#with a little frankenstein thrown in for spice

[clottedscream]

cooking up a lil sumn...

[the-portrait-of-seraph]

This Week’s Book is...

“Frankenstein” by my beloved Mary Shelley! Since it’s October (aka spooky season), I wanted to spice up my reading material a little, so we’ve thrown in the classic “Frankenstein”. I know it’s pretty cliche, but I absolutely love this book! I’ll also be reading some works of Poe and those subtly jarring short stories you read in middle school (i.e. The Yellow Wallpaper, The Monkey’s Paw, The Woman in White).

I’d love to see other recs for me, please leave some below!

“I too can create desolation; my enemy is not invulnerable; this death will carry despair to him, and a thousand other miseries shall torment and destroy him.”

-From “Frankenstein” 

[cryptid-killjoy]

It started with Belle and Dale and the dads saw it coming. Dale was at Xigbar.  They saw it more coming when Dale’s date kept asking for River. Delta, Frank, Triton, and Sally were in a mini-tiff that seemed to get sorted out quickly, but yeah they were staying out of that one. 

TREE. That was all that mattered now. 

Mulan had her tricks. That was fun high as a kite. Thomas even let them take off the tubing to ride the tree. Koda came around to say Elsa was going to take martial arts class and Koda seemed a little smitten. Flotsam laughed when he left. “Good luck with that one. Give it the ol’ college try.” They’d to Thomas like the whole thing was hysterical. Even seeing Delta and Frank laughing afar at Zero and Frankenstein was a nice extra jolt of belly laughs. Good times. Summer and River were at it. Chip and Agnes were at it. Dale was barking around hunting River down for going off with HIS date when he’d ignored her half the night anyhow. Brigitte was securing new rides home. 

No one even knew the shenanigans that Taryn and Declan were up to while so much drama was going on outside. But, Captain Hook was causing a scene with Willem, dragging the boy around by his ear. Piper was nodding about it to the dads, “That’s how Daddy said they threw people off the top floor for throwing off his groove. Willem must have thrown off his groove real bad.” She tsked shaking her head either oblivious or uncaring to it all. Flotsam kept right on laughing, eating, drinking, smoking. It was the first time in a long damn time, shit was going crazy around them, castle walls blowing up, side walks cracking, kids bitching and arguing, drama-drama, for once no llama. There was a Madam Medusa who staggered by the dads and she weaved in close to get a better look at Flo. 

“Are you that petulant brat with the pompous, pretty, little pokerface?” She asked patting both their cheeks at once as if testing to be sure it was who she thought it was. 

“The one that won your park land on a bluff including the houseboat you lived in?” 

“Yeahhhhhh that’s the one.” Her face screwed up her mouth twisted to one side. 

“Yup. That’s me.” 

“Flosssum!” She threw her arms around them, “I miss your face. Take my house. The least you can do is give me your skin secret.” She kept petting over Flo’s cheeks practically in their lap. 

“I’ll never tell.” 

“Petulant brat. Some of us have pores!” 

“Oh come now. You look gorgeous when you can stand.” Flo was trying hard to push her tipsy lean off their body while laughing at the old woman’s intoxication and looking for help from Thomas to lift her away. “Tell her how lovely she looks tonight, Thomas.” Flotsam’s eye were bulging in that please just go with it way while begging for help, but also laughing at the whole thing. 

Even seeing Captain Hook in an uproar over his own kid had a way of making Flotsam laugh. New Zealand bound baby. None of it mattered. 

Tree. 

Happy Tree. Flotsam was in the land of Bob Ross with his happy tree and moss boas and Scoutolf the 50 Shades of Grey, not to mention her assistant Sporty Spice. Thomas was throwing his new name around like a metal earned at the Olympics. Nope. It didn’t matter to Flo if Belle’s castle burnt to the ground tonight or who was going at it this time or what the drama was. They’d see Tree and smile picturing it really being the friend that comes to visit. Even better than Tree was when they’d look back in the middle of all the now dirty ground from the party going all night even amidst the chaos, they’d see Thomas, and that smile had never been more natural, more bright, just god damn happy watching those blue eyes look back at them, those beads still swinging.  

[elliot-orion]

Fanfiction Is Real Writing

Mkay so Elliot has officially had 1 too many people look at me condescendingly when I say I mostly read fanfic so it’s time for a Post. Let’s get one thing clear here right off the bad. Fanfiction is real writing. If you write fanfic you are a writer. You don’t need to tack fanfic on there. You are a writer. You can participate in all the writing spaces without shame. You are just as worthy and valid as any writeblr on this site and what you do is impressive. And on the same vein, reading fanfiction is not inherently lesser than reading published books you get from Barnes and Noble. 50 Shades of Gray was a mistake, but at the very least it proved that. I have read books by canonized authors that were less engaging, dynamic, and well written than a fanfiction I found on AO3. Yes, fanfic might have the occasional gratuitous blow job, but that means nothing. Still real writing. 

Now that that’s out of the way, I want to get just a wee bit more in-depth with this, because I know I can say however many times I want that fanfic is real writing and still people won’t believe me. So let’s bring forth some actual arguments on why fanfiction is super fucking valid and fanfic authors are actual authors. 

Reason #1 - Published Fanfiction

Fanfiction is out there all over the place. You see people reading it all the time. They teach it in classrooms. They make movies of it. Don’t believe me? Well Dante’s Inferno is a three part, self insert, super self indulgent fanfic of the bible. Literally any Christian literature would also count under this bible fanfiction collection, and any and all biblical paintings? Those are fanart buddy. I don’t know how to break it to you, but Caravaggio’s St John the Baptist reclining with a single cloth covering his nether regions is on the same level as a digitally drawn Tony Stark with a flower in his mouth saying draw me like one of your french girls in terms of fanart credibility okay. It be like that. 

And trust me, it’s not just biblical shit. Ever read a book with some sort of Frankenstein’s monster in it? That’s making fanfiction off the goth queen Mary Shelley. Any single piece of vampire literature? Dracula fanfiction. Hotel Transylvania is an epic slice of life crossover with some OCs thrown in for spice. Are you starting to see my point here? Because if not I’ve got more examples, just send me an ask, I can go for a while here. Like, you know, literally anything that’s got to do with Romeo and Juliet, or Sherlock, and so on and so forth. Get it? 50 Shades is super far from being the only published fanfictions and if you think it is then wow you need to get out more. 

Reason #2 - AO3 Is Just Digital Publishing

As a self published author, I can confidently say that making an AO3 publication is super similar to self publishing something. I used Kindle Direct Publishing to publish Sparks Fly. I had to age grade it, like I have to put down General, Teen, Mature, or Explicit on my AO3 fics. I had to add tags for people to find it, much like you tag stuff on AO3. I had to mark off it was explicit. I had to list the genre, like one may tag Gen, M/M, and so on for an AO3 fic. I wrote a summary. I gave it a title. Really, taking an au fanfiction, changing the names, and publishing it as an E-book would be remarkably easy. Just actually let a beta read it this time, format it, and make a quick cover, and boom. You’re published. Does that extra step mean you’re any more of an author for doing so than you were already? Of course not, unless I missed the memo that said you need to know how to format and make covers to be a writer. 

Reason #3 - Fanfiction Is Fucking Hard Okay?

Fanfiction is no less creative or difficult than original writing. It requires a plot, characterization, worldbuilding, because even if it’s not an au canon gives us all very little to work with half the time, and dedication. You need to have a grasp on the English language and how to make written dialogue, description, and internal worlds. The only difference is that fanfiction has something to go off, but that does no make it lesser. In fact, in many ways I argue it’s harder. If your character is slightly out of character, no one will know. If you write Han Solo out of character, you’re in for a nightmare. 

Actually, fanfiction is an excellent way to develop as a writer, and I highly suggest trying it if you haven’t already. You can assume your audience already has a fairly decent grasp of the characters, their basic interactions and characteristics, world (unless it’s a new au), and general backstory of anything canon. You don’t have to spend time with developing a relationship from the ground up if you don’t want to, you don’t need to waste space on exposition, you can, as I like to say, get to the good stuff from the get go. If you start your fanfic off with Harry kissing Malfoy, people are going to understand the dynamic between those two and their history together, meaning you can skip all that and get right into the aftermath of two rivals kissing and whatever you want that to mean for your story. You have so much more room for characterization, and you don’t even need to stick to canon. I find the best fanfictions to be the ones where they take canon elements and break them. Canon means nothing you fools, the writer is now god and if they want those two to have a 200k slow burn coffee shop au then they will and it doesn’t mean shit that they are 2 ageless warriors from hell. It’s coffee time baby. But no matter how much you snap and step on canon, those characters need to be recognizable, which is especially difficult when it’s not a written media and that means you’ve got no idea what the inner world of the character is like and only 2 hours of material to work with and oh god.... Yea, fanfic is harder than you think folks. Again, as both a fanfic and original fic author I can say I’ve struggled equally as much with my 50k Hydra Peter Parker hurt/comfort au as I did with writing The Other Beings. 

And these are so very far from the only three reasons!! And even if there weren’t it wouldn’t matter because fanfiction has characters, plot, and is words on a page/screen, whether it’s a 100 word drabble or 200k agonizingly slow burn (seriously how do you have the PATIENCE) and guess what last I checked that’s all you need for fiction writing don’t you think? So now if people could stop snickering when they catch me pulling up AO3, that’d be just great. Have a good day.