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starblightbindery · 9 months ago

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Binder's Note for Forms by Trebia

How Forms fits in the long tradition of Star Wars fanfic.

My hope is that this project captures a snapshot in time from Star Wars fandom het shippers between December 2015 and December 2017, before the franchise confirmed any emotional intimacy—if you can call it that— between Rey and Kylo Ren in Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017).

Trebia, then aged 24, wrote and published the first chapter of Forms on Archive of Our Own on December 18th, 2015—the exact release date of Star Wars: The Force Awakens. When posting this first chapter, Trebia noted, “I’m just working off of memory from the one viewing I saw last night.” The entirety of the fanfic was completed and posted an exact month later, making this fic historically significant in Star Wars fandom as one of the earliest published “Reylo” stories.

A serialized novella that was churned out in an astonishingly short time frame, Forms is notable for predicting many elements of The Last Jedi (2017) and The Rise of Skywalker (2019), including the Reylo Force bond, Rey walking away from her training with Luke Skywalker, Kylo Ren pleading with Rey to join him, and Kylo Ren pushing his Force energy into Rey to save her life.

Throughout the story, Trebia mashed new and old Star Wars elements together—characters like the Mandalorians and Admiral Daala, settings like Illum and Kuat⁠—evincing her fondness for the Galaxy Far, Far Away. Forms has classic tropes from this franchise, like stealing a uniform to go undercover in an enemy base and the forced proximity of a “Slow Boat to Bespin.” Present in Forms are scads of fan theories from between the release of The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi. These included the theory that—echoing a Legends plot line from Dark Empire (1991) where somehow Palpatine returns and Luke Skywalker joins the dark side to try and take him down from the inside—Kylo Ren had strategic reasons for his apprenticeship to Snoke. Like many Reylo fan-works set in-universe, Trebia lends justification to his many antisocial acts, part of shipper efforts to make the character more self-relevant and sympathetic.

Forms weaves in tantalizing threads that were tossed around by fans and concept artists but ultimately not pursued, including Dark Rey, Stormpilot (Finn/Poe Dameron), and Rey's saberstaff. Trebia even predicted the Kuat Drive Yards plot line started in The Last Jedi (Rose Tico’s contempt for weapon's manufacturers on Canto Bight) and continued in the abandoned Episode IX: Duel of Fates script by Colin Trevorrow. Forms also addresses loose ends that probably should have been covered for a more cohesive nine film saga, like the Chosen One prophecy and direct interaction between Anakin Skywalker and Kylo Ren.

No discussion of Forms can be complete without also placing it in the context of Star Wars fandom in 2016. Reylo was a fringe pairing that made intuitive sense to many Star Wars fans, particularly women; however, prior to The Last Jedi, the ship was dwarfed by the popularity of slash ships like Finn/Poe and Kylo Ren/Hux. At the time, many fans theorized that Rey was Luke Skywalker’s long-lost daughter, making her Ben Solo’s first cousin, making Reylo an incest ship.

As noted on the Fanlore wiki, the tags on this fic changed over time. In addition to “Riding the bus to hell either way” Trebia joked with tags like “Possible incest?” and “Not incest until proven guilty in the court of law.” Following the release of Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Trebia celebrated by replacing those tags with a celebratory “IT AIN’T INCEST.”

The story's strong influence in early Reylo fandom reflected a hunger for more Star Wars romances about the pull between light and dark. After all, the sequel trilogy did not set up Kylo Ren as a horned, alien-appearing monster or a wrinkled geezer. Unblemished by the ravages of the dark side, Kylo Ren was depicted with pillow lips and a fabulous, voluminous coiffure unencumbered by his helm (which really should have flattened it to his scalp.) The groundwork for a lightsider/darksider romance was previously explored in other Expanded Universe stories. At the forefront of these were watered down lightsider/darkside romances like the tepidly written romance between Luke Skywalker and former Palpatine agent Mara Jade. Given Mara Jade was hardly a champion of the dark side, there was no risk of corrupting Skywalker. But the Expanded Universe also boasted stories that played with this dynamic, like the twisted connection between Fable Astin and Jaalib Brandl by Patricia A. Jackson for the Star Wars Adventure Journal (1994), the conflict between Jaina Solo and Zekk in Kevin J. Anderson's Young Jedi Knights (1996),or the passion between Darth Revan and Bastila Shan in Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (2003). In this respect, Forms and the rest of the Reylo fan fiction oeuvre continues the grand fan tradition of Star Wars villain fucking.

“Darksider and lightsider conflict is one of the most fascinating points of Star Wars,” Trebia said in 2016, when interviewed by Spencer Kornhaber for The Atlantic. “Rey and Kylo represent the fight to find the balance.” Yet, at the time, the fledgling “Reylo” ship was abhorred by affirmational Star Wars fans who despised the emphasis on shipping with a female gaze, as well as scorned by media commentators who found the ship to be “problematic.” In male-dominated, established fan spaces like Reddit and Jedi Council Forums, discussion of Reylo was effectively banned by moderators through the freezing of threads. In other fandom spaces like Twitter and Tumblr, discourse about Reylo mirrored larger purity culture. The ship became a convenient target for alt-right misogynists, and also for anti‑shippers concerned that the ship “romanticized abuse.” Productive and unproductive debate arose around media consumption construed as agreement or approval, whether a sympathetic Kylo Ren lends people to give more latitude to real-life white right-wing men with anger management problems (or if it's the other way around), and if shippers can tell the difference between a fictional antihero and the same dangerous thing in real life. Critiques of Reylo fandom also included the implicit racism inherent in the sidelining of John Boyega’s heroic character Finn in favor of white whiny fascist Kylo Ren. (It did not help that 2016 also saw the election where white American women voters decided to displace a competent Black man with a white whiny fascist.)

In the September 2020 issue of the Journal of Fandom Studies, Andrea Marshall notes that Reylo “fan fiction acts as a locus of resistance to gendered oppression as feminist authors construct selves that critique the source material and the fandom for gendered oppression within tropes and attitudes.” By having Rey actually interact with and befriend a woman other than Leia, Forms already improves on the source material. It's a delight to see Forms depict older women over age fifty who are plot-significant and interact which one another, if only because Star Wars movies are fairly gender regressive. On the other hand, Rey's strategy to convert Kylo back to the light is to uh, suck the badness out of him. It's Padmé Amidala logic—sure, he arranged the wholesale slaughter of an entire village, but he can also deftly finger you to orgasm! Granted, Star Wars is infamously a franchise of excuse making, where really shitty dudes manage to turn it around and do the right thing at the last minute. Forms also doesn't push all that hard to actively resist the neo-fascist allegory in the sequel trilogy, particularly in Trebia's appendix, which dissatisfactorily explains that all of the First Order war criminals in the story ended up as instructors in military academies. (Who would even hire them, Albus Dumbledore?!)

Fics like Forms led to “ship wars” discourse, which led to the publication of ozhawkauthor's “The Three Laws of Fandom” meta essay on January 1st, 2016. “Laws” is a bit of a misnomer since there is no enforcement body; the essay is more of a request for courtesy in fandom spaces. The laws were also meant to apply specifically to shipping, not fandom or media criticism as a whole. “It’s not up to you to decide what other people are allowed to like or not like, to create or not to create,” wrote ozhawkauthor. “That’s censorship. Don’t do it.”

For fans conscious of fandom history and the impact of censorship in spaces like FanFiction.net and Livejournal, ozhawkauthor's guidelines—(1) Don't like; don't read, (2) Your ship is not my ship, (3)Ship and let ship—felt intuitive. This is reflected in spaces like my bookbinding guild, Renegade, which—similar to Archive of Our Own—takes a hands off approach to policing content. This did not prevent widespread handwringing about Reylo content. Star Wars fan ughwhyben reflected on the “gigantic fandom that is suddenly experiencing a renaissance, where an influx of mainstream folk are trickling into (or running into) the fic side for possibly the first time right now and don’t have this training. It’s like we’re flickering back and forth between the modern evolution of fic side fannish culture and what things were like in, for example, 2001 when I first stumbled in.”

Decades ago, in May 1981, Lucasfilm reacted to the publication of “Slow Boat to Bespin” by Anne Elizabeth Zeek & Barbara Wenk by declaring a ban on smut in fan fiction. I've included in the errata of this binding a letter from 1981 written by the Star Wars fanclub president to circulating fanzines threatening legal action. While slash was also caught in this net—disproportionately targeted given non-explicit gay romance was not okay even though Star Wars has non-explicit het romance—it was this fairly tame (by fic standards) heteronormative fic, featuring Han Solo and Princess Leia, that signaled to Lucasfilm that smutty fanfic was no longer on the fringes and now needed to be addressed to protect the “wholesomeness” of the franchise. Subsequently, fanfic writers had to make a conscious decision to flout Lucasfilm’s policy and go forth with propagating their smut.

And, in 2016, of all the ships in all of fandom, it was the Reylo Star Wars pairing, featuring this specific heteronormative female power fantasy (of being able to leash a villain by the dick to drag him back to the light) that led to a communal reaffirmation of these fandom norms. In her interviews with the The Atlantic, Trebia directly quotes from the Three Laws of Fandom, endorsing “ship and let ship” as a basis for creating Reylo fanworks. “I am fully involved in the garbage compactor that is this pairing, and I love it,” Trebia said. “No matter what way it goes, I will stick with it.”

After studying early romance novels from the late 1600s and early 1700s, Ros Ballaster observed a polarity between didactic love fiction and amatory fiction. Didactic love stories are sweet—aspirational, moral, and idealized—while amatory fiction is spicy—erotic, transgressive, untethered from social sanction. We do see representations of didactic love in Reylo fan fiction, particularly in contemporary romance “Modern AUs” like Ali Hazelwood's The Love Hypothesis (2021)where the Kylo's homicidal Sith rage is sanitized to a more socially-acceptable grumpy academic brooding. One can comfortably bring Adam Carlsen, Ph.D home to meet Mother. But certainly, the majority of Reylo fic written by fans gravitate towards and come with the self awareness of the amatory. For one, Trebia loudly proclaims in her Chapter Two author note: “MORE TRASH FOR THE TRASH GOD.”

Discourse over the “morality” of Reylo fan fiction tends to overlook the distinction between the didactic and the amatory. As compelling as the idea of a “Force dyad” is in fantasy, this relationship is not meant to be aspirational in a literal sense. Yet, readers of Reylo fiction were and continue to have to defend their interest in the archetype with disclaimers—yes, it's trash, yes, I know it's problematic—while men in fandom are not held to the same standards when it comes to “problematic” media they consume or enjoy, whether it's a Michael Bay blockbuster film or male-gaze pornography.

As Deborah Lutz notes, “The Dangerous Lover Romance” is a centuries old, conventional way to represent erotic desire and romantic love. The “sublimely tormented Byronic hero” is hardly groundbreaking, to the extent that Rian Johnson's depiction of Reylo in The Last Jedi subverts the trope—at the end of the film Rey isn't enchanted, she's repulsed. The same way Star Wars replicates Joseph Campbell's Hero's Journey monomyth, Reylo stories like Forms reflect the broad appeal of the “how-the-turntables” Dangerous Lover romance—where the woman protagonist, initially subjugated by the debased, restless misanthrope, ends up subjugating him through her strength of will and the power of love. Trebia's Kylo even sports malevolent scars like so many Gothic male romantic leads before him—always on the face. In the Gothic romance, the heroine accesses socially undesirable aspects—power, rage, craving, desire—as expressed by her double, the Dangerous Lover. His presence in the story provides a basis for her disinhibition. The Reylo ship follows a well-trodden cultural script of transgressive female desire.

Forms the fan fiction novella is a notable cultural artefact reflecting a distinct period of time in Star Wars fandom. At the time, Reylo fanfic held all the promise of improved representation for women characters, crossed with the instinctual, regressive insistence that maintains a white male character in the forefront. Reylo fan fiction produced in early 2016 also led to the reification of anti-censorship values in fandom. Seven years later, a fandom that was once derided has gone fully mainstream, as fic writers like Ali Hazelwood, Ashley Poston, and Thea Guanzon top traditional publishing bestseller lists. What Trebia knocked out, hours after her introduction to the characters, is now it's own Star Wars literary tradition.

#fanbinding #bookbinding #reylo #reylofanfic #fanfic binding #ficbinding #star wars history #holocron #jedi holocron

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cringecompanionapologist · 4 months ago

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In Which I Do an Obviously Bad Idea

So, back in the day, the day being one in 2006, there was a LiveJournal post called Doctor/Turlough: The Shipper's Manifesto, or something like that, going over the appeal of Five and Turlough as characters and as a slash pairing, while also recommending which TV episodes, BF audios, and novels were good for shipping. Since this was 2006, a lot of stuff that I'd recommend is left out, due to not existing at the time. But, by this point, the VMA and PDA ranges of novels had wrapped up, so all the Turlough novels that exist now existed in 2006. They are described in the post thusly:

The novel Imperial Moon is missing, but it's not very slashy either. The slash fandom of the era considered most of the books unremarkable, provided the standard warning for The King of Terror, and said to avoid Turlough and the Earthlink Dilemma.

Notice how despite the standard warning for The King of Terror, the manifesto doesn't warn you not to read it. The only book that they straight up Do Not Recommend is Earthlink Dilemma. This was the first place I ever saw it discussed at all.

So, either this book is really bad or really pisses off Five/Turlough shippers specifically. Or both. I'm guessing both. But, one of the best ways to get someone to do a thing is to tell them NOT to do the thing. So I wanna what the fuck is going on.

To start out with, let's talk about why Earthlink Dilemma is a thing in the first place. Unlike basically every other Doctor Who novel that isn't a novelization of a TV story, Turlough and the Earthlink Dilemma is not a product of the Wilderness Years. In 1994, the Virgin Missing Adventures launched as a line of books telling new stories about Doctors 1-6 (7 was considered the current Doctor at the time). Earthlink Dilemma came out in 1986.

There as been Doctor Who EU material for almost as long as there has been Doctor Who, with the TV comics starting up in 1964. Other than those, there were the annuals containing more comics and short stories. Most of these had very little to do with the actual show. They were cash-ins.

The first Doctor Who Novella, Doctor Who and the Invasion from Space, was released in 1966. It also had very little to do with the show. There were already novelizations of a handful of serials out by this point and there would be many more, but outside of those, the idea of Doctor Who in novel form was pretty much abandoned.

The big change began in 1980, with John Nathan Turner becoming producer for Doctor Who. He proceeded to fuck a lot of shit up and one of the ways he fucked shit up was by pandering to the fanbase, treating them as the primary audience of the show. But, this had some positives. The TV Comic stories died out around the same time fanzines starting doing their own comics. One of these, Doctor Who Weekly, which became Doctor Who Monthly, which became Doctor Who Magazine, was given a sort of official status. JNT gave them a lot of interviews. But the important thing to this story is that we got better comics done by people familiar with the actual show.

Through this process, the BBC started to get more control of the Doctor Who EU and now they wanted to cash-in. Sort of. Target, the company that released the novelizations, was down to do original Doctor Who novels, but not ones featuring the actual Doctor. Instead, spin-off novels starring companions would be a thing. Thus, in 1986, The Companions of Doctor Who series began. And the very first one was Turlough and the Earthlink Dilemma.

Now, the Companions line didn't last very long. The fandom didn't seem too into it, so it ended up being only three books, all following the continuing adventures of companions after leaving the TARDIS. Here's a list of literally all of them:

The series only lasted a little over a year.

Take note of the authors of these stories. Harry Sullivan's War was written by Ian Marter AKA The Guy Who Played Harry Sullivan. K9 and Company was supposed to be a TV series but it never got past the pilot. What we've got here is a novelization of said pilot. Terence Dudley wrote several Doctor Who serials, so, like Ian Marter, he had experience with the show. Ian Marter, along with playing Harry, wrote a few of the Target novelizations. Basically, both of them were experienced Doctor Who writers.

K9 and Company is basically never talked about as a novel. I can't find much commentary on Harry Sullivan's War either. In general, all three of these books are mostly forgotten. But, Harry Sullivan's War and K9 and Company have the advantage of being written by people who at least somewhat knew what they were doing.

But then there's Tony Attwood. It was hard to find anything on this guy. His page on TARDIS wiki just says he wrote Earthlink Dilemma. He has no Wikipedia page, though there is a Tony Attwood that does. It's not the same Tony Attwood. The most I could dig up for Tony Attwood as a writer of fiction was Earthlink Dilemma and something for Blake's 7. So, not an established Doctor Who writer, nor even really an established writer. It's hard to say how this guy even ended up writing this novel. So, I think a portions of Earthlink Dilemma's failure was a tragic case of No One Knows What They're Doing.

According to the introduction at the beginning of the book, Mark Strickson himself seemed to like it. He was consulted for the book. However, Peter Grimwade, the writer who basically created Turlough was not. I can't find a source for this, so it might just be bullshit gossip, but apparently Grimwade was actually kinda pissed about this. He felt like Turlough was his creation. Considering that he wrote the novelizations for the Turlough serials he wrote, one wonders why he wasn't given the project of writing The Turlough Novel. Mark Strickson found the character pretty vague and JNT's idea for the character was pretty vague, so Grimwade seems to be the only person involved in Turlough's creation who really knew the character at this point.

From the few people who've read Earthlink Dilemma, Turlough's characterization is criticized, usually considered to be out-of-character. But it doesn't seem like Attwood believed there was a character to get wrong, because Strickson was frustrated with being given nothing to do. So Turlough's characterization was probably considered something that could be created for the novel. To be fair, the show did, in fact, fail to give Turlough much to do, so whatever personality he was given was rarely on display. Later novelists and BF writers actually managed to expand on the vague, small amount of characterization in the show.

Anyway, I'ma do a stupid and read Earthlink Dilemma. I intend to blog about it here, both to motivate myself to keep going, and to make sure that someone talks about the book in enough detail that reading it for oneself will no longer be necessary. If the book really is a trainwreck, I can save people from it.

For now, to start out with, I'll talk about the introduction. Mark Strickson left a note for the readers at the beginning of the book and he says some interesting things.

Of course, if you ask Turlough's fandom, the various states of bondage are often one of the things we like about the character, but it probably wasn't as interesting to play as it is to watch.

Two things stand out here:

The first is the sense of humor. Big Finish tends to give Turlough a lot of funny lines, so that's an aspect of the character that continued to be expanded upon, though most of the humor is based on Turlough being various levels of Done with everything.

The second thing that jumps out is the romantic side. This implies that Turlough's gonna get a girlfriend. In was 1986, so an explicit gay romance would've been considered subversive enough that he'd explicitly reference it if there was one. So, Strickson is actually all for Turlough being straight.

Note: I don't intend this as an insult. He perceives Turlough as straight when a large audience perceives him as gay, but saying "I didn't intend for this to be gay and thought my character was straight." isn't a rejection of gay characters existing or condemning the fandom interpretation. I will continue to say Turlough Gay because that's the vibe I get from him, but as far as I can tell, all the queer-coding around Turlough was unintentional. This makes sense with the philosophy of the showrunners at the time. They didn't want to do anything controversial and the didn't want romance or, even worse, sexuality, to factor into the show at all. This means that no matter how easy it is to see the entire Fifth Doctor Era as full of queer-coding, the writers absolutely did not have the guts to do it on purpose.

As for how the queer-coding got there, I have a theory. Peter Grimwade was gay and he based Brendon School on some of his one public school experiences. Since we mostly see Brendon through Turlough's eyes, he might've accidentally taken on the traits of a teenaged Grimwade. Turlough Gay because the primary influence on the character was gay and being autobiographical at that moment. Later writers, not knowing what to do with the character, carried on projecting that vibe.

Of course, this is speculating on the psyches of real people, so I can't say that for certain. I don't know these people.

I do get this amusing vibe that Strickson wanted Turlough to be a romantic lead when the companions were never the lead during this era and romance wasn't allowed at all. So, we know that something usually considered out-of-character for Turlough will be present in this novel.

Lastly, there's this:

Mark Strickson draws a little tie for his signature and I love it.

#vislor turlough #turlough and the earthlink dilemma

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thehorrortree · 9 months ago

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Deadline: June 30th, 2024 Payment: 6 cents per word and a contributor's copy Theme: Cosmic Horror stories set in and around Arkham, Innsmouth, and other mythos related areas that take place in or are associated with Lovecraftian tales AND which feature a public or private institution of some sort Dragon’s Roost Press is please to announce the open call for our next anthology. We have previously published collections of short stories which mix Lovecraftian Mythos with elements of Romance (Eldritch Embraces: Putting the Love Back in Lovecraft) and with Humor (LOLcraft: A Compendium of Eldritch Humor). This time instead of focusing on emotions, we want to look at setting. Specifically, we want to look at how different institutions have to deal with the eldritch abominations of Lovecraftian horror. Arkham Institutions (tentative title) will feature 10 – 15 short stories focusing on the various aspects of government and business and their relationship with the oddness that creeps up in and around that most (in)famous New England Town. What We Are Looking For We want to see Cosmic Horror stories set in and around Arkham, Innsmouth, and other mythos related areas that take place in or are associated with Lovecraftian tales AND which feature a public or private institution of some sort. What does Arkham Elementary teach? What weird cases does law enforcement have to deal with? What kind of people are seen in the Emergency Room? The psych ward? The local library? We are still looking for character driven stories, but make sure that these places are characters in their own rights. Draw us in and make us feel like we are there. NOTE: We are not looking for stories set at Miskatonic University nor the Orne Library. There are plenty of stories with these settings. Give us something new. What We Want Original short stories, 3 – 5K words in length. While we have covered romance and humor in other anthologies, we don’t mind if these elements feature in your stories, so long as they scare us. Make sure we get that sense of cosmic dread. Humor and PG-13 rated spiciness are just fine. We are fine with gore, so long as it is not used as a replacement for plot. We do not require a happy ending. In fact, we kind of enjoy that hopeless bleakness. What We Don’t Want S.A./non-consensual sex, including minors in sexual situations, will not be accepted. We are not looking for sexually explicit material for this anthology. Consensual sex is OK, if germane to the story, but cut away before anything happens. Please, no tentacle porn. Animal cruelty is not welcome here. You can kill as many kids as you want, but the dog better live. Old Man Howard created a fascinating cosmology and left us a lovely sandbox to play in, but his problematic viewpoints have no place here. We saw Ferris Bueller’s Day Off at the drive-in during its original run and we live by the idea that “isms…are not good.” All stories must be original works which you retain the rights to. Fan Fiction, Slash Fiction, and any other material containing characters which you did not create are not acceptable for this publication. We don’t like being sued. We are not looking for poetry, novellas, flash fiction, or artwork at this time. The Nitty Gritty Stuff The reading period will be from 1 May – 30 June OR UNTIL FILLED. All of our previous anthologies have closed early due to the number of submissions received, so don’t sit on your story. Get it to us ASAP. That being said, make sure that your work is properly edited before you hit the send button. We don’t mind a little light editing, but an egregious number of spelling and grammatical errors will lead to a rejection. Arkham Institutions is open to all. BIPOIC and LGBTQIA+ characters and authors are very welcome. AI generated content is NOT welcome. A clause in the author contract will stipulate that the story was not created using AI. Violation of this clause will lead to a ban from this and any future Dragon’s Roost Press anthologies.

Submissions should be sent as attachments to [email protected] (note, this e-mail address is different from some previous submission calls). The subject line should read Arkham Institutions/story title/author’s name (example Arkham Institutions/Really Cool Story/Doe). E-mails which do not follow this format will be deleted unread. In the body of your e-mail, provide a short (500 words or less) biography. Submissions should be sent as .doc, .docx, .odt, or .pages attachments. Multiple submissions are OK, but please wait until you have received a response on your first piece before submitting your second. Simultaneous submissions: no. We prefer Shunn Modern Manuscript Format (found https://www.shunn.net/format/story/), but any standard format is acceptable so long as you use the formatting tools in your word processing program. In other words, do not manually indent paragraphs using tabs or spaces. Please convert your manuscript to Times New Roman before sending. We really, really hate Courier. You can write in whatever font you choose, but we want to read it in Times New Roman. Payment will be $0.06/word (sent upon publication) plus one contributor’s copy in both paperback and digital formats. We will be running a Kickstarter campaign later in the year to help offset some of the production costs, but this will not affect payment or publication. As with our previous anthologies, a portion of the profits will be donated to the canine rescue organization Last Day Dog Rescue. Primary publication will be via Amazon’s KDP POD service, but the title will be available through Ingram and Baker & Taylor. The book will be released in paperback and digital formats. Expected release date Oct 2024. Note to New Authors: Most publications seek First North American Rights. While you may be able to sell your story again as a reprint, publication in this anthology may limit your story’s future marketability and may affect the amount of money you will be able to receive from other markets. Please take this into consideration before submitting. Via: The Dragon Roost Press.

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cinderella-ish · 6 months ago

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Fic Recs: Drama

This list is for medium- and long-form stories that have a significant non-romantic plot. They may include romantic plots as well.

Canon Divergent indicates a single point where the timeline of the story diverges from canon.

Canon Compliant

I'll Be Here, by Blanche2023 G | Gen - Kazuma & Kyo | Novella | also hurt/comfort The first three days Kyo spends with Kazuma and the first time Kazuma sees Kyo's True Form.

My Brother, by OnigiriCat4Ever T | Gen - Momiji & Momo, some Momiji/OMC | Novel | also angst Momiji has made a new life for himself in Germany. He has a job he enjoys, a boyfriend he loves, and a life that makes him happier than he'd felt in a very long time. It wasn't perfect, but it was happy, and he was satisfied…until Momo asked if they could talk.

Truth and Consequences, by OnigiriCat4Ever T | Kyo & his daughter | WIP | also angst & hurt/comfort For twenty years following the breaking of the Curse, Kyo did his best to forget it. Telling his son Hajime was terrifying, but in his son's acceptance, understanding, and unwavering love, Kyo felt a lightness and freedom he never could have imagined. Both of his sons know; both of his sons accept. Only one person has yet to learn the truth: his daughter, Sachiko.

Canon Divergent

Adult Intervention, by Modzy78 T | Tohru/Kyo | Short Story (just shy of a novelette) It's obvious Kyo likes Tohru, but he hasn't visited her in the hospital. Can anyone help him get his act together?

Along a Pitch Black Path, by me M | Tohru/Kyo, Akito/Shigure, Mayu/Hatori | WIP | also AU & tragedy What if Akito's slash to Tohru's arm had been fatal? This is the darkest timeline.

Bloom Within Us, by me T | Saki/Kyo, Momiji/Hiroshi | WIP | also angst & hurt/comfort What if Tohru Honda didn't survive her fall from the cliff? Kyo, Yuki, Saki, Arisa, and the rest of Tohru's loved ones mourn together and figure out a way forward without her.

The Cost for Silence, by AveSolace T | Tohru/Kyo, Machi/Yuki, Haru/Rin | Novel | also suspense Someone has an axe to grind with the Sohmas. Whether over money, business, legal issues, or some other grudge, someone has managed to find the perfect piece of blackmail to use against them. And this person is willing to keep the incriminating evidence to themselves--for a price.

Cursing the cursed, by modzy78 T | Tohru/Kyo | Novelette Arisa, Saki, and Megumi discover the answer to a question they didn't know existed. Can you curse someone who's already cursed?

Dreaming of Spring, by CalebCleveland T | Tohru/Kyo, Katsuya/Kyoko | WIP On an early spring morning, Shigure wakes from a dream.

End of the Banquet, by AveSolace M | Tohru/Kyo | WIP All the geopolitical tension in East Asia has come to a head. China has invaded Taiwan, and Japan is immediately drawn into the conflict. The Sohmas' lives are thrown into chaos, even as the Zodiac curse remains unbroken.

Escaping the future, by Modzy78 T | Tohru/Kyo | Novel | also angst & fluff It's time to graduate, and Kyo's still cursed. Tohru doesn't want Kyo to be confined. How far is she willing to go to save him from his future?

Heart Strain, by Kitty0430 T | Kakeru & Yuki, some Machi/Yuki and Tohru/Kyo | Novel | also angst What if Akito didn’t receive Tohru’s kindness and didn’t realise her mistakes at the story’s conclusion?

Hold On, by Danyu T | Tohru/Kyo | Novella | also angst & romance Kyou has accepted his fate as the cat. Relationships change and the bond between he and Tohru is cemented forever. But he leaves something behind, something precious enough to give everyone the strength to hold on.

I'd Do it All Again for You, by Oinkadoink T | Tohru/Kyo | WIP | also angst Someone falls off the cliff, but it isn’t Tohru. Fate isn’t as kind to them. In spite of this, Tohru's resolve to keep Kyo from being caged doesn't waver. It just gets a little more complicated.

I'll be Standing There By You, by Eboni_A T | gen | Kyo & Yuki, some Tohru/Kyo and Machi/Yuki | Novel | also angst & hurt/comfort As Tohru Sohma loses her battle with terminal cancer, Yuki temporarily moves in with Kyo to offer support. Tohru is Kyo's life, and Yuki fears what might become of his cousin after Tohru is gone.

Left Wanting T | Tohru/Kyo | WIP (discontinued) | also romance Tohru Honda, newly graduated but not sure what she wants to do in life, lives with her best friends Uotani and Hanajima in an apartment. She gets a job working for the infamous Sohma family as just another maid for some of the lesser family members’ homes. But when Tohru unexpectedly gets reassigned to one of the Inner Circle family member’s houses, she accidentally uncovers the very dark secret the Inner Family has been hiding from the world.

The One Who Stays, by me T | Tohru/Kyo, Akito & Yuki | WIP | also AU & romance What if Yuki hadn’t run after Kyo? Tohru confesses her love. Kyo confesses his sins. Yuki sees it all. And then Akito arrives.

Ripples, by proseprincess NR | Tohru/Kyo | WIP | also romance *Note: this is a two-part series. The first work is complete! What happens when one decision leads to unintended consequences?

Taking on Your Curse, by modzy78 T | Tohru/Kyo | Novelette | also angst Tohru didn't realize she actually made a New Year wish when she was talking to Kyo. And that some wishes do come true.

that's how we deal with boys like me. by mugsandpugs T | Gen - Kyo & Yuki | Novel | also angst After Haru reveals that Yuki has been abused almost to the point of death, he schemes with Kyo and Rin to bust him out of the Sohma compound. The four kids live together on the run from their abusive families, relying on each other to stay alive and heal.

undertow, by hungryhungryhanachan E | Tohru/Kyo | WIP | also dark & tragedy Tohru has always smiled through her pain. Why would this be any different?

The Way Back, by 8_characters_or_less T | Tohru/Kyo | Novel | also angst, hurt/comfort, & romance After three years locked away in the Cat's Room the curse has finally broken. But three years is a long time and the damage that's been done won't easily be repaired. If there's anything worth fighting for, it's love. Only time will tell if that will be enough.

Other

A Pretty Orange Color, by AnimeliaRose E | Kyo/Yuki | Epic Novel | also angst, fluff, romance & smut Yuki and Kyo end up spending some time alone together at the lake house, when they realise there is a fine line between love & hate.

Building Zero Thirteen, by hillnerd G | Tohru/Kyo | WIP | also romance Tohru has a new job at the Sohma estate- she finds herself given new duties bringing food to a mysterious figure on the estate- all she knows about them is they don't speak to her and don't seem to enjoy leeks or onion.

Dreams of Paradise, by Sky_Cloudtide T | Tohru/Kyo | WIP | also AU & angst The Sohma family's lives are forever changed after summer vacation. Unable to live with the guilt, Kyo and Yuki look to the past, to find a way to fix the treasure they have lost.

ichigo ichie, by me T | Tohru/Kyo, Akito & Haruhi & Tohru | WIP | also crossover & romance Tohru Honda wants to break the Zodiac Curse and free Kyo. Haruhi Fujioka wants to get out of the time loop that's kept her and the Host Club from advancing grades. One morning, Tohru and Haruhi wake up in each other's bodies. Will they be able to break the cycles that keep them and their found families trapped? Fruits Basket x Ouran High School / Your Name AU

Of Lost Cats and Half-Shadows, by me T | Tohru/Kyo, Megumi/Yuji | WIP | also crossover & romance Yuji, Megumi, and Nobara enroll at Kaibara High School to investigate the Zodiac curse and free the souls it binds. Kyo is immediately suspicious of the three new students and rejects their attempts at friendship. Will they be able to break this ancient curse before Kyo is locked up forever?

The Pursuit of Repeating History, by RiddleAfar E | Kyo/Yuki | Epic Novel | also angst, romance & smut In their third and final year of high school, Yuki and Kyo learn the hard way where their zodiac spirits end and they begin. *technically unfinished, but reaches a satisfying end and only has 1 chapter left (I think an epilogue?)

Here's a link to my bookmarks tagged Drama!

Fic Recs Masterpost

#fruits basket #furuba #fruba #fanfic #ao3 #my fanfic recs #fruits basket fanfiction #drama

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applesap-fics · 2 years ago

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famous anonymous author!bruno idea? 👀

👀 i already wrote about this a little bit during encantober (for the gift prompt), featuring Osvaldo

The premise is that Bruno wrote a LOT of romantic/smutty fiction during his time in the walls. His sisters/the guys find these, like it, and encourage him to sell the stories as books. Bruno agrees, but wants to do this anonymously. His relationship with the Encantonians still feels a little awkward. He becomes immensely popular however and is the Encanto's number one romance novelist!

additional notes:

gay Bruno, like always.

he uses a pseudonym which vaguely references the miracle. I was thinking something along the lines of "Estrella del Milagro"/"Estrella Milagrosa", but time has passed and it sounds a little dorky/off to me now, haha.

the stories are so dramatic. and so trashy. exactly how people like it.

they start out as little secrets (mostly) women pass around but prove hugely popular.

in that encantober fic I linked I made alma the cover artist. I like the headcanon that she's an artist (opposite Pedro the poet) and that she painted at least a few of the paintings in Casita, such as the one Bruno hides behind.

Alternatively: she has no idea this is Bruno. She loves the more romance-focused novels/novellas to death.

I'm not sure how active the Encanto's book publishing market is. I think they mostly rotate through old books and (especially at the start) don't have the resources to publish books. And because they're a social community they wouldn't have use for a newspaper since all of their news happens via word of mouth. Maybe there's a guy from the original refugees who had notes on printing, lol. Argh, the Encanto needs an archivist!

On that note, I can see Mariano putting out little poetry collections. (He's not so popular. Sorry!)

Osvaldo is involved because they need non-madrigal distributor. Secrecy is sworn. The truth may eventually come out though...

The identity of the author is speculated for years! A few Madrigals are considered~

Pepa also writes one short story after reading a really bad concept Bruno wrote in the walls about…rat babies…that she sees potential in (but needs a feminine, motherly touch). It's still published under the "Estrella" pseudonym but is revealed being hers years later. A bunch of people win the betting pool.

Bruno loves crazy passionate female main characters. The 'lore' is that it's always "Estrella" in different universes, though. Kinda like Barbie, if I had to give an example.

He needs an editor. I vote the most passionate of Madrigal men, Félix, and maybe Agustín. Osvaldo was briefly considered since he's already a middleman and essentially his partner, but he has unreasonable opinions on the sexual workings of women.

Bruno mostly wrote these stories in the walls for his own pleasure (literally. a lot are smut stories), and were ultimately about gay men having sex with each other, or other passionate and complex relationships. Even after editing for the general public, some of his work uses very ambiguous language for the main characters. They are presumed to be women, but if you read through the lines it's easy to read the mc as a man, making his novels gay romance fiction.

Encanto's gay population feel vindicated when the truth reveals itself. As do the 1950s slash shippers.

Years later, after "Estrella" reveals her identity, which probably involved an impatient and overly excited/smug Osvaldo and a Bruno who said "Oh, fuck it, fine. It was me. I'm your favorite author", Bruno publishes an omnibus/collection for the novels' anniversary in which he has a chapter on his identity. He talks about being gay and adresses the speculation that the mc could have been gay all this time, just like its author. All is interpretable, though. Bruno has never had a relationship, but Estrella has been in hundreds. Everyone is allowed to see themselves in the characters, man or woman, or enjoy the stories for what they are. He just hopes people will be open to the idea, will respect it and maybe consider it. He ends the chapter by thanking the Encanto for welcoming him back, as both "Estrella" and Bruno.

There's a q&a that basically boils down to: Q: Why did you decide to write [controversial plotpoint people loved but fundamentally made no damn sense]? B: Oh, I wrote that when I was hiding in the walls. I was a little crazy. Q: But how did you come up with the idea? B: I can't say I understand anything I did when I was in the walls.

#i think this was all of it!#author bruno au #bruno madrigal #encanto #wips #phew thats it so far #anne replies #anonymous

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wren-thepunk-academic · 3 years ago

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me writing my characters: should you suffer or should you suffer more

#writing #im supposed to finish my short story slash novella or whatever it ends up being in like two weeks #and im still stuck on the first two chapters #my anxiety is really getting the best of me these days

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snickertoodles · 4 years ago

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Megalist of Tropes and Themes to Tag Your Story With

If you’re prone to staring at your tags on AO3 wondering “what the hell do I put here?”, knowing you want to add a tag like “friends to lovers” or “found family” but not remembering all the popular tropes and themes everyone is into, this is for you. I basically spent an entire night on this so I hope it helps.

Notes:

I tried to keep it general and avoid really obscure tags no one would ever use.

This is made for AO3 and thus there’s a lot of fandom or fannish stuff in here.

I didn’t include any “inappropriate” tags. Feel free to make your own list.

Romance tropes and themes at the bottom. (Not all of them have to be romantic, but if they’re generally associated with romance and there are very few gen fics with that tag, it went there.)

Under cut because I’m probably going to edit this often and I’d like reblogs to be up to date. Please suggest any ideas you have.

Genre: Action, Adventure, Apocalypse/Post-Apocalypse, Contemporary, Comedy/Humor/Parody/Satire, Coming of Age, Crime, Cyberpunk/Steampunk, Drama, Dystopian/Utopia, Fairy Tale, Fantasy/High Fantasy/Low Fantasy/Urban Fantasy/Isekai, Family, Friendship, Gothic, Historical Fiction/Alternate History/Period Piece, Horror/Slasher, Mystery/Murder Mystery, Paranormal, Philosophical, Poetry, Romance, Slice of Life, Supernatural, Surreal, Suspense, Sci-Fi/Science Fiction/Space Opera, Spiritual, Thriller/Psychological Thriller, Tragedy, Urban, Western

Genre (Fandom): Angst/Light Angst, Case Fic, Crack Fic, Crossover/Fusion, Dark Fic, Fix Fic/Fix-It/Deconstruction, Fluff/Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Kid Fic, Podfic, Missing Scene/Gap Filler, Self-Insert, Shipping, Sickfic, Songfic, Whump

Length: Drabble, Ficlet, Flash Fiction, Short Story, Novella, Novel, Epic, One-Shot/Two-Shot/etc, Series/Duology/Trilogy/Saga/etc, Long, Short

Pairing: M/F - F/M - M/M - F/F - F/F/M - You get the idea. Also [Character] x [Character], Slash, Yaoi/Yuri (if people still use those...)

POV: POV Alternating, POV Multiple, POV First Person, POV Second Person, POV Third Person, POV Outsider

Ending: Happy Ending, Sad Ending, Bittersweet Ending, Ambiguous Ending

Diverse Characters: Gay Character/Nonbinary Character/Asian Character/Disabled Character/Autistic Character/Jewish Character/etc.

AU/Alternate Universe: (I do not have the time to list out Coffee Shop AU/High School AU/Canon Divergence/What-If/etc, I assume if you’re writing one then you already know to tag it lol)

Abuse

Adoption

Afterlife

Aftermath

Aged Up

Alcohol

Aliens

Amnesia

Androids

Angels

Animal Transformation

Anti-Hero

Awkwardness

Babysitting

Backstory/Origin Story

Band of Misfits

Best Friends

Betrayal

Blood

Bodyswap

Bodyguard

Bonding

Bounty Hunters

Bromance

Bullying

Canon Compliant

Character Development

Character Study

Childhood Friends

Children

Chosen One

College/University/Higher Education

Corruption

Criminals

Crying

Curses

Cute

Death

Delinquents

Demons

Depression

Destiny/Fate

Disability

Domestic/Curtainfic

Dragons

Dreams/Dreamscape

Drugs

Education

Ensemble Cast

Epilogue

Fanon/Headcanon

Father Figure/Mother Figure

Feelings

Feels

Fights

Flashbacks

Forgiveness

Found Family

Freedom Fighters

Frenemies

Future

Genderswap/Gender Change

Ghosts

Gods

Good Versus Evil

Gore

Grief/Mourning

Growing Up

Healing

Heartwarming

Heroes to Villains/Villains to Heroes

Holidays

Homesickness

Hospital

Hurt

I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping (A very legitimate tag.)

Imprisonment

Injury

Introspection

Illness/Sick Character

Immortality

Isolation

Jealousy

Kidnapping

LGBTQ/LGBTQ Character/LGBTQ Themes

Light-Hearted

Locked In

Loss

Love

Mafia

Magic

Magical Girl(s)

Major Character Death/Minor Character Death

Manipulation

Medieval

Medical

Melancholy

Mental Health Issues

Mentors

Merpeople

Mind Control

Military

Misunderstandings

Modern

Monsters

Morally Grey/Ambiguous Characters

Murder

Mythical Beings & Creatures

Mythology

Neighbors

Next Gen/Next Generation

Nightmares

Original Character/OC/OCs

Orphans/Orphanage

Out of Character/OOC

Parenthood

Past Lives

Peggy Sue

Pen Pals

Pirates

Platonic Relationships/No Romance

Platonic Soulmates

Plot Twists

Politics

Possession

Post-Canon/Pre-Canon/Mid-Canon/Bad Ending/etc.

Prompt Fill/Prompt Fic

Protectiveness

Rags to Riches

Rebels

Recovery

Redemption/Redemption Arc

Regret

Reincarnation/Resurrection/Rebirth

Rejection

Relationships

Religion

Rescue/Rescue Missions

Restaurants

Reunion

Revenge

Revolution

Rivalry

Road Trip

Robots

Roommates

Royalty

Sad

School

Secrets

Secret Identity

Self-Discovery

Self-Harm

Shapeshifting

Siblings

Single Parents

Slow Build

Soft

Spies

Spoilers

Substance Abuse

Suicide

Superheroes

Sweet

Sympathetic Villain

Teamwork

Team as Family

Team Bonding

Team Dynamics

Teenagers

Tension

Time Loop

Time Travel

Training

Trapped

Trauma

Travel

Undercover

Unreliable Narrator

Vampires

Villains

Violence

War

Weapons

Wedding

Wilderness

Witchcraft

Worldbuilding

xxx to Friends (Rivals to Friends/Enemies to Friends/etc.)

Zombies

ROMANCE TROPES

Battle Couple

Blind Date

Breakup

Confessions

Dating

Divorce

Dorks in Love

Drunken Confessions

Established Relationship

Eventual Romance

Falling in Love

Fake Relationship/Fake Dating/Pretend Relationship/Pretend Couple

First Kiss

First Love

Forbidden Love

Heartbreak

Idiots in Love

Long-Distance Relationship

Long-Term Relationship

Love/Hate

Love at First Sight

Love Confessions

Love Potion/Love Spell

Love Triangle

Marriage/Accidental Marriage/Arranged Marriage/Marriage of Convenience

Marriage Proposal

Mutual Pining/Pining

OTP

Pregnancy

Rarepair

Secret Relationship

Sharing a Bed

Slow Burn/Slow Romance

Soulmate/Soulmate AU

Tsundere/all of the other -deres

Unrequited Love/One-Sided Attraction

xxx to Lovers (Enemies to Lovers/Friends to Lovers/etc.)

#tagging #archive of our own #ao3 #tumblr #tropes #trope list #tag list #tag ideas #writing #writing resources #toodles talks

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againstshame · 4 years ago

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A small interview with autistic author Sarah Kurchak

She’s celebrating the release of her memoir, I Overcame My Autism and All I Got Was This Lousy Anxiety Disorder, this week (actually a while ago but has anything this year happened on schedule? Better late than never, right?) I offered to interview her for this blog, and she agreed!

I wanted to talk about her book on this blog because one of the big topics this book deals with is the self-annihilating impulse that we talked about in this post, the shame-related desire to remake yourself into a fundamentally different (non-disabled) person. Kurchak describes her book as a cautionary tale about how harmful putting on an act like that can be.

[ID: cover of the book, a photo of Sarah Kurchak, with pink-dyed hair and a black shirt.]

Please give a brief summary of the book.

I Overcame My Autism And All I Got Was This Lousy Anxiety Disorder is a collection of moderately connected essays that use moments from my life as a minimally successful late diagnosed autistic person to highlight bigger issues that face many autistic people. Basically, I didn’t want to write my own story and leave it at that. Nor did I think my life was interesting enough to merit an entire book. But I seem to have a facility for writing about autism in a way that intrigues non-autistic people, so I wanted to see if I could use that talent for the greater good in book form.

My basic and slightly muddied thesis is that my life is decent enough, but it hasn’t been without hardships, and that some of those hardships could have been remedied with better services for autistic people, and greater acceptance and understanding. And if someone like me, who has had a number of advantages in life, is struggling as much as I am, how much harder is it for so many other autistic people? And how much more are we currently failing them?

What's this book's origin story? How did you end up writing this memoir rather than some other book, and how did you find your publisher?

“It’s in the book!” feels like such a dick answer to me. But if anyone is interested in a longer (or, arguably, too long) explanation for how I wound up getting an agent, writing this book, and finding a publisher for it, you can find it in the introduction. Along with references to Cronenberg’s The Brood and Balloon Okada.

The short version is that an agent liked a story that I’d published in a literary outlet, and asked if I wanted to write a book. I tried to talk her into repping a novella about slash fiction and pro wrestling that I wrote in my early twenties. Somehow that did not put her off and she gently guided me toward non-fiction ideas. I’d had the title in mind for years at that point, so I threw that out. Then I started to flesh out what kind of book I’d put under it. I still don’t think it’s a proper memoir, but that word’s on the cover, so I guess it is?

(I realize how lucky I am to have found myself in this unlikely situation. But I always feel the need to point out that it took me 18 years of professional writing to find this “overnight” “success.”)

What's one thing you wish you had known about or had access to when you were younger and undiagnosed?

I wish that I could have grown up with a more wholistic idea of myself. When I excelled in school but struggled on the playground, a lot of well-meaning adults who were just trying to help a suffering child get through the day started to tell me that the other kids were jealous of me because I was smart, and that’s why I was being bullied and couldn’t make friends. And that’s a very easy narrative to cling to when you’re a scared and lonely child who is desperate for any sense of self-worth.

It helped me survive school, but I don’t think it benefitted me at all in the long run. It took me a long time to come to terms with how ableist and racist the very concept of intelligence is. I’d grown up thinking it was the only thing I had going for me! I didn’t want to give it up! I wish I could have figured out how harmful the concept was much earlier in life and established a sense of self that was more aware of — and cool with — my strengths and weakness. And more rooted in the idea that my worth came from the fact that I was a human being, and not because I was ostensibly “special” in some way.

A while ago I did an event on this blog where people sent in examples of fiction that helped them feel better about being neurodivergent or disabled, stories that showed them what their future could look like or made them feel less alone. Was there a story that did that for you?

Community premiered a few months after I was diagnosed and I can’t even begin to put into words how much Abed helped me during those early years. And how meaningful Abed and Troy’s friendship was.

Strangely, even though there is nothing at all autistic coded about her, and not a lot I’d consider neurodivergent about her, George in Dead Like Me really spoke to me, too. I think I was just really into the idea of someone getting a late start in life where they could make up for what they hadn’t done before, even if they could never really go back to what their original life was. (This is the only way in which I’d ever view my diagnosis as analogous to death, by the way. It was really quite a positive and helpful experience!)

And a bonus special interest question: Was there a specific match, storyline, or wrestler that made you into a wrestling fan instead of a casual viewer? What was it that caught your attention?

It was Chris Jericho.

In late 2000, I decided to try watching wrestling. I had always hated it, but my new boyfriend (now my husband) was really into it. And he seemed to have good taste otherwise, so I figured I should at least try to understand what the hell had gone wrong with him on this one thing. So I tuned into Raw, and there was this little lippy Canadian causing all sorts of shit. And that was it! All I wanted to do was watch this bratty asshole with a sharp tongue and a hair trigger crying reflex antagonize his opponents and then get flustered if and when things didn’t work out properly. And that’s exactly what I did for about 18 years. Even when I lost interest in wrestling in general, I still loved Jericho.

But it ended as suddenly as it began. Jericho attacked Tetsuya Naito in New Japan in 2018. Other members of LIJ jumped in to protect him. There was a split second where I thought Jericho was going to hit Hiromu Takahashi. And I involuntarily squealed “DON’T YOU TOUCH HIM” at my laptop screen. Friendship ended with Jericho. Hiromu Takahashi is my best wrestler now. (Well, one of the best, at least. Tetsuya Endo forever.)

#autism #actuallyautistic #sarah kurchak #I overcame my autism and all I got was this lousy anxiety disorder #shame #self hatred #internalized ableism #anxiety #social anxiety #masking #masking feels

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inevitably-johnlocked · 5 years ago

Note

Hey! Will go on a 10-day trip soon and I was thinking i would like to save some fics just in case i don t have data over there. Share some longer stories? (also really loving your blog, million heart emojis from me)

Hi Nonny!

Oh gosh, that’s exciting!! I love long trips! And lucky for you I LOVE long fics, because they’re perfect for a long trip! (that and I have SO MANY FICS for 20 to 25 and 25 to 50 that I had to choose one or the other for you, LOL).

Lucky for you I’ve been waiting for an opportunity to share that very list!! BUT if you prefer some longer fics, check out these past lists I made:

Top 20 Fave 40K+ w. Fics (April 2017)

Novel Length Fics: 50 to 100K (Nov. 2018)

Novel Length Fics: 100K+ w. (May 2019)

Smut-Free Fics Over 50K (Aug. 2019)

Otherwise, I think these fics will be perfect for your trip! And as always, I sort them by length so if you want longer fics, check out the bottom of the list and work your way up, or just want something that will last you a plane ride or a day of relaxation, check out the top to bottom!

—–

NOVELLA-LENGTH FICS: 25 to 50K w. (Aug 2019)

Among the Secret Things by Kate_Lear for coloredink (E, 26,073 w., 14 Ch. || Angst, Drama, Amnesia) – Sherlock would be the last person to describe himself as given to flights of fancy, but at the look on Lestrade’s face he could swear that something inside him curls up and dies. Part 1 of Among the Secret Things

Dropping the Act by jadztone (T, 27,258 w., 10 Ch. || Parentlock, Fake Relationship, Mary’s Family, Post-S4, Cuddling & Snuggling, Bed Sharing, Pining, Christmas) – Sherlock and John are quite happy living together with Rosie in Baker St. They might be even happier if they didn’t act towards each other like their love is only platonic. Mycroft brings troubling news in the form of Mary’s parents wanting to know just what their grandchild’s home life is like. The boys decide to spend Christmas pretending like they are in love in order to seem more like a "normal" family. It's easy enough to pretend when all you're doing is dropping the act.

And A Doctor by StillWaters1 (T, 27,393 w., 6 Ch. || Friendship, Doctor John, Whump, Soldier / Doctor Dichotomy, Five and One) – It was only when people actually saw John working as a physician that they began to understand: that it wasn't just about bullets and IEDs and trauma care under fire. That "doctor" actually covered a pretty wide field. And that John was bloody good at covering ground. 5 times Dr. Watson treated others and 1 time he treated himself.

Don't Leave Anything Out by lookupkate (E, 27,422 w., 24 Ch. || Letters / Epistolary, Misunderstandings, Angst, Happy Ending, Alternate Meeting, Sherlock in Love, Pining Sherlock) – The first letter John writes home from Afghanistan is meant to go to a woman he went on only one date with. How it ends up in Sherlock's hands is completely innocent. What happens next is not. What do you do when you find out the person you're in love with has been lying about something as monumental as who they are? What do you do when you're the one who lied?How on earth do you put the pieces back together?

Vena Cava by SilentAuror (E, 27,452, 1 Ch. || H/C, Infidelity, Angst, HLV Fix-It, Romance) – Sherlock has been shot in the chest; John has been shot in the heart. Though everything is broken, they do their best to heal the wounds that Mary left on them both.

Trust Me, Trust Nobody by BlueMoonOnTheRise (T, 27,751 w., 10 Ch. || Kidnapping, Friendship / No Slash, Adventure, Trust Issues) – Whatever he told Mycroft, John trusted Sherlock almost instantly. When a new case shows up - smattered with the usual thrill of danger, death and cool logic - such trust ends up pushed to its very limits...

26 Pieces by Lanning (E, 28,236 w., 1 Ch. || H/C, Torture, First Time, Happy Ending, Schmoop) – Mycroft gives Sherlock the apparently simple task of solving a puzzle box containing a stolen microchip. It isn't simple.

Silhouettes by allonsys_girl (E, 28,585 w., 7 Ch. || Canon Compliant, POV John, Heavy Drinking, Sad/Depressed John, Grief/Mourning, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Reunion, Foot Jobs, Blow Jobs, Infidelity, Cheating, Drug Use/Abuse, Anal, Switchlock, Rimming, Parentlock) – Sherlock and John find comfort in each other's arms, but as ever with these two, it's not your typical relationship. It's fluffy at the beginning, gets deeply angsty in the middle, gets porny at the end.

Hellfire by testosterone_tea (E, 28,596 w., 9 Ch. || Fantasy / Magic / Mages / Elementals AU || Mage Sherlock, Elemental John, Developing Relationship, Torture, Powerful / BAMF John, POV Alternating, Dark / Blood Magic, UST, First Kiss) – Sherlock is a Mage that gets involved with a case involving Dark Summoning rituals, leading him to John Watson, a man with Berserker blood. The only thing is, Berserkers have been extinct for centuries. And of course, nothing involving Mycroft and his interfering ways is ever simple. This time, even Sherlock may have bitten off more than he can chew.

An Experiment in Apathy Series by belovedmuerto (G to E, 28,701 w. across 13 stories || Empath John, Empath-by-Proxy Sherlock, Epic Bromance Becomes Romance, Angst, Nightmares, Experiments, Trauma, Dreams) – "No man is an island, John. You less so than most." A sequel to the EiE Series, wherein John and Sherlock explore their relationship.

To be Loved by You by TwisterMelody (M, 28,775 w., 1 Ch. || Angst, H/C, Friends to Lovers, Post-HLV, Infidelity, Character Death) – Too many times they had confessed themselves in the darkness, leaving it there, never to speak of it again. But this is different. This love deserves the light of day.

To Mend Icarus by AlessNox (T, 29,186 w., 14 Ch. || Post-TRF, Friendship, Drama, BAMF!John, Emotional Turmoil, Introspection, Harry is in this Fic, Angry John, Happy Ending, Queerplatonic Relationship) – After a case lands John Watson in court, he tells Sherlock that he is leaving. Not understanding why, Sherlock decides that the only way to learn the truth is to investigate his flatmate, Dr. John Watson. A revision of the story Mending Icarus.

The Wisteria Tree by SilentAuror (E, 29,773 w., 1 Ch. || Post-S3, Emotional Love Making, Amnesia/Memory Loss, Sherlock Loves John So Much, Sherlock POV, Romance, Angst with Happy Ending, First Times, Hurt/Comfort, Est. Rel., Retirement) – Sherlock wakes up from a month-long coma only to discover that he has no memory of the previous six years to his own shock as well as John's...

M Is For Moriarty by ElvendorkInfinity (T, 29,882 w., 12 Ch. || Suspense, Mystery, Case Fic, Worried Sherlock, No Slash, Whump) – A figure at the end of the hospital bed; a needle in the dark...Moriarty has John, and Sherlock must follow the paper trail through London to find him before time runs out. Sequel to BANG.

"finally kiss the bloody idiot" by Salambo06 (E, 29,812 w., 13 Ch. || Mutual Pining, Declarations of Love, First Kiss / Time, Angst, Misunderstandings, Fantasies POV John) – Inspired by a fic idea on tumblr : "John and Sherlock know the Yard has a pool going for when they’re finally going to get together. It’s been running forever, and it’s worth thousands of pounds. It’s all fun and games, hahaha, until they find out Lestrade is in dire financial straits (dog needs emergency surgery, he’s putting his kid through gymnastics training, I don’t know, something), and they decide to fake a relationship to win the pool for him. Sherlock figures out the day and way that Lestrade thinks it’s going to happen, and they act it out. It’s all for a good cause, fake relationship style, until it’s not." Part 1 of The Pool

Another Auld Lang Syne by DiscordantWords (M, 30,234 w., 31 Ch. || Post S4, Mutual Pining, Alternating POV, Introspection, Parentlock, Christmas, New Year’s, First Kiss, Past Drug Use, Angst with Happy Ending, Drinking, Sherlock Whump) – There had been years of missed chances.

Hitting the Water at Sixty Miles an Hour by what_alchemy (E, 30,568 w., 5 Ch. || Fake Rel., Roadtrips, Slow Burn) – “You love your mother, Sherlock?” John watched the muscles in Sherlock’s jaw jump. He nodded in one sharp jerk.“Then we’re going to her party and making her happy.” John let out a resigned sigh. “As a ruddy couple, you bastard.”

The Kissing Disease by cottonballz_of_death (E, 30,856 w., 15 Ch. || Sick Fic, Angst with Happy Ending, Case Fic, Self-Harm, Slow Burn, Jealous Sherlock, Body Image Issues, Hurt/Comfort, Emotional H/C, POV Sherlock, Oral / Anal, Thong, Frottage) – John brings home a boyfriend, shocking Sherlock, who long ago gave up hope that his straight flatmate would ever take a romantic interest in him. In a bid to reconnect with John, he tries to infect himself with a "harmless" virus. Neither of them is prepared for the emotional fallout that results.

An Acquired Taste by kinklock (E, 31,059 w., 4 Ch. || Vampires AU || Vampire Sherlock, Misunderstandings, Bat!Sherlock, Pining Sherlock, Humour, Magical Realism, Fluff and Angst, Blood Drinking, Holmes Family, Slow Burn) – At Montague Street when Sherlock was forced to sate his body’s needs, he was at least able to wander about the flat as much as he pleased. At Baker Street, it was mini-bags in a mini-fridge and bedroom confinement.

Shallow Grave by SilentAuror (E, 31,672 w., 1 Ch. || Romance, Angst, HLV Fix It, Infidelity, Pining Sherlock, First Person POV Sherlock) – Starts as Sherlock's plane is taking off at the end of His Last Vow. When he finds out that Moriarty is alive and that he's being recalled from his mission, Sherlock decides that he should have told John how he felt before he left. So he walks off the plane and kisses him.

Love or What You Will by miss_frankenstein (T, 31,987 w., 11 Ch. || College/Uni AU || Professor John, Ph.D Student Sherlock, Pining John, Poetry, Falling in Love / Slow Burn, Light Angst, Happy Ending) – John is an English professor who specializes in War and Post-War Literature and Sherlock is the brilliant yet impossible Ph.D. student assigned to be his TA because no one in the Chemistry Department is willing to put up with him. And - somewhere between Waugh and Plath, e-mails and takeaway, novels and villanelles - they fall in love.

Here Comes The Sun by JennLynn77 (E, 32,126 w., 15 Ch. || Post S4/TFP, John Whump, Caring Sherlock, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Friends to Lovers, Emotional Sex, First Time, Virgin Sherlock, Switchlock, Cuddling/Snuggling, Surgery/Injury Recovery, Endearments, Anal, Hand Jobs, Porn with Feels) – John suffers an injury and needs surgery. Sherlock, and those around him, help John recover. Along the way, John and Sherlock realise what they mean to each other, and what they've had together all this time.

The Midas Touch by flawedamythyst (E, 32,231 w., 1 Ch. || Magical Realism, John has a Magical Cock, Dub Con, Healer John) – John Watson has a medical condition that means everyone he sleeps with is instantly healed of all illness and injury. This causes complications when Sherlock breaks his arm, and even more complications when Sherlock falls in love with him. Yes, this is a story where John has a literal magic healing cock. It's a lot less cracky than you're probably imagining. Warning: Contains complex issues of sexual consent, although not between Sherlock and John.

Five Times They Kissed for a Case, and One Time They Kissed for Real by fleetwood_mouse (M, 32,406 w., 6 Ch. || 5+1, Slow Burn, Fluff / Angst, Mutual Pining, Friends to Lovers) – A stolen ring! An artful blogger! And many more adventures for your enjoyment.

A Study In Auto-Signatures, Sniper Dolphins, and Sex Holidays by cwb (E, 32,690 w., 8 Ch. || Case Fic, Post S3, Evil Mary, Dev. Rel., Honeymoon, Epistolary, Bottomlock, First Kiss / Time, Fluff, Secret Agents, BAMF!John) – John and Mary go on their sex holiday, and Sherlock is grumpy and pining about it. Part 1 of HOT DOLPHIN SEX

a good old-fashioned happy ending by darcylindbergh (E, 32,731 w., 26 Ch. || Christmas, Frottage, Comfort, Est. Rel., Fluff, Insecure Sherlock) – For Christmas this year, Sherlock wants to get John something special: something every fairytale deserves. Part 2 of things fairy tales are made of

Our Enthusiasms Which Cannot Always Be Explained by withoutawish (M, 32,961 w., 1 Ch. || Christmas, Fluff and Angst, H/C, Post-TRF, Case Fic, Mild Gore, Sherlock Whump) – The list that is tacked haphazardly on the refrigerator of 221B reads, ‘Kidney(s), and/or a full cadaver (preferably male, late 30s, under six feet tall), bag of fresh toes, sixteen cow’s eyes (corneas retained), dual exhaust hand –held flame thrower, an unopened first edition copy of Joseph Conrad’s 'Heart of Darkness', and no less than ten abhorrently gruesome murders in the upcoming month.” The one neatly hanging next to it simply reads, “Sex.” One of these lists is not John Watson’s. If John Watson were to put what he really wanted in list form, to live in a land somewhere beyond ‘almosts' now that Sherlock Holmes has indeed returned to him, he would never be able to look his flatmate in the eye ever again.

Chaperones by MissDavis (T, 34,114 w., 7 Ch. || 11 Years Post-S4, Fake Relationship, Parentlock, Disney World, Bed / Room Sharing, Friends to Lovers, Fluff, First Kiss, Obsessive Sherlock, Insecure John) – Right. Of course. Everyone assumed they were a couple and no one would question it. John put his elbows up on the table so he could rest his head in his hands. "You want to pretend to be a couple so we can chaperone a trip to Disney World with Rosie's class and you won't have to share a room with a stranger?" "Exactly." Sherlock beamed at him. "Don't worry about the cost. The Birmingham case last month paid more than enough to cover expenses for all three of us."

Pater Noster by SilentAuror (E, 34,256 w., 2 Ch. || Case Fic, HLV+, Family Trauma, Sherlock POV, Villain Mary) – During the autumn that John is staying at Baker Street again after Sherlock was shot, he ruminates over the similarity between Sherlock's shot and the one that killed his father when he was fifteen. Cold case meets series 3 fix-it. Part I takes place entirely within His Last Vow, Part II takes place starting at the end of HLV and continues after.

Bedtime Stories by Liketheriver (M, 34,388 w., 1 Ch. || Emotional H/C, Romance, Angst & Humour, Bed Sharing, John First Person, TRF, John Whump) – John's POV during Season 2 and beyond when Sherlock takes up semi-permanent residence in his bed. A collection of codas and missing scenes wrapped up into one long fic and topped with a bow that takes the story beyond Reichenbach and into happy territory once more. Part 1 of Bedtime Universe

carrying up his morning tea by darcylindbergh (E, 34,504 w., 5 Ch. || Post S3, Minor Character Death, Grief/Mourning, Wakes/Funerals, Estranged John, Pining Sherlock, Depression/Insecurity, Slow Burn, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Chronic Pain/Injury, Reconciliation, Awkwardness, Loneliness, Scars, Heavy Angst With Happy Ending) – His fingers tremble as he dials and he can’t force them steady. Familiar number, even though he hasn’t used it in two years. He isn’t even sure he should be calling it now, but she’d asked. She’d made him promise.

Inexplicable by emmagrant01 (E, 34,664 w., 6 Ch. || Body Swap, TSo3, Magical Realism / Artifacts, Infidelity, Angst) – So what was in that matchbox, anyway? John and Sherlock find out, the hard way.

Where Else Would I Be? by cwb (E, 34,910 w., 10 Ch. || Retirementlock, Domestic Fluff, Falling in Love, Parentlock, Fluff and Smut, Reminiscing) – John and Sherlock's five-year-old granddaughter spends the weekend with them in Sussex. Sherlock happily indulges her whims, and John takes care of them while quietly revisiting the past thirty years of their lives together.

The Yellow Poppies by SilentAuror (E, 34,952 w., 1 Ch. || H/C, Nightmares, HLV Fix-It, PTSD, Trauma, POV Sherlock, Doctor John) – Sherlock is threatened and assaulted in the hospital immediately after having been shot in the heart, first by Mary, then by Magnussen. As he recovers at Baker Street with John and plans the attack on Appledore with Mycroft, he fights to work through the trauma caused by these two visits. Set during His Last Vow.

LHR-HNL by scullyseviltwin (E, 35,066 w., 7 Ch. || Hawaiian Vacation, Post-TRF, Friends To Lovers, Slow Burn, Just Talk Already, Drinking, Mutual Pining) – In need of an endangered flora sample, Sherlock and John must make a trip to an unexpected destination.

That Partitioning of the Things of Youth by wearitcounts (E, 35,353 w., 7 Ch. || Humour and Angst, Post-TRF, Fake Relationship, UST / RST, Friends to Lovers, Jealous John) – Victor Trevor is in town, and nobody's happy.

The Wrong Wagon by DancingGrimm (E, 35,663 w., 20 Ch. || Alternating POV, Molly x John [Molly pines for John], Public Sex, Casual Sex, Obliviousness, BAMF!John, Awkwardness, Angst & Humour, First Time, Virgin Sherlock, Jealous Sherlock) – Molly sees John in a new light and realises that she may have hitched her horse to the wrong wagon...or something like that. John pines for Sherlock and worries what he will think if he ever finds out. And Sherlock doesn't know what Molly's up to...but he knows he doesn't like it.

Classified(s) by blueink3 (E, 36,153 w., 4 Ch. || Wedding Date AU || Fake Relationship, Jealous, PIning, H/C, Idiots in Love, Happy Ending, Mary is not Nice) – Clara's American father is the ambassador to some such territory that Great Britain probably used to own, but she (and Harry’s undying love for her) is the reason John is getting on a flight at 12:30pm, flying across the second largest ocean in the world, and pretending to be in a perfectly happy, healthy relationship with an undoubtedly perfectly coiffed stranger. See, Clara is not only American (and wealthy to boot), she's also best friends with John’s ex-fiancée. Whom she's placed in the wedding party. As Maid of Honor. And John just happens to be Best Man. Bloody brilliant.

The Boy Who Drank Stars by kinklock (E, 36,157 w., 4 Ch. || Howl’s Moving Castle AU || Witches and Wizards, Slow Burn, Magic, Jealous John, Happy Ending, Bed Sharing) – “I’m looking for a castle,” John informed the scarecrow. “A moving one.”Except that, as it turned out, it was not a moving one at all.

we have never seen a greater day than this by Lediona (T, 36,420 w., 7 Ch. || A Royal Night Out AU || WWII / VE Day, Prince Sherlock, Soldier John, Alternating POV, First Kiss, Bittersweet Ending, Homophobia, Dancing) – Peace. At long last. It’s VE Day and Prince William desires to join the celebrations. It is a night of excitement, danger and the first flutters of romance.

Malediction by MapleleafCameo (M, 36,680 w., 11 Ch. || Ladyhawke AU || Magical Realism, Romance, Curses, Eventual Happy Ending) – Cursed to a half-life, John and Sherlock must fight the forces of evil to be reunited once again.

Nothing to Make a Song About by emmagrant01 (E, 36,833 w., 10 Ch. || Post-TRF, First Time, Reunion, Jealous John, Pining Sherlock, Romance, Angst with Happy Ending) – When Sherlock returned from his faked death, John could not forgive him for the deception and broke off their friendship. Ten years later, John returns to London in search of yet another new beginning. Sherlock, not surprisingly, is waiting.

A Promise Made to Be Broken by PlantsAreNeat (E, 37,018 w., 7 Ch. || Fake Relationship, Pining, Slow Burn, RST, Eventual Relationship, POV Sherlock) – A young John makes an ‘if we’re still single at 40, we’ll get together’ pledge to a woman who ends up all wrong for him. She keeps reminding him of the promise, and won't let go of it. John asks Sherlock to pose as his boyfriend at a family wedding, so as to dash her hopes permanently. Sherlock, who has at last acknowledged his feelings for John, reluctantly agrees despite knowing how painful it will be to ‘have’ John, but not keep him.

The Unfinished Letters by SilentAuror (E, 37,391 w. , 1 Ch.|| Post S3 / S3 / HLV Fix it, Angst with Happy Ending, Romance, Infidelity, Depression, Case Fic, POV Third Person Sherlock, Love Confessions, Pining Sherlock, Letters) – A fire at Baker Street leads John to read something he was never intended to see: a notebook of half-written, unfinished letters Sherlock wrote during his time away...

Turn Left at the Park by Glenmore (NR (E), 37,409 w., 28 Ch. || Alternate First Meeting / ASiP Divergence, Case Fic, Depression, Suicidal Ideation, Loneliness, No Mary, Possessive Sherlock, Fluff & Angst, Nightmares/PTSD, Sherlock Saves John, Sherlock Whump-ish, Doctor John) – So what would have happened if John hadn't walked through the park and met Stamford?What if, instead, he walked around the park and just went home?

Goodness Gives Extras by mydwynter (E, 39,629 w., 6 Ch. || Fluff & Angst, Case Fic, Oral / Anal, Humour, First Time, Miscommunication, Snark, Christmas) – Christmas time. 'Tis the season to settle down with a drink, some food and a present or two, and to enjoy the quiet relaxation of the holiday. Instead, there's a case that drags them all over, missing presents, disappointed kids, angry parents, and a freak snowfall. On top of that John has to deal with Sherlock, who is being even more of a prat than usual. He really shouldn't have expected anything different.

Act IV by SilentAuror (E, 39,707 w., 1 Ch. || First Person POV Sherlock, HLV Fix-It, Indifelity, Angst, Drama) – After Sherlock is shot, John moves back into Baker Street. They spend the autumn together as John tries to make sense of his life and make some important decisions about both Mary and Sherlock. Canon-compliant, excerpts from His Last Vow.

A Week is Just Seven Days Isn't It? by scifigrl47 (T, 39,906 w., 4 Ch. || Humour, Friendship/Bromance, Stroppy/Bored Sherlock, Undercover/Army John, Texting, Pining-ish Sherlock, John Whump) – When John heads overseas for a week, Sherlock's forced to fend for himself. It goes about as well as anyone could have anticipated. Which is to say, very, very poorly. Don't worry, things'll be fine in just seven days.

(Never) Turn Your Back to the Sea by DiscordantWords (M, 39,968 w., 7 Ch. || Post S4 Fix It || Grief / Mourning, Victor Trevor, Friendship, Sherlock is Not Okay, Nightmares/Flashbacks/Panic Attacks, Parentlock, Pining Sherlock, Angst with Happy Ending, John Comes Home) – Baker Street is very much the same. Only different. And Sherlock is just trying not to drown.

Only To Be With You by SinceWhenDoYouCallMe_John (M, 40,768 w., 4 Ch. || Black Mirror / Future AU || Character Death, Future Technology, Sickness/Cancer/Illness, Heavy Angst with Happy Ending, First Person POV John, Pining John, Heart-Wrenching Angst) – I tell myself that next time I’ll come near this same place again. Wait around for the mysterious stranger in his coat to dash past me, hot on the heels of a new criminal in black. I think this all the way back to my Exit, planning where I’ll wait and what I’ll say when I see him. Scheming on how to get his name. It’s only once I reach the Exit Point door that I realize two hours and forty-five minutes have passed, and I realize that this won’t be the last time I Visit. It won’t be the last time at all.

The Curious Adventure of the Drs. Watson by ShinySherlock (M, 40,883 w., 14 Ch. || BBC & ACD Fusion || Victorianlock, Time Travel / Magical Realism, Friends to Lovers, Love and Kissing, Romance, Body Swap) – What if ACD Watson and BBC Watson switched places... “Imposter!” Hands clenching the lapels of John’s coat, Holmes shoved him anew. “Yes!” John agreed, nodding, and then grimacing. “Sort of!”

There's Someone On Your Shoulder by halloa_what_is_this (NR, 41,215 w., 6 Ch. || Pining Sherlock, Introspection, Daydreams, Sherlock Loves John So Much it Hurts) – Sherlock trips and falls head over heels in love, makes a lot of lists and stares, stares, stares.

The Semantics of Crop Circle Formation: a case study by Sherlock Holmes [unpublished] bycanolacrush (M, 41,710 w., 9 Ch. || Sherlock POV, Aliens, Wordplay, Casefic) – “Look at these photographs,” I said, gesturing to the wall of crop circles. “What do you observe?”“Crop circles,” John replied.“Obvious. What else?”“Are…are those intestines surrounding them?” “Yes. The majority are bovine and ovine in origin. The farmers who have acquired these crop circles in their fields have also had a tenth of their livestock murdered and arranged thus.” “Why?” John said, presumably in a rhetorical fashion. I detest rhetorical questions. “That is what I must find out, John.”

Resistivity and Relative Charge by liriodendron (E, 41,770 w., 8 Ch. || Synesthesia, Angst, Case Fic, Romance, Est. Rel., Homophobia, Religious Content, Victor Trevor, Mild Jealous John, Mild John Whump) – In which Sherlock Holmes meets an old acquaintance, John Watson doesn't enjoy a trip to the country quite as much as he thought he would, and the past absolutely refuses to stay where it belongs. Part 3 of Conductivity

Right Hand Man by SilentAuror (E, 42,031 w., 4 Ch. || H/C, Injury, Slow Burn, Infidelity, Mary is Not Nice) – When John's left arm becomes paralysed after a car accident, Mary asks Sherlock to take him back to Baker Street to recuperate, as she's about to give birth. Despite the fact that the search for Moriarty is ongoing, Sherlock takes John in and takes responsibility for overseeing his rehabilitation as he adjusts to the loss of his arm.

In the Still of the Night by SilentAuror (E, 42,234 w., 1 Ch. || S4 Fix It / Post-S4, Sherlock POV, Angst, Drama, Romance, Virgin Sherlock, Awkwardness, Misunderstandings / Miscommunications, Case Fic, Travelling, Pining) – As locals on the Northeastern coast begin to report UFO sightings, life at Baker Street becomes significantly awkward as John brings up his desire for more than friendship and Sherlock refuses him. They embark on the investigation from the confines of the tiny cottage Mycroft has rented for them, attempting to navigate both the clues of the case as well as their own inability to communicate...

Guidelines by WithLoweredVoices (M, 43,018 w., 15 Ch. || Winglock || Angels, Fantasy, Angst, BAMF! John, War, Jealous Sherlock, Possessive Sherlock, Jealous John, Falling in Various Ways, Needy Sherlock) – The Good Soldier, one of the oldest and strongest of the fallen, is offered a bargain: to live as John Watson and to Guide a fledgling archangel so that he will stay on the path of good. Of course, Sherlock Holmes has different ideas about his destiny. Fantasy AU. Warnings for violence, occasional gore, and a whole load of hurt and angst.

Bloody But Unbowed by BeautifulFiction (E, 43,211 w., 8 Ch. || Abduction, John Whump, Mild Torture, Background Case Fic, Friends to Lovers, Post-TRF / S3 Rewrite, Hurt/Comfort) – When a familiar argument threatens to destroy the last remnants of John and Sherlock's failing friendship, both men are left questioning their worth to one another. Before either of them has the chance to make amends, circumstance intervenes. John is left at the mercy of his abductors, and this time, he's not sure Sherlock will bother coming to his rescue.

The Soul Remembers by i_ship_an_armada (E, 43,636 w., 10 Ch. || Oblivion AU || Post-Apocalypse, Movie Fusion, Science Fiction, Action/Adventure, Angst, Dreams, Bittersweet Ending) – John Watson is the lone security repairman stationed on a desolate, nearly-ruined future Earth. His dreams are plagued by a tall, dark-haired man, and when his dreams meet reality, he will be forced to question everything he believes is the truth about his life.

The Case of the Vanishing Pants by SwissMiss (E, 44,025 w., 6 Ch. || Post-TRF, Case Fic, UST, Homophobia, Friends to Lovers) – Five times John and Sherlock lost their pants in the course of a case.

Sentenced by SarahKnight (T, 44,777 w., 30 Ch. || Dev. Rel., Alternate S4 Canon, Drama, Angst, Pining, Feelings are Hard) – Virtual series 4 opener. Sherlock's in prison being targeted by a murderer, John's married to a pregnant assassin and Moriarty's back.

Left by lifeonmars (M, 45,153 w., 9 Ch. || Magical Realism) – John Watson is left-handed. He’s tried not to let it affect his life, but as any Lefty knows, that’s almost impossible.

The Real Great Perfumers by shelleysprometheus (E, 45,355 w., 68 Ch. || Case Fic, Alternating POV, Gay Sherlock / Bi John, Canon Compliant with Divergence at TRF, Friends to Lovers, Oral / Anal, Pining, First Kiss / Time, Dev. Rel., Drugging, Body Worship, Bathing, Love Confessions, Travelling, Bottomlock, Cranky Sherlock, BJ’s, Alternating POV, Jealous John) – The case, this case. This extraordinary, fascinating, scintillating case. A house. Designed entirely by its eccentric owner, built by no less than five hundred expert tradesmen in the heart of Marrakesh. A house that had, seemingly not only driven its owner out, but also to his quite unpleasant death. And a perfumer, a chemist no less, the very thought of the secrets that house could reveal, would reveal was irresistible. Sherlock had to have this case ... and it seems, he also had to have John! Part 1 of the Forethought and Fire series

Corpus Hominis by mycapeisplaid (E, 47,709 w., 12 Ch. || Casefic, Fluff, Romance, Frottage) - John knows the human body intimately. He’s had plenty of opportunity for study as a doctor, soldier, and lover. There’s one particular body, however, he knows very little about. When Sherlock launches himself head-first into a new obsession and they get sent on a case in an unlikely location, the pair discovers each other’s bodies with confusing yet delightful (and sometimes hilarious) results.

The Norwood Love Builders by flawedamythyst (T, 47,798 w., 9 Ch. || Fake Relationship, Slow Burn, Post TRF Angst) – Sherlock and John go undercover to solve the murder of Joanna Oldacre, but things are complicated by the many feelings John has been repressing in the wake of Sherlock's faked death and return.

The Pieces That Fall to Earth by Itsallfine (M, 49,513 w., 84 Ch. || S4 Fix-It, Epistolary, Love Confessions, Slow Burn, Parentlock, Past Abuse, Coming Out, Questioning Sexuality, Mental Health Issues / Therapy, Angst, Happy Ending) – John and Sherlock have hit rock bottom, but with all their armor stripped away, they can finally speak honestly, seek healing, and find the truths that matter most.An epistolary post-s4 fix-it fic. Now complete.(This fic is rated T except for one very clearly marked and easily skippable chapter, which is rated M.) Part 1 of The Pieces that Fall to Earth

Holmes is where the heart is by Rose de Sharon (T, 49,636 w., 13 Ch. || Hurt/Comfort, Friendship, Post-TRF, Reunion Fic, Bromance, Empty House Inspired, Adventure) – Three years after the Reichenbach Fall. On the anniversary of Sherlock's death, John pays a visit at 221 B Baker Street… and he gets the shock of his life.

Bedroom Tales by Junejuly15 (M, 49,950 w., 22 Ch. || Friends to Lovers, Through the Years, H/C, Military Kink, First Kiss / Time, Romance, Insecure Sherlock, Voyeurism, Post-TRF, Ficlets, Fluff and Angst, Fix-It Fics) – Bedroom Tales is a collection of John and Sherlock ficlets. They are set at various stages of their relationship and are in no particular order. Some are fluffy, some sexy, some angsty, there is hurt and comfort, romance and love. What unites them is that they all play in a bedroom, but not necessarily the one in 221B.

A Love with No Name Series by aceofhearts61 (M, 49,955 w. across 20 fics || Ace!Sherlock / Straight!John, Queerplatonic Relationship, Cuddling/Snuggling, Soulmates, Caretaking, Platonic Romance) – In which Asexual!Sherlock and Straight!John are platonically in love life partners.

#steph replies #johnlock fic recs #long fics #my fic recs #e-rated fics #Anonymous #long posts #25 to 50k words

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sweetfirebird · 6 years ago

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If you ever have any interest in doing so, I would find your self-publishing experience super interesting to read about, especially if you talked about vulgar things like cost.

I don’t know if I am the average self-publisher. I sort of... went into it with no real thought or uh, proper concern, at the time? Which I think is partly because I started out in fandom, with fanfiction and then “Original Slash” as it was known then. Where you just... posted large, novel-length stories for free on LJ or free websites because it wasn’t like anyone was going to *pay you* or it was serious or anything.

(Yes, I am laughing at that now.)

So I was, technically, a published writer long before all of this started I just didn’t think of it that way.

I also... I first wrote and submitted a story to an mm publisher in the first place because I wanted to be PUBLISHED in a tangible way before I hit thirty. Also I was unemployed at the time and thought extra money might be nice. (FYI, I made about 30 dollars the first few quarters that Let There Be Light was published. In case anyone has glamorous dreams here.)

Maybe because it was a short novella, or maybe because I just, didn’t think of it in serious career terms, I think I submitted another short story eventually but I had no plan. That’s why I’m telling you this part. Everything I did, especially at the beginning, was casually, with no plan or forethought. The fact that I have even a tiny foothold in the mm or queer romance market now is basically just timing. I got in fairly early, and, to their credit, Dreamspinner did let me write whatever.

(I mean, within their limits They are a gay male romance publisher. There is a reason Zazzie and Bernard don’t get their own story, for example. But yeah, DSP let me do an anthology of the Beings verse, which genuinely surprised me.)

My first self-published stuff was short stories I’d written before for friends for fun, and I put them up for free. They were not edited or anything. They didn’t have covers. I knew HTML and stuff from years ago, so eventually, so I worked on formatting and primitive covers. I made blog posts on LJ, sometimes, when I remembered. Facebook I forgot about because self-promotion is the worst. Then someone made fun of me for never posting there. (Self-promotion is serious, guys. Awkward af but serious.) Important sidenote: I made almost nothing from Smashwords at the beginning. Maybe once a year I got $75 or so. Again, most people start very small.

As I started to think of it as something serious, I tried Goodreads and talking to other authors (this was a disaster but perhaps that is just me. But yeah. I don’t really talk with other authors now. It could be the rejection sensitive dysphoria, but my impression is they want nothing to do with me.. However, I think networking is important and if you can and like it, you should do it. I miss out on A LOT of info and chances and free promotion stuff because I don’t talk to people.)

Also, Amazon, at the beginning of all this, was helpful. (I mean, they are evil and their help comes at a cost, but they were helpful and I will acknowledge that. I think KU is ultimately harmful to authors, but it has given a lot of authors a boost as well.)

Okay. All of that out of the way. I started self-publishing casually, as I said, but I did it seriously for the first time with A Little Familiar. I think that was the one that I planned out and thought about, though not as well as I should. I was on a very tight budget so it got no proper editing, just proofreads and an editing program. But I released it in early October and I made it cheap.

--Pricing is the devil of a post-KU writing world. People do not seem to want to pay what a book is worth. Putting an entire novella--a month or longer of work--for sale at 99 cents tends to help it sell but how much the author gets out of that depends on cover costs, editing costs, sensitivity reader costs, and advertising if they pay for that. Not to mention things like websites and domains, or con visits, and the swag that apparently readers expect at cons, those cost money also. Also authors have to buy the copies of books they sell at cons, guys. Those are not free.

(I don’t do conventions because well, overstimulation aside, people don’t like me and I am not... an open, friendly people person. I have no knowledge of how directly con appearances affect sales. BUT they can help networking, and they might be useful. Con costs include travel, lodging, booth rental, and swag, plus food. PLUS time off work for some writers. Again, talking hundreds if not thousands.)

Advertising costs... BookBub, Amazon, Goodreads (owned by Amazon) offer paid promotion services. So does Facebook. The more you pay, the more they suggest your work to people. If you think a couple hundred dollars will get you noticed, think again. They want thousands or more before they will remotely plug your stuff. (Yikes) Some authors pool their money for this.

IF you network enough, you might get a bunch of reviews or likes from authors who are also readers. You can also get promoted through Amazon if you get enough reviews (you need sales to get sales, it’s very chicken/egg). It used to be 25 reviews, but now I think it’s 50.(Yiiiikes)

Editing is hundreds of dollars, minimum. Audiobooks look to be about the same, though I’ve never handled that for my self-published stories. Cover art... the most expensive cover art I’ve had was almost $200. It’s cheaper if it’s ebook only, though.

I also use a paid editing program, which isn’t perfect. And Adobe, because sometimes people want PDFs. I try to keep my costs as minimal as possible, so basically I rely on a lot of word of mouth to get my stories out there. But again, I’ve had a long time to slowly, ineptly, build a brand of sorts. I have no idea how someone would do that now, except to advise them to make friends.

Also the rules are changing. It used to be don’t interact with critics, now it’s polite to thank the professional reviewers. (I know! A shock for me). There are podcasts and things too. But I know nothing of those. I am a cave troll.

So, yeah, say you have a novella you want to self-publish. It’s... idk. 115 pages maybe. It’s two months or longer of work. (Less, if you are one of those speedy writers or don’t have a day job). You pay up front for editing and cover. Let’s say one round of edits and not two. You are out... idk... let’s say $400, maybe more maybe less. (More if it’s a good edit. Some people don’t pay editors enough, some editors aren’t as good, whatever. You also have internet costs etc... ) You promote it and your other work at a con, that’s several more hundred dollars, though maybe you share a room at the hotel with a writer friend.

You can now post it on Amazon. $2.99 or $3.99 seems reasonable, you think, for a few hours of entertainment for someone. Less than a frappuccino. But then someone complains that the cost is too high, and several people seem to agree, so you end up making it $1.99. You get 70% of the royalties plus some KU money if you sign up for that. KU makes you Amazon-exclusive but being in their lending library means you might get new readers. Then, IF your story cracks the top 100, IF you get enough reviews, in a few months, you will get international payments of several cents for your story and domestic payments of--if you are lucky--a thousand or more.

Seems like, well not the stuff that dreams are made of, but still a lot. But then you take out the operating costs (and oh, things like rent and copyright fees and writing guild fees) and you are left with... not much.

That all sounds really discouraging. This is a very rough and disorganized explanation, because sitting still is hard for me today. But really I guess my point is, it’s slow work to build an audience. It’s hard. It’s a bit easier if you already know some coding and formatting stuff (and probably way easier if you know graphic design). My biggest problem really is trying to keep up with industry news, and looking into new things (like translations or audiobooks or agents. Some people have agents?) while also writing and working my other job.

But you do get more freedom. You can write what you want. You can publish what you want. (Well, you can. But you still have an audience to please, and they have expectations.) And there are less people to take cuts of your money. (And frankly, if they aren’t promoting your book anyway, or supporting you as you write, which are the traditional jobs of the publishing house, then why should they get so much money? They are supposed to make things easier for writers, not harder. But if one did that for me? I’d probably jump at the chance.)

Uh so yeah. Thank you for coming to this messy-ass TED Talk.

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