#admittedly i've never read american vampire

[deadtwice]

✿

FRIENDSHIP.     childhood friends  /  work buddies or coworkers  /  family friends  /  friends with benefits  /  smoking buddies  /  adventure buddies  /  fake friends  /  recently friends  /  party buddies  /  friendship of need  /  dying friendship  /  circumstantial friendship  /  partners in crime  /  old friendship  /  [ your muse ] is the good influence  /  [ your muse ] is the bad influence  /  [ my muse ] is the good influence  /  [ my muse ] is the bad influence  /  opposites attract  /  ride or die  /  frenemies  /  roommates or flatmates  /  penpals  /  exes to friends  /  enemies to friends  /  other

ROMANCE.     childhood sweethearts  /  [ your muse is mines ] childhood crush  /  [ my muse is yours ] childhood crush  /  exes  /  exes to lovers  /  forbidden lovers  /  highschool sweethearts  /  secret relationship  /  opposites attract  /  long distance  /  unrequited [ from your muses side ]  /  unrequited [ from my muses side ]  /  unrequited [ from both sides ]  /  skinny love  /  friends to lovers  /  enemies to lovers  /  spurious relationship  /  power couple  /  newly entered  /  soulmates [ metaphorical ]  /  soulmates  [ literal ]  /  awkward  /  turning toxic  /  just toxic love  /  cheating [ on your muse ]  /  cheating [ with your muse ]  /  other 

FAMILIAL.     siblings [ half ]  /  siblings [ step ]  /  [ my muse ] is an older sibling figure to your younger sibling figure  /  [ my muse ] is a younger sibling figure to your older sibling figure muse  /  [ my muse ] is a parental figure to yours  /  [ my muse ] is a child figure to your muse  /  guardian figure  /  legal guardian  /  adoptive child  /  foster child  /  [ your muse ] is taken under mines wing  /  [ my muse ] is taken under yours wing  /  other

ANTAGONISTIC.     dangerous to each other  /  dangerous to others  /  unpredictable  /  rivals  /  petty  /  developing into sexual or romantic tension  /  based off family matters  /  based of off circumstance  /  based of professional matters  /  based off misunderstanding or lies  /  conflict of ideology  /  betrayal  /  hero - villain dynamic  /  enemies  /  fight club  /  friends turned enemies  /  lovers turned enemies  /  exes turned enemies  /  other 

[thehoneyedhufflepuff]

Promises Kept & Made (& Researched):

behind the scenes on my zine fic

(Wow, cannot even keep the title of this post succinct, but is anyone actually surprised?)

Yesterday @captain-aralias made an awesome post re: the research that went into her zine fic, & I was inspired! So, with a little less than one week left to pre-order @goldendayszine , I thought I’d fill y’all in on some of the research & reasoning that went on behind the scenes for this particular fic of mine. (If you haven’t pre-ordered your copy yet, please do! All you have to do is donate $10 or more to our charity of choice, Outright International at this link. That $10 gets you a digital copy of the zine + an entry into our raffle! More info on raffle prizes here.)

While being accepted as a writer for the zine was super exciting, I was suddenly faced with the debacle all of us writers have to face: what the heck was I going to write? What do? What is plot??? The zine’s theme is new beginnings, & I let my noggin think on that for a while, & eventually it came to me: honeymoon. Give the boys some distance from their current trauma, set this in the future, give them that milestone moment, let them be happy…

What is plot???

As usual, I laid out a short, corny, ridiculous outline for myself. Actual footage of me sharing my nonsense with the zine discord:

Why Disney? Well, I know Disney like the back of my hand. I even worked at the one in Florida for a short period of time in college (pre-bookstore days). And at the heart of it, our boys need to have some fun & experience the childhoods they never really had. I was thinking of the fun they had together at the Ren Faire & wanted to draw from that.

Of course, I then had to figure out what exactly was going on—I had a word count limit, & if y’all know me at all you probably know that had me side-eyeing myself. I knew I had to get my point across, & I only had a certain amount of words to do it. So I needed to pick one area of the park to set my fic in…

And that turned out to be the easy bit. What's my & Mr HH’s favorite attraction? The Haunted Mansion. Where do Simon & Baz have their first kiss in canon (among many of my other favorite scenes)? A literal haunted mansion.

Okay, great. I had my setting. But then I realized I had another small problem: I was sending them to Disneyland Paris, where I’ve personally never been. And then I got to thinking…that I was pretty sure the Haunted Mansion in Paris was different from the Haunted Mansions here in the US. Because after my husband & I went on our own Disneyworld honeymoon in 2015, I bought & read a book all about the Haunted Mansion in its many iterations. 

And, well, I was right about the differences, of which there are many. (Maybe you wouldn’t think so if you haven’t ridden the US versions upwards of one billion times, but this one is so very different.)

Starting with the name: Phantom Manor.

I think a few people have guessed where this fic is set based on the previews shared here & by the zine tumblr, but I don’t want y’all North Americans to be shocked & confused when Baz literally says “Phantom Manor” in the fic instead of “The Haunted Mansion.” If I didn’t know any better, I’d think I was trying to avoid like…some weird copyright thing. Treading lightly. Nope, I’m just being geographically correct.

Second difference? The outside of the manor. Unlike its cousins in the US & Tokyo, Phantom Manor is more derelict & ramshackle in outward appearance, which is really just a factoid & not at all relevant to the fic itself.

Third: the locale. With no New Orleans Square in Disney Paris, & nowhere to put the manor in Fantasyland, the house found its own home in Frontierland. And unlike the Frontierlands of the other Disney parks, this one has its very own story that ties all the attractions together. The boys refer to the legend of the Ravenswood family very briefly in the fic (it’s more of one of the many bad jokes made in the fic than it is a referral, tbh). Put very simply, it’s one of those stories where the crazy dad kills all his daughter’s suitors because he doesn’t want her to grow up & leave. You know, normal shit.

Fourth: the ride itself. Because there’s a different storyline for this manor than there is for any of the others, I spent a good deal of time watching a ride-through video. I watched that damn video so much that the music was stuck in my head for days. What’s the same? We’ve got our portrait room. We’ve got our doom buggies. We’ve got our ride through the dark, haunted mansion house (which Baz complains about, since he can see in the dark & is therefore underwhelmed with the effects) & then through the graveyard. What we don’t have: the ghost host (RIP) & the hitchhiking ghosts. And keeping us company through it all: the bride.

I was admittedly a little put out at first (so much so that I tried to find a way to rationally send them to Disneyworld in Florida instead) (spoiler alert, there was no rational way to do it, especially with Baz's sensitive vampire skin & how much he probably hates America at this point). Still, I was perturbed: no ghost host?! WhY iS iT dIfFeReNt?! But I really warmed up to this version of the manor after I acquainted myself with it. It’s just as magical as the others, really. And I love that I got to share one of my favorite things with Simon & Baz, in a way. 

If you’d like to see Phantom Manor for yourself—& get the music stuck in your head—here’s the private ride-through I watched about one million times, outlined, reviewed, & used to block every mini section of the fic. (Below is one of my many outlines, & most of the bad jokes shown here did not make it into the fic.)

Anyway, hope y’all enjoyed this tangential & probably unnecessary look into my process. It’s been such a pleasure to be part of the zine, & I really hope y’all enjoy it! The previews & pieces I've gotten to see from other contributors are absolutely phenomenal.

donate $10 here to receive your digital copy of the zine*

Oh, PS. I made sure to give Simon some wonky dragon magic. It’s there if you squint. 😉

*please note that zines are not being distributed until April 1. 💜

💛💙

[neuxue]

I've run out of good books to read, I naturally thought of you as someone to recommend others. I read the riddle master trilogy because of you and liked it so hunting for anything you like really! Pretty please

You read Riddle-Master!!! I really cannot overstate how excited I am whenever someone tells me they’ve read those books, so this makes me very happy!

Other recs...let’s see. I don’t know your taste in books, really, so I’ll just toss out some random ones. If you’ve already read them all, let me know and I’ll try again.

1. His Dark Materials will probably feature on just about any recs list I ever make, because these books were my Formative Fantasy Experience at age 7 and I never got over them. They also feature two of my favourite characters in fiction, and one of my favourite...well, ‘relationships’ is not really the word I’m looking for, but it’ll do in a pinch. This is one of those series that reveals something new every time I read it; I loved the story as a child and I love it as an adult and some of the things I love have shifted, but there are enough layers in there to be intriguing no matter what you’re looking for. These books are also somewhat Controversial and admittedly not for everyone - if you (or anyone else reading this) want more detail/explanation of that, feel free to message me. 

2. If you enjoyed Riddle Master, I’d recommend Alphabet of Thorn, also by Patricia McKillip. It features more of her beautiful, lyrical, dreamlike prose, along with a rather fascinating take on the nature of stories. It’s probably my favourite of her standalone novels.

3. Neverwhere might be my favourite of Neil Gaiman’s works. A familiarity with London takes this book from good to excellent, because he doesn’t stop at the surface level; the nature of the city is woven through the story and warped in a way that somehow perfectly captures the reality while at the same time painting a picture that is nothing like it at all. Gaiman is always good at twisting the mundane in alongside the magical to both juxtapose and seamlessly combine, and this book hit that balance just right for me. If you like his weirder side, American Gods is also incredible. The ‘I believe’ monologue has been burned into my brain since I first read it, because wow. If you are not as much a fan of his weirder side, may I suggest Stardust?

4. You may have heard of some guy called Brandon Sanderson, so I’m not going to spend that much time on his books here, but I’ll toss out a recommendation for The Emperor’s Soul, which is probably one of the lesser-known stories in his Cosmere universe, but is also one of my favourites. Shai is such a compelling and fascinating character, and the novella deals creatively with the nature of identity.

5. Time travel is usually a pet peeve of mine rather than a fondness, and I’ve never been all that into historical fiction, but Connie Willis’s Doomsday Book might be the exception that proves the rule. 

 6. In a sea of vampire stories that range from uninspiring to cringeworthy, Sunshine by Robin McKinley stands out as an excellent exception. This is dark urban fantasy done right with a side of freshly baked cinnamon rolls (literal, not figurative, and . If you imagine a story that is its own coffeeshop AU, this is precisely nothing like that. Well, except for the coffeeshop. The narrative is very stream-of-consciousness and if you find loose ends frustrating this book is probably not for you, but if that doesn’t bother you, it’s definitely worth a read. (Even the loose ends are done well). 

7. Speaking of Robin McKinley, The Blue Sword is another childhood favourite. I haven’t read it in probably over a decade, so I suppose I should go back to it before recommending it, but I read a lot of your standard fantasy hero’s journey stories in that time, and this is one of the ones that stands out in memory, so that probably says something.

8. It’s not fantasy or scifi, but I really loved The Still Point, by Amy Sackville. The prose is beautiful, and the way the chronology is split, with two separate and not-quite-linear timelines anchored more by the evocation of still summer heat and frigid arctic winter, suits the story (stories?) perfectly. It’s definitely one of the better examples of nonlinear storytelling I’ve come across. “It is exhausting enough, grasping at the past as it slides through the present, without letting the future interfere.”

9. The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch is one of those books where I know full well it has its flaws, and some of those would maybe put me off if it were any other book, but I love it to pieces. You know those books (or characters) that feel like they were written either as a personal attack on you or a personal gift to you or really a combination of the two because damn you, author, why must you do this to me? Yeah.

10. Throwing a random nonfiction rec in here with A Primate’s Memoir, by Robert Sapolsky. It’s worth reading even if you’re not particularly science-oriented, because the science and research is really only a backdrop against which the story is set. I laughed out loud, in public, on numerous occasions while reading this and it’s another regular feature whenever I recommend things.

11. I see Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein recommended frequently, and I wholeheartedly agree. Another historical fiction story, which again is not usually my thing, but it’s excellent and surprising, and very well-told.

12. Kushiel’s Dart, by Jacqueline Carey, is another that is very much Not For Everyone, and actually when I think about it it should in so many ways have fallen into the Not For Me category, but it didn’t and I enjoyed it immensely. I liked the first book better than the rest in the series, but YMMV.

14. Vicious, by V.E. Schwab, is just fun, if you enjoy friends-to-enemies and/or villains and/or superheroes. It’s unapologetically edgy and honestly kind of ridiculous, and doesn’t at all try to be anything else, which is what makes it work.

15. Howl’s Moving Castle, by Dianna Wynne Jones. If you’ve seen the movie, the book is...well. It’s sort of the same story, by which I mean if you were to write out the main plot points on index cards you’d end up with a roughly matching set, but other than that it’s almost completely different. And kind of incredible.

16. It’s definitely for younger readers, but one of the series that’s held up well for me is the Young Wizards Series, by Diane Duane. The first one reads a bit like the first Harry Potter book in the sense that it’s almost too young to work well as a starting point if you’re older, but even by the second book it grows up quite a bit. I’ve always enjoyed the way she’s constructed her magic system, and you can tell she’s a writer who knows her science but also sees art and beauty in it.

17. Bone, by Jeff Smith, is my favourite graphic novel, though it’s frustratingly difficult to get hold of a complete copy. It’s weird and fun and surprising.

18. Operation Mincemeat, by Ben Macintyre, is another nonfiction book, and I know there are a million and one WWII stories out there, but this one is wild. If you’re even remotely into espionage/intelligence type stories, give this a read. 

My goodreads is also here. It’s not even close to a complete list, but anything I’ve given three or more stars is something I’d say is probably worth a try. Also if anyone else reading this has recommendations to add, please feel free!