Personal Fanon

WIP amnesty: Brooklyn Nine-Nine hooker AU

2022-05-20T11:31:36Z

I had so much fun writing this Jake POV way back in 2014, and then the Ferguson protests put me off B99 fandom in general, and now I'm accepting that I'm never going to be comfortable finishing this.

( the one where Holt is a beat cop and Jake is a hooker who follows him home and charms his husband )

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It Gets Even Better: Stories of Queer Possibility

2020-11-13T16:09:42Z

This week I launched a Kickstarter for a multi-author queer speculative fiction anthology including several Hugo winners and other impressive resumes, and I'm really excited about it! If positive queer speculative fiction sounds like your jam, please back it; regardless, please share it with anyone you know whose jam it may be!

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3-year fanworks roundup

2018-03-26T07:18:14Z

I haven't cross-posted my fanworks in years, nor have I really been producing very many fanworks to post about. Partially for the sake of completeness and partially to reassure myself that I have not in fact produced nothing at all since 2014, here's a bunch of stuff I've put up on AO3 that I haven't linked here:

Check Please

if there's anything on my face you put it there (2k, Bitty/Jack marking kink)
Player Development (7.5k, Parse teaches Bitty how to dom Jack)
Building on that momentum (8 minutes, Georgia Martin character study; collaboration with knight_tracer)
The 500 Helmets of Bartholomew Knight (636 words, Dr. Seuss/CP crossover because I am ridiculous)
Shut The God Damn Door (1.1k, AU where Jack got drafted first overall and took his addiction with him to Vegas)
OVERDOSE (2.4k, Jack/Parse Machine of Death fic)
Every Conceivable Advantage (660 words, just me being extremely silly about Jack's parents targeting his date of birth to be in optimal draft position)
101.3 The Swell (22 minutes, multivoice audio work depicting an outside perspective on Jack and Bitty's relationship and celebrity privacy via a fictional college radio station)
physical or otherwise (3 minutes, experimental audio work taking the form of Kent Parson talking to Jack about pills; includes a sex scene that mostly consists of heavy breathing)
Guest Relations (2k, AU where Bitty works at a hotel and Parse mistakes him for a hooker)
Working Out, Watching Sports, and Breaking the Fourth Wall (1k, Johnson meta fic in the vein of 100px To The Right where he shows up to play goal for the Aces and nudge along Parse's character development)
Oomph (1.1k, Jack character study in which he has conversations with pucks)
a little spin-o-rama (1.4k, Kent Parson working through some shit via hockey metaphors)
Omelets (18k, Bitty/Parse fake dating plus Bitty/Jack, many intensely personal feelings about being in one's mid-twenties and figuring out various elements of adulthood; collaboration with Missy408, who created a ton of drop-dead gorgeous art)
Twist Again (2k, Bitty/Parse PWP)
The History Bros (4k, Jack teaching Bitty hockey history and in the process coming to terms with some shit)

Other fandoms (wow, not a single repeated fandom other than CP!)

in taking it apart (podfic) (3 and a half hours, podfic of an Oilers rookie/vet origfic)
Katabasis (podfic) (~7 minutes, Danger Days fic about the kid escaping Battery City)
contact (885 words, Junior League character study of Bakin)
2nd Man Out (1.2k, 4th Man Out fix-it fic where they get together like they SHOULD HAVE IN THE MOVIE)
"Pounded In The Butt By My Own Butt" Pounded In The Butt By "Pounded By The Pound" (um. I really sincerely hope that no one out there has read this but none of my other fic and come to any conclusions about the quality of my writing.)
I've Run A Game (9 minutes, Gilmore Girls character study of Paris; collaboration with exmanhater)
Tender Offer (482 words, tiny Derek/Stiles postscript to Fuck-You Money in which there is literal finance kink)
a sure thing (1.3k, Welcome to Night Vale ficlet about Carlos and choices and what it is to be a scientist)
through those who grant pardon (2k, Madam Secretary, Henry/Dmitri fucked-up unnegotiated not-really-consensual and not-really-sexual d/s)

Plus a bunch of group podfics that I'm not linking individually, but they're findable through my AO3 if you want to find them.

So. Basically, you should subscribe to my AO3 if you want to consume my fannish output. XD

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Check Please short not!fic/ficlet masterlist

2017-04-07T06:18:09Z

Jack thinks he’s straight because Shitty’s junk is in his face all the goddamn time and it does nothing for him
the one where they all go to IKEA
Jack can't take a compliment
Jack's idea of a gift is protein
Shitty and Mama Bittle should be bros
fic where Bitty makes it to the Olympics as a figure skater and Parse is the guy who’s fucking him when Jack knocks on the door and asks them to keep it down
Bitty is sick and Jack tries to take care of him but is the absolute worst at it
what if Bitty didn't move into the Haus sophomore year
Bitty doing up Jack's tie
the one where they all turn into kittens but they throw a kegger anyway
Bitty asks Jack to speak French to him in bed
Jack the NHL superstar discovers him while googling how to bake pies
Chowder is at a Sharks game during spring break when both goalies get injured and they’re scrambling for an emergency backup
bedroom proximity headcanon from before I realized the popular definition of "headcanon" had changed
what's everyone's preferred social media channel?
what if Jack worked in a sporting goods store at the mall and Bitty worked at the Cinnabon next door
the one where a football player hits on Bitty
Johnson the Metaphysical Goalie and Ilya Bryzgalov: snapchat buddies
the billet family AU
what if, before the endgame, Jack and Parse get together
Bitty is an enormous Shannon Szabados fan
the dumbest move of Kent's rookie year happens in Florida
the Haus at nighttime, after a regular day
Jack's first kiss
Ransom and Holster are nap buddies
the Aces may be a good hockey team but they don’t have social cohesion
Jack has a thing for Bitty being in his lap
Jack admitting his feelings at the end of Year Two
Ransom & Holster Bill & Ted AU
Bitty & Jack enjoying it while it lasts
imagining scenarios for Bitty and Jack's first kiss
everyone trying and failing to bake Bitty a birthday cake
The Attempted Courting of Eric Bittle, by Dr. Seuss
Ransom and Holster learning how not to be assholes about the gay thing
Lardo using Betsy in a sculpture
CP as a psychological thriller
Jack keeps calling Bitty to ask questions
the first time Chowder steps into Bitty’s room, he gets this weird vertigo
AU where Bitty goes to college in Vegas
Jack taking Bitty's surname
Chowder and the Worcester Sharks
what if the Samwell men’s hockey team did a sexy calendar
Jack gets possessive
10 arguments in favor of Jack Zimmermann being a huge slut
“Why did you start playing hockey?”
fic where Parse tries to come out and it doesn't take
Jack/Parse at Worlds
hooker!Parse

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WIP amnesty: the Derek/Stiles noncon-knotting one

2016-04-12T02:18:04Z

I don't remember where exactly I was going with this, which is irritating because I do remember having a very good idea of where I was going with it at one point. I need to keep better notes. Anyway, the gist of it is clear from what I did write: consensual sex with explicitly nonconsensual knotting, and the emotional fallout in Stiles' later relationship.

( the noncon-knotting one )

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WIP amnesty: the Teen Wolf poly Valentine's Day college AU

2016-04-12T01:34:03Z

I am so bummed that I never actually wrote this, but it's time to accept that Teen Wolf is not a fandom I'm ever going to write in again. So here's the text prelude + a couple paragraphs + an outline of the rest of a fic I'm pretty sure would have been awesome.

( the Teen Wolf poly Valentine's Day college AU )

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Truth About Fandom panel survey

2016-03-30T18:47:56Z

If you're not attending Bitchin' Party this weekend and you'd like to contribute to my The Truth About Fandom panel (description here) by filling out a survey about your fannish experiences, please shoot me your e-mail by comment or PM.

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Podfic remix meta

2016-01-05T23:26:02Z

Okay, so I want to talk about what I was trying to do with this remix, and then you guys can tell me what worked and what didn't. If you're going to listen to the piece, I really, really encourage you to do that first before you read this.

The concept of remixing podfic like this is not original to me. A lot of podficcers have talked about it, and fire_juggler once created a poem by manipulating their own podfic. I believe, aside from that, no one else has actually done this. If you know of any others, or if you decide to make one yourself, please link me! I'm very curious to see how other people would go about this. (Someone should do it for Night Vale! I bet that would work really well.)

The general concept of this story is a Killjoys AU: the kid was taken in by Dr. Death Defying instead of by the Killjoys, and after he died, she took over the radio station. The Killjoys are dead too, except for Party Poison, and the two of them join forces. It's a story about trust issues, about the costs and benefits of giving a shit about another person. I messed with characterizations as much as possible given the constraints; I tried to portray her as more of an adult, with more confidence and agency, and him as less rational, less of a leader, lost without his gang. Both of them are pretty fucked in the head, as I imagine anyone would become under their circumstances.

I used eleven podfics of nine fics, all Killjoys. Two of these podfics were created specifically for this project, though the fics existed already: "Katabasis" performed by me, and "RAY GUN" performed by Rhea314. The "B/L/I/N/D" podfic was never posted, but I got permission to use it; all other source podfics were posted publicly. I drew from both of crazybutsound's "Haircare Tips for Zonerunners" podfics, and two people have podficced "Born to Motorbabies"--which was convenient because that story is longer than the rest and provided me with more material to draw from, so having two voices helped preserve vocal variety.

The creative process for this, for me, is actually a lot like vidding. You start with a bunch of source material, you spend a long time sorting through it choosing bits and pieces you want to use, and then you recontextualize them to make something new. That kind of creativity requires a lot of flexibility; my vids tend to go through a lot of reshaping as I'm making them, and they often turn out very different--and usually much better--works than originally planned. This was even more fluid in the making; the flow of it depended on which lines worked together, and I had to figure that out by playing with them. You can't just use the text to do this; natural speech involves a lot of mushing sounds together, and if there's mush around the edges of the part you want, you can't always cut it off intelligibly.

I didn't want to do too much piecing together of individual words and phrases, partly because I think parsing it would be irritating, but mostly because the main thing I wanted to accomplish with this was playing with context. The idea was to take existing lines and put them together in ways that altered their original meaning. For example, the line "Party Poison doesn't ever have to pay" originally referred to acquiring hair dye, but I put it directly after a line about consequences to be paid. "Everything else is forgivable, but not the radio" is from a scene about the kid accidentally breaking equipment, but here it means Korse's attitude about the zonerunners. "They don't age; they're not built to" was about Korse, but in this story it's about radio mixes. Finding these transformative juxtapositions was hands-down my favorite part of this project. There's some unavoidable splicing of short phrases, but mostly I tried to take at least entire clauses if not complete sentences. I also tried to work around dialogue tags, using surrounding lines to make it clear who's speaking instead of just pulling a bunch of "he says" and "she says" clips. (A handy technique for writing, too!)

I'd really love to hear people's thoughts on this. Was the piece coherent on its own? How was your understanding/interpretation of it affected by reading this post? How did my attempts at characterization come across? Which combinations of lines worked, and which ones confused you? If you're familiar with the source podfics, did you recognize particular lines as you listened, and did the context seem to change them? What potential do you see in this mode of transformative creation? Bring it on, I am all ears.

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so there's this boy.

2015-11-09T07:39:45Z

I have a lot of experience identifying and tearing down fiction tropes as applied to relationships. Basically the entire year I was 17 consisted of various aspects of figuring out how my own behavior was affected by fictional depictions of human interaction and then figuring out ways to address that. It was important psychological work and I'm very glad I did it.

But it's only just occurred to me that the same thing might apply to fanfic tropes. (Well, aside from sex. A lot of what I knew about sex as a teen came from fic. But I was very aware of that, and it never really took me off-guard.) Today I found myself in a situation I am very familiar with from fic, and I had to stop and notice that I was automatically reacting the way a character in a fic would.

This whole relationship has been very fic-esque. He's on my beer league hockey team, sort of--we have factions in two divisions and he's in the other one, but our games are always back-to-back at the same rink, and we all do stick-and-puck practice and go out for beers together. He's cute and witty and very thoughtful on the ice during practice, which somewhat surprisingly was the thing that made me realize I was into him; he kept passing to me right when I was looking for someone to pass with. What a sickeningly appropriate metaphor, right? Totally something you'd roll your eyes at but be smiling anyway if you read it in a fic.

I invited him to a hockey bar for Canadian Thanksgiving, and he invited me to a drop-in hockey session, and this week we started texting a lot, and it's gotten to the point where I need to find out for sure whether he's interested or else I'm going to start acting weird and pushing him away. (I know myself very well. I don't always understand myself, but I'm pretty predictable about this kind of thing.)

So today on the way to the rink I was thinking about what I actually want here, because I don't know him well enough to jump into a relationship and I have a couple of concerns about compatibility anyway, and I had this great character development moment where I realized: oh! this is why people go on "dates"! I've never been much for traditional dating, but in this situation I think it would actually make a lot of sense. I came up with a plan for when and how to ask him, and I walked into the rink, where he was already on the ice with the Div7 team. I watched them for a while, then went to get my gear on for my own game right afterwards, and then I went back out to watch the rest of their game.

And then this guy I'm crushing on stumbled off the ice and collapsed against the wall right by me.

I asked if he was okay. He said no. I tried to ascertain what was wrong; he couldn't seem to tell me. No one else was helping. I tried to ask the scorekeeper what happened, and in the meantime he dragged himself into the locker room to sit down. I followed and sat next to him. His eyes were watering and unfocused. He kept trying to smile at me, probably in an attempt at reassurance because I was pretty clearly freaking out.

Concussion. I had never seen one before, and had no idea how to check for severity or what else to do beyond ask for medical help, which I did. I stayed with him for another five minutes or so before the rest of the Div7 team trooped in and told me to go play my own game, and my immediate reaction to that was NO. I was seriously five seconds away from changing back into street clothes and driving him to the hospital myself. Which was ridiculous, because the Div7 game was over, so there were plenty of people available to help him out. They told me this and ushered me out, and that was when I realized I was automatically playing the C part of an h/c fic.

I guess this kind of thing has never happened because incidents like that don't usually fit into relationship narratives quite so neatly. Like, what were the odds that I would be the only one standing in that hall, and that he would be the one injured right then, after I'd been thinking about the two of us? How probable is it that no one would check up on us in the locker room long enough for all the worried gazing and brave attempts at smiles? That's the kind of unlikely moment we read fic for.

Anyway, in a fic I would go over to his place tomorrow and check up on him and argue with him about his ludicrous insistence on playing in next week's game and probably wind up getting into a conversation about personal things that we only now feel comfortable sharing because we bonded in crisis, or something like that. But in reality he's got someone taking care of him, the doctor said it's not too bad, and the bullshit about playing next week is something he'll just have to take up with his team captain. Still gonna ask him out, probably, but I'll let him heal up first.

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GGC plans

2015-09-24T23:10:32Z

Here's my general plan for hitting the Geek Girl Con programming on Saturday 10/10. Asterisks are the ones I'm really super interested in (idk what the hell I'm gonna do at 12:30). I'll probably decide between conflicting panels based on who else is going. Let me know if you're planning to be at any of these!

10:30 diversity in specfic and romance
10:30 gender v ex
11 female authors in SF/F (librarians!)
11:30 game design
* 11:30 gender in worldbuilding
12 women in STEM discussion (USB party favor!)
12 QUILTBAGs in Nerddom
* 12:30 tabletop playtesting
* 12:30 how to engage with problematic media
* 1 Women's Issues in Publishing
1 geeky cosmetics
1:30 I'm Not Like Other Girls
2:30 game design
2:30 fanfic and academia
3 disability politics in Daredevil
3:30 fandom in performing arts
4:30 using pop culture and fandom daily inspiration
5-7 costume contest
5:30 scientists in pop culture
8-10 fashion show

ETA: There's also a slash-focused afterparty happening Saturday night, let me know if you need the deets on that.

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I will not ask and neither should you

2015-07-30T16:58:15Z

I want to talk about a mid-'90s sci-fi TV show called "Space: Above and Beyond." A few people on the internet seem to think it was amazing. I watched a couple of episodes, and I might just be spoiled by recent sci-fi shows, but I thought it was awful. The writing was terrible, the acting was horrific, the storylines were cliche, and the characters had no dimension. I was really disappointed.

Why did I care? Because this fic is so fucking good.

I'm thinking about this because I've had Hozier's "Like Real People Do" stuck in my head for days, and I feel like that song would make a fantastic Cooper/McQueen vid. But I don't want to vid the canon! I want to vid that fic. I want to match we should just kiss to images of them looking at each other, like real people do to images of the in-vitros' neck-navels, I will not ask you why you were creeping to Cooper standing outside McQueen's stateroom trying to get up the nerve to knock, I could not ask you where you came from to the in-vitro facility.

I probably won't actually make the vid. Even aside from the state of my wrists (if I do any ill-advised vidding anytime soon, it'll be the Fury Road/Na Na Na vid I've been itching to make for months) there wouldn't be much point. No one would watch it, because no one knows anything about this shitty show that got cancelled after one season. And I'm not going to waste time watching the whole show so I can clip for it, anyway. But I still want to--and I want to because of this fic, this 90k epic someone wrote twenty years ago for a TV show everyone's forgotten.

This is why I like the word "transformative." Because someone can take this premise that seems silly on the actual show, and these characters that make me cringe, and turn it all into an story that keeps me up all night every time I reread it. It's not derivative. It's not a weak reflection of the canon. It turns the canon into something better.

I know the author of the story probably wouldn't want to hear that, because they clearly love the canon. There's this whole thing in fandom about exceptionalism in feedback--I hate this character but I love this fic, I can't stand this kink but you made it hot, etc. Authors often don't like that. I usually don't tell Teen Wolf authors about my feelings regarding the canon for that reason, even though it's not exceptionalism for me but preference for fanon--if they've spent so much time engaging with the thing, they probably don't want to hear about how much I hate it, even in the context of explaining my love of the fanon. I try to keep that kind of analysis in my own space.

But to me, this power fandom has--the power to pick something up and take it apart and find the interesting parts and build them into something new and different that can be appreciated in its own right--understanding this is an essential part of understanding tranformative creation. Engaging with the canon is incredibly valuable too, whether you love it or want to criticize it or both (Play It Again certainly requires familiarity with the canon, and ask me sometime about that if you have an hour or six to spare) but it's not the only thing fandom does well.

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writing from the inside out

2015-06-24T20:19:21Z

I just finished a book called "Story: Substance, Structure, Style, and the Principles of Screenwriting" by Robert McKee that articulated something I've been trying to say for a long time about writing and rewriting.

So there's this piece of advice on just about every writing advice list ever that goes: don't worry about quality, just spit out a crappy first draft and make it good when you rewrite. I've known for years that this doesn't apply to me. When I write something without worrying about how good it is, and then try to turn it into something good, I can't. I just start hating the project altogether and wind up giving up on it.

The prevailing advice on that issue is: let go of your words. Figure out what you're really saying, what's important about each scene, and start over with that in mind. Don't hang onto individual sentences or phrasings just because you like them. Find your story, and rewrite with the story in mind. And that makes sense, for someone whose process of figuring out their story requires writing it, as I gather many people's do. Mine doesn't. I can't write my story until I know what it is.

This book I just read advocates my way. It actually does so in kind of a douchey holier-than-thou way, but I'm so fed up with people being douchey about this the other way around that I'm fine with a little douchery in my favor. Anyway, he thinks stories need to be written "from the inside out"--that is, from act structure to scene structure to full treatment (essentially not!fic), with actual wording as the very last step. He says two-thirds of the time he spends writing a screenplay is spent on this part of the process, shuffling around index cards and summarizing scenes and such.

I'm working on a novel right now, and people keep asking me how much of it I've written. And the answer is: twenty-eight pages of outline, five pages of character notes, two pages of meta-planning, two pages of notes on style and voice, a page and a half of worldbuilding notes, two fanfic-style pieces working through character backstory, a physical bulletin board full of index cards color-coded on three levels... and one chapter of actual novel, in need of a major rewrite to fit the changes I've made to the outline. And I sure as hell don't feel like I've barely started to write. If I have a scene fully planned from start to end complete with overall tensions, emotional arcs, actions and reactions, that's not a scene I haven't written yet. It's a scene I'm in the middle of writing.

Not that wording isn't important. It is; it's one of the most important aspects of writing to me. I think that's why I need to do it like this--because this way I can rewrite everything else without getting stuck on the words. I'm still going to need to be able to edit and cut my words after I've written them, but (if done well) this strategy keeps that to a bare minimum.

There's another piece of writing advice I see a lot that goes: don't get stuck endlessly tinkering with your outline. At some point you just have to sit down and write. And that's true, if what you're doing actually is just endless tinkering. But if you're actually rewriting, and making important changes to improve the story, and getting more detailed as you go--that's not tinkering, that's writing from the inside out, and there is nothing wrong with it.

(I highly recommend that Robert McKee book, with the caveat that the guy is a douche. But if you can hold your nose through all the white straight male privilege, there's some awesome writing advice in there that applies to all forms of storytelling.)

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happy things!

2015-03-02T09:46:27Z

1. I came up with an idea for a novel about five weeks ago, and I've been making steady progress on it ever since. I'm really optimistic about it--I think the premise will appeal to agents and publishers, and having read a bunch of similar novels lately, I'm confident that I can execute it to current genre standards. And it's really, really nice to have a big project that I'm legitimately excited about every time I open up my notes.

2. I've been more active on Tumblr since I got into Check Please! fandom, and it's been fun to toss off little not!fics here and there and get a bunch of reactions. I have been essentially without a fandom for a long time--I'm always active in fandom, but there's a difference between that and being in a fandom, and CP has given me that sense of community and squee that I've been missing.

3. I've met a couple people through that fandom who seem really neat. I love hitting it off with fannish folks. :D

4. One of my new CP friends is in that fabulous brand-new-hockey-fan stage where you're constantly discovering awesome things about the sport (the Avery Rule! You Can Play! Dudes punching each other in the face while chatting about their dogs!) and keeps prodding me for explanations of things. It's been incredibly helpful to me emotionally, as Maloney sheds stars left and right in favor of Katamari-ing everybody's draft picks, to remember that there's a lot to love about this sport. Granted, she's a Devils fan, so she'll learn about the heartbreaky side of loving hockey soon enough, but for now she's all eager and happy and it's lovely to see.

5. I met up with a fandom friend I hadn't heard from in a while, and it was really awesome to reconnect. She's dipping her toes in CP fandom too, so I got to yammer excitedly at her about my D/s threesome fic while the other brunching yuppies around us slowly inched away.

6. I've been spending plenty of time with other fannish friends in meatspace, including a fantastic group trip to Vancouver to see the Penguins. Fen are so great. ♥

7. Watching Malkin in warmups made some things click in my brain and all of a sudden I'm totally rocking my outside edges on the rink. I think I'll sign up for a rec league in the fall and start playing for real. I'm so goddamn glad I decided to start skating regularly--it's been the best thing in my life on multiple levels this past ten months.

8. Queer movie night has been going strong since August, and I've found a bunch of amazing new movies in the process of deciding which ones to show. I should do a recs list here for you guys.

9. The boything realized last night that Dileep Rao, the guy who played Yusuf in Inception, plays in his trivia league. Further investigation revealed that the dude actually participated in the trivia set the boything ran. Also, boything beat out Yusuf on the topics of typography and fruit. I am endlessly amused by this.

10. Those dudes Ngozi found on Vine who look like Ransom and Holster. Oh my god, you guys. I watched 476 Vines on Wednesday and laughed until I literally injured my throat. SO GREAT.

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An annotated fic reading list for kinky beginners

2015-02-27T20:21:56Z

I was recently talking to a friend who wanted to know more about how to negotiate and have conversations with partners about kink. There's a ton of resources out there on what organs to avoid when you're flogging someone, but it's harder to get a good sense of how to talk about this stuff, especially when you're figuring it all out and aren't necessarily sure what you're going to like or not. My answer, of course, was: read fic! Except there's a ton of kink fic out there that avoids or idealizes those conversations. So I decided to pull together some of the ones I remember ringing true to me, reread them, and examine how well they really translate to real life. I got a bit carried away and expanded it to be kind of general how-to-kink, not just negotiation, though I tried to focus on that.

All the fics on this list I didn't write are ones that I personally adore and would rec, but reccing is not what I'm doing in my notes; I'm just talking about how well they depict the reality of kink in my experience, and what aspects of them aren't true to life or would be problematic/unhealthy if you actually did things that way. (This isn't necessarily criticism of the fics themselves--fantasy doesn't need to always reflect reality, and not all of these are trying to.) I'm including some fics I wrote myself about things I haven't seen other people write about, at least in ways that make sense to me.

I strongly encourage discussion in the comments, especially if you have kink experience yourself that contradicts anything I'm saying or if you notice other things in these fics that new kinksters should be wary about. God only knows I've deconstructed enough of my own attitudes about this stuff to be quite sure there's always more left to deconstruct, so don't be afraid to disagree. I also highly encourage sharing more links, though please do keep in mind that for this particular conversation we're prioritizing real-life applicability rather than hotness. And if you're a kinky beginner with questions, fire away! I bet I will not be the only person willing to answer them. :)

Intro-to-kink fics

Tell Me To Stop (bandom) by airgiodslv
I love how this fic clearly delineates a difference between the mechanics of kink and the psychological dynamics of it--it's a really good idea to get a handle on the nuts and bolts before you try to put anybody under, and I rarely see that acknowledged in fiction. But the character who's supposed to be in charge of the lesson plan here actually doesn't do that great a job explaining important things ahead of time, notably subspace--he clearly knows what his own headspace looks like and doesn't warn the student dom how to deal with it. They also don't discuss the power dynamics onscreen much; there's surprise!bratting after several scenes, when that kind of thing (obedience or defiance? do you like to push back? how should punishment be handled?) is basic stuff that should be gone over before the scene. Not everything needs to be depicted within the story (like, I'm assuming they talked about the cock-slapping during the kink-list scene) but the way that stuff plays out makes me think it wasn't really discussed. And not achieving subspace is definitely not anyone's fault, that's not a productive attitude. Also, if you're new you should try to be aware of how much you trust your decision-making in the moment and communicate that to your partner before the situation comes up. (I know people who will talk about the idea of a new kink that comes up during a scene, but not put it into action until the next time, after they've had a chance to think it over. I think that's probably a good policy for most beginners.) Finally, the line "if you go there, you have to mean it, whether you're still in the mood later or not" makes me super uncomfortable. It's not called out as a consent issue within the narrative, but to me that is definitely uncool pressure. Maybe the situation shouldn't have arisen, but regardless of that, anyone involved should have the right to withdraw consent at any time.

BDSM 201: Practical Applications (bandom) by littlemousling
This one is heavy on the social aspects of BDSM culture and community--how it works, what to expect, how to navigate it safely. It does a good job of depicting how a play-partnership can go wrong without enough communication, and there are a few nice detail moments when a scene isn't going perfectly but is still working, which happens a lot IRL because humans cannot mindread and not everything you try is going to blow your partner away. It's pretty true to life, although the POV character falls into subspace a lot more easily than I think most newbies would, and I don't like how it shows him being uncomfortable when the less-thoughtful dom talks about him right in front of him and then he's just fine with it when the supposedly-doing-it-right dom does the same thing. I do like how casual a lot of the discussions are, how conversations about kink just transition from and to conversations about other stuff.

Amateur Cartography (bandom) by fictionalaspect
Man did I want this one to be about nonsexual kink. It looked like it was going to be, and it got me all excited, but then nope. Anyway, there's a lot of good stuff in this but holy wow is it a bad idea to just straight-up tie somebody up, tell them they're not allowed to withdraw consent, and leave them alone as their first ever kink experience. Do not do that. But after that it's good. I like how it stresses that debriefing is important if you plan to play again, even if it feels awkward and you don't wanna.

Player Development (Check Please!) by me
I wrote this in part because there's not much fic out there about learning to dom. There's plenty about new subs, because teaching submission is tropey and sexy, but aside from Tell Me To Stop I'm not sure I've read another intro-to-topping fic. It's also about the nuances of communication, nailing down the things that really work for you and letting your partner(s) know how to give them to you. It depicts plenty of Things Not To Do (jumping into it without negotiating, speaking for someone else without being certain of the things you're saying, not speaking up when something isn't right, having important emotional conversations without disengaging from the power dynamics of the scene), but I tried to call all that out within the narrative. One thing I sorta ignored about reality is that it's not a good idea to start hardcore scening right away with a kink newbie who hasn't had a chance to get used to the idea. If you're gonna tell a partner about your kinks, don't ask them to dive in right then and there.

Fics that focus on communication/negotiation

Sex, Lies, and Veritaserum (Harry Potter) by lettered
This fic is an incredibly detailed depiction of a single conversation, including a sort of practice scene where they act out the things they've been talking about and periodically get into it before pausing to ask another question or confirm that this is what the other person wants. One quibble: you cannot tell by looking at a person's face that they are thinking about calling you a dirty slut while they bang you into the mattress. No one's expressions are that detailed. This seems obvious, but there's kind of a strong emphasis in D/s circles on doms being able to read their subs and give them what they want without having to talk about it, which is not a reasonable expectation in a new partnership. But aside from that part near the beginning--and, of course, aside from the part where they have truth potion at their disposal--this is solid.

Tangled (Community) by thingswithwings
This depicts two very different people reacting to the same situation, and examines the trajectory of results for each. More about relationship negotiation than kink negotiation, but there's some kinky stuff in there, and I think the communication skills required are approximately equivalent.

Switch (hockey RPF) by montrose
A BDSM 'verse that comments on kink culture by exaggerating it to a societal level. This says some worthwhile things about discussing kinks you don't want to admit you have--especially when your partner is operating under false assumptions--and addresses some of the problematic expectations in BDSM culture with regards to traditional D/s roles. I think it does a pretty good job of addressing the negative aspects of this relationship within the narrative.

Good Boy (Avengers) by triedunture
This is about negotiating a gentle dom/pet relationship. Includes a situation where the dom has to safeword, which a lot of people don't consider.

My Own Dear Friends (Check Please!) by angelsaves
I love how this shows that communication doesn't have to be awkward. The kink is more about the acts rather than powerplay headspace, so they just negotiate on the fly, and it works. When you're doing power dynamics stuff where negotiation mid-scene would throw someone out of it, you gotta have those discussions ahead of time.

I Only Have Teeth For You (hockey RPF) by me
Negotiation in bro-speak. Basically, if it works for the people involved, it works.

Good, Giving, and Gamed (bandom) by me
A very short, silly fic about the perils of bad communication.

Fics about specific kinks or aspects of kink

Big Lust (bandom) by me
This is about different kinds of subs, and different kinds of scenes. There are a lot of ways to do kink.

Pull Your Tangles Out (bandom) by boweryd
Obedience kink. Starts out unnegotiated, then they talk a bit--not very much, and I'm not totally comfortable with the bit where it's left unclear whether the sub would be able to tap out if he needed to, but it's probably enough negotiation for the level of kink they get to in the story.

Bottoming From The Top (bandom) by me
This is about dominant masochism. It does not depict a healthy relationship in terms of communication--I'm including it mostly to give an idea of what dominant masochism can look like in the details of the execution, and to emphasize that the traditional D/s relationship structure is not the only option. (The title is a reference to the phrase "topping from the bottom," which is a derogatory phrase that refers to subs trying to give input into a scene while it's happening, and is a really damaging concept that perpetuates the idea that subs shouldn't have a say in what happens to them. This fic doesn't actually address that, it's just wordplay in the title, but it's a good thing for new kinksters to be aware of.)

Feel First, Ask Questions Later (hockey RPF) by haloforsale
Some interesting power dynamics. It's tagged "service top" and "dominant bottom" but that's not quite the vibe I get from it. Contains consent play that seems to have been negotiated offscreen--certainly if you're going to do what they do here, you should negotiate it.

Definition (bandom), New Message (bandom), and Impact Player (hockey), by me
A few very short takes I've written on nonsexual kink in different contexts--one pain kink, one obedience kink, and one D/s. I haven't seen much nonsexual kink fic out there at all--please link me if you know of any!

Take it out in trade (hockey RPF) by mermaid
This isn't nonsexual kink, but it's sort of relevant: it's a situation where a guy is straight, but experiments doing kinky stuff with another guy. Touches on some interesting stuff about kink and sex and sexual orientation.

walk a thousand miles to fall down at your door (bandom) by xstarlesscity
Lifestyle BDSM, with the everyday aspects of life integrated in between the kink. Keep in mind that this is an established relationship that has clearly been fully negotiated, and these guys know each other's limits well--this is not beginner stuff, but it's what kink can be like when you're really familiar with your partner.

Sex Scenes Your New Boyfriend's Too Vanilla To Know About (bandom) by me
This fic is basically just a straight-up list of ideas. You could make a checklist out of it. XD

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do you like mustaches?

2015-02-26T07:56:20Z

me: "Uuuugh, I can't come up with a good fancast for Shitty."
boything: "Hm. Freddie Mercury?"
me: "Not bro-y enough. Anyway, I'd only be able to find footage of him with a mic. I need an actor. And when I look up mustaches on Tumblr, all I get are selfies and porn."
boything: "I think the right mustache style is called a chevron mustache."
me: "Maybe Pinterest."
boything: "You know... if you're looking for mustaches, obviously you should be looking on Delicious."

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Awesome Ladies fodder

2015-02-06T23:11:01Z

I'm writing two fics for Awesome Ladies this year, and I'm also working on my fic for the Check Please! exchange, and I'm out of town this weekend, so participating as a podficcer probably isn't happening. But I did poke through my bookmarks for potential things to record, and figured I might as well put them out there, in the hopes that either someone else will decide to go for one or that I'll remember to come back and pick from them next year. (By the way, does anyone know whether Awesome Ladies officially requires permission from writers? The rules sort of imply that it's expected, but I don't see anything stated outright.)

The Sea Witch Sets The Record Straight by ursulav (Little Mermaid)
Susan Pevensie and Peggy Carter Having Tea by ink-splotch (Avengers/Narnia)
In praise of Joanne Rowling’s Hermione Granger series by Sady Doyle

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eating habits and creativity

2015-01-29T19:16:50Z

( TW: not about weight loss but tangentially related )

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Check Please! Valentine's Day Fanworks Exchange

2015-01-26T20:05:51Z

I'm at the point where my desire for Check Please! fanworks far outstrips the fandom's level of production, so: V-day fest! I know this fandom is very Tumblr-based, but no way in hell am I trying to run signups on that platform, so y'all tumblweeds can sign up via anon comments if you don't have DW accounts. If you don't get an e-mail from me within a day, check back to make sure your comment went through and you didn't typo your e-mail address.

Signing up means committing to create a work based on your recipient's preferences by February 9th. All kinds of fanworks are welcome: fic, art, podfic, mixes, vids if you can figure out a way to make it work, fancasts--anything goes. Works don't need to be romance-focused unless the recipient requests it. If there are particular fanworks that you'd rather not receive (for example, if you're hearing-impaired and can't consume audio works), mention that under "requesting" along with your preferred characters, pairings, kinks, tropes, etc. You can be as specific or as vague as you like with your requests, but I anticipate this being a pretty small exchange, so I might not be able to find a creator for your dream Holster/Shitty office AU.

I'll be running this mostly through e-mail. I'll e-mail you your assignment, you'll e-mail me the completed work on 2/9 (just so I know it's really done), you'll post your work in your own space on 2/14 and e-mail me the link, and I'll send e-mail notifications with links to recipients and post a masterlist both here and on Tumblr. If you need hosting for your work or you can't post on the day of the 14th, poke me and we'll figure it out.

Pinch-hitting means committing to produce a fanwork between the due date and the posting date for someone whose assigned creator defaulted. This means their interests might not match up with yours as well as your assigned recipient. Please don't say you'll pinch-hit unless you're sure!

If you have any other questions, drop me a comment or a PM. Comments are screened, but I'll unscreen questions that might be relevant to others.

Timeline:
Signups close: Friday, January 30
Assignments go out: Sunday, February 1
Completed works due: Monday, February 9th
Posting: Saturday, February 14th

Signup form:
Username:
E-mail:
Offering:
Requesting:
Please avoid:
Willing to pinch-hit?

Sign up in the comments! I'll do mine here, as an example:

Username: jedusaur
E-mail: [e-mail address]
Offering: Fic or podfic, any characters/pairings. I'm a concise writer, not very good at extensive emotional introspection. I adore writing bros. Most of my stuff is either kinky or meta in some way.
Requesting: Any fanwork type, slash/het/gen all good. My favorite characters are Bitty, Jack, Shitty, Georgia, Chowder, and Johnson. I like tropey plots as well as darker/more serious stuff--not big on straight-up schmoop unless there's a plot involved. Kinky sex is good, vanilla tends to bore me (but sex is totally optional). I like meta and my favorite fanworks tend to address the canon or the fandom in some interesting way. I'm a big hockey fan but am fine with character-focused works that don't talk about it.
Please avoid: pregnancy, genderswap, female-character-bashing, plots based on bad communication.
Willing to pinch-hit? Yep!

EDIT: 31 participants and signups are closed!

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3 lines from 3 WIPs meme

2015-01-25T18:20:55Z

1. “Jeez Louise. Bad Joe, Bad Bob--how many hockey players just stick ‘Bad’ in front of their names and call it a nickname? Y’all quit callin’ me Bitty, you hear, I’m Bad Bittle now.” (Check Please! fic about hockey history)

2. “Sir,” Jake says, offended hand on his heart. “I assure you, I am not and have never been active in sex work. I am active in sex fun. Compensated sex fun.” (Brooklyn Nine-Nine hookerfic)

3. So off he goes to a hot city in a strange country, armed with his hockey gear and a phrasebook from his father that proves entirely useless. He doesn’t need to know how to ask for directions or order coffee. He needs to know how to laugh at people companionably, how to invite himself along when everyone is heading out for drinks, how to keep going after making a mistake instead of freezing up--things he never knew in Russian either. (Junior League fic about Bakin making the NHL)

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2014 fanworks

2014-12-30T03:40:03Z

I felt like I wasn't producing much fannishly this year... but actually I just wasn't writing much. And, in fact, my two favorites of the fanworks I created this year were not fic. Let's start with those.

The Hammer Is My Enormous Penis (Nathan Fillion, "Enormous Penis" by Da Vinci's Notebook)

This ridiculous vid is one of my favorite things I've ever made. I put about a month of my spare time into it--I calculated at one point that it took at least 50 hours--and I never once lost my enthusiasm for the project. It is about that lovable douchebag with a sharp tongue and a massive ego that is every role in Nathan Fillion's filmography.

Open & Notorious (Welcome to Night Vale)

This audio project was a collaboration with a whole bunch of people. It's based on the intro segments to the Welcome to Night Vale podcast, in which various voices have claimed to be the real Joseph Fink; this work consists of a whole bunch of people interrupting and talking over each other and arguing about who is actually the real Joseph Fink. It turned out far better than I ever thought it could, in large part because of the outstanding voice performances delivered by everyone who participated. I did the writing and editing, but the performers were incredibly creative in their deliveries, and several of the lines I wound up including were ad-libbed.

I did a few other audio projects, though I still don't really identify as a podficcer. Only one of these is standard podfic:

Hello Operator, Please Give Me Number Nine (Calvin and Hobbes), written by Starlingthefool

I recorded this because I had massive NRE stars in my eyes and the object of my affections had said in passing that she'd been meaning to read this but would rather listen to a podfic. I'd read and loved it, so I just went ahead and did it.

Selected excerpts from nightvaleradio (Welcome to Night Vale)

Dating a podficcer may, in retrospect, have had a significant effect on my audio output this year. This one was a Valentine's Day present; it's a whole bunch of tweets from the official Night Vale Twitter account, which does really fabulous creepy microfiction.

The Gifts of the Giving Tree (The Giving Tree), written by Mallory Ortberg

I love this piece so fucking much. I hear podficcers talk about reading a fic and just needing to record it right now--that was me reading this. The text (a dark retelling of a children's book) was published at The Toast, but it totally counts as fanfic.

Too Much Woman (Assassin's Creed), co-created with originally

I wrote this monologue for originally to perform and we released it audio-only. It's from the POV of the playable female character that got cut from Assassin's Creed: Unity.

I've done a few more vids this year. I'm still on a pretty steep learning curve there, which is nice because I can see myself improving, but also frustrating because I'm not as good at it as I want to be. None of these are exactly what I was going for, and all of them could have benefited from the same time commitment as the Nathan Fillion one linked above, but sadly there are not enough hours in my life to do that with every vid. Still, I've had a lot of fun making these, and I can clearly see areas in need of improvement that I know how to improve upon in the future, which is heartening.

Moves Like Jagr (Jaromir Jagr, "Moves Like Jagger" by Maroon 5)

Jagr. Jagger. It had to be done.

(The Edmonton Oilers are) Still Alive (Oilers, "Still Alive" by Jonathan Coulton/GLaDOS)

A birthday present for an Oilers fan friend of mine. The poor guy. You can probably get the gist of this if you're not familiar with Oilers history, but, well, it's geared toward someone who's spent their whole life facepalming over this team.

A Fine-Looking High Horse (Super, "Take Me To Church" by Hozier)

This one is intentionally designed to be easily comprehensible by people who haven't seen Super; I actually wasn't sure if V had when I made it for them, but I knew they would appreciate Ellen Page and obsessive wannabe superheroes. Warning: contains graphic violence.

The Very Root (Mushishi, "Science/Visions" by Chvrches)

I think this is watchable if you don't know the canon, though the message about humanity's destructive interactions with nature might not come across as clearly if you're not familiar. The art in this anime is just fucking beautiful, though, and I crammed a lot of it in here, so check it out if you like things that are pretty. Warning: a bit of body horror.

And I did write some fic!

Fuck-You Money (Teen Wolf, Derek/Stiles)

Kidfic. Yep. This happened because I was having a lot of personal finance feelings and I wanted to write fic about them, though I think I managed to keep most of the boring stuff out of it (aside from the detailed blog submission, which you can totally skim). Also, I always want the world to contain more fic about two people who both openly want to bang but can't for really good, sensible reasons, and kids who hate each other fit that bill.

With Grace (WTNV, Tamika & Josie)

I just really liked the idea that "Old Woman Josie" isn't actually that old, she's just considered old because the average longevity of a Night Vale resident is so ridiculously low.

Beat All (Teen Wolf, Erica & Allison & Lydia, sorta Erica/Stiles)

Girls-in-a-band AU. I will never get enough of Erica learning to be badass for herself instead of getting a magic badass werewolf bite.

Positive Feedback (Check Please!, Jack/Bitty)

Praise kink. Pretty much PWP.

100px To The Right (Check Please!, Johnson)

Give me an inch of meta and I will take 500 miles.

I also co-created (with torra) a panel at Bitchin' Party that wound up being very much a transformative work; it follows the format of an episode of the podcast, and I think it turned out fairly well. At some point an edit of the audio is going to be posted online, but it hasn't happened yet.

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Check Please! and why you should care

2014-12-27T22:38:51Z

I have written fic! TWO FICS. I started, finished, and posted two fics yesterday, after four months of not being able to finish any fic at all. One of them is kinky and the other one is incredibly meta, proving that I still have not been kidnapped by aliens. (If I ever post a fic that has no kink or meta in it, assume aliens.) I'm not going to make anyone read them, but I am going to try my damndest to convince you to consume the canon they're based on, because it's fucking great.

From Check Please (Sophomore Year #4).

Check Please! is a webcomic about a sweet little Southern gay college student in Massachusetts who plays hockey and bakes pies. (Don't run away if you're not a hockey fan--it's really not about hockey.) I can't even remember the last time the main character was my favorite in any story, but Bitty is the best.

Other characters I adore include:

Jack, Bitty's (eventual, presumably--it's pretty clear that's where things are going) love interest who's headed for the NHL

Shitty, a poli sci/gender studies double major who smokes a lot of weed and often does not wear clothes

Lardo, the female team manager who can kick all the boys' asses at beer pong

Ransom and Holster, hosts of the "Hockey Shit" segments, which explain things like hockey nicknames and goal celebrations

Chowder, the overly excitable and naive baby goalie

Dex and Nursey, the baby defensemen who hate each other's guts

Johnson, the recently-graduated metaphysical goalie who is fully aware of his own fictionality and role in the narrative

The characters are great, the art is wonderful--especially the detailed backgrounds--and the story is compelling. Also, the creator is great at engaging with fans and supporting transformative creation. A lot of the canon has been built through responses to Tumblr asks and replies from the official Twitter and stuff like that; it's a very fannish model of content output.

If you're not convinced yet, start here. If you are convinced, start at the beginning.

And then you can read my fics! Positive Feedback is Jack/Bitty praise kink, and 100px To The Right is super-meta fic about Johnson the Metaphysical Goalie. There's already a podfic of the one about Johnson, if you'd rather listen than read. (Fandom works fast, yo.)

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Nail polish recs

2014-11-09T07:22:42Z

knight_tracer asked for nail polish recommendations and specified that she likes dramatic colors, and I thought some of y'all might be interested as well, given how much of fandom seems to be into nail polish. So here are my favorite dramatic polishes, along with the most true-to-life swatches Google Images could find me. All of these have, at least once, caused people to say "WOW!" and grab my hand to haul it closer for a better look.

( Four shimmers, a flaky, and a holo )

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White Collar not!fic amnesty

2014-11-04T04:07:13Z

Copied, as these always are, from an e-mail to V from months and months ago that I just stumbled across. This is about half not!fic and half half-assed fic, so I supposed you could call it a quarter-assed fic.

( The one where Peter Burke learns how to dance )

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original stories I'm working on

2014-09-07T01:39:37Z

It's kind of weird to talk about origfic here. I guess I feel like it's okay to solicit support from my fandom community when it comes to writing fic, because y'all already know you'll be getting something out of it in the end, whereas with this stuff you're not already invested and there's no reason to expect you to pull out the pompoms. But, well, this is where my creative energies are flowing these days, and a couple of them did start out as fics, so. Here's what I'm working on.

- The steampunk one about hockey in the sky and underground--this was originally RPF, but I think it'll work much better this way. I'm very excited about playing with the worldbuilding for this.

- The sci-fi alien invader one, which never actually wanted to be bandom. That one was done and posted in one form as fic, but I always thought it had the potential to be better, so I'm doing a full rewrite.

- The one about sentient tattoos. I think it's a murder mystery, though I haven't solved it yet.

- The one about the kid who keeps falling off a playground and landing in a plane everyone expects her to be able to fly. This one will probably be finished first--it's been speaking to me lately.

- The one about the restlessness spirit and the girl who travels the earth ceaselessly because the spirit vanishes whenever she settles down, and she misses it. Haven't gotten much further than that premise; I suspect it will be more of an exercise in writing settings and mood than anything particularly plotty.

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this idea of things meaning other things

2014-07-24T18:57:02Z

I used to like a certain amount of confusion in my pleasure reading. I think particularly in my early teens, I was very committed to the idea that understanding things is not necessary to appreciate them. This probably stemmed in part from my emerging philosophical stance on natural phenomena--I was very active in a Unitarian Universalist church at the time. But mostly, I think, it was because I didn't understand most of the best writing I was consuming. I was discovering a lot of stuff like Terry Pratchett and Harlan Ellison and Dostoevsky, books for grown-ups that didn't always explain themselves to the extent that young adult books did. (I lived in the YA section of the library from about age 8 to 11.) I knew that I liked these books, I could tell that they were good, but I didn't always get everything they were saying. And that added to the experience for me, because the hints at the things I didn't understand certainly implied that they were worthwhile. When I did realize what they meant--Pratchett sometimes deals a few whacks with the clue-bat right at the end--they often blew my mind, but I also liked the sense of purposeful mystery when it never became clear what something meant. It didn't bother me that I couldn't figure it out, because I knew that a lot of literature leaves things open to interpretation on purpose. Feature, not a bug.

This perspective very much influenced my own writing. I think I somehow assumed that it was possible to create writing layered with deep meaning without fully understanding the meaning, because incomprehension was a major part of my conception of good writing. All my writing from that time of my life is very dramatic and mysterious and nonsensical.

Then I slid over to the other end of the spectrum when I got back into fandom around age nineteen. I was a little more self-conscious about knowing what I was doing at that point, so I stuck to a very straightforward writing style. After a while, I started focusing on things like mood and introspection, which are weaknesses in my writing and need a lot of attention and work for me to get them right, and also allow more room for figurative language and thoughtful observations. "B/L/I/N/D" was a turning point for me; it was the first time I tried to write something with layers of meaning that I actually understood.

I still enjoy open-ended stories in situations where there are multiple possible interpretations and I understand what those possibilities are. I also don't mind a writer artfully confusing me in the process of a story, as long as there's a point to it eventually. And some creators, like They Might Be Giants or the Welcome to Night Vale folks, elevate nonsense-spewing to an art form--the randomness itself is kind of the point, though you can read deeper meanings if you want to. But aside from that sort of thing, I'm not really into recreational bewilderment these days. Most of those great books I didn't understand when I was thirteen make more sense to me now, and the ones that don't generally turn out not to be so great after all.

And when I write, I know what I'm writing about. I usually have to think about the project for a while before I sort out that underlying meaning, and I don't always get it across successfully in the finished piece, but by the time I'm putting words into sentences, I know what I'm trying to make them do.

(The title of this post is a Jesse Hajicek quote referring to relationships, an area in which I followed a very similar trajectory of development. But that's a different post.)

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