🦉 New Fantasy Writeblr? Do Me A Solid And Reblog This.

Of Elves and of Men

I love the ambiguity of the term ‘WIP’. Is it a project in it’s third draft? A final draft being queried? An idea I came up with six months ago and haven’t written anything about yet? You don’t know. Nobody knows. 

reblog and tag the languages you speak/understand in order of proficiency!!

Very much inspired by this post by @papanorth

i talk a big game about enemies-to-lovers but i’ve only just now begun considering the possibilities of friends-to-enemies-to-lovers. they were friends. there was a BETRAYAL. now they’re enemies. but then… they fall in love… maximum potential for pining… achieved

Beware the Ides of March 🔪

I finally get to post a preview for my piece for @inkedfairytales

I got assigned to 1001 Nights and even though they encouraged us to think about of the box, I admit you’ve got to squint to recognize mine. I came up with a post-cannon type thing. It involves a hut in the desert, a mute character, a really tall jinn and human sacrifices. (I had to cycle through 5 ideas before settling, everybody else’s ideas are so good!)

This zine was so fun to be apart of and filled with so many fantastic pieces! I’m so hyped to see how everything turns out!

Extract:

“It’s not a good story to tell, little mouse.”

Almost as if to apologize, Ra picked up the book again and started reading. Ra had a way of forming words, his voice deep and mellow, blending with the turn of the page. Ebbing and flowing, the story drifted around him like dragging notes. Ra looked over the top of the cover as he read.

“I was a king once,” Ra didn’t say it like it was a story. He said it like a memory, bittersweet on the tongue. “They used to come to me. I’ve helped raise a city out of the sand. I’ve known the feeling of bringing armies victory. I’ve known the maddening years of darkness, waiting, seconds turning to centuries in darkness.”

Thoughts melted away as a familiar warmth settled over him, radiating from Ra like the afternoon sun. It felt like smoke coiled in his mind, slowed down and sluggish. Bo’s eyelids raised and lowered. He watched with dull entrancement as the colored shadows cast by the hanging lanterns first glittered and spun then morphed and arched into dancing figures that twirled and skipped across their walls, moving in tandem with Ra’s story. Bo’s eyes sagged then fogged. In the state in between sleeping and waking, his vision blurred, he saw Ra’s skin darken then shift. What are you?

Something fell then shattered.

“Why are fanfictions always so much better written than canon??”

Because they’re catered to you and your ideas of what the characters, story, etc. should be, which doesn’t always line up with canon.

It’s not a matter of which one is objectively better, but of audience. 

Fanfiction is made for fans by fans with copious amounts of fanon concepts made to appeal to, well, the fandom. This is not inherently bad, and obviously the amount of fanons and which ones will vary from fic to fic, but given that the quote above generally only applies to fics the poster likes…yeah. That fic is written specifically for you and the people who agree with you. Again, not inherently a bad thing.

BUT that is not the case for canon. Canon is not written for the fandom; the fandom can’t form until after the canon exists. How that fandom changes as different people come and go as they decide they do or don’t like the directions canon takes is another story, but nonetheless unlike fanfiction it is not written to cater to fanon concepts and preferences. And “not catering to fanon” is not synonymous with “bad writing”.

Now that said, yes there are obviously fanfics out there that are objectively very well-written and creative, and yes there is canon material out there for whatever book/movie/tv show/etc that objectively isn’t so great.

But most of the time, your perception of fanfics is better because they’re tailored to your biases. Not because they’re objectively better-written.

Again, there’s nothing inherently wrong with that–it’s completely normal to prefer/enjoy things that fit your opinions/headcanons–but maybe step back and consider that a moment before you go and bash the creators of your favorite book/movie/show for not following the same plot of your favorite fic.

Saoirse Ronan as Jo March in “Little Women” (USA, 2019)