#//anyway. this is really vague but i'm seriously struggling with picking something to work on vbfhv

[keeps-ache]

this is really how i'm making decisions nowadays, huh?

[semper-legens]

29. Hidden, by PC and Kristin Cast

Owned: No, library Page count: 302 My summary: The truth is out. The world know how terrible Neferet is - or, at least, they should. But while she's been shunned from the House of Night, Neferet is working her evil magic on the humans surrounding it. She's conned herself into the mayor's office, into a penthouse suite, and into a dangerous position for Zoey and her friends. The Darkness still needs sacrifices. And what better victim than Grandma Redbird? My rating: 1/5 My commentary:

Speedrun, speedrun, only got three more of these let's go! What else is there to say about the House of Night at this point? Not a lot. It's still bad, it's still offensive and bigoted, it's still a giant piece of shit. And I'm still getting a perverse kind of joy from seeing just how bad it is. Seriously, though I'm going to be glad to see the back of this series, I don't actually regret having read it. If nothing else, it's a great what-not-to-do when it comes to crafting a story. Just do the absolute opposite of House of Night, and you've made a reasonably solid story! Yay! Anyway, let's get into it.

So, picking up from the pointlessness last time, we kick off here with Lenobia and a fire in the stables. And we learn one more thing about Lenobia! Is it about her as a character, or about her relationship to sex and romance? Surprise! The latter. Yeah, turns out Lenobia's pointless sexy cowboy is actually the reincarnation of her lost love from when she first came to America in the 1700s. After he died (because she failed to save him, natch) she swore she'd never love another person. Travis is that guy's soul come back to her after so long, and it's a stupid plot point for two reasons. Reason one - the dead lover was a black man from New Orleans, while Travis is explicitly white. Which…is not a good look. Black lover is fridged, white lover is endgame. Given that the only other men of colour are Kalona and Rephaim (maybe? I don't remember if Rephaim is actually described as looking Cherokee) this is not a particularly good look. Reason two - we're just doing soulmates, I guess. Lenobia has exactly one person she's allowed to be in a relationship ever. Zoey's thing with Heath (more on that later) is a very similar vibe, they're just ~cosmically connected~ and so they've gotta be endgame. People aren't allowed to develop attractions to each other! Don't be silly! You've got to get with the one person you're cosmically destined to be with! Bleh.

Most of the ongoing plot of this one concerns Neferet's rise in human society, a plot point that…does not really go anywhere. It's not even that Neferet needs to struggle to get to the top in human society, she literally just goes up to the mayor like 'you support me unconditionally now' and he's like 'duh you're hot okay sure'. It's bizarre how mundane the conflict between Neferet and Team Zoey is here. Team Zoey are trying to make her seem like a disgruntled ex-employee, and both sides are using the news media to influence people to their way of thinking. Which, given that Neferet's 'exposing' Stark as a murderer, feels…disproportionate? The worldbuilding, or lack thereof, is being thrown into focus here. Surely the police would have something to say about Stark being a murderer? Like, it's established that the vamps are allowed by the police to take care of their own security and policing and such, which is fine, but a) this has not come up so often and b) the amount of vamps there are in the world makes this suspect? At various points, the worldwide vamp population has been implied to both be substantial and not so much. Almost every celebrity has been said to be a vamp in this world, and yet vamp numbers are actually small enough that the world governments apparently just let them take care of themselves with no other oversight. Vampires are supposed to be both incredibly powerful and influential and also a minority, both at the same time? It's vague to the point where you're obviously not meant to think about it, but incidents like this just bring into light the fact that it hasn't been well thought through. Hey, Casts? If you're not gonna worldbuild this stuff, don't bring it up.

More Aurox…ugh. Once again, we're circling the 'badboy redeemed' trope. Honestly, it wouldn't even bug me that much if it wasn't exactly the damn same every time it showed up. The Boy has done some shitty things, but feels bad about them and wants to change. Some people won't give him the time of day, but at least one other person, usually his love interest, is ride or die for him and totally believes he has changed. Over time, the change is proved to be correct, usually with one big heroic action. Stark, Rephaim, and Kalona have all had this arc. Can we have a different arc please. It's getting boring.

So the big climax to this one comes when Neferet kidnaps Grandma Redbird to use her as a sacrifice to the Darkness, which means it's time to talk about Grandma a bit more. Grandma is Zoey's Cherokee grandmother. That is also the extent of her characterisation. She is loving, forgiving, spiritual, and always knows the right thing to say. Everyone loves her. She has no flaws. She is perfect. She knows everything. And she's boring as hell. She's not a character, she's a plot device! Grandma Redbird exists either to be a perfect moral guide or to give exposition about Cherokee culture and spiritual practice (which, as we've talked about previously, isn't by necessity actual Cherokee culture). Oh, and to be in danger. This is, what, the third time her life's been endangered? There's no tension in it anymore, because there's no way that the Casts will actually have anything bad happen to her. Zoey's mother can die, because she was a bitch, but Grandma? Nah, she's too good to die. I never got the feeling here that anything bad was actually gonna happen to her, because she's bounced back from being the damsel in distress so many times.

And finally…good Lord, I cannot believe that it has taken me this long to realise exactly what's wrong with Nyx as a plot element. To be fair, I haven't given much thought to Nyx as a character to this point; she literally just shows up to be a perfect mother goddess and be right about everything and then disappear. But the climax of this book comes about when Zoey and co are scared and unsure of what to do about Neferet kidnapping Grandma Redbird. Zoey prays to Nyx, and essentially gets the answer that she needs to stop cowering in the darkness and actually do something. All very fine and well, and even a half-decent plot beat. The thing is that how the plot actually resolves is that Kramisha gives Zoey one of her prophetic poems, and it tells Zoey exactly what to do to save the day. And since Nyx gives Kramisha her visions, this is essentially just Nyx ssaving the day with Zoey as a conduit. And the problem with all of this is that it's the worst of the conservative Christian idea of God and humankind's relationship to God. God is infallible and doing what He wants will always solve your problem. Nyx is always right, and finding what Nyx wants you to do, even if it's hard, is always the right path. Zoey has free will, but pretty much any path other than specifically what Nyx wants her to do is usually wrong. I don't know much about what the Casts believe theologically, but I really wouldn't be surprised if it was a 'raised Christian, switched to 70s Neo-Paganism' kind of thing, because Nyx here just reads as if the Casts switched Christian God for a mother goddess without really changing anything about how they percieve this deity and their relationship to said deity. I've been getting the vibe as we go through the series that Nyx does some shitty things, but I'm not sure I was meant to? Her forgiveness of people like Kalona and Rephraim seems overly punitive at times, but at this late stage in the series there's no room for that to be an arc or anything, I think we're supposed to take as read that Nyx is perfect. And that just skeeves me out in general.

Next, I told you it was a speedrun! The penultimate installment of the House of Night series!

[ltleflrt]

Because I regard you essentially as royalty in terms of Destiel fic, can you maybe give us a basic rundown on how to write a fic? Or a detailed one, if you want. Like, what is your process? How do you plan it out? How/when do you pick a title? Because I've tried before to write multi-chapter fics and I just end up giving up on it because I either took too long between updates because ya know life and forgot things or because I didn't plan enough and no longer know what I'm doing.

Hold on hold on hold on...

*walks away for a minute and muppet flails*

Okay, I’m back, and thank you for the sweet compliment! :D

So, my process; I have one!  I didn’t used to think so, because it felt chaotic and without form, but as I’ve started helping other people with their writing I’ve started to see a pattern in how I come up with stories and make them happen.

Obviously the first step is the The Idea.  I get them from all over the place.  I’m a daydreamer, so sometimes they just pop up out of the blue, and in a lot of cases they’re inspired by some other media.  A book, a fic, a movie, a song... I think that’s pretty common.  I also have a tendency of looking at my favorite tropes (and I mean REALLY LOOKING, by consuming any and all of it I can find lol) and thinking to myself, “how can I flip that upside down?”.  

Kiss the Baker was the result of reading all the Gay Panic Dean fics I could find and reading them until I started wondering if there would ever be a universe where Dean didn’t have a gay panic.  

The idea for Satin and Sawdust came from the fact that I’ve written two fics tagged “Dean Thinks He’s Heterosexual” and it made me wonder why I never see any Gay Panic Castiel fics.  

Anyway, ideas come from all over.  And they’re fleeting, so I write them all down.  I have a huge list.  Whenever one of those AU lists comes around on my dash I copy my favorites into my list.  It’s very long lol.  Which is good, because sometimes I’ll come up with an idea like “I want to see Cas be the one who thinks he’s het this time” and get stuck.  Like wtf do I do next?

Answer: I refer back to The List.  Because sometimes I can pick out several of those ideas and smush them together.  I took Carpenter!Dean, and Dean Loves Wearing Panties from the list, and scrolled down until I found Veterinarian AU, and I start trying to connect the dots.

Remember in writing classes in Jr High and High School we were taught to make those bubble charts?  You write something in a bubble, and then branch off bubbles around it?  I do that in my head.  I start making things connect.  I cross out things that won’t fit.  I have a special file for whatever story idea I’m working on and it looks vaguely like an outline because it’s that list of ideas with notes for ideas, or snippets of conversation.  If I chat about it with my friends (almost always @jupiterjames) I’ll copy/paste those conversations into that file.  I’ll list songs... anything that gives me a feel for what’s starting to form.  If I have any title ideas they’ll go in there too.

Speaking of titles, THEY’RE HARD.  I hate them.  Occasionally something will pop in my head before I even start working on the fic, and I swear that angels sing when that happens.  But for the most part I have to brainstorm and brainstorm, and get advise from friends, and I google quotes about themes I think my story will encompass.  It’s a struggle.  My least favorite part of the writing process next to connecting large plot points lol.  But I’ve gotta have a title before I post it, so I’ll have something by the time I’m done with the first chapter.  

Just for funsies, here’s my notes file for Satin and Sawdust.

Anywho, that’s all the developing stuff.  I don’t actually go into the notes file all that much afterwards.  When I have big gaps between chapters I will, plus I’ll re-read everything I’ve written already.  But I hold quite a bit of that junk in my head. If you’re having problems remembering, make the file!  Visit it often!

Believe it or not, at this point, the story is still pretty nebulous.  I’ll usually have several directions the story can take at different junctions, and I don’t think too hard about them until I get there.  I think about my stories in more detail a chapter at a time.  I focus on a single scene, or the small group of scenes that are related enough to put in a single chapter.  I zero in on those details and forget about what’s going to come afterwards.  

Breaking down the larger idea into smaller chunks is the only way I can work myself through a 100k+ beast without going mad.  And honestly, I still drive myself a little crazy.  I have to stop looking at the big picture, or I’ll give up just because the idea is too overwhelming.

Once I’ve got a chapter done, then I take a few days and I start considering the cloudy visions in my head and pluck out the scene I think needs to come next.  It usually takes me 2-4 days of contemplation before I’m ready to sit down and make words happen again.  Writing a 4k-8k chapter takes me 2-3 days.  So between the contemplation break and the actual writing, I take about a week.  

Life definitely gets in the way sometimes.  When I was in the middle of Addicted To You, I had reconstructive surgery on my face.  I was doped up on super strong pain meds and couldn’t wear my glasses for almost a month.  So obviously I took some time off, and I was SO MISERABLE (seriously, don’t break your face, it’s the worst) that I couldn’t even think about the story, much less writing.  When I felt well enough to get back to it I re-read what I had already twice, plus went over my notes file, plus I listened to all the dirty sex songs I could find to get my mind back into the groove for it.  It felt like doing homework, but it was the only way I could remember wtf I was doing.  I’m sure I lost some of my initial plans, but that’s normal with any story I work on.  And it turned out okay lol

And last of all, find someone who’ll let you ramble at them about your stories.  Someone who will genuinely pay attention, not just nod and smile.  I did a lot of writing on my own, but a lot of my Dragon Age and Mass Effect fics wouldn’t exist without @hot-elf being my sounding board and cheerleader.  And same goes for my Supernatural fics and @jupiterjames.  I would probably have written just a tiny fraction of my stories if it weren’t for them.  Chatting about my stories helps me develop my ideas, and keeps me motivated.  When I’m stressed I’ll send a chapter to JJ with just a request to Validate Me! and she always knows how to talk me out of my angst.  I will talk out my ideas with other people as well, but they’ve been the biggest influences on my writing, so THANKS LADIES I LOVE YOU! 

Writing Buddies Are The Best.  

Anyway, that’s about all I have to say about my process.  I hope it answered all your questions and gave you some ideas on how to work on your own stuff.  And if you ever have an idea you want to talk about, feel free to send me chat messages :D

[warriorgays]

I'm going to ask the most broad and annoying question so forgive me, but what happened to everyone after Through the Gay Days ended? I have never been more invested in a group of characters in my life and I desperately want them all to be happy, whatever form that takes, in the end. Also! what other sources did you draw from besides Coming Out Under Fire? I was so impressed with how well researched everything was. 💖

OH MAN I didn’t expect to actually get a question, lol!! And that’s one I’m happy to answer, because I did think a lot about it. idk if I’m ever going to actually write a follow up, because my WIP list is soooo long and, tbh, the 50s are SO DEPRESSING in terms of LGBT stuff.

IT TOOK ME AN HOUR TO WRITE THIS UP. I APOLOGIZE. UNDER A CUT BECAUSE HOLY FUCK. I apologize for any typos but I’m just publishing instead of proofreading because what the fuck.

In terms of sources... I really think Coming Out Under Fire was the main “intentional” one. I have a BA in history and I’m getting my MA right now, so I’ve READ a lot of history and probably unconsciously drew on a lot. the other one I can definitely think of is Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers, by Lillian Faderman, which covers lesbian U.S. history from the early 1900s to the 1980s. she draws on COUF for her 40s chapter (which is kind of a bummer because I was hoping for more WWII lesbian-specific content lol), but she’s good at covering some of the broad-strokes history of sexuality and LGBTQ identity. Becoming Visible by Molly McGarry is a really cool illustrated history, too, I’ve read that a few times over the years.

SO, for post-war lives, I’m going to warn you real quick it does get depressing for everybody for a little bit because uhhh the 50s fucking sucked? Faderman talks about this a lot, and actually Stephanie Coontz is a good source too--she has this book titled The Way We Never Were, which basically debunks the idea of “the ~traditional~ family” and looks at the ways our perceptions of society’s values have changed. and one thing she points out is that the 1950s are really the first time when society looks at single men--all single men--and thinks “there must be something WRONG with them.” before that, people were willing to accept that some dudes just didn’t want to get married, for plenty of reasons that had nothing to do with homosexuality, but in the 50s everyone was so gungho about The Family that anyone not into it was looked at with suspicion. add that to the whole “homosexuals are susceptible to Communist blackmail, better fire them all” and things fucking sucked.

I PROMISE HAPPY ENDINGS, THOUGH, because the whole “LGBTQ people lived depressing lives until these Enlightened Times” trope is my least favorite trope ever.

SO, for Gene Roe, my first thought for his post-war life was this Gaslight Anthem lyric that @antiquecompass prompted me for a Snafu/Roe fic foreverrrrrr again: “I’m in love with the way you’re in love with the night.” so I imagine that Snafu comes home, and they try to just settle into things as usual, but Snafu starts really pushing Gene’s buttons. being more snide, being disrespectfully obvious about being nonmonogamous (like it’s one thing to go cruising and another to bring dudes home to the apartment you’re sharing with your boyfriend, COME ON MAN), trying to pick fights. and of course the impetus for all this is Snafu struggling with PTSD and thinking that Gene is too good for him but not being able to end it himself. of course Gene doesn’t put up with this bs, so one day Snafu finally admits he’s doing this because he’s afraid the war turned him into kind of a fucked up asshole, and Gene’s like “you were always a fucked up asshole? what’s your point? I love you?”

so then things kinda simmer down. Gene’s not Officially a doctor anymore, but he and Snafu live in an apartment building in the poorer part of the city with a lot of ~ethnic~ folk nearby some black neighborhoods, so he does some informal community doctoring around those buildings, and that earns him enough goodwill that he and Snafu don’t really have to worry about getting caught out. it’s the kind of neighborhood where a lot of people have to... bend the law a bit to get by, to be happy, whatever, so people trade food and skills as needed and there’s always an alert if the cops are coming by. it’s a good place for them. they’re happy. I’ve only really thought ahead like ~ten years, but I can imagine them eventually moving on when the community moves on, you know, whether to another city or somewhere a little more rural, depending, and that being okay. and I think, with Gene’s influence, and seeing how strong the ties are between the Pansies with Parachutes(TM), Snafu is able to reach out to Sledge and Burgie and the rest more than irl/show canon.

Babe and Spina are the other two that totally make it, soulmates, heartbreakingly cute. but I promised a little heartbreaking, so basically my idea is that they actually move in together a little while after the war, but at some point Babe’s mom realizes what’s up and... does not take it well. gives him an ultimatum, break up with Ralph or she won’t let him near the family, which Babe finds agonizing because he’s really close with his family but Ralph doesn’t have very many relatives, at least not close by (in this verse at least), and even if he could bring himself to break up with Ralph, at this point he doesn’t think his mom will ever treat him the same anyway.

in my head there’s a really sweet scene when Ralph finds out what happens and a lot of hugging and comforting. but yeah. that briefly sucks. what DOESN’T suck is when Babe decides, after a few months, that he has to tell Bill (because Bill has gotten so close to the Heffrons that of course he notices when Babe suddenly isn’t speaking to them), and Bill proves himself to be a total Bro who decides that, well, the typical idea of a homosexual CLEARLY doesn’t fit Babe and Spina so... it’s all good? like c’mon they went through a war together, that’s worth something, right?

I think eventually Babe and Spina move, too. not super far, just maybe to, idk, New York, Pittsburgh, Baltimore, somewhere they can visit everyone but maybe far enough to put some distance between them and bad memories, and also because South Philly is small when your family isn’t speaking to you, you know? possibly they end up in the same city as Luz and Tipper (see next), I’m not 100% sure but I’m vaguely attracted to the idea of everybody ending up on a commune, lol.

so I think I’m probably meanest to Luz, because I imagine him getting arrested at some point. sorry, boo. his reaction is to pay the fine and slink out, and get out of dodge for a while to avoid his family getting any blowback, and he ends up visiting Tipper, who’s really frustrated (which I alluded to a bit at the end of Through the Gay Days) because he just doesn’t click with his old friends as much and he hasn’t had a lot of luck romantically. and again I have this clear scene in my head of Tipper helping Luz dress in drag for the first time, lots of giggling and teasing, but Tipper doesn’t really do drag anymore because he can’t keep his balance in heels, and they end up talking about their frustrations and venting and whatnot. and eventually Luz is like “you know what? fuck it! run away with me!”

and Tipper’s like “fuck it, let’s do it!” so they just kind of live a semi-nomadic life? idk, maybe not really nomadic, but they get jobs that let them move/travel, so they don’t have the pressure of expectations. I’m on the fence about whether they do this as lovers... I would say not, like, REALLY. like possibly a friends with benefits thing (and I’ll point out that Luz is one of the only other named characters who interacts with Tipper, other than Liebgott, because Tipper’s in charge of the map during the Major Horton scene, so that chemistry could totally work). because they’re, like, the two from the fic whose relationships don’t end up going anywhere, and I don’t want them to pine after the Joes forever, and they don’t, but sometimes people just don’t find their soulmates, it happens, and they can at least make each other happy.

this is one of those verses where I’ve decided Liebgott gets to keep his wife-and-kids dream. I do think he’s gay in this verse, and when he gets engaged he writes a letter to Tipper basically seeking closure, admitting he dealt with things in kind of a shitty way and admitting it might be nice to have a Gay Posse, but he also takes his marriage seriously even if it’s not a love match, and doesn’t seek romantic or sexual encounters with men. idk if Joe Toye actually gets married in this verse, but I don’t see him as gay. if we were to retroactively apply the Kinsey scale, I’d say he’d be a 1 or a 2, in which the situational aspect of war kind of pushed him towards interactions that he may have subconsciously desired, but definitely wouldn’t acknowledge in a normal time and place.

as for Chuck! I kind of like the future I give Chuck, partly because he conveniently is from the LA area. so for him, I imagine that at some point Ron Speirs just kind of shows up on his doorstep one day and they become, like, an actual Thing. and it’s good for a couple of years, but Ron seems... restless. and eventually Chuck sits him down and flat-out says “look, I really don’t think you’re cut out for this settled-down long-term-relationship kind of thing. we had a good run, we can part on good terms, but you can travel and have adventures and do all the stuff you want to do.” and then, correctly, points out that one of the reasons Speirs is so reluctant to do that is because he feels guilty for Chuck getting shot, which doesn’t really make any sense. Chuck’s only request is that Ron NOT GO BACK INTO THE ARMY, because fuck Korea, have you heard how many gay soldiers are getting kicked out of the military nowadays? Speirs agrees and they break up amicably.

(is Chuck still in love with him? yes. does it hurt like a motherfucker? yes.)

ANYWAY. the L.A. is where the Mattachine Society, the first official homosexual organization in the country, was founded in 1948... or maybe 49. I forget. the founder started asking around a while before he found people who were actually willing to join up. I figure Chuck eventually joins up and is the first of the Pansies with Parachutes(TM) to really develop a political gay identity. and through that org he eventually meets Beth, a lesbian who’s just broken up with her gf and is kind of panicking because now she might have to leave her apartment and go back to her parents in Nebraska, and they become fast friends and fuck it, why not get married? it’s good cover, and I could have also gotten a chance to talk about the working class lesbian bar scene in the 1950s, which is a cool topic.

if this were a formal fic, I would end it with 1952, when the entire group reunites in honor of the 10-year anniversary of them meeting at Toccoa. since it’s not, suffice to say they do have all-group reunions, and they also visit each other and call and write letters and stay friends 5ever. at some point Babe and Spina have a not-wedding (there’s a picture of a wedding in the 50s with two grooms in flower crowns in Becoming Visible, I love that picture) and they all come and celebrate. OH and at some point between Luz getting arrested and meeting with Tipper, he definitely visits Gene in Louisiana and they make out a bit. because, tbh, I caught a bit of UST in Through the Gay Days--I don’t know if it’s a ship I’d ship in any other verse, lol, but in this verse I feel like they need to make out.

anyway. eventually the 50s end. I want to say that by the time Stonewall happens, either Tipper&Luz or Babe/Spina (both??) are living in NYC and for three days everyone is frantically calling each other going “DID YOU HEAR ABOUT THIS???” and Chuck becomes totally into the California gay scene, and Babe’s nieces and nephews eventually reach out to him, Tipper and Luz either... idk, become real boyfriends or get hot younger boyfriends and become Wise Gay Dads to the younger crowd. Snafu and Gene grow old together, as hard as it is to imagine old Snafu.

EVERYBODY IS HAPPY AND FRIENDS AND GAY, THE END.