collectiveyou-blog

[collectiveyou-blog]

I know we’ve had a bit of radio silence over here at Collective You, but momming can be overwhelming sometimes.

Finally put together this manifesto though and am excited about next-steps for us writers.

Love you all!

The Healing Power of “You”

Hey friends!

I finally wrote that personal essay about the importance of second-person fiction that I have been promising!I’m so excited.

An excerpt: 

But sadly, emotions aren’t faucets. We can’t turn them on and off as we please, use the water they cause to cleanse our spirits and easily transition onward. Being present for my living son meant finding times to grieve elsewhere. Each shower was a just an excuse to cry the tears I needed to shed. Each night sleep was a way to relive the moments I didn’t have time to process in the day to day.

I needed a healthy outlet and so I turned to writing.

The first time I sat down to write about these feelings, I stared at a blank page for hours. Anytime I tried to type out my experiences in the intuitive first-person voice, I found the emotions too raw to form any meaningful narrative. Every detail was so idiosyncratic that it didn’t feel relatable or real. And so I moved to third person, trying to express the universal elements of that pain. But the words continued to fall flat. There was nothing universal about it at all. And no third-person character could be anyone but me in my mind. I wanted people to understand, to connect with these feelings, but I couldn’t remove the self from the narrative. I had no way to put to paper something that could do both, at least not until I found “you.”

When I started speaking of fear, grief, and loss in second person, the words flowed with ease again. Taking the reader on the journey with me, allowing them to live the events and truly imagine how they would handle the situation, gave me the sense of connection I needed while still including myself in the narrative. It was the best of both words and immediately I was hooked.

Take a gander at the entire thing over at Medium. 

The Healing Power of “You”

Thanks, lovely humans.

[collectiveyou-blog]

@staygoldtrash is an amazing writer!! One piece that I really enjoyed was one that was submitted to a contest thing called #greasyweek. I can't remember which day it was for the contest, but it was fan fiction for The Outsiders. It was super cute and well written and I really enjoyed it!!

@staygoldtrash! What a beautiful shout-out for an sweetheart of a writer. 

I searched the pitiful hellscape that is tumblr up and down for a link to this fic and I simply cannot find it, so maybe Brianna can send it our way? 

I love how engaged she is with the community. Her ships are adorable and while her blog isn’t exclusively reader insert, there is a clear investment in the world and the environment. The sense of tone and place are really clear. 

Thanks for sharing, @staygoldponebone

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If I may, I'm a little concerned about the future of this group. It's wonderful and much needed, but Tumblr just seems to be in a perpetual downslide. Personally, the follower count and follower activity are both down on my writing blog, and despite assurances that writers are safe, we're still being affected by shadowbanning and I'm seeing writers leave as a result. Will this blog relocate if the Tumblr audience shrinks too much?

Hello love!

This blog isn’t going anywhere. I (Admin Lia) have been on tumblr in some form since 2010. This website has had its ups-and-downs but no platform has proven to be a better place for the level of interaction and discover we need  just yet for the type of content that we are creating.

Writers can exist elsewhere ( and do - AO3, Wattpad, etc.) and correspond with their readers directly through comment and message. Members of a fandom can commune on other social media or discords. But writers talking to and supporting writers… that can’t really be done anywhere else.

On AO3 say, when I come to your story, I’m just a reader with a comment. If I post a story, I am a writer. But here, you can be reader and writer simultaneously, member of the fandom and creator of it all in one.

Something better may come along someday, but that day isn’t today.

That being side, long term goals for Collective You include it having its own website, discord, and newsletter, but that won’t exclude it existing on Tumblr as well.

I hope that makes sense!

- Admin Lia

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Heya! I love what you're doing with this blog – it's such a fantastic initiative. The whole genre (?) is still so new to me, especially after almost 15 years in fanfic/fandom. I can only hope platforms like Tumblr (where I find the most reader insert fics) continue to support the great work that comes out! Thanks for pulling together this amazing blog and helping to spread the word 🖤🖤 - @evanstarff

Thank you! The holidays kind of caused me to hit the breaks with this project but I am so excited to be diving back in. I think the community needs more positivity and reader insert in particular needs more appreciation. 

I’m so grateful you’re excited about it! 

- Admin Lia

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Skyline by astronomyparkers is really really good also!

Shout out of Leyla @astronomyparkers​ for the lovely series Skyline, The use of dialogue here is beautiful and the reader has a solid personality. It is so nice to see a writer trust their audience to go on the journey with them, to play pretend and truly imagine together, and it seems that is exactly what Leyla is doing here.

Thanks for sharing @stitchbeatle​!

Go send Leyla some love. :) 

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@padfootagain

After a delay for the holidays, I’m excited to share the lovely Carole @padfootagain is this week’s writer of the week! So excited to share her story with you all. Check out her blog and read some of her wonderful writings. Send some love this week as January is @faficowrimo as well!

An admin note as well: wotw will be posted Sundays each week from now on.

Tell us a little about yourself.

Well, hello! Thank you for doing this, this is so much fun!

So, my name is Carole, aka padfootagain. I am 23, I’m French and I am doing a PhD in nanomaterials (basically, chemistry). I have a Master’s degree in Physics and Chemistry, with a specialty in Nanosciences and I am doing a PhD because I want to be a researcher :)  I love cinema in general, books, music and drawing. And obviously, I love writing :) I have fallen a few years ago in the pit of fandoms, and I don’t think I’ll get out of it, not that I want to, to be honest. Which explains why I write fanfictions!

What do you currently write?

Oh dear… I write for quite a lot of fandoms. It started with the Marauders (so HP) and it got completely out of hand and now I also write for Narnia, the MCU, Star Wars, Doctor Who, Sherlock, Stranger Things, Poldark, LOTR and a handful of characters played by Ben Barnes (yes, I’m a fan of this actor). I also write for a few actors. I write original stories that are not fanfics as well. And I write both one-shots and series, long and short. I have a tendency to write more than I intended to at first :) I write with reader-insert and OCs alike.

When did you start writing? Do you remember your first piece of fan fiction? What was it about?

I don’t remember a time when I wasn’t writing, really. I think that as soon as I was able to use a pen, I started writing. I’ve always loved stories and had a wild imagination, so it was a good way to control my crazy brain (it still is).

The first real piece of fanfiction that I posted is a Jily, Sirius Black x OC fic that I posted on fanfiction.net (I wasn’t on tumblr yet at the time), and it is a very long one… 70 chapters. I liked it very much tbh and I took around a year and a half to write it. It was basically about their 6th and 7th year at Hogwarts.

But if you want the real funny story, then the first piece of fanfiction I wrote was when I was seven. And I had no idea what a fanfiction was, at the time, obviously, but without knowing it I actually wrote one! We had to present a book for school, and I wanted to present Peter Pan, because it was my favourite book. But one of my classmates stole my idea and presented this book first, and I was very upset about it. I tried to negotiate with my teacher, but he didn’t want me to present that book, saying that I couldn’t present the same story as one of my classmates.

Huge mistake from my teacher here. He said I couldn’t talk about the same story, not the same characters! So I wrote a story with Peter Pan and I presented it to the class! It was about a treasure hunt and I did drawings for it and everything. I still have it. It was ridiculous but I reckon the story is funny. And that was my first fanfic!

Why reader insert?

I find reader inserts very interesting. When I started on tumblr, and learnt about that way of writing, I had spent around two years writing for OCs, and I was looking for a challenge, honestly. So I started to write one-shots, when before I had only written very long series. And I also tried reader inserts as another challenge. It requires to change your style of writing quite a lot and to be careful not to reveal details so readers can identify with what you’re writing. And I love doing it! I’ve never liked very much describing my OCs in terms of appearance, so it was quite liberating, as with reader insert I had to avoid that. Also, I write series with that style, because even if you have to try to not describe how this Y/N looks like, I’ve never considered that I shouldn’t develop her/his personality any less than for an OC. So I still have fun creating characters, I just change my style of writing, really. And even if now there’s not really any challenge in that anymore for me, I still use it all the time. Also, on a purely practical way… I don’t like choosing names for my OCs and this is the best solution! Especially for one-shots. I have more than 200 stories on tumblr, I would have never been able to choose so many names!! So… there is also this lazy part of me :)

If someone wanted to get into your writing, what piece would you have them start with and why?

Ooooh… that is a good question… I write quite a lot of fluff. I don’t write any smut at all. I do write some things with angst too (I’m a writer, I like torturing my readers from time to time, like any writer), but I also love writing fluff. I think that lots of people are snobbing the sweet stories nowadays, but I love a good happy ending, and some cute moments, and a love story that is sweet and ends with a ‘and they lived happily ever after’. Call me cheesy, if you’d like, I’m proud to be so!

So… I guess that a good one to start would be a series that I wrote for Caspian (Narnia), called A Recipe For Love. It’s pretty popular, amongst my readers, I think. It’s very cute, and has a bit of angst too. It’s about Caspian falling in love with a cook working in his Castle. I think it’s a good start for my stories.

You are currently working on a winter event filled with delightful seasonal themed prompts. Tell us more about that!

I very often organize events on my blog, because I love talking with my readers and I want to make them happy! So, to celebrate the winter season and the fluff that goes with it, I wrote a list of prompts, and my readers can pick up a few of those prompts, and a character from my masterlist, and I write a little one-shot for them :) They can’t send requests anymore, it was for a limited time, but I’m writing the stories now! I’m going to keep doing this for a few weeks. I just love writing cute stories, really… ;)

What are your goals for your writing moving forward?

…

…

I’d like to finish the series I’ve started… Is that a goal? I don’t have goals when it comes to writing tbh. I just write what inspires me and makes me happy! I don’t pretend to be talented enough to be published, and I only write because I love it. So, I don’t have goals. I just want to enjoy myself, and I hope that the love I pour into my stories transpires enough to make a few people happy too :)

What are you currently reading?

I am reading a very cute book called Let It Snow, which is composed of three love stories taking place during a blizzard. It was written by John Green, Maureen Johnson and Lauren Myracle. It’s very sweet and very funny, I like it! It goes with the season :)

Do you have any advice for new writers?

Several people asked me for advice before, and I even made a few posts about that, but tbh… the best advice that I could give is to know when you should not care about advice.

When I started to really write a lot and to create long stories (not as fanfictions, but other stories) I was on my own. And I loved writing them, but as I could feel that it was a serious thing to me, I looked for advice on the internet. I thought that it couldn’t hurt, and that having advice from professionals could help me getting better. But actually, I realized that my way of writing was completely different from the advice I read! Especially, I’ve always hated to plan my stories. And everyone will advise you to plan your story. So, I tried to follow this advice, and a few others, thinking that I was doing it all wrong before. But it completely killed the joy I had for writing. I was asking myself tons of questions, and trying to apply rules that clearly didn’t fit me, and I ended up stopping to write for more than a year. Until one day, I started to write something else, deciding not to take into account the advice that I had seen before. And here I am. Not planning my stories, and having no clue of where I’m going, and having too many ideas for my own good, but I’m writing. And I’m enjoying what I write and I love writing these stories.

Now, I’m not saying that all advice are bad. But I think that when you just start writing, you look up to other writers and try to use the same techniques as they do, which is normal. And it’s important at the beginning to try tons of styles and ways to write to find your own way to write. But you shouldn’t forget that you and this writer you admire are different people, and your brains don’t work the same! There’s no shame in writing your story your own way, even if your favourite writer doesn’t write like that at all! On the contrary. I think it’s important to stop torturing yourself trying to get something perfect, and just actually write something you want to write and, more importantly, the way that makes you the happiest. And if you have to write your story without any plan and make a mess to do it, then I think that you should do it. Writing is such a liberating thing, it’s a shame to lose this freedom and joy because you’re trying to fit in categories and techniques. Just write what you like, the way you like, and you’ll be a happier writer :)

@padfootagain

padfootagain Masterlist

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Just a reminder, writers...

Your art is valid.

Your expression is important.

Only you can write with your voice.

You are putting something into the world that wouldn’t have existed without your creative energy.

And if it makes even one person smile, you’ve contributed something beautiful to the world.

Keep doing what you do. The community is better for having you in it.

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Hi, guys! I’m broken.

Ya basic.

I was dropped into a cave and you were my flashlight.

Humans only live 80 years and they spend so much of it just waiting for things to be over.

I promise I’m worth it.

Kill me. Kill me. Kill me.

I gotta stay jacked. It's who I am.

You know, sometimes a flaw can make something even more beautiful.

This is a real low point. Yeah, this one hurts.

I never thought I'd be the one to say it, but this is getting out of hand. I think we gotta go to the cops.

Well, I've narrowed it down to two possibilities: yes and no.

Well, I'm sure you're busy, you probably wouldn't want to talk to me. I get it, I wouldn't either. I'm as dull as a rock. Ugh, even that analogy was boring. I'm sorry, I'm so dull, and I'm ugly. I'm like a rock. Ugh, stupid! Stop talking about rocks!

She's so pretty, like Nala from The Lion King. And she talks so smart, like, um, Nala, from The Lion King.

It's devastating. You're devastated right now.

Okay, bud, whatever's going on right now, just shove your feelings way down deep, plaster on a fake smile, and pretend like you're having fun. Okay?

Ugh, of course your hugs are amazing.

Long story short, it was all a dream.

Right now I'm just a girl, towering over a boy, asking him to admit he loves me.

Pay it forward.

Now I'm living my truth and creating my bliss.

I am attractive, yes.

I don't think this can be solved with a book.

Searching for meaning is philosophical suicide.

Now I'm bored. Walking is dumb.

You're awesome! Be nicer to yourself.

I would say I outdid myself, but I'm always this good. So I simply did myself.

Lies are always more convincing when they're closer to the truth.

Why do bad things always happen to mediocre people who are lying about their identities?

Rule number one-- I get to do whatever I want, and you all just have to deal with it.

Principles aren’t principles when you pick and choose when you’re gonna follow them.

It’s a rare occurrence, like a double rainbow.

We are not in this alone.

Pobody’s nerfect.

Yep, shouldn’t have said that. Regretted it immediately.

You’re kind of, you know, turtling.

You and I are very different.

I'd say it's like 50 million simultaneous orgasms, but better.

… I can work with that.

But then I remembered that I’m a naughty bitch.

Oh come on! You and I both know I’ll never read those.

What's the secret? Is the secret more books? How many more books do I need?

Cool stance. Counterpoint: Get over yourself.

I'm outtie. See you in hell.

That broke me. I’m -- I’m done.

I am your hottest friend!

You're barfing Wikipedia over everyone to avoid talking about your feelings.

No matter what he does, we will find each other. And we will help each other. Because we're soulmates.

I'm going to hug you because I love you. And because you feel just as alone as I do.

That's insane. But it's also like the eleventh most insane thing to happen today so who cares.

A: That's not a question. B: So you agree, it's a fact.

[collectiveyou-blog]

I'd love to recommend casaharrington for fans of stranger things!!! pepper is so talented and is super like? engaged w/ her readers and other fic writers which is so lovely. she's so talented and puts out such interesting stories (and they can be pretty hearty in terms of length which always makes me so happy as a reader!!)

@casaharrington Pepper, wow! Your masterlist is rocking and your engagement with your followers is so loving and supportive! And these plots seem so well thought-out and true to the world and characters. It is so enjoyable to see! It is truly a gift to write compelling adult content. Thank you for gifting it to the Stranger Things fandom!

I personally really enjoyed this piece of fluff: Don’t Screw This One Up - Steve Harrington x Reader. The situation is so cute and the characters all feel so real.

Check out her masterlist here! Send Pepper some love (Note, some NSFW posts)

Thanks, @moirasimagines for the recommend!

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Check out our Writer of the Week’s @tessimagines favorite works! 

Harry Potter

Godparents (Sirius Black x Reader)

Guilt (Remus Lupin x Reader)

What Have We Done? (George Weasley x Reader) 

Doctor Who

All That I’ve Ever Wanted (10 x Reader) 

Game of Thrones

Deserving (Jon Snow x Reader)

​Masterlist

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I would love to answer writer questions if you're looking for more writers! I have some recommendations but I'll send those in separate asks.

Definitely! We will be featuring a different writer each week and are looking to highlight people across a multitude of fandoms. So if you are passionate about the art form, then we’d love to hear your story!

Also, after the Christmas holiday (my family is in town), I’m going to be setting up a discord for writers to talk about writing, so keep an eye out for that post.

- Admin Lia

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@tessimagines

The wonderful person kicking off our featured writer series is none other than Tess @tessimagines​! Be sure to check out her blog, vote in her latest poll for her newest series, and share the love with this gem of a human! 

On to the interview!

Tell us a little bit about yourself.

My name is Theresa but everyone calls me Tess or Tessa. I’m 16 and live near Melbourne in Australia. Melbourne is such a nice city and such a beautiful place to live and a great place to grow up. There are so many amazing opportunities here and I couldn’t be more grateful. I’m currently entering year 11 at high school with a focus on science-based subjects yet I still love to work on my creative outlet which happens to be my writing.

What do you currently write?

I currently write imagines, headcanons, preferences and drabbles for various characters in various fandoms. I do focus primarily on Harry Potter, Game of Thrones, Doctor Who, Sherlock and most recently, Outlander. I’m open to doing pretty much any character from the fandoms with only a few exceptions.

When did you start writing? Do you remember your first piece of fan fiction? What was it about?

I started writing from as early on as I can remember. I have always liked to create stories and situations from my littlest years but I started writing reader-insert fanfiction at around 13. I first started out with a Doctor Who Imagines book on Wattpad before I created my Tumblr account and moved onto that at the start of this year.

My very first imagine was a really short 11th Doctor one. They weren’t in a relationship but just friends and he came to pick her up from school in the Tardis. I’ll always go back and read it to see just how much my writing has changed in the last three years!

Why reader insert?

I’ve always loved reader insert for the fact that it puts you into this amazing world with characters that you love so much in situations that can be so exciting. Nobody likes a book or show to be over and I think that’s why we love fanfiction so much, it’s a way for us to feel as if it isn’t finished. And reader insert is so much more special to me because it places the reader (and writer!) into the world and has you interact with all of these amazing characters in a way that can’t be possible while reading the book or watching the show.

If someone wanted to get into your writing, what piece would you have them start with and why?

Of course, this all depends on the fandoms they’re into but if someone came to me who liked all of them and wanted me to give them a piece of my work to start off on, I’d have to suggest Godparents (a Sirius Black x Reader). I’d suggest this one because it’s a short and fluffy piece that is just really easy to read and besides, who doesn’t love Sirius Black?

If they wanted to get right into the angst, I’d have to suggest All that I’ve Ever Wanted (a 10th Doctor x Reader). This is one of my favourite pieces that I’ve written and is really heavy on the angst (which is my favourite thing to write!)

You just finished a wonderful George Weasley x Reader series called What Have We Done. What inspired that series?

One morning I was laying in bed when the first scene came to me. Everyone has a morning where they are just laying in bed, thinking about something they did and just asking themselves, why the hell did I do that? So I came up with the idea of the reader doing this after having a drunk kiss with George and it kind of just went on from there. When I was doing the vote and it was apparent that my George idea was going to win, I started expanding on the idea and wrote out the whole plot that I had install. Some bits came really easy to me and of course, others didn’t and I had to work really hard to come up with the ending that we see come together in the epilogue.

What can readers expect next from you?

Now that I’ve pretty much finished What Have We Done, I’ll be holding a new vote for my next Harry Potter x Reader series. I have four ideas that you guys can vote for, a Bill Weasley x Reader, a Remus Lupin x Reader, a Neville Longbottom x Reader and finally, a Newt Scamander x Reader. I’m so excited to share these ideas with you and get cracking on my next series!

What are you currently reading?

As far as reader insert goes, I’m reading the last few chapters of @ardentmuse​’s At All Costs. This lovely Charlie Weasley x Reader series has such a gripping plot and amazing character development and I CANNOT recommend it enough to readers looking from their next Harry Potter series to read.

As far as regular books go, I’m reading a novel called The Good People by Hannah Kent. This amazing novel is set in 1825 in rural Ireland and focuses on a woman called Nóra Leahy who after the death of her daughter and husband, is left to care for her Grandson Micheál who cannot speak or walk. The story dives into old Irish superstition and folklore as Nóra begs the help of two other women, Nance and Mary, to help her cure her Grandson. This is an amazing historical fiction read that I’d recommend to anyone interested in that genre.

Do you have any advice for new writers?

My main advice to new writers looking to go reader-insert is to keep writing and writing and writing. You’re not going to get a thousand notes overnight, you have to work to that. But most importantly, you shouldn’t be doing it because you want the notes but because you just simply love writing it. And once you do become apart of the reader-insert community on Tumblr, you’ll see how amazing and rewarding it is.

If you ever struggle for ideas, ask the community because they are always more than willing to request something. And if you’re not too sure with how something has turned out, all you need to do is ask someone for their opinion and advice. This community is so nice and a pleasure to be apart of that there is always help if you need it. So use the community! They are always ready to help!

@tessimagines​

tessimagines’s masterlist

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Hey! So I know so many writing blogs and I wasn't sure if I should just like give you all of them or what, but there are many writing blogs I'd like to share with you!!

Hi darling!

Send them our way! This blog is about celebrating our wonderful community so if people are bringing joy to your life with their writing, we want to shout them out!

Just a few rules:

1. Send them in different asks for easy reblogs

2. Please share with us a why! We don’t have time to read the entire masterlist for the people you share with us, so it helps a ton to know from a seasoned reader what is working and is special.

3. If you send us a bunch, we’ll wait a bit between posting them all to give some space to shout out writers in other fandoms / subsets of the community.

Thanks!

- Admin Lia

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Lia, I am so love with everything you write, that even simply reading your reviews make me smile! I truly adore the idea of this blog ❤️

And I love you, Camille! Thank you for being so supportive. I’m the most excited about featuring writers and their stories and I am floored by how much people are interested in this, too!

I know when I started on this writing endeavor, there were very few resources to help me get started and any search I did brought about a lot of trash-talk on the form. I just want our community to be supportive and robust! This is art, you know? And we’re writing some of the coolest, most innovative stuff in the world right now. We should celebrate it!

❤️   ❤️   ❤️             

- Admin Lia (@ardentmuse)

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I kid you not, @the80sgold is quite simply the best writer I have seen on here. Bella's words speak to the soul and come from hers, she's just absolutely amazing, and a total sweetheart! Highly recommend her <3

Bella @the80sgold is writing some wonderful Outsiders pieces and seems so engaged with her followers! Even just skimming through her work, it is so clear that she has a poet’s voice, one tied closely to visual and emotion.

And talk about some angst! This piece, breathe, is so touching and is raw to those all-too-real emotions of anxiety and feelings of worthlessness.

Here’s her masterlist! Go show this lovely writer some love!

Thanks for the recommend, @ponyboyvhs!

- Admin Lia

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