Laurasauras

she/her. find out more about my book at https://laurajfitzwilson.com/the-fool/

[laurasauras]

Okay I think it's time I make a pinned post! With correct capitalisation so you know I'm serious!

I'm Laura, also laurasauras, also Laura J Fitzwilson. I'm queer, disabled and wouldn't want to be anyone else.

I've written like 2 million words of fanfic and my debut novel, The Fool, is now available for purchase in paperback and ebook. It's available just about everywhere books are sold (request it locally!) but the major sellers are linked on my website here. You can add it to your TBR on Goodreads and Storygraph too!

The Fool is a low spice fantasy romance. It's about Leo, who is unwillingly made king of the smallest country on fantasy!Australia after the murders of his parents and brother. There’s politics, sword and magic fights, and queer romance—and of course a castle fool dedicated to keeping Leo humble.

It's about living up to expectations, daddy issues and the importance of love, both familial and romantic. There's hidden identities, enemies to lovers, forbidden romance--and those are just between the main pairing of the king and the fool!

I'm so excited about this and about the sequels and side stories I have planned. Thank you to everyone who has supported me along the way, I feel so incredibly loved and love you all too. 💜

[laurasauras]

Rules: Share the first lines of 10 of your latest fics, and tag others.

Someone Ordinary (Homestuck, complete)

Someone ordinary stands in front of a hat display at the Braj Stop. It just so happens that today, January 30th, 1997, is this cool dude’s birthday. Though it was 22 years ago he was given life, it is only today that he will find his purpose.

2. Chasing Euphoria (Ted Lasso, complete)

LISA: Connie, you’re arguably the biggest name in drag in British history.

CONNIE: I’d argue that, sure.

LISA: Drag can be a contentious issue lately. What do you say to critics who think that men dressing up as women is, well, obscene?

CONNIE: I ask them what it is about wearing a dress that they think is inappropriate, or degrading, or inherently sexual. Because I don’t feel any of those things when I put on a dress, and I don’t think you do either. I’m not mocking women here, I’m loving them. This is an act of love. Clothes are just pieces of fabric, but they’re also the way we communicate ourselves to the world, so they’re fucking important.

3. Knight and Cox (All For The Game, complete)

Neil answered the door, which was why Allison was able to merrily push her way past him into their dorm holding a DVD case in both hands and swaying her hips as if modelling it on a late night infomercial.

4. Queen (All For The Game, complete)

‘Wymack,’ Kevin said, when David opened the door.

‘You okay?’ David asked levelly, checking him up and down for obvious blood. ‘Shouldn’t you be at your secret night practice?’

‘This is more important,’ Kevin said. ‘Do you know a good tattoo artist?’

5. Indisposed (The Last Binding, complete)

Alan tried to enter the townhouse with much the same casual swagger as he always did. Makepeace, who never hesitated opening the door fully for him anymore, paused with the door bracketing his tall frame.

6. Support (All For The Game, complete)

‘Nicky,’ Andrew said abruptly. ‘Come for a car ride.’

Nicky met Neil’s eyes, but he still didn’t know how to reliably read Neil’s expressions. His best guess was that Neil knew Andrew would have asked him if he wanted him and didn’t have the capacity to feel offended by not being invited along. Nicky went back to his bedroom for his shoes, and before he knew it he was in the passenger seat of the Mas.

It was only the second time they’d been alone since Easthaven.

7. Safety (All For The Game, complete)

Neil was trying very hard to be a normal person. Since his father’s death, he no longer had any excuse to not be a normal person. Being an orphan suited Neil just fine, and meant that he could finally move on.

8. Tease (All For The Game, complete)

Jean had fallen into this strange and wonderful space that could be called home without meaning to, without really knowing what was happening, with plenty of hesitation but without much effort on his part. One day he was told he was going to play for the Trojans, and he accepted this. He was shown where he would live, and he accepted this. He was told to help Cat cook and was given clothes to wear, and he accepted this.

9. Stranded in Burnley (Ted Lasso, complete)

When you’re a Premier League football club, you get accustomed to a certain standard of travel. Unfortunately, there are times when things just cock up and there’s nothing you can do about it.

10. Sunrise (All For The Game, complete)

Kevin woke up to the sound of his mother’s raised voice. Riko was still sleeping, in Kevin’s bed because he was the guest. When Kevin visited him in America he didn’t get the bed there either, but his ma didn’t know that. Kevin eased himself quietly off the camp bed and snuck to the hallway so he could hear.

Thank you for the tag @arquiving! I tag @caracalliope @liesmyth and @allbrodennis, as well as anyone else who would like to do it!

[arquiving]

Rules: Share the first lines of 10 of your latest fics, and tag others.

1. first word of a verse (3/26)

His ex walks into the theater with a whole host of new scars, the most obvious of them fresh, and a teenager trotting loyally at his heels. Hiromi wonders whether the universe is done making him the punchline, and says instead to himself – and to them, because theaters echo, sound carries, and he's had a lifetime of projection –, "This feels like the setup to a bad joke, don't you think, Kento-kun?"

2. the flood, the feeling (12/25)

The days are separated solely by location, the endless cycle of on- and off-shifts punctuated by the growl of the boat's motor and the susurration of waves against the side of it in the stagnant late June air.

3. by the hand; by the hair (12/25)

Suguru always smells Shoko before he sees her, and never holds her until after she's showered. He can't stand her cloud of smoke and chemicals, the bitter-powder tang of medicine, the sterile-sharp chemtrail of alcohol and formaldehyde and a too-clean death; Suguru prefers her own soft astringence, all silver, bitter orange, and clover; subtle and unchanging, it suits her. But when she comes home, she reeks of the morgue, and on the days she doesn't, she reeks of other people.

4. no spark of honor bides (12/25)

Celebrimbor knows that his family have found him by nothing more than the hunting favors left just within the flap of the tent.

5. sometimes you hear the bullet (12/25)

Robby hears the door to his apartment creak open and close, the quiet footsteps muffled by the thick steam in the bathroom, echoing strangely off the tile, in his head.

6. another home than this (10/25)

“Doctor,” Law starts, as he usually does when it’s the two of them in a rare bubble of quiet. The Polar Tang’s machine hum surrounds them, and Robin is silhouetted in the dimmed light of the lamp Law keeps on his desk, leaning forward to peer out through the porthole and into the darkness. They’re on their fifth day being submerged, and it’s late at night, not that it matters in the depths so far from the sun.

7. TIMESTAMP [03072011_04:13:22] (7/25)

Nanami is of two minds when it comes to Shibuya Station. He finds it intolerable, unbearable, a writhing pit of misery teeming with low-level curses tethered to nameless, cursed humans like balloons, bristling in the air. He finds it a balm, a sea of nothing short of anonymity – a place where he is merely another commuter, rather than a sorcerer; another ticket purchased and used, another sardine crammed limply into the tin-train, a man who stands out for nothing more than the light color to his hair and his height and the fact that he, besuited unlike most of the tourists, walks rapidly and with purpose through the maze of the station.

8. laylow (5/25)

Bitter-cold outside the hockey rink. Cheek-biting cold, toe-numbing cold if yous gone and forgot to wear good socks. Wayne don't much mind it, seeing as he always wears his good socks. The lone player’s just gone done puking, and he’s walking out now. Earlier’n usual, since Wayne’s only halfway through his dart and usually he can make it like, all the way through and be thinking about maybe starting a second before driving zambo, and then decide against it. Usually he’s not short on time, for thinkin’ about if he maybe wants to have another dart now, instead’a waiting until he’s finished driving zambo, is the point.

9. the eye, alone in its socket (5/25)

A knock sounds at the door, the hour late and his limbs heavy with the exhaustion of a hard day’s work. His scars ache too, with the equally simple promise of a cold, rainy day to come tomorrow. It hasn’t started yet and Hiromi still finds himself reluctant to move and hoping this is a mere delivery, or a guest knocking at the wrong apartment.

10. perideipnon (4/25)

Her apartment is too small for two bodies, a fact that Shoko hadn’t known before, hadn’t even thought about.

...

Thank you for the tag @spacehussy >:)) I have stolen your idea of doing paragraphs rather than just first lines, I think it's neater. And also this is SUCH a cool tag game! I don't think this shows much of a trend other than an overuse of filter verbs and a love of have a quiet moment interrupted, but it does make me realize I wrote more than I thought last year.

I am tagging @krankittoeleven @yellow-faerie @samarqqand @skyeventide @the-meat-machine @laurasauras and honestly anyone else who would like to do it.

[teathattast]

[spaceshipsandpurpledrank]

[cognitiveinequality]

[dingodad]

I think John watching Interstellar for the McConaughey performance and subsequently evolving into an intolerable Nolanbro might be the one point of commonality he could ever find with the otherwise irreconcilable Dirk Strider. they watch Tenet together and spend hours a day for the next week discussing it together. alas the blossoming bromance finds itself torn aschism before it can ever come to seed when Dirk subsequently gets really into the works of Robert Pattinson: he believes wholeheartedly that RobPat's post-Twlight reinvention as an art film darling is a masterclass in elevated irony, but John is pathologically incapable of moving past his preconceived notion of Pattinson as "a fag from chick flicks". they endeavour to rekindle the dying ember with a private screening of Matt Reeves' 2022 take on The Batman, but when all the credits have finally rolled off the screen and John says "the riddler is supposed to be a silly guy in a green suit!" that becomes the last one-on-one conversation they ever have

[laurasauras]

Sometimes I write like 30k of fanfic in a week and I'm forced to confront the fact that if I just locked in and did that for my current novel project I could have a full first draft next week........

But I think the beauty of fanfic is that it's such an unpolished and earnest gift and it's so freeing to write! The crazy thing is that I don't think I'd be as confident writing original things if I hadn't seen how positive the reaction is to Dennis, who let's face it is basically an OC 😍

[samglyph]

Random reminder that if you want your local Barnes & noble/books a million/mom & pop bookstore to carry queer books you should go to your aforementioned bookstore and ask them to order books for you. If they see that it sells they will get more, and it’s good for authors who might reach a new audience by having another store carry their books. Just saw someone say that they didn’t see any queer books at their local b&n so they’d only be ordering from amazon from now on, and so many comments were agreeing with them, saying that independent stores were the same, and while it’s true a lot of indie books are only available on Amazon, I promise you you have the power to make a positive impact at the bookstores you go to (and there are a lot of queer booksellers who would love to introduce you to their favorites!) And, if you are dead set on never entering a bookstore again, you should go to bookshop.org! Almost all of their proceeds go to supporting independent book stores.

[gretchensinister]

Consider this (based on a conversation I had with some friends a while ago): Pride and Prejudice and Zombies for people who actually like Pride and Prejudice. Look–I tried to read Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and I got about 20 pages in before I came to the conclusion that the person who wrote it did so out of the belief that the original Pride and Prejudice was stuffy and boring. There were out of character vulgar puns. And the trailer for the movie did not convince me that I had missed anything by cutting short my reading experience. So, what I’m talking about here is this premise: the world of Pride and Prejudice, but if you die, it’s highly likely, almost certain that your corpse will get up and try to eat people. But no one dies in Pride and Prejudice, you might say. In fact, few or no people die in any Jane Austen novel. This is true. But people do get sick with some regularity. Imagine the tension added to Jane getting sick after going to visit Bingley if there was the chance that she would become a zombie after she died. Becoming a zombie in an eligible bachelor’s house probably would have seriously wrecked any chances of any of the living sisters ending up with him. Imagine Mr. Collins, as a minister, having the duty upon someone’s death of severing their head with a ceremonial plate or something that would prevent the corpse from rising. Obviously important, but this only makes him more self-important and obnoxious. And dangerous. For you see, in this version, Mr. Bennett, who stays in his office all the time, whose life is the only thing allowing Mrs. Bennett and her daughters to stay in the house–Mr. Bennett is definitely a zombie. He died at home, and Mrs. Bennett decided that, no way were they dealing with this, and so…just started faking it. Jane and Elizabeth know. The younger sisters don’t. In this universe, I think we have to go with zombies that are not any faster or stronger than the humans they were, and in fact tend to get weaker as time passes because their flesh is rotting. And…hmm, okay, how about they are pretty violent upon rising, and for about a week afterward, trying to bite people and spread the infection (even though most people are carriers anyway, but getting a nasty bite from a corpse will give you other stuff that will have you die while carrying the virus). But then they calm down and basically just start sort of attempting to act like they did in life, that is, taking habitual actions with no consciousness, in a depressing and desiccated way. So Mr. Bennett is a zombie, and Mrs. Bennett’s number one goal is to get her daughters married before anyone finds that out. And this, actually, makes Elizabeth’s refusal of Mr. Collins more frustrating for Mrs. Bennett–obviously Mr. Bennett didn’t tell Elizabeth that she could refuse Mr. Collins, because Mr. Bennett is dead, but Mrs. Bennett can’t say anything or the game would be up. Another question in this version–does Mr. Darcy find out about Mr. Bennett being a zombie somehow? Does Elizabeth find out that he knows and didn’t say anything and this is something that helps repair his earlier actions? Anyway, this is the Pride and Prejudice and Zombies that I was looking for.

[exigencelost]

Okay also: in the original, when Elizabeth walks through the rain all the way to bingley’s to care for Jane while she’s sick, it’s a very dramatic expression of both Elizabeth’s love for her sister and her penchant for flamboyant rebellion, but consider, if there is a chance Jane will wake up a zombie and Elizabeth knows it, how does that change the dynamic? Elizabeth might be going to help take care of Jane, or to *take care* of Jane should things take a more morbid turn…by killing her zombie sister.

This works especially well if zombieism is communicable prior to death; if mr. Bennett is a zombie and only the elder Bennetts know, that means Jane has been pre-exposed and is almost certain to wake up as a zombie should she die in the Bingleys’ care— which the Bingleys do not know. Elizabeth has to forge through the rain to be there in case things get ugly, because she knows that the Bingleys aren’t prepared.

[shenzuul]

And I think you pretty much HAVE to make Mr. Bennett’s zombie status play a role in how and why Darcy separates Bingley from Jane—the heavy implication behind Darcy’s line about the want of propriety shown even by her father hits Elizabeth like a ton of bricks as she realizes he knows—he knows, and he thought Jane lying to Bingley about it was evidence that Jane didn’t love Bingley—but—but Darcy must not have told Bingley that part of it. Bingley couldn’t keep a secret on his life; if he knew, his sister would know, and word would already be out and they’d have been ruined by now—

And of course, not only does the fact that Darcy, who owes their family nothing, has kept and continues to keep this secret for them even after Elizabeth’s refusal deepen the gratitude she begins to feel for him after the letter of explanation, but it also liberates Elizabeth to fall in love with him. Because Elizabeth-who-wants-to-marry-for-love would never be happy marrying someone who didn’t know the family secret in advance. She had resigned herself to spinsterhood because she couldn’t be satisfied with having to hoodwink someone to have their hand, but also couldn’t put her family at risk by trusting someone who wasn’t bound to them by more than an engagement. (Maybe she was even tempted to confide in Wickham at one point, and hasn’t Darcy’s letter proven she was absolutely right not to yield to that passing thought.) But Darcy figured it out himself, and he’s kept her trust, and she could fall in love with him without guilt—if she hadn’t already turned him down.

AND THEN LYDIA HAPPENS. And Darcy realizes immediately that Mr. Bennett can’t do anything to recover her—and if Mr. Bennett doesn’t do anything about Lydia, Mr. Collins might become suspicious, or even just officously involve himself, so find out the while thing. When Darcy blames himself for not revealing Wickham’s character, it’s with a much more immediate sense of urgency. It’s not that the other sisters’ marriage prospects being ruined may impoverish them down the road—it might immediately drag them all into destitution. That’s why he rushes off to go look for Lydia himself.

[treecitysessions]

[lysimachias]

❌ Is this ship well supported by canon

❌ Does this ship make any sense whatsoever by any reasonable metric

✅ Does the thought of these characters standing next to each other make you want to chew concrete and then break apart a nearby automobile with your bare hands

[bird-gifs-collection-agency]

this baby tawny frogmouth is hungry hungry hungry! hes taking it all!

[hollowedskin]

These things fall out of the tree overhanging my parents place every year, because their nests are just... Lay egg on the branch. The branch then gets whipped around in the wind and flings the little guys about. Sometimes they're super small like this guy, and sometimes theyre about the size of a half litre milk carton.

Every year, multiple times a year, my dad goes and scoops them off the ground after it's been a bit wimdy, and plops them on his deck railing, which is in sight of their nest. One year he got all four.

The parents just come down and resume operations on the nice wide flat branch that conveniently holds their babies out of the rain and where the predators can't see them, and my dad delights in watching the little motes of fluff turn into proper lintballs and then bad sticks.

So far he hasn't needed to take any to WIRES because the parents just keep feeding them and there haven't been any taken by cats or currawongs after he's scooped them. He's also got a rosella nestbox on the deck now too, and the local magpie babies realised he's an easy mark for treats.

[banchie]

i've been phasing the phrase 'google it' out of my vocabulary and going back to 'look it up'. fuck you youve lost your generic trademark privileges

[laurasauras]

i was looking for something different but please have the best art i've ever created

[excuse my terrible handwriting, transcript:

DAVE: theyre not fucking dating

DIRK: They are.

DAVE: are not

DIRK: I'll prove it.

DIRK: Dennis. What do bees make?

DENNIS: flowers?

DIRK: No.

DENNIS: uh

DIRK: It's sweet. You put it on toast.

DENNIS: Oh! Honey?

BRO: Hm?

DENNIS: oh, not you, pookie.

DAVE: its ironic

DIRK: Obviously.

DAVE: he doesnt call him that

DIRK: They're messing with us. He's always 10 steps ahead.]

[lovesicklobotomy]

[metal-autistic-coven]

Happy pride month to him

[fellshish]

reading other comments on the fic you’ve just commented on is like. asynchronous book club meeting 🫶

[laurasauras]

Had a couple people confused about what's going on with canon in my brodennis fic so I thought I'd do a post explaining! Spoilers under the cut:

So Bro fell in love with Dennis and that fundamentally changed him from the character he was in actual Homestuck. In actual Homestuck he was an explicitly abusive guardian who went beyond training Dave and into "my kid draws comics about people falling down stairs to cope with how often I kick him down stairs".

This is a key part of Dave's character development! Dave avoids conflict because he doesn't want to resemble the person he still looks up to as a hero. Dave struggles to communicate with sincerity because he was never secure in the fact that he was loved. Dave would sacrifice himself to save his friends without thinking because when he forms an attachment they become more important to him than his own safety.

Dave can cut off his brother's head immediately after having one of the most vulnerable and cathartic conversations of his life because he was raised to understand that sometimes you don't get a choice, you don't get to come out of it with your hands clean, you have to do things that will haunt you the rest of your life because no one is coming to save you.

The Bro in this fic is very far from a good™️ guardian. He still trains Dave to the point of leaving physical scars. He still has a complicated and scary relationship with a haunted puppet. He still has motivations that make absolutely zero sense to Dave and he still doesn't communicate that he loves Dave at all.

BUT. Dennis softens the training. He makes sure Dave's fed. He makes Bro send him to school so Dave can form relationships with other peers. He loves Dave with undoubtable sincerity and it's easier to catch glimpses of Bro loving both Dave and Dennis as well, because Bro isn't angry at Dave for daring to be the main character.

This Dave is recognisable to us as readers, but he is not the player who wins the game. Of course he isn't. This is fanfiction.

And this is where we get to a theme I've put in a few of my fics over the years, most notably The Smuppet Show and Knight of Spades.

Canon divergent fanfiction isn't like a doomed timeline, because a doomed timeline is still very much canon. Doomed timelines are essential for the alpha timeline to meet all the conditions required to win the game. This isn't that. This is a thought experiment written by a fan.

Doomed timelines have to be, you know, doomed. Everyone has to die or be transported into another timeline. There's one canon and one journey for the characters, otherwise watching them grow and change isn't as meaningful. (Post canon will, I assume, reckon with this, but I'm not up to date so I can't really comment with authority.)

So yes, Bro, Dennis, Dave and everyone else in this fanfiction is safe! They're under no obligation to serve the canon universe, so there are no consequences for diverging from it. I could, at any point, write another story in this universe. So could you!

(I suppose you could write them being doomed, and technically I could as well, but that wouldn't be "canon" with the intention of this fic, making it in itself a divergence. Intention is of course not the important thing about fiction, but I think this intention has been explicitly conveyed through the themes and arc of the fic enough that it's worth noting.)

If you have any questions, please comment/reblog or you can send me an ask! Anon is turned on if you're shy 🙂