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greensaplinggrace · 3 years ago

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do you have any darklina fic recs?

I certainly have a few! But first I want to clarify that I don’t really read fic when I’m writing it, and since I have so many fics in the works right now, I haven’t really been reading a lot of fanfiction. So this list probably won’t be as extensive as it could be.

Here are some other great fic recommendation posts, however:

DARKLINA FIC RECS by @vicioux

DARKLINA FIC RECS // part ii by @vicioux

Darklina Ruling the World Together Fic Recs by @clubofthestarlesssaint

Tumblr Ficlets

Aleksander’s First Memory by @kestrafagnor

Fivan Talk About Darklina by @jomiddlemarch

a little light in the great, big dark by @valkyrhys

Alina tells Mal she’s with Aleksander by @lorsanbitch

Darklina week day 5: intimacy & touch by @starlesscne

AO3 Fanfiction

if it ain’t me by larry_hystereks (Incomplete - 10/13 Chapters)

alina’s in her second year at Yale when she meets aleksander at one of his frat parties.

a hookup with the potential for more, only if alina wasn’t still struggling to piece herself together from last year’s breakup.

or: alina, zoya, their trust issues, and the men that fall for them

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I’m only at about chapter 6 of this fic currently, but so far it’s one of my all time favorite Modern AUs. The characterization for Alina and Aleksander is incredibly well done, and the entire fic itself is so feminist and queer in such a refreshing way. Aleksander and Alina are bisexual as fuck, both with their own separate complex lives, and much of Alina’s own traumas and relationships are explored outside of Aleksander.

There’s some Zoyalina, with Nikolina friendship and endgame Zoyalai. There’s some mystery and some tension, but nothing too extreme, and a lot of the fic is merely an exploration in growth and overcoming one’s history and learning how to move on in healthy ways. I love it.

She Wears a Collar (With My Name) by Ceris_Malfoy (Complete)

She is immortal, and whatever lingering hints of humanity she may have once had have long been bleached from her heart.

I will grant you one wish, boy, if it is in my power to do so. What does a Shadow Smith most want?

"You," he answers.

Written for Darklina Week 2021 - Day 2: Role Reversal

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This piece is just exquisite. This author’s writing style is one that I particularly enjoy. Their stuff is always so uniquely composed and crafted, and this one especially is a work of art. The way Darklina as a relationship is portrayed in particular is fascinating to me because it’s a role reversal but it’s still so complex. Aleksander’s character is nailed.

the bright sun was extinguish’d by athousandwinds (Complete)

Somewhere, deep in the dark forests of Ravka, a boy grows up on stories of Sankta Alina of the Wastes, the Sun-Scorched Saint.

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This fic is just straight up magnificent. It’s so engaging and I love love love the way a role reversed Aleksander who joins the army is portrayed. He reminds me so much of Demon in the Woods Aleksander, as if he’s exactly what a grown version of that young boy would be. When I say I adore his characterization in this I’m not lying.

If I wanted any completed fic I’ve read to have a second chapter, it would be this one.

Winter in the Little Palace by redisxwing (Complete)

Written for Yuletide 2020.

Baghra and Alina's wildly different perspectives on the Darkling, and how things could have gone if nobody listened to Baghra.

Warning: Baghra is written as a harsh and arguably abusive parent, and this is darkfic about that relationship, with a side of shipping. Everything is terrible (except the parts that are pretty much okay).

Canon divergence pretty much as soon as Alina gets lessons in summoning.

This fic is likely not compatible with King of Scars (or any subsequent work).

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As is said in the summary, this one makes Baghra a bit more extreme. If you’re a fan of Baghra, this fic probably isn’t for you. But since I’m not a fan of Baghra, I had no problems with it.

My biggest praise for this fic is in regards to the character interactions and the POVs. There’s a brilliant grasp of unique perspective and how to convey it, and that talent is carried over into the way character interactions are brought to life in the text. Also, there’s a scene where Alina gets kind of protective of the Darkling, which is one of my biggest weaknesses when it comes to Darklina.

Good Ideas by FelixRivers (Complete)

Alina Starkov had a very good idea. Aleksander Morozova would definitely agree. (or: Alina wants to go camping and Aleksander won't complain)

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This fic is just straight up adorable and hilarious. They’re such a cute couple and Alina’s POV is great. It’s just pure fluff and humor 💕

I’m not a bad girl, but I do bad things with you by SanktaJenya - @sankta-arya (Complete)

Winter had been hard on Old Baghra and Ana Kuya was worried about her, so she decided that Alina should make the trip to her cottage on the other side of the woods to bring her some food and kvas. On her way there, Alina meets a stranger...

Darklina Red Riding Hood/Company of Wolves AU

Darklina Week, Day 4, Fairytales

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This fic has a splendid grasp of tension and atmosphere. It’s very enchanting and dark and intriguing, and it nails those aspects with absolute precision. I love the style and the way the fairytale is incorporated into the narrative. It’s truly a masterpiece.

The Wretched by @aceofnowhere (Complete)

“We are strangers, but I want to help.” He growls at her, mocking and mistrustful. “I understand,” she said. “You think I am one of them. I certainly look like one of them. But I want to help you. Will you let me?” Prompt: fairytale. Alina saves a dragon.

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Okay so I’ve mentioned this one before as one of my Top 5 fics of all time and I still stand by that. I can’t even describe why I love this fic so much except that the pacing is amazing and the prose is stunning and the story is beautiful. Aleksander is a dragon and Alina is a witch, and their relationship is just so...interesting and fascinating and lovely. I would literally kill for this fic. There’s such a softness to it as well. Such a tenderness. Idk, I just really love it.

Show Me Who You Are (I Want To Know) by Ceris_Malfoy (Incomplete - 12/?)

Alina takes her future in her own hands and makes her own decisions.

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This is a great “what if Alina had stuck around after the reveal” rewrite. It doesn’t have Mal bashing and in fact still writes them as close friends, which is something I’m fond of in Darklina fics. Aleksander is allowed to be soft and Alina is allowed to be powerful, and I really enjoyed the take on their dynamics as a power couple wherein Alina is given a lot of control.

There’s something to be said for the way Aleksander is written in the scenes where he must be honest and earnest with Alina. I really enjoy the way they both come to equal ground, and I’m even more fond of the way Alina is allowed to grow darker without losing her light. She also engages a lot with quite a few other characters, developing tons of friendships and alliances on her own that help strengthen her as an individual character.

on this bridge between starshine and clay by @rhea-imagined (Complete)

"His breath narrows for a moment, his fist clenched tight before he forces himself to loosen it. She is his only opportunity for salvation, but vulnerability is not a cape he wears easily. “In those days, there was less prejudice against Shadow Summoners. But everyone fears the dark, in one way or another.” He does not look at her as he waits for the penny to drop, half-hoping it stays suspended in the air."

In which Alexander comes clean to Alina and tells her about his true identity in hopes that this will help convince her to take down the Fold.

A rewrite of the fountain scene in episode four, with a good!Darkling that is trying to make amends.

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This is my all-time favorite good!Aleksander AU. He’s kept in character despite the major changes made to his motivations, and Alina is given a lot more agency in her own story. It’s the first fic in what might become a series, but it can stand alone beautifully.

I love how Aleksander and Alina’s relationship is allowed to grow tense without breaking, and how it’s a clear sign of change but not abandonment. I love how both characters are able to think for themselves and become self-aware and are given the chance to think critically. I love the character interaction so much because it’s honest and fresh and engaging. Everything from the smallest action to the most off-hand thought is in character and meaningful and incorporated with an amazing style of writing. It’s a very refreshing piece, and the writing only makes it that much better.

Bunnies of a Feather Stitch Together by Ill_Ratte (Complete)

"Just as Alina called to the light, gathering and twisting it into a ball in her hands, the door swung open.

Kirigan blacked out the door frame. His appearance enough would have surprised Alina, but there was something clutched in his arm, something dark and floppy. It almost looked like the stuffed toys that had been passed around to the younger Orphans." - Alina and The Darkling bond over a love of soft things

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Soft stuffed animal shenanigans. Bits of trans!Aleksander, which I’m very fond of, as well as just a lot of fluff with a bit of something bittersweet and sad in a good way.

Half Lie by Ill_Ratte (Complete)

"Baghra always talked of the demon that had stolen her daughter." Or, Alina learns the hard way that the Darkling isn't the only one who deals in half-truths

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This one is trans!Aleksander, and it handles it in a very interesting way. It’s quite sad, and deals a lot with Baghra & Aleksander’s relationship through Alina’s POV. I want to give a warning for transphobia, because it does center around that a lot as the premise, but it really is worth the read if that isn’t a trigger for you. This is one of my favorite trans!Aleksander fics, and the way it handles emotion and grief and pain is quite extraordinary.

The CEO and Helioseismologist by mrthology (Complete)

Aleksander Morozova doesn't get sick. He's the CEO of one of the most successful companies in the world, one that he had built from the ground up with blood, sweat, and tears. He exercised daily (usually), maintained a healthy diet, and kept himself fit.

He wasn’t sick.

Too bad no one believed him. And too bad Genya decided to call Ivan to take him home before also calling Alina to take care of him.

Maybe, just maybe, being sick wasn't so bad. Especially not when he has such a wonderful girlfriend.

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Both of the fics in this series are great, but I love this one in particular because I’m an absolute sucker for hurt/comfort. Anyone who’s been on my blog for a while knows that it’s my all time favorite trope to read, and this fic fits the hurt/comfort trope to a T in the best of ways. It’s very tender and in character, and Aleksander and Alina are so soft with each other. It’s adorable and really makes you feel for Aleksander, and the caretaking is done perfectly.

All the different layers of dark (thousand little suns) by Anuna (Complete)

One month after the Winter Fete, Aleksander returns to the Little Palace, and Alina has been missing him.

Episode five canon divergence in which Alina had never left Os Alta.

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This one is soft emotional hurt/comfort smut. They’re both so open and vulnerable with each other, and it’s so beautiful to read. I love the writing style and the emotion in this one. It makes my heart ache in the best way.

An Honourable Man by liviy695 (Complete)

A reimagining of the scene after the winter fete. Alina catches a glimpse of a caring Darkling after he returns from integrating the Conductor. Plus, no Baghra interference.

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This one is what it says on the tin, in that Baghra doesn’t interfere and they’re allowed to talk after the Darkling interrogates the Conductor. But more than that, it’s a great imagining of how a scene where Aleksander reveals Marie’s death would have gone. There’s a sort of quiet to it that I appreciate, with grief and solemnity weighed against care and vulnerability.

I see the real you (even if you don’t, I do) by Anonymous (Incomplete - 8/?)

A series of questionable decisions lead Alina to meet the Black General a bit earlier. Butterfly effect ensues.

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I’ve only read half so far (I hadn’t realized it had updated!! 👀👀) but I’m already in love with this fic. Alina’s dialogue and perspective is perfect, her relationship with Mal and the other cartographers is great, and I really enjoy how much personality she has. Aleksander is so smitten, but more than that, his characterization is soft but not weak. It feels almost as if he’s swept up by Alina, instead of the other way around, and I quite like that.

Of parenting by Anuna (Complete)

Alina finds out how her husband handled yet another parenting situation.

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This is pure adorable Darklina parenting fluff and I live for it. Yet it doesn’t lack depth and in fact explored Alina and Aleksander’s relationship with parenting quite well.

i have a longing by LRCee - @ladylyannastark (Complete)

“So, Alina Starkov, risk-taker, how did you end up being editing’s newest wunderkind?”

Alina Starkov is rising in the publishing world. Singlehandedly responsible for editing (see: rewriting) the hottest book of the year, she lands a coveted spot at Morovoz Publishers. It's the position she's always wanted, at the biggest publishing house in the country. Life is perfect. That crush on her boss though, that's gotta go.

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OKAY! I LOVE THIS ONE SO MUCH!! Let me tell you, as someone who is not too fond of Boss/Employee dynamics, I was very wary going into this fic. But boy did it deliver in a way that was perfect for me.

The relationship that develops between Aleksander and Alina is complex but healthy, and it never feels as if there’s too much of a power imbalance or anything that would make Alina feel forced or unhappy. The tension lies purely in how she fears others will perceive her, and not in how unhealthy her relationship with Aleksander is. For somebody who’s often attracted to unhealthy ships, I have to say that my favorite fics are usually ones that don’t have that type of dynamic between the characters. This fic delivers on that.

Also, Aleksander’s POV surrounding his struggle with his Russian heritage and his feelings for Alina is amazing, and has some of the best writing and characterization I’ve seen.

You receive: an evil demon; I receive: human souls by @aceofnowhere (Complete)

The next morning while she tried to tell herself it was a dream, that of course there wasn’t a fucking demon in her house, she found a note taped to her fridge.

“You might eat this shit,” it had written, “but I would like some fucking souls please.”

Darkling Week Prompt 7: free choice. Alina has a demon in her house.

This is absolute crack, and I have no idea what the fuck is wrong with me.

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May I just say that this is the most fun I’ve ever had when reading a fic. It’s interesting with a bit of mystery, and Aleksander as a little shit of a demon is hilarious. Alina in this fic is great too. It’s such a unique take on her POV, especially when you reread it after knowing the ending. 10000/10, this fic is brilliant in every way and I love it.

I had been lost to you, Sunlight by BrytteMystere (Complete)

A Girl became a Woman, became a Sankta, became a Goddess.

Or: An Immortal Alina calls upon merzost to reunite with the Prince of Shadows she lost long ago. She may have lost herself in the process.

But then again, maybe time and endless wars did that instead.

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You really just have to read this one to get it. It is utterly haunting and fascinating in the best of ways. The writing style is strange and novel and fits so well with the story being told. The composition of the fic as a whole is genius.

I Look Inside Myself (And See My Heart Is Black) by Ceris_Malfoy (Complete)

"When is a monster not a monster? Why, when you love it, of course."

Written for Darklina Week 2021 - Day 6: Favorite Quote • King & Queen • Monster

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Once more, this author comes through with an absolutely breathtaking writing style and story. The imagery is elegant yet brutal, simultaneously horrifying and glorious. There’s a certain way these stories are written, like fairytales, where the beautiful becomes the macabre and becomes ever more stunning because of it. It’s very dark but in a good way - an almost bewitching way.

Afterlife by @aceofnowhere (Complete)

“You are asking me to leave?”

“Not asking, shadow,” she said. “Telling. Time to get unlost, loser.”

Day 3 Darklina Week prompt: Modern AU (I mean, barely)

Alina expels ghosts from purgatory.

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@aceofnowhere once again bringing the best of the paranormal to the Grishaverse. Literally everything you write is amazing idk why I’m even pointing out individual fics when I could just rec your whole page. But anyways!! This is fun and interesting and Alina is a badass. Aleksander is, of course, compelling and dark and kind of a little shit, and it’s all incorporated seamlessly into an existential paranormal narrative.

Once Upon a Shooting Star by Ceris_Malfoy (Complete)

"But most of all, she was drawn to a vast darkness that reached out above all of them, a void so hungry for companionship that she knew she could fulfill."

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Let. Alina. Be. Feral!! Anyways, I clearly have a type when it comes to storytelling, and it’s whatever the fuck this person has got going on. Feral!Star!Alina is literally the light of my life. Her interactions with not only other people but the world in general are so well done, but my favorite parts about this fic are the numerous ways her relationship with Aleksander is described and depicted.

I love the dark and light imagery, especially with how it’s portrayed as them filling in the gaps of each other’s lives and supporting each other instead of trying to block each other out. There’s such clear passion and joy and love and devotion between them. The central focus of this fic is on her and Aleksander’s relationship, the interplay between them and their powers and the way her light fills his loneliness, the passing of adoration and trust and reliance between them. It’s very beautiful and I love it.

A Blaze of Light by Keira_63 (Complete)

They discover the Sun Summoner in the burnt-out remains of the Shu laboratory in which she has spent the last seven years of her life.

Or, the Darkling finds himself with a Sun Summoner whose greatest wish is to burn Shu Han to the ground. He is happy to oblige her.

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👀👀 Badass Alina and Badass Aleksander. The ultimate power couple, and Alina burning a path through Shu Han before they both burn a path through the world together. The darkness and rage in this one are handled very well, and the way that rage turns to coldness and then resolve is done so well. This fic is very cathartic and also very furious, and reading it is certainly a trip down emotion lane.

One more for the Road by Rist (Complete)

He returns to the war room shaken, and finds an Alina that cannot leave without at least having tried.

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This one hurts so much but its soooo gooood!!! Very smutty but also very tender and very bittersweet. Sad and soft all at once. I just... love the way Alina and Aleksander are written so much, and Alina’s complicated feelings for him are explored in such detail and depth. This one is truly worth the read.

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writing-wrenegade · 4 years ago

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introductions

Hello everyone! You can call me Wren or Crow, and my pronouns are ey/em or they/them. I'm your local nonbinary lesbian writer and I'm here to have some fun. And also to write ungodly long posts because apparently I ramble too much! Anyway. On to the important stuff.

Writing Stuff:

I've been a writeblr before!! Not for very long, and I dropped off the face of the earth about a year ago because I have no follow-through, but if anything around here sounds vaguely familiar, that's why.

I write mostly fantasy, because I love magic and cool names and worldbuilding too much to do anything else. Sometimes I dabble in sci-fi.

I've done NaNoWriMo 2019 and 2020, and both Camp events for 2020, but only gotten 50k once.

My record for words in a month is 100k (NaNo 2020), and in a day something like 11.5k (also NaNo 2020. That was A Time).

I'm either write stories with almost no plan at all or with every chapter outlined. Anything in between never seems to work out. Does that make me a plantser?

Chronic underwriter when it comes to novels, chronic overwriter when it comes to anything else (text walls incoming. Prepare yourselves).

Sometimes I write poetry! And by sometimes I mean, like, twice a year.

Oh, yeah, I'm trying to write 500,000 words this year! (Or, from November 1st to October 31st). It's going....okay?

My Current WIPs:

(In order of priority)

Other Lost Things: Six kids end up on a boat, running from the law and their various dark pasts. Some of them have magic (which, spoiler alert, is illegal) and some of them don't, some of them are friends and some of them are strangers and some of them are friends-turned-strangers. It's about humanity and morality and the blurry lines where they end. Also, it's gay. And a second draft full-rewrite, yay!

Little Pieces: It's a bit about assassins and a bit about found families and a bit about princesses and a bit about soulmates, when I remember those exist in this world. It's one of the WIPs I don't really have a plan for, but I'm pretty sure there's no magic aside from the soulmate thing.

Saybliye: Actually, the full working title is shadows at your back and light in your eyes, all lowercase for the Aesthetic, but I pretty much exclusively call it saybliye. Anyway. It's a story I'm cowriting with the wonderful amazing @writer-bird, and it's about a world split in two. There's a magic tracker on the tech side of the world and a rogue magic user ex-rebel and they should be enemies, but maybe they don't have to be. (I write the tech side POVs!).

Between Worlds: *cringes* Okay, I have to put this here because come June it's becoming top priority, but it's kind of an unreadable, non-chronological mess that needs to be almost totally scrapped, so. But it's about magic forests and prophesied Chosen Ones and lots of other somewhat cliché but really fun things. Also, there is an ancient, lost, sentient magic library. And a fox with wings.

SOS: Okay, this is my Super Duper Top Secret April WIP, so I can't say anything about it just yet, but it's here, it's queer, and it's set in a world I am very very excited to talk about, because it's cool.

Other Fun Stuff:

I have some pretty cool writer friends! You should possibly go check out @writes-about-gays-and-dragons, @rangerlexi-writes, @writer-bird, @writehanded, @writingbasil, @maybeawhumpblog, @starsappearinglikepaintsplatters, and @writingaroundtheclark. (Why some of those urls aren't linking, I have no idea. Whoops?)

Also, I need some writeblrs to follow! So anyone who likes or reblogs this post will get a follow!

#writeblr #writeblr intro #writers on tumblr #hello world #wren chirps #i'm excited to be back here!#this post will be pinned until i can make a carrd for some of this info

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madamewriterofwrongs · 4 years ago

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Tagged by: @fyeahbuddie @tylerhunklin @letmetellyouaboutmyfeels @gracieli @oneawkwardcookie

Rules: It’s time to love yourselves! Choose your 5 (ish) favorite works you created in the past year (fics, art, edits, etc.) and link them below to reflect on the amazing things you brought into the world in 2020. Tag as many writers/artists/etc. as you want (fan or original) so we can spread the love and link each other to awesome work!

Like I said in another post, I don’t have favourites, exactly. I have fics that others enjoyed, fics I’m proud of, fics I wish more people had read, etc. I’ll try and talk about why I picked these five pieces.

Faith, Trust, and Magic (BBC Merlin - Merlin/Morgana) Chapter 3/? 5381 Words

A rewrite of episode 2x03 “The Nightmare Begins” where Merlin helps Morgana with her magic.

Technically, the first chapter of this series was written in 2018 but this year, I plotted the entire story and posted two more chapters. The concept is one I’m quite passionate about and I really want to finish it one day. Unlike the hilarious theory that barely anything would have to change in canon for Merlin and Arthur to be together, I believe everything would have been different if Merlin had helped Morgana when she was coming into her magic. This one decision would have changed the entire series. I want to give Morgana a happy ending.

Spark of Joy (9-1-1 - Buck & Maddie) Chapter 1/1 3076 Words

Firefam Christmas Party 2021 from the Buckley siblings’ perspectives.

This is one of my worst performing fics but rereading it (or thinking about it) makes me happy. It’s pure gentleness/contentment and especially at the beginning of my time in the 911 fandom, I was in love with the idea of letting the people of the 118 find peace in their lives. Give them a break! So I wrote this piece that was like a snapshot of how good life could be for the Buckley siblings and had these little sparks of hope for the future. Despite it’s low stats, I really enjoyed writing and reading this fic. It gives me the warm and fuzzies.

Love Me Well (9-1-1 - Buck/Eddie) Chapter 1/1 2626 Words

Soulmate AU in which Eddie remembers but Buck meets him for the first time in every life.

I don’t think I’ve ever done prompt fills before this year and this was one of my first ones. While I still prefer to use purely my imagination, I had fun trying to think of what @zeethebooknerd might enjoy within the world my brain was creating based on the prompt she gave me. This was also one of my first AUs (I love reading them but I never really wrote them before). A lot of firsts. On top of that, I got super soft and emo over the boys in my head, and let my inner hopelessly dramatic romantic out to play - something I started doing more of after this.

Speaking of firsts.

Use Your Words (9-1-1 - Buck/Eddie) Chapter 1/1 4236 Words

Part 5 in the Show and Tell Series where Eddie gets out of his head while getting head.

Honestly, I really like the Show and Tell series and the more research/work I put into the entries, the more proud I feel about what I’m creating. Use Your Words was particularly difficult because I had never written smut before. I also have less than stellar sexual education, so I did a lot of research to make sure I was at least writing something anatomically correct. In the series, I introduced an Eddie that used sex as a way of avoiding intimacy in relationships but was working on opening up to his boyfriend. I also introduced an Eddie who was learning to ask for things that he wanted (in essence, he was allowing himself to be selfish). Combining the two made a lot of sense to me, so I decided to challenge myself as a writer and create this entry.

Unashamed (9-1-1 - Buck/Eddie) Chapter 12/12 17178 Words

A series of married Buddie getting into awkward hi-jinx because they can’t stop flirting with each other.

I mean for one: I so rarely finish a series. In fact, this is the first time I finished a series in years so for that alone, I’m proud. I also managed to turn a 900 word crack-fic into a 12 chapter story so, again, yay. This was still a part of me ‘contentment’ obsession so there’s lots of happy things in there. I challenged myself to write the entire thing from an outside perspective which was really fun and created a lot of second-hand embarrassment. But there’s also a chapter about polyamorous acceptance, and queer love in the workplace, and dealing with rejection. I didn’t intend to put that much work into to it but I found it wasn’t really in me to just slap something together.

I’m cheating and picking a sixth. Sue me, Buck.

Finding Home (9-1-1 - Buck/Eddie) Chapter 1/1 1038 Words

Two boys lie in bed and one of them tells a love story.

I wrote this one on my phone in the middle of the night because it was just rolling around in my head and would not let me sleep. I don’t think it’s my strongest piece, and it wasn’t the first or last time I would have to pull out my phone in the middle of the night to write story notes that refused to leave me be. The reason I chose this one is because it marks a shift in my mind. Before this year (really, May 2020), I barely wrote. I wrote the @midweekupdate every week, I even completed NaNoWriMo with an original novel. But I was rarely inspired to just write. I didn’t have words and phrases plague me until I had to relinquish them upon the world. But that’s what this was. And it still happens every once in a while. Where I have things in my head that I just have to write (if you follow me, you might see midnight posts under the CJ Writes Things tag that make zero sense but sound kind of pretty). Writing this gave me hope that this thing I love isn’t gone even when I have dark periods.

Tagging: @zeethebooknerd @elisela @softboiidiaz @oliverstark @rydergrace @florenceandthemachine @eddiediaz @fyeahbuddie @bellakitse @howtosingit @from-nova

#tagging things #cj writes things #2020 review

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heartschoicegames · 5 years ago

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Heart’s Choice Author Interview: RoAnna Sylver, “Dawnfall”

Find true love and family with a pirate crew at the ends of the universe, where aliens, ghosts, and portals open the space between worlds...and your heart. You are a Navigator, one who creates and guards portals from one dimension to another, wary of the liminal sea between them.

Your universe is made of two worlds: one contains the magic-infused world of Zephyria, and the other, the dystopian space station Eclipse. The worlds are balanced, until one day, an explosive disaster, a deadly energy storm, and an infamous pirate—the Ghost Queen—upend your life and plunge you into a race to save both worlds.

Dawnfall is a 232,000 word interactive romance novel by RoAnna Sylver, one of the first set of games releasing with the launch of Heart’s Choice. I sat down with the author, RoAnna Sylver, to talk about writing interactive romance. Heart’s Choice games release December 2nd.

Dawnfall has frankly an insanely wonderful setting for a romance game. Tell me about the aliens, the pirates, the ghosts, and the alien-pirate-ghosts.

Hi there! I’m so glad you think this sounds fun! Yeah, Dawnfall is weird as heck, and that’s one of the things I love about this story. It’s weird in a way I don’t think we’ve seen much of before. I really just tried to put in everything I find fun or interesting, and that I’ve always wanted to write. Dawnfall started out as a total brain-candy project, and runs on pure Rule of Cool. Pirates? Yes. Magic? Yes. A slice of cyberpunk? Hell yes. Eerie ghosts and faerie-tale influences and memory-sharing potions? Giant bird people? The power of rock n’roll? Yes, yes, yes.

And also everybody’s dateable, and in a couple cases, dating each other. We weave a tangled web, but I think it’s a pretty badass and spectacular web.

You seem to really neatly straddle the genre fence here with a romance and sci-fi/fantasy. What was challenging about cramming all of that into one game?

Thank you so much for saying that. I’ve always adored SFF, and there’s so much in this genre-collection, so many extremes and concepts and contrasting colors, that I couldn’t limit myself to picking just one to play with. This weird game-book is kind of a love letter to fantasy and science fiction and haunted house stories and cyberpunk adventures—I thought a lot about the Disney movie Treasure Planet for its genre-blending beauty, and the Bioware game Mass Effect for its array of fascinating, multidimensional alien cuties to interact with and date… and then turned it up to eleven.

I guess you’d expect the challenge to be in making it all fit together/be “believable,” but I kind of threw that out the window. I don’t expect anyone to find it ‘realistic’ (setting-wise anyway; I tried to make every character ring true of course), and I don’t really care if someone thinks it’s silly, or doesn’t take it seriously. It is silly in a lot of ways. DAWNFALL is a giant ridiculous queer space magic pirate adventure, and the only goal is fun. If you have fun, I’ve done my job, and there should be something fun in here for everyone.

Did you have a favorite NPC you enjoyed writing most?

Honestly I love them all so much in different ways, and I know them so well by now it’s really second nature. Their voices come so easily and they’re all so much fun. The Queen’s swagger is awesome though, and her mental voice/mannerisms probably come through especially clearly. I love Zenith’s vulnerable moments when xie lets xir guard down and lets go of the need to entertain or please. I love Averis’s journey and growth from cute wibbly nerd to a confident swashbuckler (who is also still a cute wibbly nerd). I love how deeply Oz feels, how strongly he loves and remembers and honors memory, and how unafraid he is to show softness and warmth. And I love a certain spoilery ghost-babe and how they’re so full of joy at the beauty of life.

I do want to give special mention to Aeon, though. This is a story about connection, and I wanted to show that sibling bonds are every bit as important and strong as romantic or any other. I also wanted to show a complex, multidimensional antagonist figure who holds heartbreaking secrets along with authority, and is genuinely trying to do what she thinks is the best thing, and wants what’s best for you, the PC, even if you might not always agree. Her balance between being so emotionally guarded and determined and unyielding, while hopefully being extremely easy to read and tell what she wants and fears and loves—spoiler: you; she loves you!—was a challenge I hope I pull off.

…Also I enjoy any time Vyranix gets his pompous feathered ass handed to him. I think we all know a Vyranix, or at least of one, and it’s always fun to take them down, even in fantasy.

Who would you be romancing as a player?

I’m gonna say “everyone,” and here it won’t actually be cheating, because you can romance everyone! At once! In varying degrees/relationship dynamics and attractions. You don’t see a lot of polyamory-friendly games or books or anything really, and this is an incredibly important thing for me. The second I got the idea for Dawnfall I knew it had to let players romance anyone they wanted and show polyamory in a realistic, healthy light. I’m also a-spec (asexual and aromantic), and having not just good representation but being actively included and welcomed and celebrated in fiction is so huge too.

Dawnfall is a romance of course, being part of Heart’s Choice, but one of the single most vital elements for me is making it inclusive for aromantic and asexual players and player-characters. Essentially, I wanted to write a romance that didn’t penalize players for not experiencing the attractions the way we’re otherwise expected or required—and I’m so grateful that my amazing editors and community not only accepted but supported everything I was trying to do here. (It’s so refreshing not to have to fight for inclusion and freedom. It shouldn’t be, but it is.)

And that’s where the concept of “Heart-Stars” and “Same-Feathers” came from. I’ve never seen anything honor queerplatonic relationships like I’m trying to do here, and I want everyone, of every sexuality and attraction, to feel like they have a place here and can experience this adventure without limits. And I wanted to show that it’s a very normal thing, hence this being the same for the human characters as well as alien. (One of the nonbinary characters being human is also no mistake. I love me some wild alien genders, but there are tons of awesome nonbinary humans too!)

…That being said, I think I gave Averis most of my anxiety-issues, and would really just like to curl up with Oz and watch The Great British Bake-Off. That sounds like a perfect night in my books.

What were some of the things you found surprising about the game-writing process?

Coding was definitely the biggest learning curve. I’d never coded anything before in my life, and it’s such a new skillset to learn, entirely different from any kind of writing I’ve ever done. Sometimes it felt rewriting my brain, which did not at all do this intuitively—and also sometimes like I bit off much more than I could chew (first game ever being not only a huge piece of interactive fiction, but a polyamorous romance with aro and ace possibilities, and so many more variables than expected!), but it’s been worth it. Entirely. If my writing makes anyone feel seen and accepted and invited to have fun as they are, it’s worth every bit of struggle.

Also, oddly, interactive fiction is in some ways easier for me than writing a plain old book! Probably because I love AUs so much, and every choice in a game is like writing a tiny AU of the story, so I get to do the same scenes several different ways. My ADHD-brain finds something about this extremely satisfying, most likely because it somehow feels more like multitasking! Several stories in one, and if I like two ideas, I don’t have to pick just one to write!

Honestly though, I think the most surprising part is just being done, and…that I could do this at all. It was so huge, and took so long, and I learned so much, and every day I’m just kind of going “who the hell am I?” about doing all of this. I’m proud of it. I did a cool thing. And trying to get better at saying that.

And, what are you working on now?

I always have about 8 active projects going at once (which shouldn’t come as a surprise after last question!), but my next interactive fiction game is with Tales/Fable Labs! It’s shaping up to be a Dawnfall-sized project, but a little faster-moving and action-y.

It’s called Every Beat Belongs To You, and it’s a romantic thriller that feels like Twin Peaks meets Mr. Robot, with a smattering of Repo: The Genetic Opera. A creepy Pacific Northwest town with a secret (and a rash of ritualized murders), a super-slick medical research company whose flagship product is a 100% perfect synthetic heart, a mysterious new-age group, and a sister who went missing just before discovering how it’s all connected. Also five simultaneously-dateable (including ace and aro ships!) cuties of varying genders! Who will you trust with your heart?

I’m very excited about Everybeat, which should be just as queer, polyam, exciting, and weird as all my stuff! Aside from that, I’m working on Stake Sauce Book 2, its companion f/f vampire series Death Masquerade, and Chameleon Moon Book 3. I’m not always working…sometimes there are videogames, and sleep. But I really hope to have a lot more fun things to share soon!

Oh, and depending on how this weird, fun thing goes, I do have some ideas for prequel Dawnfall stories; maybe games, maybe books, but the ideas are there. The world—worlds, really—is so huge, and I’m not done playing in it yet! I also have some character art drawn, and I want to do a lot more of them. It’s another way to show love.

So thank you so much! I really hope Dawnfall is as fun to everyone to read/play as it was for me to write. I can’t wait to share it with you!

#hearts choice #interactive fiction

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how2to18 · 6 years ago

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PETER COVIELLO’S RECENT MEMOIR, Long Players, has proven to be excellent readerly company across this summer. In it, Coviello tells the story of his divorce and its aftermath, his ongoing and inventive love for his ex-stepdaughters, and how his relationship to music has threaded through it all, helping him remake himself. In some ways, the book is a departure for an academic literary critic — it is raw and deeply personal. But the book is also of a piece with Coviello’s critical work on forms of intimacy, and as such, it connects critical and personal writing in a really inventive way. I recently sat down with Pete at the wonderful independent Brooklyn bookshop Books Are Magic to discuss taking the leap from academic writing into trade writing, his process, friendship, and more. What follows is an edited reprise of our conversation.

SARAH BLACKWOOD: Okay, Pete, to set the weepy, emo tone of the evening, I wanted to tell a quick story about the beginning of our friendship. If you recall, when we first met, you were in the thick of the heartbreak you chronicle in this book, and I was still in graduate school. But, to bracket for a moment what was going on with you at the time — promise, we’ll get back to it! — I just want to say that from my side of things, meeting you at that moment was sort of life-changing? Like there I was, a gnarled and unhappy student, certain that I would never know enough, that I’d be revealed as a fraud at any moment, just in the thick, miasmic forest of graduate school neurosis, and when you arrived it was like, Oh. Oh! Here is a way to be! A super smart, accomplished intellect who was also somehow raw and open and occupying his intellect in this sort of full-bodied way. And so in those last months, as we started to become friends, something also happened in my writing. It opened up. That’s a very real gift you gave me! What is more, I recognized it at the time. I recently went digging through old files (horror!) to remind myself what I wrote about you in the acknowledgments (lol) to my dissertation (lol), and this is what I found: “Peter Coviello showed up in Chicago at just the right time to remind me that writing and talking about literature should be a joyful endeavor.”

[Pause for Pete to quietly weep for a minute.]

Now of course, I see that what I took for joyful openness was coming from real heartbreak. But in reading this book now, almost 10 years later, it really struck me, the extent to which you were still able to give — as a friend, as a scholar, as a community member — even while you were completely losing your shit.

So, Pete: How did you do that?! Or maybe that’s an impossible question, so how about we start here: memoir is sometimes derided as a solipsistic, naval-gazing genre, but I found this book just the way I have always found you to be, which is very other oriented. You know, obviously this book is radically peopled — it includes a lot of friends and characters strewn all over the world — and I wonder if you could speak a little to how the writing process brought you in touch with yourself but also with all these other people, and maybe you could speak a little to how you see personal writing working in that way: as a way to both look inward and outward at the same time?

PETER COVIELLO: Well, Sarah, the first thing to say is: That’s a ridiculously moving story! That I was in any kind of heartening relation to anybody during that queasy, ill-spirited time is basically an amazement — let alone to you, whom I remember because you were so ready to get a drink, and to introduce me to your people, and to fall to cheerful fighting about, like, Henry James heroines. You helped to nurture in me the fragile little belief that there might yet be worlds, new worlds, left for me to inhabit, there in the aftermath of the collapse of the intimate world anchored by my marriage.

So this is just a really kind thing to say. One of the nicest responses I’ve received to the book was when someone at a reading said, “It seems like you were loved extremely well by your friends” — which was of course gratifying, because, just as you suggest, a lot of the book comes out of this sense of startled, dumbstruck gratitude. I was cared for, in those bad days, in ways so far beyond what I was able to return, even marginally, in terms of attentiveness or affection or really any of the rudiments of grown-up friendship. I think the book got a lot better, over the course of its drafting, when it ceased to be a meticulous accounting of these long inward seasons of sorrow and became something closer to what it is now, which is a kind of love letter. Or, more truthfully, several love letters, sewn together into one: a love letter to all the people who, with an extraordinary delicacy and patience, loved me back into a belief in the happier possibilities of being alive; to the little girls, my suddenly ex-stepdaughters, who sustained our closeness with these fully amazing everyday feats of ingenuity and openheartedness; and, of course, to all those songs — songs and songs and songs — which pretty much never stopped offering me the sensation, if not quite the fact, of better, brighter eventualities. They kept offering, I mean, a way to feel tethered to the world, and to all these beloved people.

Another way to say it, I suppose, is that writing like this — “personal writing,” or whatever we want to call it, became for me a way to think, with some sustained focus, both about gratitude and how to be in relation to it. It occurred to me, late in the compositional day, that a good deal of what those turbulent years entailed for me was figuring out how to get a handle on the stark surprise of being loved — by friends, but not only by friends — when everything inside me was shouting out, pretty convincingly, that if what happened to me showed anything at all, it was that I was not, finally, lovable. To anybody.

So, I mean, loving people back toward a mislaid belief in the ampler possibilities of being alive? I still think that’s an extraordinary human transaction. I should say too that it’s one I would not know half as much about without, oh, many, many years immersed in queer theory, and for that matter in the worlds of queer sociability out of which that scholarship grows. I think part of me wanted to write a book about that, which meant tending to all those passages of sustaining friendship.

One thing I really loved about this book’s accounting of heartbreak and friendship was its timeline: it bounces around, even as it tells a roughly chronological story, and reflects how emotional life so often fails to follow a narrative of progress.

Can you talk a little bit about how you found the experience of trying to map or chart a set of feelings, like how to put into narrative coherence the way that heartbreak and depression don’t follow a ladder-step of progress?

Oh man, I like what you say about the, as it were, competing chronologies of heartbreak: the actual one, where you travel from city to city and make new friends and do your job and such, and the emotional one, where you’re all over the fucking map. That was certainly my experience of that subspecies of plummeting misery: “One night is lovely, the next is brutal,” as Liz Phair puts it, with enviable concision. So having to map those two very different trajectories — that was a challenge! — but it was also, in the end, a fun kind of writerly challenge.

Here’s a quick way of saying what I mean, which comes with a little story. When I first drafted the book, it was much longer, and it had a pretty different trajectory. When I finished that initial draft, I was so psyched. I gave it to my agent in this state of amped-up pride and eager expectation, and he read it, line by line by line by line, and — total hero that he is — he was like, “Yeah man, this is so great, nicely done, good work! Also: It’s really wrong.” And what was wrong was that it did not move — it was just, in that first draft, one long, wearying account of the intricacies of, you know, being devastated by a divorce. And what Chris said, and what even more amazingly he said in such a way that I could hear it and not just be fucking demolished by it, was: “Ultimately, your sadness is just not that interesting.”

Writers! This is spectacularly good counsel! It was, of course, devastating (I think part of me was like, “No dude, there is nothing more interesting than my prolix sadness!”), but it had the great effect of making me think about exactly what you’re talking about: how to plot the book, according to what arcs of development, and across what grids of circumstance.

This did two things that ended up being just hugely important to me. It forced me to back away from that story of, like, Woe Woe Woe Is Me!, and, in turn, to get enough room to see a very different story than the one I’d been telling. That was the story of how much I had been involved in the making of that terrible period of sorrow — how much I had done to contribute to it, to make it happen, and to sustain it. We are back here, I think, to shame, because one of the things the book is finally and most largely about, I think, is its protagonist’s terrible, blinding narcissism — his eager, grandiose belief that he could (for instance) just love the sorrow right out of anybody. Having to rewrite the emotional order of the book forced me to grapple with that and to see that part of what the book might be about is the labor of unlearning that kind of self-aggrandizing narcissism, that garden-variety “my love can redeem all hurt” sort of dumb masculinity.

Because I mean how better to unlearn your narcissistic grandiosity than by, oh, writing a memoir?

Chris’s insistence that I needed to rethink the plotting of the book — along with that of my wonderful editor, Elda — also brought home, at last, the thing they’d been trying to tell me for quite a while. This was just that the book wasn’t really about my sadness, or my loss, or whatever. The best version of the book, they kept saying, was going to be about the girls, and they were right.

The girls! Pete, I say with some authority: you are an excellent writer of children and parents (for example: “We were people with children standing mannequinlike and laden with mittens and scarves and snacks among others like ourselves in humid waiting rooms,” or the concision of describing children as “by mystifying turns noisy and silent.”) I’m curious: Did you keep notebooks while the girls were children? How did you muster all that rich detail about a time pretty long past?

Dude, of course I kept notebooks when the girls were little! This I did for no better reason than that I was so stunned, so day-by-day overwhelmed, by how fucking bad I was at being in a parental role! I was forever failing in patience, in equanimity, in wisdom, in all of what I took to be the minimum requirements of parenthood. Only later did I come to understand that this feeling — the feeling of perpetual and abject failure — was not due to my being a stepparent, or not solely. (Come to find out, the proper name for that feeling of swamping incompetence is: Parenthood!) That everyday sense of being involved in something I wasn’t good enough for, and the volatile cocktail of anger and shame that went with it, made for something of the, let’s say, vividness of those early days.

The other side of it was this insinuating knowledge that, even at my most frustrated and fearful, I could never quite manage to keep wholly hidden from myself: the simple knowledge that the girls were, in the ordinariest ways, fucking amazing — hilarious, weird, each her own little cosmos, and also just astonishingly loving little persons. As I think the book tries to describe, this was just one of the adult facts of existence for which I was astonishingly unprepared.

Right, right: the deep failure, and unpreparedness, and improvisation of parenting! So the book is very much about improvised family — and it was released in June for Father’s Day. As you know, I am pretty singularly obsessed not just with writing about motherhood but also with how our culture treats writing about motherhood. Can you talk a little bit about what you’ve observed from your conversations and reviews, et cetera, about how this book is being received as writing about parenthood?

I wish I better knew how the book was being received in terms of parenthood. I’ll say that one perpetually awful thing about the way our culture treats writing about motherhood — and this is something I’ve begun to learn how to be better attentive to, not least by reading you — is that fatherhood can very easily come to be assessed with the ridiculous absolving praiseful hyperforgivingness reserved for, y’know, dudes, or at least bougie white dudes. It is what my friend Katherine calls, perfectly, “the low bar of masculinity.” If, for that reason alone, it seemed to me important to stick pretty closely, in the book, to shame, to not let it dissipate, to not dismiss it as just the interior white noise proper to the rigors of parenthood. Because, I mean, if there’s anything men could stand to get in fucking relation to, it is shame — and by that I mean, precisely, getting accustomed to the practice of not dismissing it, of not being a shut-down kind of defensive. Of being willing to actually do the grinding work of parsing it out.

As you know from spending years talking about it with me, a lot of what I felt about the kind of parent I had managed to be was shame. One of the things that happens in the book, I think, is that the protagonist tries to figure out what parts of that shame were actually misapprehending — self-punishing misreadings — and what parts were totally, utterly earned. That is at least one of what you could call the “plots” of the book. And, as it turns out, I came by a lot of that shame honestly.

But this is less about the girls and more about, oh, everything else I was terrible at!

Well, one thing you are not terrible at is loving music and making mixtapes! What are some of your favorite pop songs/artists right now, here in the summer of seemingly the final year of the American experiment?

Oh, man, there’s just so much great music, you know? I’ll just say two things, both of which riff a bit from this little piece I got to write for Largehearted Boy, where you make a mix based on your book and then annotate it. First, we are fully immersed in this astonishing era of black pop genius: D’Angelo, Beyoncé, Janelle Monáe, Anderson .Paak, Kendrick Lamar, SZA, Chance, Frank Ocean for the love of god! And that is a list even I can give you, even someone with such pathetically middle-aged and basic taste as mine. Also, as my friend Mark says, the daughters of indie rock are bringing it home: bands like Girlpool and Charly Bliss and Vagabon and Big Thief, and dream-pop’ers like Japanese Breakfast and electro-folk outfits like Sylvan Esso … kids who probably grew up listening to records of the bands you and I were seeing at the Lounge Ax in 1994, or whatever, because that’s what their parents were listening to. They’re heartlifting.

And because we — or at least I — am fully and unmaskably middle aged, I might as well just admit that for a long time now the girls and I have reversed roles. I do not, categorically do not, give them music they haven’t heard. They’re the ones with their ears to the ground. (Which is how I came to know at all about Earl Sweatshirt, Sylvan Esso, Kali Uchis, and even — as you know — Chance himself.)

Okay, one last (big) question. Are you happy now? Pete, I know that you have found love, but do you want say a bit about what that’s meant to you?

Oh, Sarah. One thing to say is: You have been very patient with me, and very loving, over many years! That is to say: You have listened very gamely to a lot of lovelorn narration.

I guess I’ll say that the combined process of writing this book and falling in heart-swept love again — it was edifying. On the one hand, a lot of the book, as I’ve said, is about reckoning with all the ways that I was really, truly not at all good enough — however earnest and heartfelt I was in my efforts — at loving the people I loved. So one feeling is, like, Do better! Don’t entangle the person you so love with your own grandiose fantasies about yourself! (Or at least not too many of them…) Try to love the people you cherish a little less stupidly: that, for me, is one interior moral of the book.

But the other, I guess happier, side of it is different. At our reading in Brooklyn, one of the audience members said something that about knocked me over. It was something like, “There’s a lot of harm in the book, and a lot of sorrow — but not a lot of cruelty.” And I needed a minute to, like, take that in. What I suppose I hope he was saying was that, if the book is any evidence — and maybe it is, maybe it isn’t — I’d managed to free myself of the seductive story, the great narcotic fantasy, that I had been wronged, treated with callous disregard, or whatever. God knows that is how I thought about things for a stubbornly long time. But it was not a way of telling the story of those years that really did anything good for me — or for the girls, or for anyone.

So when he said that — you remember! — I kind of got teary. Because I thought, Oh jesus, maybe all the sharper edges of what happened — fully fucking 10 years ago — maybe that is, at last, as much as can be hoped, a thing that is behind me.

It made the kind of happiness I’m standing inside right now feel, suddenly, spacious. And what could be happier than that you were right there beside me as it happened? And that we’d head out to the bar to talk about it?

Sarah Blackwood has written about gender, popular culture, motherhood, and bodies for the New Republic, Slate, The Hairpin, and the Los Angeles Review of Books. With Sarah Mesle, she is co-editor of Avidly and the Avidly Reads book series, forthcoming from NYU Press.

The post Encores of Love and Listening: Sarah Blackwood and Peter Coviello Discuss “Long Players” appeared first on Los Angeles Review of Books.

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