Killer Kelp

Never mind E. Weber love you always

[killer-kelp]

My John Le Carré-verse fics

La gente si sveste -- 3,978 words, Rated E, Bill Haydon/Magnus Pym Bill Haydon/Jim Prideaux Axel/Magnus Pym. Milan, 1965. (Immensely entertaining to put two of the more outrageously weird characters in canon in the same situation (and in my hometown, too!). IMO some of the funniest dialogue I've ever written).

Dear Little Boy Of Mine -- 4,267 words, Rated M, Axel/Magnus PymAxel & Magnus Pym Magnus Pym/Mary Pym Axel/Mary Pym Wengen, 1968.

(I wanted a Magnus/Mary/Axel threesome, as a birthday treat to myself, but I also wanted it to make somewhat narratively plausibile. Set in a Swiss town/hotel so expensive that when I was there in my student days one time for lunch I had just bread, cheese being firmly out of my spending range)

Dirty Work -- 2,259 words, Rated T, Bill Haydon/Jim Prideaux Max (Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy)/Jim Prideaux Max (Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy)/Bill Haydon London, 1973 (Max is an EXTREMELY HOT novel-only character that has been hounding my fantasises since the first time I read TTSS).

Des reflets d'argent -- 1,774 words, Rated E, Bill Haydon/Jim Prideaux Oxford, 1937. (One of my favourite stories I've written: the beginning of Jim and Bill's relationship, featuring a healthy dose of Czech linguistics and a lot or rather explicit scenes) Mi ami? -- 446 words, Rated M, Magnus Pym/Axel Axel does sometimes have women. (My latest venture into fandom: an exploration of Magnus Pym's VERY UNCOMPLICATED lifelong obsession with Axel. More to follow)

It's Our Tradition To Control -- 3,183 words, Rated E, Magnus Pym/Axel Axel discovers something about himself. (Features: Axel not defecting, a threesome, Becherovka, a sudden shift in a character's perception of his own sexuality, new pieces of decor for the barn, a nap) Ton meilleur ami -- 668 words, Rated G, Nicholas Elliot/Kim Philby Beirut, 1960. (RPF inspired by that really really excellent biography of Kim Philby on which I base most of my Bill Haydon takes) Keep Your Comrade Warm -- 667 words, Rated E, Bill Haydon/Jim Prideaux Bill likes it up the arse. (Well this particular summary is not quite as ermetic as the other ones, lol. You'll notice that Jim breaks into French here, bc at the time I wrote this I didn't speak any Czech but I've never been able to resist the temptation of playing up the multilingual aspect)

Sed bene velle minus -- 1,171 words, Rated M, Control/George Smiley, Ann Smiley/George Smiley "Close as thieves, Smiley and Control were, so they say, right to the end." (No hate to poor book-Smiley, but I was definitely picturing Gary Oldman while I wrote this)

Col tuo schifo di educazione -- 545 words, Rated G, Bill Haydon/Jim Prideaux Bill is set in his ways. (I was the lover of a serial philanderer for a couple of years and in my experience at some point it's not even the lies thar are the problem, you just get really annoyed by the pointlessness of the whole thing) Some Underworld Spy, Or The Wife Of A Close Friend -- 800 words, Rated T, Bill Haydon/Ann Smiley Ann loves to hear Bill say her name. (A pretty hot story if I do say so myself. When this was written, due to COVID, it was straight up illegal to go out and fuck people, so I had a lot of time to sit and think about things that sound sexy over the phone)

A Ja Ljublju SSSR -- 2,386 words, Rated M, Bill Haydon/Jim Prideaux 20 August 1968: Soviet tanks roll into Prague. (My favourite story I've ever written, I think. An attempt to explore Bill's approach to life and Jim's split loyalties between the countr(ies) he loves and the man he's in love with. Heavily coloured by conversations with my fiancé, who spent his childhood in Communist Czechoslovakia, and his visceral reaction to the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022. In spite of the heavy background themes quite romantic and even slightly funny imo)

A Little Harder When You're Second Best -- 2,418 words, Rated T, Sirius Black/Remus Lupin Remus Lupin/Peter Guillam 1978: Peter Guillam meets someone at a party. (Look, yeah, I used to write Wolfstar. Didn't we all?)

Learned My Passion In The Good Old-Fashioned School Of Lover Boys -- 952 words, Rated E, Axel/Mary Pym Axel/Magnus Pym Magnus Pym/Mary Pym "...and if you don't came back soon and tell me what to do, you may very well find us in bed together, because after all, as you used to assure me in Berlin, you can't beat a little sex for breaking the tension and removing social barriers." (Well Mary, if you insist)

A Liubov Katyusha Sberezhet -- 2,707 words, Rated M, Bill Haydon/Jim Prideaux Bill Haydon/Ann Smiley A day in the life of Bill Haydon (A double POV! Getting experimental here (for my standards). Features a nice night for Jim and the beginning of Bill and Ann's affair) Řek' Mi U Slivovice -- 2,564 words, Rated M, Bill Haydon/Jim Prideaux Jim Prideaux/Axel Vienna, 1968. Jim makes a new friend. (Jim and Axel are my faves, I thought it would be fun to have them meet. I also really like Max. Axel as a honeypot is both a very funny concept and actually pretty in character for him I would say)

Keep the Customer Satisfied -- 1,470 words, Rated E, Magnus Pym/Axel Axel services his best agent. (Karlovy Vary <3) Primavera non bussa -- 1,835 words, Rated M, Magnus Pym/Axel Athens, 1984. (Really interesting to write from Axel's POV. A nice one I think, my favourite one out of the ones I've done for this pairing)

[lawrenceleemagnuson]

Sigmar Polke (1941-2010) Ohne Titel (Porträtist) 1979 gouache, spray paint and pencil on paper 69.9 x 99.5 cm

[antoniabishop]

waiting in line is the best part low key

[trawl]

Touches you with my tendril. In a way that transmits kindness

[possessable]

the funnest way to make stories is by mashing a bunch of random subjects you're interested in at the moment and seeing if you can make it vaguely coherent

i will make a story with (spins wheel) surrealism, (spins wheel again) horses, and (spins wheel) morse code

[greelin]

“must everything be homoerotic” no. but many things are, you will find

[blackheart-biohazards]

😈 You are not bound by the Hays code.

😈 You are allowed to have evil characters who are not punished by the narrative by the end of the story.

😈 You are allowed to have evil characters who win.

😈 You are allowed to have evil characters who make evil look fun and cool.

😈 You are allowed to make your fun, cool evil character the protagonist.

😈 You are allowed to glorify, romanticize and eroticize evil characters and villainous acts.

😈 You are not obligated to teach your audience a moral lesson.

[dovesndecay]

[autisticandroids]

3, 13, 23!

3. Describe the creative process of writing a chapter/fic

basically i get a vivid idea in my head for a scenario. then i turn it over for months or years until i finally sit down to write it. essentially.

13. what’s a common writing tip that you almost always follow?

i totally use a lot of these! "when you're stuck, count back ten sentences and the problem will be there" i do that all the time. "never use an adverb when a strong verb will do" i have enforced this on myself so zealously for the past fifteen years that i no longer worry about it that much because i do it by instinct. "vary your sentence lengths" i am always messing around with this. "vary how your sentences start" this is like pulling teeth for me often, but i always always try to do it because otherwise it sounds bad. these are the ones i think about the most i think? maybe i'm forgetting some. but they are very useful!!

23. Best writing advice for other writers?

i don't necessarily have advice for other writers in terms of the process itself, because other people are doing other things than me, but i will tell you a few pieces of advice that are key to replicating my particular writing style:

subtlety is king. never reveal information when an implication will do. if you have to choose between revealing information, and risking that the reader misses your point, it's worth taking the risk more often than not.

when you have a finished first draft, or have written most of the meaty bits, or are almost done to the point of being about to post, go back over it with a media analyst's view. look for interesting repetitions, accidental mirroring, themes, literary devices you didn't mean to use. then take those and bring them out. emphasize them. add a few sentences here and there that echo them. use the stuff you put in by accident and make it on purpose.

horror and pornography have the same rhythm of rising and falling tension. exploit this to improve your skill at both.

[hannahlockillustration]

Ditto in the Bath, based on the Pierre Bonnard painting.

Day 14 of drawing Ditto until I give in and buy Pokopia...

[bobbole]

Kaichi Kobayashi, Nymph in Lake and Camelia

[ot3]

i just think 9/10 times "what if these characters settled down into a comfortable domestic situation" is one of the least interesting ways to examine a dynamic. but i understand that, and i mean this in the most neutral way possible, being interesting is not the actual point of most people's fanworks and media interpretation. i will still be complaining about it though.

[cuppydogshane]

me and the mutuals are giving some minor characters rich inner worlds later if you wanna pull up. yeah its gonna be all day.

[mortalityplays]

you see fanfiction broadly ignores women and women's internal worlds and struggles and aspirations and personalities and relationships because most fanfiction writers are straight women or bi women or bi men or gay men, and they all want to fuck men, so all their creative focus and attention is on men's internal worlds and struggles and aspirations and personalities and relationships.

why don't straight men engage more with fanfiction and write comparable stories about women? well because they just want to fuck women so they have no interest in women's internal worlds and struggles and aspirations and personalities and relationships. it's simple and natural and inevitable. I'm not a misogynist btw.

[taxidermycatgirl]

top 5 sexiest injuries:

-bruises

-bullet wound

-split lip

-nosebleed/broken nose

-stab wound

[taxidermycatgirl]

glad to see everyone here is also really Normal

[northirish]

I felt the cold, bony and clammy hand of death itself upon me, worst handjob I ever had

[mero7t]

man you know female characters can have important platonic relationships and care about people without being a mom or sister or wine aunt right

[ohmygodnotyouagain]

Can’t stop thinking about ACD Sherlock Holmes. He loves dogs. He is a very thoughtful flatmate. He can play perfect violin and instead chooses to make Sounds with his Stradivarius. He apologizes every time by playing all of Watson’s favorites. He plays practical jokes on the police. His out-of-universe author was unreliable because he hated him so much. His in-universe author is unreliable because they are madly in love. His family life is such a mystery that Watson thought he was an abandoned orphan. He has two (2) canonical friends and I’m pretty sure he fucked both of them. He’s the best person in the whole world maybe. People keep trying to talk to me about the BBC version.