular ships in your fandom which you dislike?

Destiel.  I dislike Destiel with a passion.  Ditto Barisi.  That’s about it.

17. Who was your first OTP and are they still your favourite?

Ares/Strife.  They’re not my favorite by any means, but I still have a huge soft spot for them.  

 18. What ship have you written the most about?

uh, probably Clark/Lex or Jim/Blair, just due to the length of time I was in both fandoms.  

 19. Is there a ship which you wished you could get behind, but you just don’t feel them?

Destiel and Barisi. They’re popular ships shipped by some people I really like, but I just can’t get behind them.  It’s a knee-jerk thing.  I can’t even really voice why I dislike them as much as I do, I just do.

 20. Any ships which you surprised yourself by liking?

Nygmobblepot, actually. I didn’t think I was going to like anything in Gotham, much less the Penguin and the Riddler, but damned if I don’t love it so much I’m actually writing about it as we speak.  

Author Questions

 21. What was the first fanfic you ever wrote?

Detested Sport, it was from a Shakespeare quote, I think, and it was Ares/Strife. I think it’s lost to the world, thank fucking God.

22. Is there anything you regret writing?

Writing?  No.  Sharing? Yes.  It’s called “My Soul’s Imaginary Sight,” and it’s the first time I used an OC, Meravin, who has gone through about a billion evolutions since, and has ended up as a Star Wars OC named Sheridan.  I wish I hadn’t shared it, because while it was a definitely needed step in my development as a writer, it’s such a blatant self-insert Mary Sue that I really regret sharing it.

23. Name a fic you’ve written that you’re especially fond of & explain why you like it.

Shoah.  It’s a Sentinel fic, written for one of the “Many Faces Of…” edition of My Mongoose e-zines.  I think it was MFO Jim.  But it’s an AU set during the Holocaust, in one of the concentration camps.  It’s not a particularly cheerful story, and the writing process was terrible.  I did so much research trying to make it honest to the experience that I spent whole evenings crying in chat windows with my friends Lisa and Patt, who basically hand-held me through the worst of it.  But I’m inordinately fond of it, because of the work that went into it, and of how it came out.  It’s not my best writing, by a long shot, but I think it’s probably my most emotional and evocative.

24. What fic do you desperately need to rewrite or edit?

Pretty much everything prior to my Doctor Who fic.  I’m very critical of my earlier works.

 25. What’s your most popular fanfic?

A recent one, Consortio, an ABO Hannigram sort-of Medieval-ish handwavey AU.  

26. How do you come up with your fanfic titles?

Quotations, song lyrics, poetry, Shakespeare, sometimes pulled out of my ass.

 27. What do you hate more: Coming up with titles or writing summaries?

SUMMARIES, JESUS CHRIST, SAVE ME FROM SUMMARIES.

 28. If someone were to draw a piece of fanart for your story, which story would it be and what would the picture be of?

Dealer’s choice, really. I’d just be thrilled for anybody to pick SOMETHING.  

 29. Do you have a beta reader? Why/Why not?

I do not, although I fear I need one for Gotham.  It’s more a personal choice than anything else.  I’ve got a particular style that doesn’t always mesh well with taking concrit, and while my grammar is very… erratic, at times (stuff it, I love my commas as you can tell), I feel like I should be the arbiter of what I create.

 30. What inspires you to write?

Practically anything. Songs, less often.  TV shows of the source material, obviously.  Movies, sometimes.  Random quotes, what ifs, conversations with friends, AU lists, prompt lists, sentence starters…

 31. What’s the nicest thing someone has ever said about your writing?

It’s from a writer named Mysenia on my fic Consortio:  “All the kudos! Just re-read this story, and I loved it every bit as much as I did the first time :D”  Because that’s honestly the first time anyone has mentioned re-reading something of mine in the comment, and it made me so happy for DAYS

 32. Do you listen to music when you write or does music inspire you? If so, which band or genre of music does it for you?

Actually, it depends on what I’m writing.  If I’m working on writing sex, then I need dance music, which I usually abhor.  I find the Matrix soundtracks work really well, as do Rammstein albums.  If I’m doing emotional/angsty things, then Meat Loaf is my go-to.  Otherwise, it’s kind of a mish-mash.  My music folders are here, on my Google drive, if anyone is really interested in anything I listen to.

 33. Do you write oneshots, multi-chapter fics or huuuuuge epics?

Mostly one-shots, although I’ve been known to do a chaptered fic/series once in a while.

 34. What’s the word count on your longest fic?

7,706 on “The Masks We Wear.”  I’ve got a series of fics that is 35,498, over about fifteen different stories.  Consortio and Kastytis are both chaptered, so they don’t count.  Consortio is 23,088 and Kastytis is 24,706

 35. Do you write drabbles? If so, what do you normally write them about?

Strictly 100 word pieces? Not any more.  I used to write for drabble challenges, but I can never stay within the word limit any more.  If you mean 200 words or less drabble-ishes, then yes, I do write those.  About a lot of things, really.  

36. What’s your favourite genre to write?

I’m kind of fond of first-times, although that’s not a given.  I don’t tend to stick to any one given genre.

37. First person or third person - what do you write in and why?

Third, unless it’s some VERY special occasion.  First person drives me nuts.  I love the Hunger Games books, but seeing things as Katniss gives me hives from time to time.  

38. Do you use established canon characters or do you create OCs?

I’ve done both, actually, although 99% of my OC writing stays private.  Which is sometimes a pity, because I think I’ve written some pretty good shit with some of my OCs.

39. What is your greatest strength as a writer?

I don’t know that I really have one.

 40. What do you struggle the most with in your writing?

Staying in character, finishing what I start.

 Fanfiction Questions

 41. List and link to 5 fanfics you are currently reading:

I’m not reading anything right now.  Except Stephen King’s IT

42. List and link to 5 fanfiction authors who are amazing:

Just five?  @slashyrogue, @damnslippyplanet, @granpappy-winchester, @mummyholmesisupset, @moku-youbi

43. Is there anyone in your fandom who really inspires you?

@bonearenaofmyskull, @crossroadscastiel, @bu0nanotte, @granpappy-winchester, @moku-youbi

44. What ship do you feel needs more attention?

All of them.

45. What is your all time favourite fanfic?

Home and Dry by @moku-youbi

46. If someone was to read one of your fanfics, which fic would you recommend to them and why?

Consortio, or Kastytis. They’re both Hannigram AUs, and I feel like they’re the best examples of my writing style.

47. Archive Of Our Own, Fanfiction.net or Tumblr - where do you prefer to post and why?

AO3 and Wonderful World of Make Believe, where I am woefully behind.  But AO3, because I enjoy having everything in one place, easy to use dashboard and posting interface, and it’s pre-sorted for me.

48. Do you leave reviews when you read fanfiction? Why/Why not?

Mostly I do, because I know how valuable the reviews are to writers.  I try and speak to what I liked best about the story, or how it moved me.

49. Do you care if people comment/reblog your writing? Why/why not?

I don’t want to care, but I do.  I want the validation, dammit.

50. How did you get into reading and/or writing fanfiction?

I eased into it by way of RP.  Play by email was my thing, and I loved reading threads strung together, which was basically fanfiction.  Then a friend of mine introduced me to Ares/Joxer slash, and I’ve just gone from there.  I’ve always written it, as long as I can remember, even though I didn’t know that’s what it was called.  

51. Rant or Gush about one thing you love or hate in the world of fanfiction! Go!

The one thing I hate in the world of fanfiction is the kind of elitism that is absolutely bullshit. As a writer, if you don’t write the pairing du jour, or the kind of thing that the fandom at large is clamoring for (RPF, AU, ABO, ten thousand other different things) then you don’t get a bit of recognition no matter how good you are.  Hannibal fandom is the first time that I’ve not seen this.  This is the only fandom that I know of where an author can write what they want to write and still be recognized for it.