#transformative fiction

[ctrl-shift-alt-9]

Playlist for Michael (my fanon cross the wires guy interpretation). It's lyric-heavy, whumpy, and has a gritty sci-fi/religious trauma/anger-issues vibe going on. Also a lot of mentions of death because we all know how Cross The Wires Guy's story ended.

It's got a lot of good soundscaping too, like choirs, sirens, explosions, etc.

Here's some highlights:

Enjoy the suffering! <3

[bloodiedmoth]

Summary: Tom’s new neighbor threatens to derail all of his carefully made plans.

Genre: humor, erotica, alternate universe

This contains noncon, sadism, obsessive behavior and explicit sexual content.

You need to be signed into an AO3 account to read it.

[bumbl3b33cas]

Here to remind you about my little AU. :)

"The Night We Met"

Castiel laughs and moves his arm from his face, smiling stupidly up at Dean. The more Dean talks, the more Castiel feels revered, adored, and cherished. Things he knows he was supposed to feel at church but never did. Instead, he’s found them here, beneath the body of a man he hasn’t known very long but feels as if he’s shared a bond with more profound than anything he knows he could have ever found in religion.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/51508939/chapters/130180099

[trenchcoatimpala]

Hello, this is a PSA after learning that my fic was on an AI website behind a paywall. The site in question was down for a while, after I assume the influx of angry authors in their inbox, and my work has since been removed (as far as I can tell) as have other fics I searched that were there before.

So, in light of this, I'd just like to say:

I do not give my permission for any of my works to be replicated, translated, and/or posted anywhere without my express consent. I have now locked all of my works and will be locking my most recent fic once it's complete. It pains me to do this. I really want everyone to be able to read what I'm putting out there, but I feel violated. I'm taking the only action I know how to that will at least make it a little harder for my work to be stolen.

Us fic authors are giving you our blood sweat and tears for free. We cannot make money off of our works. Each fic you read is hours of time that we cannot get back; hours of agonizing over what things to keep and what to throw away. It's frustrated keyboard smashes that later get deleted; it's late nights and early mornings; tired smiles and pinched brows. It's all the things you don't see because you're the ones reading the finished product.

We may be borrowing characters from our favorite shows/movies/books etc, but they become very much our own when we're the ones behind the pen. We each shape them in our own special ways, molded to fit the story we want to tell. And those stories are our original ideas. No two fics are exactly the same. Our works are still written in our specific writing styles with so much more put into them than just a few borrowed characters.

I write because it's a passion of mine, and each thing I create is still, in fact, mine. No matter what. My fics are my babies. I love them all dearly and I want them to be accessible to as many people as possible, but I am also going to protect them as much as I can.

I promise you I will not stop writing and posting what I have to offer. I hope I don't feel the need to keep my fics locked forever, but for now it feels necessary.

If anyone ever sees anything like this in the future regarding any fanworks please notify the author. AI is a scary thing for those of us out here writing fanfic which cannot be protected by standard copyright. Please respect transformative fiction.

I love and appreciate all of my readers so much and I hope you will continue to keep up with my future works.

[bigmouthlass]

20 Fanfic Author Questions

Dreamer, thy wish is my vague suggestion that'll keep me up at night. Find my AO3 archive here. I haven't posted my full backfile on Tumblr yet . . . it's on my to-do list!

1.  How many works on AO3?

48

2.  Total AO3 word count?

408,047

3.  Top 5 fics by kudos?

'Double Booked,' 'Calling A Professional,' 'Housekeeping,' 'A Strange Detour,' and 'Training Films.'

4.  What fandoms do you write for?

Primarily Supernatural, plus a few of Jensen Ackles's post-Supernatural projects.  I used to write for Star Wars and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but those were the pre-AO3 days and the fics were lost to the Internet ether.  I shipped Buffy/Giles, so if you catch me talking shit about controversial ships, remind me I got no room to talk.

5.  Do you respond to comments?

Yes!  Yes, every time.  Even if all it is, is a smootch and a thank you.

6.  Angstiest ending?

'A Borrowed Life.'  A S6 canon divergence which does not end in a good place.  Full of Broken Thoughts.  A S9 canon divergence which does not end in a good place.  Make It Do (Or Do Without).  A S10 canon divergence which does not end in a good place.  Supernatural has a bad habit of wandering off and not ending in good places.

7.  Fic with the happiest ending?

'The Professional.'  Dean's mate and wife just told him she's pregnant.  Because God damn it, Dean should have an ending in a comfortable and cared for old age surrounded by family who loves him.

8.  Do you get hate?

I haven't yet.  Impatience is as bad as it's gotten.  So far.

9.  Do you write smut?

Uh . . . (a higher-than-clouds naked Castiel wanders by, followed by Jellot the pygmy goat) . . . yes?

10.  Do you write crossovers?

I can conceptualize crossovers.  I even started on a Werewolf the Apocalypse one, but that's unfortunately dead in the water due to flawed concept that's going to require a 90% teardown to fix.

11.  Ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I know of.  If anyone catches it, please tell me ASAP.

12.  Have you ever had a fic translated?

No.  I have had a couple narrated, by the amazing and wonderful @talltalesandbedtimestories

13.  Have you ever co-written a fic?

No.  I've had the honor and priviledge of contributing to some work by @thoughtslikeaminefield, and some real world published novels by a good friend, Emmy Jackson.  Check it out-- Empty Cradle: The Untimely Death Of Corey Sanderson

14.  All time favorite ship?

I don't have a particular favorite.  Destiel and Wincest don't speak to me the way they do to some people-- Dean's not gay, y'all, he's just not.  Who he should've ended up with in canon?  Oh Donna.  They'd've made a deeply happy couple, provided there's a therapist on speed-dial and Dean sobered up at some point.

15.  WIPs you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

More than I can conveniently count.  There's the AU where Dean's a Viking, another AU where Soldier Boy takes a hostage escaping cross-country, an Omegaverse fantasy piece where Dean's taken as a prize of war . . . the biggest suspect is The Days Of High Adventure, I'm simply stuck on the next plot point.

16.  Writing strengths?

Uh . . . an obsession with backstory and a too-cute turn of phrase?

17.  Writing weaknesses?

I fall in love with aforementioned too-cute turns of phrase and recycle them a lot.  I have a hard time juggling ensembles.  Characterizations without resorting to cliches.  Inconsistant output.  Inability to take input-- I don't use a beta reader.

18.  Thoughts on mixed language dialogue?

I think it can be obstructive if overused.  On the other hand, sometimes we're not supposed to know right off the bat what's being said, as a way to communicate a character's stepping out of the usual and customary.

19.  First fandom you wrote for?

(blushes)  Rainbrow Brite.  I was six.

20.  Favorite fic you've ever written?

I love all my awful, wonderful children.  Put a gun to my head and I'm most proud of 'Man Of Constant Sorrow,' a 'The Boys' post S3 canon divergence fic. That one took a lot of time and attention, and the feedback I got was awesome.

Dreamer's already tagged everyone I could think to tag, so if you haven't been tagged, consider yourself tagged.  Add to the lexicon.

[canonsensical]

Jensen really did use The Winchesters to solidify Dean's status as the main character of Supernatural. He's insane, good for him.

[babblingflowers]

An unnecessarily long rumination on ATYD and the nature of prequels

So as I was working my way through All The Young Dudes, I stared to think about the nature of prequels, and I think ATYD provides a really good example to examine how the transformative nature (and a very specific kind of transformation) of prequels fundamentally alters and impacts a story.

In some ways, this is absolutely a benefit to the story. The nature of prequels means that both audience and author know where the story is going to end, even if they don’t know the exact details of how its going to get there. And I think this can provide for some really fun moments, but also can work as a literary tool to control tone, making scenes read as sad, or happy, or melancholy, when they wouldn’t seem so otherwise to an audience that didn’t know the future.

For example, Remus thinking about how spoiled Harry will be doesn’t seem sad in an isolated context, but when you know that everyone is going to fucking die and Harry’s going to grow up in an abusive household locked in a closet, it changes the tone.

Especially when dealing with a property like Harry Potter, which is in equal measure, so beloved and also heavily criticized, the experience of reading a well done prequel can bring a lot of catharsis to readers, it allows us to comment on the events of a story in ways that seem innocuous out of context, but in practice, serve as commentary on how we feel about the events to come (the multiple jokes about Tonks being too young for Remus comes to mind).

But for all that prequels add, there is a huge element of limitation to them. Stories don’t always end the way we think they will, they’re living, they change and grow, sometimes in unexpected ways as they come to life. But in the particular case of prequels, stores are bound by their fate. Anakin is always going to turn to the dark side, he doesn’t have a choice. And it doesn’t matter how you write his story or his character, he will always do that, even if doing so betrays the integrity of the character you’ve created for him, or it no longer makes sense within the narrative, Anakin always becomes Darth Vader, Peter always betrays James, and Sirius always goes to prison.

I remember this fic I read a while back that takes place during a time skip, and it said it was canon compliant, but then as I got to the end of the story I started thinking, “there’s no way that this can end the way its supposed to, it would make the events (of the original story) too sad, too tragic” and in the end, I was right, the author decided to throw caution to the wind and change the canon ending. But of course, what the story gained in narrative satisfaction, it lost in canon compliance, it was no longer a tale that fit in with the original narrative.

And so back to ATYD, as I got to the back half of the story, and the story starts moving through the familiar plot points, after 300 thousand or so words spent creating a story for these characters, I started asking myself “is this really what this story is meant to be about?” “Is this how it should go? Or would it have been better off plunging away from the rules of canon?” The details of Sirius’s canon imprisonment are already shody at best, with there being no trail, but it becomes even harder to believe when you add in the context of the entire ATYD story, it becomes even stranger. Grant becomes a character who has to exist because its unthinkable that Remus would have made it though that on his own (as we’re meant to assume in canon) It makes the story more tragic, which is perhaps a good thing, is perhaps the point: giving weight to the absolute horror that was the first war, really highlighting how terrible those events were.

The fact of the matter is that the canon events of Harry Potter rest over ATYD like a dark cloud. Even when they’re all just kids pulling pranks and throwing birthday parties and going camping, it sits in the back of your mind because you know all these people are going to fucking die in horrible, tragic deaths. Which might make it one of the best fictional war stories of all time. Like if someone had told you at the beginning of the Hunger Games: Prim dies anyway.

Perhaps the sense that this isn’t how the story is supposed to go is the point. Taking people’s lives and forcing them into something they are not, taking children and turning them into fighters, taking heroes and turning them into corpses, taking love stories and turning them into tragedies, that’s what war is. It’s no small kindness that the story ends where it does, leaving us with some small grace, even though we know how it ends anyway.

But I couldn’t help but asking myself, are these stories, the one about a group of school boys finding friendship and love, and queer acceptance, and found family, and the story about a bunch of teenagers that are trying to stop a genocidal dictator, and who’s relationships fall apart in the depths of war and espionage, and who all die in the end, are they supposed to be the same story? And I’m still not sure. I don’t know if ATYD being adherent to the narrative of another, less good, sad story, makes it better or worse, but I know it had a fundamental impact on the fabric of the story, and how that story made us feel. And if it had just been a random story about magical school boys who all live (or a space wizard who was tempted by darkness, but eventually returned home to his wife and twin babies and had a long, happy life) I don’t know if we would have cared as much.