meridian_rose

This post is because I asked for prompts for Get Your Words Out Yahtzee challenge. (I've asked for a re-roll as I got a repeat of a picture prompt I used last time). And I completely misunderstood the assignment on one of them.

Oddly I'd just had nice discussion with smallhobbit about making guesses as to what small images actually are showing, and I had similar during the Snowflake Challenge (or maybe a lands-of-magic entry?) in which I described something in a photo as a fountain/bird bath which was actually a memorial feature.

Is it a writer thing, to see something without context and make an (un)educated guess about what it is? To start filling in the blanks? Or am I just not paying enough attention ;)
Do you ever have moments that like?

So, one of the prompts I'm keeping is this


What do you think it is?

Under the cut is my first guess.
In the first comment is what google lens insists it is.
I suppose in writing, what we see is what we write.

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One of the things I love about fandom is discussion. Finding other people who understand your need to rant or analyse or otherwise engage with the canon. Canon which is interesting enough to draw you in, but, in many cases, can be frustrating to deal with given some of the questionable writing choices of later seasons.
( musings on being a disillusioned fan who is also an amateur writer )

princessofgeeks is hosting an excellent discussion on the topic of canon,
To Canon or Not to Canon.
It talks about how many fan writers feel constrained by canon, worry about their fics being "jossed" if they don't post them before the next episode/movie. It considers what is canon, how far can we contradict it before our fic is AU?
In other words, must we write only what we are shown in canon, or can we go beyond canon if we do not contradict canon?
As a slash fan in 20th century, heteronormative Hollywood, I'm sure you know what side of that line I came down on.

I've been dealing with thoughts about this myself recently, and I'll repeat the comment I left under the cut. But I do urge everyone to go and read the full discussion post and the comments and, if you have any thoughts you feel you can express, add a comment at that post yourself.

It's a fascinating discussion. Overall I think many fan writers tend towards writing fic in the first place to explore the things (missing scenes, alternate choices, slash ships) that canon denies them. How comfortable you feel changing things and how far that goes, how much you ignore canon choices, or if you write outright AUs, is a question for you and possibly the answer varies between fandoms.

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Character brainstorming/mapping, for a writerverse challenge.
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I'm gathering notes for the rewrite of my legendland hiatus fic and I'd appreciate some input on character ages in show canon, specifically in relation to Darken, Giller, and Jeziah.
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As you might know, long ago, I started the 100-tales table. As usual, I haven't completed this project. So below the cut are the word prompts that I have neither written for, nor have even made notes for. (I've excluded the 'writer's choice' prompts too.) You all come up with such great ideas whenever I ask for help brainstorming so let's see what you've got this time around :D
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I seem to have so many ongoing projects and bingo cards and the like - and then I remembered the 30 days of fiction meme I started way back when. I have just a few fills left on it. Then I can start the second semester prompts

7) Write something dirty (take that how you will)

8) Write a scene as a cat

13) Prompt: underwater - I suppose this would be ideal for more Nala the mermaid :D

15) Prompt: shots fired

17) Write a scene with a character in a foreign land, unable to speak the local language - I've got something High Queen/Kat planned for this

25) Prompt: noir style a genre of crime film or fiction characterized by cynicism, fatalism, and moral ambiguity - I'm really stuck on this one. No ideas at all, especially if I want to avoid getting bogged down in all the genre cliches.

Any ideas or advice? General stuff or suggestions from fandoms I've written in or the ever growing number of original fic verses?

I've been posting snippets of original fiction but until yesterday I hadn't been able to write any fanfic for months - ideas were there, but they refused to be typed out.

Sunday was an okay day until the evening when there was some [minor, though it didn't feel like it at the time] family drama which led to me feeling very upset and going to bed early. I actually slept quite well and woke up feeling pretty good.

First thing Monday morning I checked my email and found the hiatus challenge card for angst-bingo. I pondered all the possible options, and suddenly decided I could work 'electrocution' and 'emails/letters' into the fantasy setting that 'dungeons' suggested, and squeeze in 'unfaithful' without too many problems. I wrote the initial draft in about an hour, edited it, asked for - and got - a beta. The fic was posted, and cross-posted everywhere I could think of.

I was so thrilled by this I signed up for one, and am contemplating signing up another, big bang fest. But part of me wonders if my creativity is linked to conflict, and what that means for me long-term. Some of my most intense fic, original and fannish, has been written or conceived of, during dark times. Some of my favourite works however, have been written during more happier times. It's not something I need all the time, obviously.

So, creative people: your moods and emotions, personal circumstances, dramas or joys; how, if at all, do they affect your creative output?

I'm not a girl..

There are aspects of me that code absolutely feminine as far as the Western modern female paradigm is concerned. Show me a puppy, for example :D
There are plenty of aspects that don't match it.
I was burrowing through a box of paperbacks yesterday in a charity store, focussing on the action, gen fic and sci-fi; I'd sometimes say 'I think I read that one' to my sister's amusement that I can announce this when randomly going through a collection of books. I picked up a couple of female-orientated books, read the blurb and tossed them back into the box. Nothing about them appealed.
"I'm not a girl," I said.

Well, I'm supposedly a grown woman, so not a 'girl', and I'm not about to get into definitions of adulthood. Not at this moment, anyway.
But the fact is, I've never loved too much saccharine. I've grown up in a fannish family with parents who love genre tv and don't 'do' soaps or reality. I can and will watch occasional romcoms and romances but they must have a specific hook for me – more com than rom, a particular actor, it's based on a book, or some other quality that makes it stand out.
But I've decided it's not the romance in itself that's the problem. I read romance in fandom a lot more than I ever do in published fiction and in published fiction and fandom alike I like erotica more than I like 'romance' . I think that's because erotica, for me, doesn't have the problems I see with romances:

Romance novels and movies are very constrained. Woman meets man, maybe unsuitable man. They fall in love. There's problems. Problems are solved. Marriage. Babies. Or pregnancy resulting in marriage. Blah.
Erotica allows for polyamory, for relationships without the need to marry, for non-traditional relationships within a marriage, for relationships without children – or that continue to be exciting and fulfuilling on their own terms even after children enter the equation. Erotica allows for problematic relationships and angry sex and other things that aren't acceptable in vanilla romance stories.

I read a lot of Legend of the Seeker fic, and I'm going to include three snippets here of recent fics in that fandom that code to me as romance without making them unpalatable to me – quite the opposite, in fact. Two of them are pirate AU fics written for the pirate challenge at the peoplespalace

( Lie To me )

( The Admiral’s Captive )

(  Pirate Code )

So, perhaps it's not romance I dislike, just a particular subset that makes up the majority of published genre romance fiction. I certainly find I'll read across genres more in fanfic, especially for certain fandoms, characters, and/or authors I trust. I think I also need plot. And OMG, cute guy, must marry and breed with him doesn't make a plot, for me. But OMG cute guy, but Issues and Making Sure He Respects Me and My Choices, now that's different. And if there's vampires, werewolves, aliens, spies, and/or superpowers involved, so much the better.