Another Fanfiction Reader

Gendered, Queered, & Resistant

[resistantreader]

Stiles just stares. “He said I couldn’t be in love with people if I didn’t want to have sex with them. That fulfilling relationships and expressing love—” “He’s an idiot,” Derek says again. He taps his chest, then his head. “What you feel here and here has no impact on what you feel or do down there—” Derek makes a vague gesture at the below-the-belt area— “And your therapist is an idiot if he doesn’t even know that. Seriously, who says that to anyone? Why the fuck didn’t you Google it, you idiot? You spend days researching creepy werewolf facts—”

[that's] my oppurtunity, to feel brave by Sa_kun for Asexual Awareness Week

[resistantreader]

The sun struck his bare skin and sent the hairs prickling along his arms, and as he took stock of the nerve endings in his arms and legs, he had a sudden moment of panic: what if it didn’t fit. “Arthur,” Rizuka said. “Don’t be afraid.” And somehow, just like that, Arthur wasn’t. It opened in the back, just as it had done when Eames stepped out of it. It closed around him when he fitted himself inside of it, a warm, welcoming cocoon of space. The world moved, and Arthur’s body shifted; the muscles filled new spaces, new hollows and curves and absences—she looked down at hands that were delicate, slender and strong, out of eyes that could see two worlds at once. She ran her hands along her body, feeling how smooth, how elegant and thin she was, her muscles stretched out over her frame; how sensitive she was to touch, how delicate and light the tones of her flesh. She already knew that she could remove it, but it didn’t matter: she couldn’t imagine herself ever wanting out of this—out of her beautiful, precious skin. When she looked up, Eames was there, right beside her, exactly as she had left him—as she always had felt he would be. “Took you long enough to get here,” he said, looking pleased despite himself.

The Member of the Wedding by Aja

[resistantreader]

I seem to be a verb,” Arthur answered, letting his eyes droop as his head hit the pillow and a new wave of exhaustion settled in. “An evolutionary process—an integral function of the universe.

I Seem to Be a Verb by Aja

[resistantreader]

What if the hundreds of thousands of fan-created stories, videos and images were celebrated, instead of half-hidden? What if fans had access to an online archive that wouldn't back down at the merest hint of a lawsuit or change policies at the whim of an advertiser? What if there were no advertisers? What if, instead of letting false assumptions about copyright go unchallenged, there was a group that spoke up for the legality of transformative works? And what if, instead of letting four decades of cultural history be rewritten, fannish creators and consumers celebrated their past and shared it with the wider community? Fanfiction writers, more than most people, know how to tell a story that begins, "What if...?

Fancesca Coppa, <An Archive of Our Own - Fanfiction Writers Unite!> from Fic: Why Fanfiction Is Taking Over the World  

[resistantreader]

Fuck you're so tight," Stiles babbles. Well. That's tolerable, Peter supposes. He likes listening to the register of an Alpha in rut, he just hates what they tend to say.... "I'm gonna knot you so hard. Gonna fuckin' fill you up with my cum." Yep. There it is. "Dear god," Peter snorts. "Alphas and their obsession with bodily fluids. Do you really find the narration of biological processes arousing?

Heatstroke (The Strongest Thing I Ever Felt Was Feelings For You) by taylorpotato

[resistantreader]

All the while, he felt the small weight of Bumblebee's head resting against his metal chest. Her ear was pressed against the blue and grey metal, perhaps listening to the steady beat of his mechanical heart.

Clockwork by thelinksthatconnectus (orphan_account) for Disability Fest

[francescacoppa]

While many people think fanfiction is about inserting sex into texts (like Tolkien’s) where it doesn’t belong, Brancher sees it differently: “I was desperate to read about sex that included great friendship; I was repurposing Tolkien’s text in order to do that. It wasn’t that friendship needed to be sexualized, it was that erotica needed to be … friendship-ized.” Many fanfiction writers write about sex in conjunction with beloved texts and characters not because they think those texts are incomplete, but because they’re looking for stories where sex is profound and meaningful. This is part of what makes fan fiction different from pornography: unlike pornography, fanfic features characters we already care deeply about, and who tend to already have long-standing and complex relationships with each other. It’s a genre of sexual subjectification: the very opposite of objectification. It’s benefits with friendship.

Francesca Coppa, “Introduction to The Dwarf’s Tale,” The Fanfiction Reader (via francescacoppa)

[resistantreader]

I wrote about 7,000 words of this in one night thanks to this comment thread on helens78's fic and insomnia/anger-induced reflections on what it's like for telepaths trying to negotiate the dating world and what happens when they're trying to cope with partners who don't/can't/refuse to appreciate how a telepath experiences certain aspects of their relationship. Basically I have very strong Feelings about everything, okay.

aesc  on An absence which could not be more there

[resistantreader]

Beauty grew up in a box. He divided himself. How could he know who he was, unless he undid the wrapping? / Beauty is a black, gay, magic using (but not abusing) man with a texture fetish and a knack for roses. Beast doesn't quite know what to think (but he kind of likes it). Mom is mom and therefore awesome.

Queer as the Fork when the Knife ran away with the Spoon byfresne for ghinry

[resistantreader]

"Chris?" he tries again, forcing himself to swallow down the hard knot in his throat, biting his tongue to keep from pushing too hard. He brushes his fingers against the bare skin of Chris' back. Chris flinches. Violently, he jerks away. "Shit," Zach hisses, his hand snapping back. "Shit, Chris. I'm sorry, I didn't--I shouldn't have--" But then, Chris reaches back, his hand grabbing Zach's by the wrist. Zach holds his breath and lets Chris pull his arm forward and around him, holds it on his lower stomach where Chris pushes his palm into the bruises there. Chris has his eyes squeezed shut. The tendons in his neck stand out, pulled tight. He's still curled away from Zach, though now they're lying back to chest. Around his wrist, Chris' grip is tight enough to hurt.

perfect in a sickening sort of way by perdiccas

[ivyblossom]

I discovered fandom in 2001, and fell down the rabbit hole. I landed hard. My life got busy in 2002 onwards, and I all but vanished from fannish life. I was well and truly out by the summer of 2010, but when a friend nudged me to watch this new show called Sherlock that had just aired, I did. I loved it. 

I loved the relationship between Sherlock and John. I loved what they’d done with Watson! He had depths! He was a man of action, but he was obviously made of coiled, unspoken emotion! So compelling, so many possibilities! The desire to dip into this nascent fandom was rearing its head. This time around, I knew what choice lay before me, and what its consequences were. Open that door, or not?

If it hadn’t been for the fact that I was one year post cancer treatment and facing another surgery to determine if I had a new round of treatment to endure, I think I would have closed that door. Fandom takes up a lot of time and energy. It can be deliriously fun and damagingly distracting at the same time. I had a surgery date. I wanted to be distracted. I opened the door.

I tried not to write anything. I love writing fanfiction, but I never plan to do it. When I write, it’s because I have to. It’s wonderful, but it consumes me completely, and who has times for that? Who choses to be so consumed?I read and read, I had my surgery, I read some more, I got good news regarding my health (yay!), and then, goddammit, I wrote something.

Something small, I thought that would be okay. I thought I could get away with it. Don’t write any novels this time. Just a little thing. Just scratch the itch.

The Progress of Sherlock Holmes is a novel-length story written by someone who was trying very hard to avoid writing a novel-length story. I was in denial about it being a novel-length story for the first half of it, easily. That damn story forced me to do something I’d decided never to do again, and I’m grateful for that.

I wrote it because I felt compelled to, even though it contains a characterization of Sherlock that few if any people wanted to read about. It’s in first person present tense, another decision few if any readers want a writer to make. I apologized for it a lot, but I had to write it. And I loved it. That story reminded me how much I love writing, and how happy writing makes me, and that’s not something I’ll soon forget again.

The voice in that story is so sticky that half the comments left on it are in the same voice. I had to work myself up to write in that voice every time I sat down to work on it, and I was never sure whether I was getting it consistently or not, even right up to the end. But afterwards it took me fully 6 months to stop writing in that damn voice.

Honestly, I have no idea why my difficult, weird, inappropriate on many levels attempt at a story, written after only 3 aired episodes of a show in 2010-11, received its 10,000th kudos today. That’s a variety of madness and kindness that I cannot explain. But I am grateful for it.

Thank you for being here when I needed you. Thank you for finding a place for a story that no one, including me, really wanted. Thank you.

[resistantreader]

You can belong to me, or to the past - but not both. You can't serve two masters.

Two Masters by Xanthe

[resistantreader]

“You know what’s going to happen, right? I mean, I warned you--“ “Yeah!” Eames cuts in, whirling around, eyes wide, “No, yeah, I know! The egg will be a dud.” He shrugs as if to say no big deal, I can handle it. Arthur wants to believe him. He wants to." Explanation for this mpreg universe: This world features men called Tucks who conceive, lay eggs, and then carry their hatchling babies in pouches until they’re as big as newborns and can come out. This idea is a combination of ovum and marsupial gestation, which here exists in humans alongside placental gestation. Both types of pregnancies happen in the Tuck universe and why really shouldn’t be questioned as far as real science goes. For more technicalities of the tuck verse: http://twowritehands.livejournal.com/20049.html

Don't Count Your Eggs Before They Hatch by twowritehands

[resistantreader]

"Uh, don't take this the wrong way," Stiles says the first time-- the hopefully only time-- Derek kisses him, "but I'm not into you. Like, yeah, your body is hot and all, but your personality kinda is not and I'm the sort of guy that, well," he shrugs, a rueful smile on his face. "It's called demisexual. Look it up." And then he bites his lower lip, grabs his backpack and hightails it out of there, leaving Derek alone, his hands clenched helplessly into fists at his sides.

The Long Way Home by lielabell

[resistantreader]

Someday, Chris is going to find himself in the position of trying to explain the topography of their relationship to a third party, someone who doesn't know either of them at all -- it's as inevitable as aging, as death or taxes, and Chris has no idea what he'll say. It only barely makes sense to him some of the time, the little dance they do along the thin line between dicking around and genuine hostility, the way Zach is all sharp edges and Chris is all soft tissue and somehow it works anyway, with neither of them sure if it's despite that or because of it. Chris wishes that he could capture these few seconds somehow for posterity, for when the time comes that he has to put it into words for someone else. He wishes English extended far enough to encompass the way Zach is two beloved people: the meanest, most vicious asshole Chris has ever met and this guy, who finds love in a passing comment and can't believe it, who crawls into Chris's lap on a Saturday morning and holds his jaw in place while he kisses him.

gyzym, The Love Song of the North American Douchebag

[resistantreader]

Charles bites his lower lip. “Is it the penetration thing? Is that the problem? Do you want to fuck me really badly?” …… He doesn’t really know how to say it, but he has learned a little from the things he has read over the past couple of months. “It’s the intimacy,” he tries to explain, voice a little gruff. “The intimacy you associate with sex,” Charles prompts; apparently they already have a system. Erik fails to express himself and manages only to say enough for Charles to figure it out himself, and Charles does the rest. It doesn’t sound fair; Erik’s going to have to work on that. “Yes.” He doesn’t really know how else they can get to that point of joint tranquility, that bubble where nothing exists but them and the bed and the things they share. That’s not to say they don’t get to intimacy otherwise; they do. They cuddle a lot, spend hours in bed, share important and unimportant things, but it’s not the same. There’s a distinctly different tinge to that sort of intimacy. And Erik really misses the post-sex kind. It’s just unlike any other kind of intimacy Erik has experienced, and he doesn’t know any other way to get there than through sex. He doesn’t know if it’s because he’s doing something wrong, if he fails somewhere to do it right with Charles, or if it’s inextricably entwined with sex.

Gedankenwirrwarr by melonbutterfly

[resistantreader]

Your sigh. So deep. So tragic.” Her dark-brown eyes twinkled with humor. He experienced a sudden, violent aversion to that eye color. “You look at the stars and you sigh. It is ‘saudade’. The longing for something or someone who is absent. A time or a place. A lover lost.” “I read once that it’s the love that remains,” Íris put in. “This mixture of happy and sad feelings when you miss someone who’s gone or out of reach. It’s supposed to be one of those words that don’t have an exact translation in other languages. Although Icelandic saknadr comes close. And of course there’s your name.

Saudade Those Stupid Sneakers by satismagic