fix it with lesbians

rubina - she - I believe in self-made misery & powerful hope

[jadzeanna]

This is my writing (fic) and reading (fic+books) blog. My main is @squidong & my star trek sideblog is @tposhi. Find me on ao3 as jadzeanna. WIP info below the cut.

Currently reading: nothing :(

Currently writing (in priority order, more or less):

Kes/Torres “dark Kes” (post-Warlord) novel (working title: wisteria)

“Fresh Femslash Salad Bar” February fic challenge (5/10) - intend to continue after February. (WIP titles: strawberry foam; the apple; unwinding)

Longfics in the queue & in my tags

Original fantasy novel (working title: spell weavers)

T’Poshi Age of Exploration romantasy novel (working title: the oracle’s curse)

Troisha romulan aeneid/underground/historiography spy novel (working title: the woman she lost / tagged as twsl)

B7 novel in which B’Elanna is Seven’s humanity mentor, but also kind of hates her, but Seven is into it (working title: fission)

WIP-inspiring reblogs are tagged “fic: [title]” on my main and side blog.

2026 writing challenges

Publish 1 fic every month (2/12)

Complete one long-form fic (0/1)

2026 reading challenges

1 book every week (2/52) - gave up in favor of going all in on writing.

Monthly book club (1/12)

@2026-book-bingo (1/25)

[veronicaleighauthor]

[jadzeanna]

One of my friends told me he doesn’t think of me as a writer and like, it’s fair, I don’t really talk about my work & don’t have a huge output, but also how dare

So now I have to make writing a bigger part of my personality I guess

[jadzeanna]

Reading tons of lurid fantasy does incredible things to my authorial voice. This rules. I think I have to reserve a shelf on my bookshelf for books whose writing is so vivid that I should reread it when I need to absorb its power.

[jadzeanna]

Just had my fastest DNF, 20 pages into fourth wing. oh my god that was bad. I need a palate cleanser. How did I go from murderbot to this

[jadzeanna]

The thing about making derivative fiction — which is to say, a story wrought after another, not fanfiction borrowing the world or characters — is that if you borrow wholesale, you create drivel. You have to slow cook your inspiration for hours until the connective tissue dissolves and falls apart when you bite into it, and then you can see it for what it really is, and only then can you explore how that truly interacts with this new story you want to tell.

[jadzeanna]

started reading the isle on the silver sea on april 8. two days of reading in my marginal scraps of freedom, and I’m halfway through. curious to see how long it takes to finish a book like this.

[jadzeanna]

Finished it on April 18th. 5 days for 150k. In my defense it was not an effortless read and I did have to ebb and flow and pay attention. I wouldn’t say it’s difficult, per se, but it’s the sort of thing that’ll definitely be easier to follow the second time through.

Great book though. 10/10 general execution, 7/10 ending (it dragged a bit, and got a bit cheesy, I dare say, but 7/10 from me is still solidly Good. It’s still a book I’m recommending to everyone.)

I want to write fanfiction about this in Punjabi now, because the linguistic element to the isle is the part that hit me the hardest. Problem is, much like the characters, emigration has taken my ancestral language from me. 😔

[jadzeanna]

Here’s five novels about transfem characters that I’m excited to read, in no particular order —

Wrath Goddess Sing by Maya Deane (2022) — I discovered this book existed and then started banging pots and pans in my friends’ DMs screaming about it. Transfem Achilles just doesn’t want to go to war as a man, and a deal with Athena gets her a feminine body and the promise of birthing a child of her own. It clearly takes liberties with the myths as we know them, but the blurb mentions drawing on modern archaeology, which really excites me. Everyone who loves this book describes it as unhinged.

The Sapling Cage by Margaret Killjoy (2024) — I’ve jokingly described this as a reverse Mulan, which is delightful to me in light of Achilles being a reverse Mulan in a different way. Our heroine desperately wants to be a witch, but ‘boys’ can’t be witches. The coven comes for her best friend, so she takes her place in disguise. Also there’s a blight killing off the trees in the land, and witches are being blamed for it. I’ve personally been on a big ‘witch’ kick lately, because of how witch-stories tend to entangle with themes of myth, and this is an exciting addition to that collection.

The Seep by Chana Porter (2020) — The Seep is a benevolent alien entity that controls the world but also gives people everything they ever wanted. And our heroine’s wife leaves her to be reborn as a baby, which leaves our heroine disillusioned and devastated. I was looking for something a bit different in the sapphic sff genre space, since I’m looking at starting a sapphic book club (irl), and this book sounds brilliantly weird. (Transfem POV character)

Light from Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki (2021) — Not gonna lie, the title and cover for this grabbed me, and the summary — about a woman with a supernatural pact to kill prodigies, a brilliant teenage violinist, and a retired starship captain who runs a donut shop, trying to break the first woman’s curse with the power of ‘home’ — sounds like it’ll either be unbearably cheesy or rip my heart to shreds. Excited to find out which. (Transfem character is one of the main trio)

The Drowning Girl by Caitlin R. Kiernan (2012) — there was a post a while back about how horror about mental illness is always from the POV of the sane. Well, this is a horror-thriller from the perspective of a schizophrenic girl trying to tell what’s real. Blurring the lines between fantasy and reality is a favorite trope of mine & this seems intriguing at least. (Transfem main-but-not-POV character)

[jadzeanna]

started reading the isle on the silver sea on april 8. two days of reading in my marginal scraps of freedom, and I’m halfway through. curious to see how long it takes to finish a book like this.

[jadzeanna]

I had to use up the ink in my fountain pen so I spent all day doing character work in my journal instead of my job that I get paid for. Anyway now I have Ideas for wisteria.

[jadzeanna]

I’ve struggled with B’Elanna’s character arc a lot and I feel like I’ve stepped back enough to see my mistakes, and now the story is coming together exactly how I wanted to. (This is the only note I could find that wasn’t spoilers.)

The big mistake I made, that ground my progress to a miserable avoidant halt, was getting in my head about what other people think. I love the experience of discovering the themes of a story. Sometimes they’re just waiting to be picked up, and sometimes I have to dig. My stories always end up teaching me things I couldn’t hear any other way. But if I try to write to someone else’s standards, that’s a defensive approach, and defensiveness is where creativity dies.

Maybe this story will get me canceled for being problematic. Maybe it won’t qualify for the femslash big bang. Maybe I’ll fall out of love and abandon it half completed. But I need to tell the story I want to tell. And that story, when I don’t fuck it up out of fear, is pretty great.

[thegrayelephent]

Me when I write for 30 minutes: 1k words

Me when I write for 2 hours: 500 words

Me when I write for 4 hours: -300 words

[luceliamercury-deactivated20260]

-300 words is progress and can be more productive than writing 3k words though. Carving out the excess is a core part of the writing process.

[jadzeanna]

Failed to post my Tetris smut while it was still April 1st in UTC and it’s your fault (the girl reading this)

[jadzeanna]

I had to use up the ink in my fountain pen so I spent all day doing character work in my journal instead of my job that I get paid for. Anyway now I have Ideas for wisteria.

[jadzeanna]

Books I’ve read in 2026

Butter by Ayako Yuzuki, trans. Polly Barton

Book club - Jan 2026

A Japanese novel in which a tomboy journalist becomes obsessed with a foodie “serial killer” and begins an exploration into food and feminism. I liked the rich sensory descriptions of food & the languid pacing, as well as the shockingly queer themes. It isn’t a mystery thriller, despite what the subtitle (“a novel of food and murder”) and the blurb might make you think. Overall, it was a favorite of mine, but controversial within the book club.

The Psychomachia by Prudentius, trans. Marc Mastrangelo

A 5th-century Roman Christian epic poem in which Virtues and Vices allegorically face off on a gory ancient battlefield, and also they’re all woman. I liked that they were all women without being limited by the constraints of classical femininity (even when compared to goddesses!). It isn’t particularly consistent or cohesive, but it also wasn’t like anything that had been done before. Overall, it was very fun and inspiring despite the cringey Christian morality, and got me excitedly going on a Classics binge.

To Sir Phillip, With Love by Julia Quinn

A Bridgerton novel in which our rambunctious heroine runs off to visit her pen pal and they fall in love. I liked the portrayal of his children, and the decent care for historical accuracy (I was so prepared to be mad!). It isn’t morally mature: he just wants her to do all the labor of running his life and raising his children, and they never grow past this. Overall, I don’t feel the need to read another Bridgerton book, but it was an excellent gateway drug into actual 18th-19th century novels.

Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Book club - Mar 2026

A novel in which the second ever class of coed astronauts navigate their interpersonal relationships, while the protagonist discovers she’s not actually aroace upon falling in love with a woman. I liked the way the homophobia and feminism/misogyny were portrayed in a period accurate way without leaning into the misery of it. It isn’t a genre romance, and I think that made it much stronger as a story. Overall, it was one of my favorite wlw reads to date, enough so that I bought a physical copy to keep on my shelf <3

[jadzeanna]

i'm like a trekkie virgil <- me when i have delusions of grandeur

[jadzeanna]

While Surak lived, his wiles would persist, And spread in waves, as from a fissile core, The very sort that brought me to your shores. Its very nature cannot let it cease Emission of its poisonous decay, Which can be stopped by shielding, or depleted, Or, if it reaches a receptive heart, Take refuge there, transforming what it finds To something of its own, emissive kind, Until it spreads beyond, and yet beyond, More hearts will bear its poison messenger, Until its very energy collects, And when too much for any to contain, Bursts forth, unfettered in destructive might Leaving no survivors.

in other words i'm having a normal time reading the aeneid

[jadzeanna]

i'm like a trekkie virgil <- me when i have delusions of grandeur

[jadzeanna]

In some ways I’m a very standard fandomite; in other ways, I don’t know that many people, even fanfic authors, are quite insane like me.

[jadzeanna]

I was supposed to be learning botany for character research but then I had an idea and got into cuneiform and Sumerian/Akkadian history and culture. Then I had a different idea and got really into ancient weaving techniques and nearly built myself a warp weighted loom. Then I had another idea and got really into this one late Roman epic poem that nobody’s heard of. Then I listened to some podcasts and got really excited about feminist approaches to the Odyssey. Then I got really into the Aeneid again after nearly a six year hiatus from finding the Dryden translation a chore because there’s so many translations and it’s not something I even thought to look for. I was really excited about my Romulan Aeneid but THEN realized I’ve been desperate for novellas as a chance to practice my skills at completing stories, and what better than to write about Dido, my blorbo extraordinaire. And now I’m like an hour into being sick with yearning over a vision of Aeneas a woman

[jadzeanna]

“Isn’t this just ADHD?” you may ask, to which I say, sure, I don’t have it but it’s a similar experience to those who do. But my singular dedication to my personal creative angle is decidedly not a universal experience. Everything is fanfiction and concepts and threads to weave depth into stories. I doubt I’d be this excited over the classics if I couldn’t tie them into Star Trek lesbians.