Late Night Thoughts on Fanfiction

The thing I love about fanfiction isn’t the smut.

Ok.

It’s a little bit the smut.

But mostly, it’s that we as readers are never satisfied with THE END. Even after reading the most briliantly written book–maybe even more in that case–we always want more. What happens after the war is over and the rubble is swept away? The mystery is solved, so Sherlock and Watson just go back to smoking their pipes?!

NO! Of course not!

These characters are real to us. They are family, it’s personal. We may not have invented them, but we are invested and they must continue on with their lives as we do.

Most of us have our devoted ships, and we will go down to the depths with them. For me, it’s Johnlock and Drarry. And Hannigram. GODDAMN YOU BRYAN FULLER WHAT THE HELL?! I am amused by a few others, but those are the two I read the most.

Don’t come near me with your Sherlolly and Dramione. Get it away from me! *Shudder*

But I digress.

The world of fanfic is comprised of countless writers and artists who create amazing works for their OTP. The theories and stories range from almost cannon and totally plausible, to completely off the wall and nonsensical. Everyone has their niche. There are some seriously talented people out there. The stories are beautiful, funny…and yes, many are gloriously dirty. And really, they can’t even be called stories, as some are longer than the books they are about. The art is just as gorgeous, some based stricly off the canon characters, modeled after someone’s fanfic, or the artist completely creates their own interpretation of the fictional world. I cannot reblog it all fast enough.

Reading Drarry before bed has become my “guilty pleasure.” Except I don’t feel guilty about it. What better way to unwind at the end of a stressful day of fighting fires at work and filling my brain with new information, than to dive into my favorite place of all–The Wizarding World of Harry Potter–with a few fun twists thrown in? I especially like the ones from after the war–8th year or later, when they adults, trying to find their way. A little hate, a little lust, a little love. It’s all great fun.

What kind of fic are you drawn to? Who are your OTPs?

Advertisement

Dark Corners

So, I have a bit of a treat for you today. It’s like nothing I’ve ever posted on the blog before, and I’ll be honest, I’m a bit nervous about publishing it. I posted a rough draft on my Tumblr this morning, writing as I was inspired, but the tenses were a mess, and it was just what I woke up with out of my dream. I’ve rewritten it, fixed everything, added some. I’ve never written anything like this before, but I quite like it. For those of you unfamiliar with fanfiction, Drarry is a combination of Draco and Harry from Harry Potter. It’s a pretty common mashup, and one I’ve recently begun following.

This isn’t to everyone’s taste, but read on if your interested! Oh, and it’s pretty mellow. No R rated stuff here.

OK. Deep breath. Here goes.

---

 

“Look, let’s just get this over with, ok? I’m about as thrilled about this study partner thing as you are.”

“Deal. I can’t believe old McGonagall is making us do this.”

Harry and Draco find a quiet spot deep in the library stacks, settle down, and start passing books back and forth. They definitely aren’t happy about it, and fight the whole time at first. Not much gets accomplished besides quarreling, as per the usual.

Then something cruel is said about families, and Harry gets really upset and quiet. Draco, used to him fighting back, is concerned, so he makes some asshole comment about Harry giving up the fight.

Harry looks up with wet cheeks and said, “My parents are dead, Draco. Don’t you ever remember that?”

He gets up to leave, and as he’s gathering his things, Draco takes his hands and pulls him close. “I’m sorry, I’ve been an idiot.”

Harry is stiff at first, but then just sort of sags into Draco with relief and even though there is no music, they sort of sway together in the dark corner of the stacks.

“Draco, what are we doing?” Harry asks after a moment, pulling away slightly. This is nice, but he realizes what he’s doing, and with whom…and suddenly he feels…odd.

“Dancing in the stacks after curfew.” Draco dares, his lip slightly curled.

“No, I mean…we hate each other. We’ve always hated each other…” Harry trails off, feeling slightly silly now, but he doesn’t know what else to say.

“Have we though? Or has it just been easier to keep fighting like we were still kids, pretending we don’t care about every single look?”

Harry looks at Draco, his arch nemesis since they were boys. There’s always been such a strange pull, but yet… “We are on opposite sides of this war, Draco. You’re playing a very dangerous game.”

The smirk disappears from Draco’s face and it turns suddenly serious, a crease forming between his brows. “…dangerous game indeed…”

Draco pulls Harry hard toward him, and covers Harry’s mouth with his.

Harry feels all the breath go out of him at once, the way he did when the dementors attacked, and for a moment he fears he’s about to lose his soul.

But it isn’t a dementor. It is Draco. And it’s not his soul that Harry loses, it’s his heart, all at once, and completely. He grasps the back of Draco’s neck and kisses back hard, until they both need air, and when they stop, it’s Draco who has tears on cheeks.

Harry, short of breath, tries to hang onto him, knowing Draco is going to slip away. “You have to try and get out. He doesn’t need you. I need you. Don’t do whatever He’s asked you to do.”

Draco lays his head, just for a moment, on Harry’s shoulder, and whispers, “It’s too late.”

And then he’s gone. And Harry is alone.

 

Fangirl

Ever since Rainbow Rowell came onto my radar, I have been dying to read Fangirl. The very title screams HALEY YOU MUST READ ME!

But, for one reason or another, this book has eluded me. The library holds are always astronomical, no surprise there. And of course it is NEVER on a used book store shelf. I mean, who in their right mind would ever give this one up?

No, my only option was to buy new. So when Rowell announced the Special Edition preorders 6 months ago…oh yes. I am pretty sure I ordered my copy that same day.

And a few weeks ago, I received my very own bubblegum pink copy. This was one of those moments when my husband just looked at me like “Why the hell is she screaming?”

This is the same man who gets excited over socks.

But I digress.

WHY DID NO ONE TELL ME THIS WAS DRARRY FANFICTION?!?!?!

I mean, I should have expected it. I do follow Rainbow Rowell on Twitter. But, YES. Now I understand why everyone is so excited for Carry On to come out!

If you can’t tell by all the capitals in this post…I loved this book. You know…just in case. I figured I’d tell ya. Cath–she’s me, circa 2005. Completely introverted, no social skills outside of my small town universe, and a new roommate. I am not sure I was never not anxious in the dorm diners, and parties? Those were terrifying. So yep, I get Cath 100%. I’m pretty sure she even looks like me, with her glasses and her hair always pulled up.

When I write these reviews I’m always overanalyzing the plots and characters…but there’s nothing for me to criticize here really. I am going to have a major book hangover after this one. It’s the kind of book that you’re rereading in your head while you’re cutting melon in the kitchen. I know that, because that happened earlier this evening. I was CRAVING this story after my walk, but I had to get the melon breakdown out of the way first. (Damn dieting.)

I’m sure this is considered New Adult Romance, maybe Young Adult Romance, something along those lines. But it also deals with bipolar disorder, depression, alcoholism, divorce, anxiety. I’m sure I’m missing some important theme on the list. My point is, this is not fluff, though it is a book that is “easy” to read. By that I mean you will be immediately transported into Nebraska and Cath’s world, and you’ll forget about everything else.

Yes yes, yes yes, yes yes yes.

The Fangirl’s Guide to the Galaxy: A Handbook for Geeks

HEY! HEY! HEY! HEY!

JUMPS UP AND WAVES ERRATICALLY AT ALL MY FELLOW GIRL GEEKS, NERDS, OBSESSIVE LOVERS OF EVERYTHING.

I HAVE FOUND THE FANGIRL FEMINIST BIBLE.

*phew* Ok. I’m tired now. Sometimes being that enthusiastic can be exhausting, but this book gave me ALL THE FEELS. Because ladies, it is all about us! And it’s amaaaaazing. I’m not kidding, I was internally screaming the whole time I was reading, like FINALLY someone stood up and said HEY! We need this. We deserve this. This is ours.

I basically want to post myself at the doorway of every high school and just hand out copies of this book. Because girls need to read it. It would change so many young girls’ attitudes about so many things.

I should probably tell you about it, huh? *deep breath* Ok. Calming down. Just a little bit though.

Sam Maggs is a fan girl. And like many of us, she’s gotten all of the resistance from the patriarchy about being a “fake geek girl.” What even is that anyway? Ugh. So, she’s written a book about how to fly our fan girl flag so high that the guys can have absolutely nothing to say about us being fake. Because we are pretty freaking awesome, ladies, and we should show it.

This book covers all the bases of geek–from cosplay to Tumblr, cons to YA lit. But the real underlying theme is confidence and feminism. It’s time to believe in ourselves and stop letting the world outside tear us down and stop us from being who we really want to be. The most wonderful thing about being a geek is that we love something with everything we have, which makes us different than anybody else. Why not show everyone what that one thing is?

If you couldn’t tell, I really loved this book. It’s coming out on May 12, and you bet I’m going to have this one on my shelf. Are you a fan girl? FLY THAT FLAG!

 

Fulfills PopSugar #24:  A book based entirely on its cover

NetGalley provided this ARC for an unbiased review.

Jane Eyre

I keep seeing this post floating around on Tumblr about how Charlotte Bronte fell in love with Jane Fairfax from Emma, and so she wrote a fanfiction about her as a governess. I don’t know if it’s true or not, but that post was enough to get me to read both Emma and Jane Eyre somewhat back to back!

This is my second read-through (I listened to the audiobook when I was in college), and I love Jane Eyre even more now than I did the first time. Of course I always get more from a book by actually reading than listening.

Jane is such a prim, proper, plain-looking character. If you look up an images search of the way she’s been portrayed over the years, she always looks so delicate. But Jane Eyre is anything but soft. She maybe a woman with very strict ideals–but she fights for those ideals with conviction and a steady conscience. Not much can sway her.

This book is so much more than a love story. Of course, the romance is there, but that really isn’t the important part of the narrative. What else do we have?

1. Child abuse
2. Poverty
3. Epidemic
4. Feminism
5. Mental Illness
6. Importance of family ties and friendship
7. Hypocrisy
8. Disability

And the list could go on and on, but this is the major stuff that I noticed. All this from a Victorian/Gothic novel. You don’t see that happen to often.

I did have one question to pose, maybe someone out there can answer it for me.

One thing I am always curious about with 1800s women’s literature is why they never give the names of places (and sometimes dates). It’s always –shire or S(…setting). Is it a lack of creativity regarding places, or was there some unspoken rule about listing where the setting was? London is always mentioned, and Bath, but anywhere else is left to mystery. It’s always so frustrating to me, and I can not help but wonder why this is!

Written in Red

Fanfiction of fairy tales is the “it” thing right now, and I am loving it! For some reason Red Riding Hood especially seems to be popular. She was never my favorite character growing up, but I do love the modern day remixes.

Book Club Fiction is reading Written in Red this month, and while it’s been awhile since I’ve participated in one of their readalongs–I was able to get this one from my library in time. I am so glad I did!

I will say that at first, I wasn’t too sure about it. The prologue really doesn’t explain what the Others are very well, and so the whole time I was thinking “Oooook….so you’re saying if Native Americans just would have been evil cannibals, the white men wouldn’t have come in and taken over?” It just seemed a little…off. Once I got into the story and realized the author wasn’t talking about people at all, it made perfect sense, but at first, I was more than a little concerned.

Don’t let the prologue scare you like it did me. The Others are actually ancient earth natives. Terra Indigene. Their basic form is a pumped up form of animal (Wolf, Crow, Coyote, Bear, even Vampire), but they have adapted to be able to shift into human shape as necessary. However, they hate humans, and see them as just another form of meat that they somehow have to live with.

Meg, however, doesn’t smell like prey for some reason. She’s different, and they don’t know why. But she is scared and needs shelter, so they hire her on. Suddenly things get super complicated.

I loved this story. It was both scary and also gentle. There was friendship, but not exactly romance. I kept expecting it to break off into romance, because, you know, that’s what always happens in books like this. But it never came, and it was a nice change.

I do want to give you a trigger warning. There is quite a bit of discussion and a couple of scenes with cutting. Meg was in a cult type culture before she came to The Others where the girls were cut to induce prophecies. If that will trigger you, please don’t read this book, or proceed with caution, as it is a big part of the story. Please take care of yourself!

Two books in a row that I couldn’t put down? Maybe my slump is finally over! *fingers crossed*

 

Fulfills Popsugar #37:  A book with a color in the title

 

Rump

I am thrilled that fairy tales are making such a reappearance lately. I was raised on the Disney versions, along with constant rereads of Grimm and Aesop’s Fables. So now that I’m an adult, there’s nothing that I love more than to see my favorite characters getting revamped on TV and in what is essentially fanfiction that is popping up all over the place.

Rump by Liesl Shurtliff is the latest of these that I’ve found–a YA version of Rumpelstiltskin. Other than being a character in Once Upon a Time, Rumpelstiltskin isn’t a character who has gotten a lot of viewership over the years. When we hear about him as children, he’s a villain–the creepy hermit who bargained away the queen’s baby for gold.

Shurtliff spins a whole different story. This is very much a fable–and the moral at the end of this is one of self discovery. Rump is a quick read–I got through it in a few hours, but I enjoyed it. The characters are magical, and I wanted very much for Rump to succeed in his quest.

I would say kids as young as 2nd or 3rd grade could easily pick this up. My only warning is that they do use words like “pee” and “butt.” No real cuss words, just things younger children might go “ooooooooo, you shouldn’t say that!” The message is fantastic, though, especially for kids who need a boost of self confidence.