rena-mariefanfiction - Tumblr blog

[rena-mariefanfiction]

A monster has its teeth in your companions.

It builds nightmares out of their worst memories and drinks their pain.

One of your companions has a particularly bad worst memory.

Play Here

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Art by @cymk8

Character Specific Achievements:

Aldiirn - Dusksong Be a bard. Use music to make first contact. belongs to @mistercrowbar

Andar - Poor Man's Dancing Lights Be an arcane caster. Try to cast magic. belongs to Tatsunara

Ember - Ghosts Need Sleep Explain why you're sometimes absent. belongs to @catsharky

Finch - Get Safe And Cared For Idiot Successfully hug Astarion. belongs to @everchased

Francys - Priorities Ignore everyone else in the campsite. belongs to @ineadhyn

Greygold - Psspsspsspss Be a ranger. Help Astarion calm down after being frightened. belongs to @jeeaark

Nawen - You're Unbreakable Be a rogue. Give your vampire a pep-talk after a particularly difficult day. belongs to @ineed-to-sleep

Ria - Music Box Be a bard. Play the theme. belongs to @ladyofrosefire

Staeve - Don't Forget Me Say something memorable. belongs to @velnna

Temiter - This Is All A Bit Much Abandon the dream using the silver cord. belongs to @not-poignant

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Another link to the game.

[rena-mariefanfiction]

Instead of writing, I assembled a bookshelf that my husband and I built. Oops. Cat for scale.

[rena-mariefanfiction]

i am about to bestow upon you the secret butter technique. i am sorry, but it is french. i am sorry again, this only works with cow butter. i am certain plant based butters wouldn’t work, and alternative animal butters may or may not work

has this ever been you: you have a nicely steamed vegetable, or maybe you want to make the best butter noodles, but you know that if you put butter on those it’ll just melt and you end with kind of greasy noodles or vegetables? don’t you wish it was instead a luscious buttery glaze?

introducing: beurre monté

you will take a small sauce pan, and begin heating it with 1-2 tablespoons of water (use very little water) and bring it to a hard simmer or boil

turn the heat down slightly, and add Butter. how much? however much you dare. (start with 3-4 tablespoons and go from there)

you are going to either whisk Aggressively or you can pick up the saucepan, still holding it over the heat, and swirl aggressively so the butter is skating around the sides of the pan

done correctly, you will have liquid butter that is still emulsified. you have made Butter Sauce. season it with a little salt, and toss whatever you want in it.

if you’re butter splits, i’m sorry. you didn’t agitate it enough to maintain the emulsion, and now you have melted butter.

you can use this knowledge to make other sauces by swapping out the water for another liquid. white wine becomes beurre blanc. red wine is beurre rogue.

you want to CUM? sweat minced shallot in a tiny bit of butter, add white wine and cook it out until it’s reduced by about half. then whisk butter in hard. a few flecks of minced thyme or fennel frond stirred thru, and you eat that with a nice seared fish? or scallop? or even shrimp? wow. you will Nut

your boxed mac and cheese game can also be elevated by cooking your pasta and making a beurre monté first, tossing your pasta in that and adding the cheese packet. wow. hey; you’ll cum

go forth now with this butter secret

[rena-mariefanfiction]

Ramble, Ramble (5/13)

So, while I was having my mini-vacation (read: brain ick), I tried to read fanfiction to unwind and I found two different Fanfiction Culture things that I wasn't aware existed! And that I'm kind of unsure how to process, like, "huh?"

This is just screaming into the void because I was told that venting is healthy. So *aggressively shrugs* you definitely don't have to read this. Lol.

1) Comment Drama

So, apparently some authors set a minimum comment count for each chapter, then refuse to release the next one until it's met. This is stuff that I heard about when I was on FF.Net, like a decade ago, but never saw in person. I thought it was an urban myth or a fanfiction Arthurian legend. But nope, it's a thing. And, concerningly, it's a thing in modern times.

I went back through my private bookmarks and wanted to read a darkfic to purge emotionally and found that it didn't exist anymore. Not because it'd been deleted, but because the author hid it in an unrevealed collection. Okay, odd, but happens all the time. At least it isn't permanently gone. So I went to the author's page and found that most of their library was gone. Okay, really odd.

All of their remaining works are marked "complete", which is alarming because they had several WIPs last I checked. I delved into the last chapter on one of the fics and found that there was some drama going on. Oh, so very much drama.

They'd apparently set a comment requirement on releasing the next chapter of one of their fics. And it was a pretty high number, from what I can gather. When one of the commenters pointed out that it felt like punishing regular readers to hold the chapter hostage, the author upped it to a MINIMUM of 100 comments. That's... wow.

Next. Level. Petty.

When even more people got upset, the author had a meltdown. They hid all of their completed works, marked all of their WIP stuff "complete", and will only email chapters to people who have commented before. The last chapter of the work in question was also stripped of all text, which was replaced with "Removed. Removed. Removed." They also implied that casual readers are essentially parasites living off of their goodwill. Like, what?

What's wild is that this author averaged about 30+ comments per chapter. That's so many! In what world is that not enough?!

I just... it rubbed me the wrong way, I guess. I felt like the author was ungrateful for what they had. The fandoms that they're in are very large and very active. Some fandoms predate the internet, are dying, or obscure; they get low traffic. There are writers on AO3 that write for tiny niches, with tens of views per chapter, and they never complain about it. Never.

This is all said with the self-awareness that I average a lot of comments for a new(ish) writer, BTW. I'm lucky enough to have quite a few vocal and outspoken people word-vomit (said lovingly) into my inbox every chapter. And it's nice. It's wonderful. It's gratifying. But I'd probably be doing the same thing even with no comments because I love writing my stories with all of my shriveled heart.

The bottom line is this: don't ever feel pressured to comment on my works. I enjoy them, and I try to respond to each and every one, but there should never be any requirement for readers to put themselves in an uncomfortable position while engaging in a hobby. That said, if you enjoy something, comments are ALWAYS appreciated even after years on seemingly abandoned projects. Every author on AO3 does a happy dance when they open their inbox.

Needless to say, my mind was blown from seeing all this. I had to stop and think about it for a hot minute.

:.:

2) Pro-Ship vs Anti-Ship

Purity culture strikes again! Not my beloved smutty fanfiction!

So, this is a thing? Apparently?! Are we seriously having this discussion in 2024? I didn't realize that this was quietly gaining traction until I saw something about it on Reddit.

From what I've gathered, there seems to be a spectrum - and please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong - between the two extremes of this debate. Pro-ship seems to be generally from a "I stan darkfics and only read them" to a "you can read/support whatever you want, no matter how problematic, because I don't have to support it personally". Don't Like, Don't Read, if you will. Anti-ship exists in a state of flux between "I don't support works that I personally consider problematic" and "I believe that we should completely censor works that I personally consider problematic".

There are certain types of fanfictions that I don't particularly care for, even as somebody with pretty wide-ranging tastes. But I make do. AO3 has these cool things called "filters" that I apply liberally.

Anyway...

There was an "Anti" in the comments section of a much-beloved fic going absolutely feral because there was an age gap between two characters of ten years. Never mind that the characters in question were 43 and 33. Lol. It was honestly trippy to read.

They straight up told the creator (it was an Orphan_Account work) to delete it because it was encouraging pedophilia. And when asked why by another commenter, they said, "because she would've been an adult when he turned 8". That's how math works. Congrats, you've discovered basic arithmetic. But they're consenting adults now, when they got together, so why should it matter? "One of them was a child once so this is pedophilia" is an interesting argument. I'm not sure I follow the logic, though.

Like, there are actual moral debates to be had about some of the stuff that exists on AO3, but this particular age gap is what sets you off? "Age gap" was clearly tagged, yet you clicked anyway. Okay, babes. Stay classy up there on your soapbox.

Are we having the morals debate over FICTION where mass censoring is brought up as a solution? That's intriguing. Cool. Not worrying at all.

For the record, I write "problematic" content sometimes. Oops. Sorry, not sorry.

[rena-mariefanfiction]

So incredibly beautiful! He looks so soft 😭

“Treasured Memories…”

I listened to a lot of Evanescence while drawing this, especially “Going Under”. If you don’t know it yet, definitely give it a listen! 🫶✨

There will be a Satoru piece that goes with this as well!🤍

[rena-mariefanfiction]

The unstoppable, mighty hurricane and the immovable, cold, hard truth.

[rena-mariefanfiction]

Amazing! Hope this ends up being something we see in the actual show. Or something adjacent.

Because Val is *shudders in revulsion*

getting what you deserve

-the drawing belongs to me, do not repost.

[rena-mariefanfiction]

Where I wanna be at all times 🥰

🌊

[rena-mariefanfiction]

not to be controversial bc I know this is like…not in line with shifting opinions on fanfic comment culture but if there’s a glaring typo in my work I will NOT be offended by pointing it out. if ao3 fucks up the formatting…I will also not be offended by having this pointed out…

‘looking forward to the next update’ and ‘I hope you update soon!’ are different vibes than a demand, and should be read in good faith because a reader is finding their way to tell you how much they love it. I will not be mad at this.

‘I don’t usually like this ship but this fic made me feel something’ is also incredibly high praise. I’m not going to get mad at this.

even ‘I love this fic but I’m curious about why you made [x] choice’ is just another way a reader is engaging in and putting thought into your work.

I just feel like a lot of authors take any comment that’s not perfectly articulated glowing praise in the exact manner they’re hoping to receive it in bad faith.

fic engagement has been dropping across the board over the last several years, and yes it’s frustrating but it isn’t as though I can’t see how it happens. comment anxiety can be a real thing. the last thing anyone wants to do is offend an author they love, and that means sometimes people default to silence.

idk where I’m going with this I guess aside from saying unless a comment is outright attacking me I’m never going to get mad at it, and I think a lot of authors should feel the same way. ESPECIALLY TYPOS PLZ GOD POINT OUT MY TYPOS.

[rena-mariefanfiction]

[rena-mariefanfiction]

The true meaning of "boys will be boys"

[rena-mariefanfiction]

Charlie: “I’m so glad my most villain-coded friend is at full power again! 🥰💕”

*throws this to you angst goblins like raw steak* ❤️

(No I will not do a part 2!❤️)

[rena-mariefanfiction]

•Normalize Fanart for Fanfics Again You Fools•

It's not cringe anymore (it SHOULDN'T be cringe anymore), just do it. You're doing something you enjoy so who cares what anybody else says. So spread the words my fellow internet brethren.

Spread the Word :)

[rena-mariefanfiction]

I am staring respectfully into this man's eyes, I swear.

What is your favorite thing to draw when drawing Geto?

Eyes I think??

[rena-mariefanfiction]

“Is it okay if I draw fanart of your fanfic?👉🏼👈🏼”

My brother in Christ we shall have a spring wedding