#and this is hannibal I found them in a dumpster

[hermoonself]

two of my most favorite medias:

lotr/hobbit with gorgeous night shots where you can see everything clearly like you normally would yet it's still clearly night

hannibal. you don't see jack shit. you're lucky if they're outside in the morning, then you get to see maybe.

[ohkate]

Weekly Tag Wednesday

Thanks to @energievie and @metalheadmickey for the tag love.

---

which character from any media would you like to have as a father? Gomez Addams. Totally loyal and loves his family. Devoted to his wife. Rich. Doesn't mind me being a weirdo. In fact, encourages it.

if money, laws, time, and effort were no object, what animal would you want to have?

This little jerk right here. I mean look at how he's all wrapped up in his mom.

what is your Chinese takeout order? Well, potstickers always. If I could *be* a food, it would be a potsticker. But also, I live in southcoast MA where Chinese food is completely different from everywhere else- and superior I will fight you on that hill- and so this is more complex to answer. Chow mein here is made with what's called 'Fall River' noodles. They are made entirely for this area and are amazing. It's my favorite dish. I've lived all over the country and Chinese food elsewhere is just so shitty.

what's your favourite emoji? I still can't make emojis. : p That's as good as it's getting.

would you rather have a library, greenhouse, or home theater in your house? Home theater. I should lie and say library.

what childhood tv show do you think of the most fondly? I Dream of Jeannie. Not really a kids show but I was obsessed with it as a kid. I also liked Punky Brewster.

what was your tumblr like when you first joined? So gifs had to be under 1MB. You kids are spoiled with your 5MB lavishness. So there were a lot of shitty gifs. Tumblr was just better in general. There used to be so many great gay porn gifs. It was awesome. Then the morality police came in and made it less fun for everyone. My tumblr was basically just a history of my fav gay pairings that I brought over from LiveJournal. Don't get me started on LiveJournal.

what clothing style do you love but don't feel compelled to replicate yourself? Bohemian cool girl. She just wakes up like that. I could never pull it off. This dumpster fire takes some work.

if you were plopped into a fictional world, which one would you know the layout of the best? I barely know how to drive around my block without using GPS.

what is your favourite piece of art? My favorite artist is Flavio Zarck and my favorite piece is THIS. He makes creepy looking sculptures out of scrap metal. He also did a series on drawings made by by people suffering from severe mental health issues like paranoid schizophrenia that was really interesting.

do you have a water bottle? what does it look like? It looks like a can of Coca Cola. I should drink more water. If only to surprise my kidneys every once in a while.

what fanfic trope is a quiet fave? Ugh where do I start. I unapologetically love the Cinderella story where someone saves the other, or you find out later one is rich or a prince or whatever. I love hurt/comfort....like serious abuse where the other person helps the other recover and they fall in love. I love the 'pretending to be together for x reason but end up falling in love' trope. I also love the ABO 'oh no i've gone into heat! And my low key soulmate just happens to be here. Whatever will I do?!" trope.

do you carry a daily bag? what does it look like? what's the weirdest thing in it? Workbag with laptop. Probably just some errant tampons that somehow have come unwrapped.

if you had to ship Mickey with another Gallagher, who would it be? Lip for sure. I think Mickey would just wreck Lip. I love the episode where they go to shoot up the gentrified store together and Lip seems intimidated by Mickey. And Mickey was taking out all his anger for Ian on Lip. Mickey looked so hot. There was a slight sexual tension in that scene.

what is a fanfic trope you didn't expect to like and then very much did? Like @energievie said, Gallavich taught me the joys of AUs. I love so many of them. Also ABO. I got into ABO by accident with the Hannibal fandom, and those fuckers can seriously write. I found myself obsessed and now not a lot of sex scenes in regular fanfic can hold a candle to ABO most of the time. Regular fanfic was like weed and ABO was like heroin and now I'm addicted. I can't believe I'm into this but...it's hot.

Do you think s11 Mickey can still carry s11 Ian? Probably. He's pretty strong. It's just awkward because Ian is so tall. He'd find a way.

who got custody of the killing bat when they sold the house? Sandy took it when no one was looking.

[juuls]

Juulna’s ‘Hold Onto Your Sanity’ Fic, Book, and Music Recs for the 2020 Dumpster Fire... Part 3!

So you just crash-landed behind enemy lines in a war you know barely anything about except that your role seems infinitesimal and insignificant, and dumped into a year, 2020, that already seems fifteen years too long.

Before you drown your sorrows in some fantastic scotch or wine coolers for days (or weeks)… I have a proposal.

That you step back from the flames, tune things out for a bit, and try to forget about the outside world for a while (but don’t forget to vote or I will be very sad at you!).

These fics are meant to take you out of your head (I’m including more plot/story-minded fics than PWP) for the next few weeks or months as the world goes to hell (even more) but of course there are some bits of solid angst in these as there is wont to be in many a fic. Check the tags, read responsibly, don’t like-don’t read, ship and let ship, and please do leave a kudos and maybe even a comment! :)

This is PART THREE.

Check out here for Part One and most of the Marvel fic recs, along with a selection of book recs too. :)

And here’s Part Two, which has the bulk of my Star Wars and Game of Thrones recs, along with Spotify playlists!

Part Three is this one here, all about the Potterverse.

(Not yet complete) Here’s Part Four, filled with even more shippy goodness from all over the Star Trek universe. So. Many. Ships. :D

(Not yet complete) Part Five is Witcher, Man From UNCLE, Stargate: Atlantis and SG-1, Sherlock, Hannibal, and Doctor Who.

(Not yet complete) Part Six will probably be all for my newfound love of Supergirl, along with some Game of Thrones and Marvel ships I skipped, because I gotta stop somewhere with all these recommendations or I’ll be at it forever. Seriously, how much of this stuff have I read!?

But I think we all need some distractions from the world these days, eh? Or something to console us other than internet rage and a barrel of ice cream and/or hard alcohol.

Potterverse

I’ve chosen to pick fics (mostly) off of AO3 for their easy reading access, though HP fics’ golden years were on sites like fanfiction.net and other independent archives like Sycophanthex and others which have closed their doors over the years, sadly. Some of these fics date back to almost 20 years old, or more, amazingly!

For fics on fanfiction.net, I highly recommend using this link (FicSave) to epub/mobi converter rather than dealing with the frustrating app. It functions like AO3′s built-in download button.

SSHG/Sevmione

Rec assistance by @perrydowning​

Second Life by Lariope

Phantom of Hogwarts by Good_Witch

Romancing the War by Pubella

The Poison Garden by turtle_wexler @turtlewexlerwrites

A Light in the Fog by turtle_wexler

Pride of Time by AnubisAnkh

The Savage by MagdatheMagpie

Snape’s Story by Tbird1965

Recognition by jezzie (krith)

Tedium of Time by oneredshoe

Tango by Desert_Sea

Sense and Insensibility by Desert_Sea

Time Mutable Immutable by Grooot

The Twenty by Leyna Rountree

For the Only Hope by ausland @run-with-me-to-the-sea

Bundle of Joy by LadyTuesday

Our Hands Tied by multilingualism

Choose Something Like A Star by TeddyRadiator

Mistress of the Stacks by Ms_Anthrop

A Derailed Train of Thought by Ms_Anthrop

Antiquities by stormcorona

Watch Over Me by @snapeslittleblackbuttons​

Dropped Down into the Unknown by @q-drew​

Delicate Transitions by @morbidmuch​

Lay Me Low by TeddyRadiator

The Savage by MagdatheMagpie

Another Dream by @dragoon811​

A Chance For Happiness by @corvusdraconis​

Breath of the Nundu by corvusdraconis, Dragon_and_the_Rose

Just to Be by Amarti @amarti-writes-stuff​

Hinge of Fate by Ramos

Forged in Flames by @mswhich​

Days in the Sun by bluespring864

Making sure the boy who lived, actually does by Hold_en @hold-enwrites​

The Problem With Purity by Phoenix.Writing

One Step Forward, Two Decades Back by corvusdraconis

The Headmaster’s Wife by Mrs_HH @propertyofseverustsnape

The Master, the Warden, the Headmaster, and the Deputy by mak5258

Cloak of Courage by Wendynat

Hermione Granger and the Intended Vessels by ShawnaCanon

Augury and Ardor by SnapeySnax

Before the Dawn by snarkyroxy

The Love You Take by Subversa

His Draught of Delicate Poison by Subversa

and sooooo many more if you want them just ask, this is both mine and Perry’s oldest ship lol

Gramander (Original Graves x Newt)

A Gilded Cage is Still a Cage by Anonymous

take a deep breath (and let it go) by lincesque @tumbloncat

Roar by @elenothar

Matchmaker, Matchmaker by @prosodiical

Dearly Beloved by prosodiical

Basic Instincts by @manic-intent

Promised by Miss_Lv

Plan G by Aate

Heat of the Chase by argentoswan @wannahearaboutmycats

Newt Scamander’s Guide to Getting Things Done by arthureameslove

Against all Odds by Maril

Where I Belong by Mishafied

He Wants To Say, “I Love You, Nothing Can Hurt You”  by @obsidionwingsofmidnight

Arranged by Miss_Lv

death of a bachelor by gudetama (elementary)

The Graves Identity by Mishafied

you make me feel this way somehow by gudetama (elementary)

The Nature of the Beast by AntiGravitas @absolutelynogravitaswhatsoever

The Knights, the Newt, and the Rose by @yinyangswings

The Wizard’s Cat by @natecchi

The Color of Boom by gypsiangel

Signalling Theory: Blue Coat by @obaewankenope​

Flame by @esamastation​

And The Tag Read Simply: “Pretty” by @funkzpiel​

Aren’t You Gonna Arrest Me, Officer? by JoyBurd

a little bit lost by shortbread @shortbread-fanfiction​

Dramione

Rec assistance by @cuthian​

Seven Times by kerri240879

Her Beauty and the Moonlight by BrilliantLady

The Fallout by everythursday (orphaned and only available on AO3 now, but complete)

The Eagle’s Nest by HeartOfAspen

Turncoat by elizaye @imnotleavinherewithoutyou

The Virgin Conundrum by AkashaTheKitty @akashathekitty

Bad Faith by Morrighan256

Isolation by bexchan @bex-chan-blog

The Serpent, the Witch, and the Broom Closet by bitchywitchy

Silencio by AkashaTheKitty

All You Want by senlinyu @senlinyu

Static by galfoy @heymanticore

What the Room Requires by Alydia Rackham

And We All Fall Down by @rumaan

Ambition’s End by Hanako A

Wait and Hope by mightbewriting @mightbewriting

Rewriting Destiny by mayawrites95 (mayarox95)

Chronos Historia by In_Dreams @indreamsink

A Muggle-born Magic by Musyc @willhavetheirtrinkets

Hunted by Bex-chan

A Second Look by @riverwriter

The Nietzsche Classes by Beringae

This Too, Is Sacred by HeartOfAspen

Bite First, Ask Questions Later by Daredevilsinthedetails, Kaylessi

Nocturnus by In_Dreams @indreamsink

Broken by @inadaze22​

The Green Girl by Colubrina

Lady of the Lake by Colubrina

Rebuilding by Colubrina (really just anything written by @colubrina)

Presque Toujours Pur by @shayalonnie

Can’t Change the Way I Am by @nauticalparamour

Law and Marriage by DragonGrin (formerly TeenTypist)

The Tower Window by @xodramaqueenox​

Unexpected by Emara88

Something Old, Something New by Kate Dessi

Suppressed Emotions by hopelesslydevoted.xx 

Silver Blood by @freyaishtar

When the Day Met the Night by @bex-la-get

Harmony

A Marauder’s Plan by CatsAreCool (Rachel500)

A Step to the Right by CatsAreCool (Rachel500)

Eighth by lorien829

The Catalyst by lorien829

Harry Potter and the Isle of Mists by lorien829

Knife’s Edge by Celtic55

The Black Book by mosteveryonesmad

Awakening by SweetShireen

The Sword and the Snake by bartonfink1974

Dispelling the Silence by Indygodusk

One Year Later: Return to Hogwarts by Twilight’s Inferno

DraHarmony

Fourteen Thousand Galleons by @frumpologist

The Invitation by hot_elf @hot-elf

Love Love Love by MissELY @misselylux​

Changing Scenery by aethling

East of Eden by msmerlin @ms-merlinblack

Turn Back Time by Dazeventura6

Foxfire by @setissma

Come Together by @nuclearnik

The Soul of the Wolves by LR_Earl @fanficbylrearl

Running From Lions by tryslora @tryslora

An Unexpected Family by ladyroxanne21

The Prophecies by jamcreynolds

Drarhinny

Reconstruction by @aldersprig​

Fell From the Sky by BrandonStrayne @brandonstrayne​ (I really love this one, and not just as a Canadian.)

Demons From the Past by pottermum

Drarry

Rec assistance by @newtypeshadow​

Rarely Pure and Never Simple by birdsofshore

Aural Gratification by birdsofshore

Lost Among and Falling by @bafflinghaze

The Corruption Sequence series by beren @berenwrites

Sentinel ‘verse series by elyssblair @elyssblair-blog

Date Blindness by dysonrules

Starts With a Spin by Maxine @serasarahhhh​

Temptation on the Warfront by alizarincrimson

Paradigm by dysonrules

Here’s The Pencil, Make It Happen by ignatiustrout

Draco Sodding Malfoy by Shewhxmustnxtbenamed @shewhomustnotbenamed

Pieces of What by Jadwiga

Found, Not Lost by inspiration_assaulted

Shared Detention by DadIWriteGayPorn

Dirty Little Secret by Writcraft @writcraft​

19 Years by shilo1364 @whimsicaldragonette​

Morning Suns & Coffee Runs by laugh_a_latte @queer-coffee​

Reus Una by purplepen76

Between Ink and Blood by Candamira

Ginmione

Distractions by @morningsound15​ 

Cissamione

(This seems like it’s a bit cracky, but there’s some good ones, I promise! I sorta stumbled ass-backwards into this ship but really enjoy some of them.)

One Step Left by Cysteine @cysteine

Extinction by @rubikanon​

Blinding Light by @16-pennies​

Somebody Loved by beforeyouspeak

...

..

There. This is much better, isn’t it?

So my challenge to you, if your world is falling, burning down around you in flames... is this:

...if you feel yourself getting anxious or depressed, whether from the news or being cooped up in isolation or bored or on the verge of tearing your hair out or jumping off that roof or grabbing something to go after the dictator-of-the-week.... pause, take a breath, open up this rec list, close your eyes and pick something, and let chance take you somewhere hopefully far away. Let yourself be transported.

Oh, and don’t click on this Google Drive link. Really, there’s not 30+ GB of data on that Drive I’m sharing. Shame. There totally aren’t tens of thousands of books, as many audiobooks as could fit, and a large collection of fanfiction downloaded from AO3 in there. (Also, not all fics have been shared to that folder yet; I’m working on it a little at a time as I download more.)

[elfnerdherder]

The Gunmetal Kiss: Chapter 6

[Support my Patreon] [Read on Ao3]

Well, guys, it’s here! This was a baby fic, but I’d love to thank all of you for the time and patience you’ve shown through the last couple of years of stagnant posting and random rambles of how much work sucks. I think I’ve settled into a groove of my new job now, and I’m hoping to get into a once a week update, kind of how I used to. Baby steps!

A special thanks to my patrons: @evertonem @starlit-catastrophe @kenobi-is-king @sylarana @frostylicker Duhaunt6, Mendacious Bean, Superlurk, and Cecily! You guys are the best!

Chapter 6:

May 8, 2017:

Nothing.

May 9, 2017:

Nothing.

May 10, 2017:

Nothing.

July 28, 2017:

Nothing.

October 13, 2017:

Nothing.

December 25, 2017:

Nothing.

January 1, 2018:

Nothing.

February 1, 2018:

Nothing.

March 1, 2018:

Nothing.

April 1, 2018:

Nothing.

May 1, 2018:

Nothing.

June 1, 2018:

Nothing.

July 1, 2018:

Nothing.

August 1, 2018:

Nothing.

September 1, 2018:

Nothing.

October 1, 2018:

Nothing.

November 1, 2018:

Nothing.

December 1, 2018:

Nothing.

December 31, 2018:

Nothing.

January 1, 2019:

And Time Froze.

           Will Graham died often. He died often, and nothing happened. People died, and nothing happened. Sometimes, he was commended for his work. Sometimes, he had a desire to put mirror shards in the eyes of his targets.

           He doesn’t, but sometimes he thinks about it.

           He’d told Alana it was a mirror, but it wasn’t, was it? He became, but he could become anything, and was he truly a person when he was constantly becoming something else? He thought of how Hannibal looked at him, hungry. How he’d slid that knife so smooth.

           He’d wanted to confess something about Mason Verger. Will Graham did work outside of the United States.

           Time passed, and nothing happened. Nothing happened because Will Graham was not a thing to retain information, but a thing to mirror the world around him just long enough to pass the power along. Never for himself, never himself, and nothing happened as the time passed. Will Graham wasn’t truly Will Graham. He was a ghost.

           Ghost Agents aren’t people. Will Graham never had feelings for Hannibal.

           Dying this time wasn’t anything special. It was nothing, but he knew it’d stain his ex-lover’s eyes forever, make them cry themselves to sleep. Enough they’d never know he was alive. Enough to know they’d not pry for him.

           Enough to know he’d never again exist to them.

           Despite the smell, sewers were the best of exits. Most of them were scarcely occupied by humans, and it led to avenues of quick getaways. Climbing out of the gutter and sliding out of the stained and wet jacket, he tossed it in the dumpster nearby and rounded the corner, picking up his bug-out bag.

           Standing poised before a bleeding sun and Will’s only escape, Hannibal Lecter’s knife glinted, reflected and nearly blinded Will. He paused for the briefest of moments, his mind reflecting, turning in on itself. He stood slowly and gripped the duffle bag tight, calculating.

           He couldn’t speak. He swallowed, throat tight, and his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth. Nearly two years. Nearly two years, and Hannibal looked good.

           Hannibal had a knife in his hand. Hannibal’s hand cut throats so smooth.

           “You found me,” he said, hoarse.

           “I never lost you,” Hannibal explained calmly. “You simply kept your head down and refused to see.”

           Will held his breath just long enough to make it hurt. He exhaled slow, allowed it to burn.

           “You going to stick me with that?”

           “You were telling the truth the whole time, I think,” Hannibal said. “Bits and pieces, but true. I wondered, long after, if you had to doctor your own wounds most times, and that’s why they were so gruesome in the aftermath.”

           “I’m not going to get into a knife fight with you. I’ll subdue you and move on.”

           “I thought to throw away the hideous canvas, but it was a ship adrift at sea. It seemed somehow fitting for you.”

           “Enough, Hannibal.”

           “It was not enough,” Hannibal interrupted, curt. “It was not so near enough time as I’d have liked, and in truth, Will Graham, I don’t believe it was near enough time for you, either.”

           He tasted Ortolan and brimstone. Will bit at a dry spot on his lip, tore hard enough bleed. His grip on his bag didn’t falter, but his breath did.

           “I thought you a remarkably difficult read until I realized it wasn’t that I couldn’t read you, but that you were never quite yourself to read. I miscalculated your affections, or so I supposed until I saw what it was for you to mirror someone’s affection back onto themselves. Then, I felt rather lucky in realizing I was able to experience a genuine intimacy with you.”

           “You walk a fine line between arrogance and confidence.”

           “You’d claim what you and I shared somehow compared to the watered-down version delivered in the coffee shop to Abigail Hobbs, whose grief and anger towards her father drew her into witness protection after your death? Or your romantic interludes with Nathanial, who could not convince you to come back to bed after you’d sufficiently pleased him?”

           “If I was so unobservant I didn’t notice the third man in the room, I should retire,” said Will. It sounded far droller than he felt.

           “You’re hungry for something, aren’t you?” Hannibal asked, and there it was: that look in his eye, that hungry look that made something inside of Will hungry, too.

           “No,” Will rasped.

           “You once wanted to get to know me,” Hannibal urged, and his voice softened. It wasn’t rough, but hesitant, something smacking of vulnerability, but Will didn’t want to think of that right now. “I had thought you’d maybe like to know me still.”

           He thought about fighting the Great, Red Dragon, how Hannibal had slit his throat so smooth. How his eyes burned, and there was a set to his jaw that hinted at a protective nature, an urge to act because he wouldn’t stand the notion that Will could get hurt again.

           Will stupidly thought of Alana wondering who’d first got in his head and scrambled it all up.

           “We have to go,” he said, and he glanced to his watch.

           “Will –”

           “I’ll…I’ll talk, but we have to go.”

           Hannibal looked likely to resist, but after a brief, taut second, he relaxed. “My car is less likely to be found.”

           It wasn’t a lie. Will gripped his duffle bag tight, then relaxed. He gave a brief nod and gestured for Hannibal to lead the way.

           There was a certain edge to be the one holding the keys to the car. It was a fucking Bentley, and Will allowed himself the luxury of melting into the leather. The last mission had been tiring, in truth.

           There’d been a lot of missions that’d been tiring, if that was something he was willing to admit. Maybe not yet, not at a moment like this.

           His duffle bag rested between his legs. In it held the key to a thousand identities, a thousand opportunities. He wasn’t sure if his mind was turning or reeling. “Tell me about Mason Verger.”

           Hannibal held both hands on the wheel as they peeled through casual suburbs and took stop signs rather than street light intersections. Will saw the care of it, and his fingers fidgeted with the lock button.

           “Mason Verger was a pedophile, and my work colleague shared it with me after a troubling day at set when she broke down crying and couldn’t continue the scene.

           “I…do not have a tolerance for those that think themselves above the repercussions of harming the innocent that are in no place to protect themselves. I thought it important that I convince him of his wrongdoing, therefore I set out the careful planning of our friendship and his inevitable destruction.”

           As orange, dull streetlights striped and skewered his face, it made his grim smile feral. Will liked it. It made him remember Dolarhyde dying. Will was shot, and Hannibal hadn’t hesitated in stabbing Dolarhyde so that Dolarhyde couldn’t stab back.

           The scar was ugly, hidden only by a beard Will painstakingly maintained. It was difficult to blend in with a scar like that. Difficult to do your job when people kept asking questions.

           “It was only one party, but it was enough. We procured drugs from his personal stash, and he didn’t notice that I mixed a potent blend of psychedelics into the powder. He took them without thought, and I’m sure you know the rest.”

           “How the hell did you get a hold of something like that,”

           “I have a friend in the pharmacy business. Big pharma is actually a large problem that the federal government should look into,” he chided lightly.

           “Not my job.”

           “No, but I’d like to know about that,” he replied, and at the next stop sign he grabbed one of Will’s fidgeting hands, letting it rest in the neutral space between them on the armrest.

           “Hannibal—”

           “You said you would talk.”

           He did say he’d talk. Will chewed his bottom lip and nodded in approval at Hannibal’s turn of head towards the interstate. Interstates were safe at night. Safer than people thought, so long as you didn’t drive like an ass and draw attention to yourself.

           He waited for a few miles before he spoke. Hannibal’s patience was fine-tuned and calm, not at all intrusive. He knew Will had no sort of idea where they were going, knew he was at the mercy of Hannibal’s need to know.

           And Will had known that walking towards the car, yet he’d gotten in anyway.

           “What you saw was me using my hyper-empathy disorder in order to so completely ingrain myself into the space of another person that I’m able to aptly anticipate their needs or any potential hazards of them being within my workspace and mission. I was recruited because despite that, it doesn’t hamper my ability to kill someone, should the need arise.”

           Admitting that was easier than admitting to the rest of the job. Other people had scrutinized his psyche before; one more was nothing.

           “You’re good at it.”

           “As are you,” Will countered.

           “When I care about something, Will, I will protect it at all costs. I know what it is to be unable to protect the things that I love, and I promised myself that it would never happen again.”

           There was something in the way that he said ‘love’ that made Will’s breath stutter past his lips.

           “You don’t know me, Hannibal. You can’t suggest you love me.”

           “I know more than others, otherwise you would not be so defensive of it. Instead, you’d be cruel, as you were to the rest of your targets that now think you dead.”

           “You want me to be cruel to you?” Will asked –he didn’t appreciate the sound of it being more incredulous than threatening.

           “No, I’m informing you that if you didn’t want me to follow you, you should have made me think you were dead. You ensured such a thing from every target after me, which leads me to assume you wanted me to find you.”

           Will was still more baffled than angry that Hannibal had found him. Of all the stupid, risky, outlandish things someone had done just to get his attention…

           “That’s not unreasonable, given the evidence,” Will allowed. Begrudgingly.

           “And given how good you are at disappearing, I’d promised myself should I get you in this car, Will Graham, I wasn’t going to let you out of my sight again,” he continued, amiably. “As I said, I want to get to know you. I think I’d be more than pleased with what I find.”

           Will looked at their hands clasped. He thought of the boat adrift at sea, likely still on the wall of that bedroom inside of a house that was dusty and abandoned. He wondered if Jack would comb through that house and find himself standing in front of that canvas. If he did, he would more than likely think of Hannibal asking Will if he wanted it back. He’d ponder it for years after, should they get away with this. Had that been a codeword? Did Will betray the organization, and I was too stupid to see it?

           The bag at his feet held enough futures to last a lifetime of over and over again. Rebirth and death. Rebirth and death.

           Red Dragon had tied Hannibal in a fisherman’s knot. In his spare time, Will quite enjoyed the sport of it. Maybe he’d like to know about that? Maybe they’d find a place in the forest where no prying eyes could see?

           Will smiled. “I’d like to get to know you, too.”

           There was nothing but miles of road behind them. Just ahead lay every possibility.

[farfromsugafanfic]

Sammy Interview

Before we get started, do you mind introducing yourself and telling a bit about yourself? 

My name is Sammy. I’m 34 years old, a college graduate with a background in cultural anthropology as well as women, gender, and sexuality studies. I’m particularly interested in queer and feminist methodologies. I live with my partner of some 15 years, who is also a fanfiction writer.

Q1: So, you told me that you’ve been writing fan fiction for 20+ years which is awesome! How did it all get started and what kind of fan fiction have you written in that time?

A1:  Like a lot of fangirls of my generation, anime was my introduction to fanfiction.  I grew up watching Sailor Moon when it first aired on American network television. It was love at first sight. There was nothing else like it on TV. At my local Blockbuster I discovered anime. It wasn’t as readily available then as it is now. Because the english dubs were so limited I ended up watching the same OVA rentals over and over - Ranma ½, RG Veda, Vampire Princess Miyu. First I wrote stories in my head, then I started writing them down. When I recieved my own computer and constant access to the internet, I went searching for fansites. Secreted behind unassuming links I found small clutches of fanfiction. This was before fanfiction.net first took off, and An Archive of Our Own was well over a decade away. Fansites had webrings, which took me to the next fansite, and so on.  It really was a matter of finding the right webring for a given show and following the thread.

I began with writing Sailor Moon fanfiction, and as Cartoon Network’s late night block of programming (Toonami) expanded, the more I wrote. Gundam Wing fandom introduced me to shipping and it blew my mind.

I moved away from anime when the Harry Potter movies happened. A lot of us made the transition to book and movie based fandoms when someone discovered Harry/Draco. After that I found DC comics, and then became very active in the Star Trek reboot fandom. I’ve written for Stargate: Atlantis, BBC Sherlock and Hannibal and so, so many other shows/books/video games. I’ve been an active participant in Yuletide, which is an anonymous holiday fanfic exchange, and multiple Big Bangs -another fanfic/fanart exchange- as well as a kinkmeme prompt filler for years.

Q2: What pushed you to begin sharing your fan fiction?

A2: The mailing lists. In the early days of fandom private yahoo groups and message boards were the main venue for posting and reading fanfiction. Most mailing lists were fandom based and created for specific content - like Gundam Wing Slash, GundamWingGEN and CRACKSHIP. These became high volume, tight knit communities. It wasn’t unusual to have your mail box refreshing on the left side of the monitor, while you chatted with members on AIM on the right side. There was a lot of encouragement, experimentation, and collaboration. You posted your fanfiction to the list, or board, and people cheered. It was all so exciting.  It’s hard to describe now how close we all were, and just how much fellow-feeling fueled hundreds of emails a day. This was my online family, my community. I didn’t need a push or moment of courage to post my early fanfiction - I was delighted to share, invited to share. It was an electrifying thing to be part of.

Q3: Were you scared to post it online?

A3: Not at all. I didn’t need to be scared - none of us did. No one outside these early lists and boards knew what we were doing. I really can’t emphasize enough how guarded the early fanfiction community was. We were incredibly insulated. Our families didn’t know, our teachers and co-workers were oblivious, popular culture wasn’t shitting on fanfiction writers because it didn’t know we were writing. I wasn’t scared to press ‘send’, but it did feel dangerous, a little rebellious. There was a sense of getting away with something.

Q4: Has writing fan fiction taught you anything? About writing? Reading? Something else?

A4: On a basic level, fanfiction taught me how to write. Structure, pace, dialogue - I was taught those things in a classroom, but I learned them by writing fanfiction. We all taught ourselves to write by writing for each other. We created an entire literary movement without an MA in literature, or a structured pedagogy. Fanfiction writers generated new narrative traditions, like the Five Things + 1 format (a breakaway from the three-act story), Hurt/Comfort, and a language of tagging that defies classical genre rules - all because we were messing around.

Writing fanfiction has taught me the value of questioning western literary rules and conventions, that writing for myself and my own pleasure is valid.  It’s also taught me that I don’t like to write alone. One of the things that makes fanfiction so special for me is that so much of it happens in conversation with other writers and readers. My best writing experiences have been in simpatico with total strangers, on AIM, in livejournal comment threads, gchat.  I’m not writing “original fiction” because I lack imagination; it’s just too lonely.

Q5: Do you ever want to be published in a professional capacity one day?

A5: I do, though I feel like this is a bit of a fraught subject for fanfiction writers.  There’s an compulsion to say yes, of course I plan to publish one day, as if that end goal legitimates the fanfiction I write. I don’t want to contribute to the idea of fanfiction as a lesser form of literature- a stepping stone to Real Writing - but yes. I started writing creative nonfiction in community college.  That writing comes from a very different place than fanfiction. It satisfies another hunger.

Q6: How you feel about the stigma surrounding fan fiction and fan fiction writers? Or, do you not feel any stigma at all?

A6: I think the stigma towards fanfiction is pushback from multiple sociological and institutional sources.

In the beginning we had the sense that fanfiction - slash fanfiction - wasn’t something to bring up outside of those digital spaces we made for ourselves. We knew it would be considered an auteur kink at best, or downright perverted plagiarism at worst (I think this is largely still the case). Before the community found the language to discuss slash and fanfiction as transformative works - as deconstructions of conventional media, gender roles, and sexuality - there was an ethos of compartmentalization to the whole thing.

Q7: Do you think that stigma is warranted? (Whether or not you have personally experience it?)

A7: No.

I touched on this earlier, but I believe the stigma and hostility towards fanfiction is firmly rooted in gender and non-normative sexuality. The writing we do is generally characterized as a feminine endeavour, which immediately marks it as inferior to a literary canon that values the masculine so highly. The perception that fanfiction is a plagiarism of male authored source material makes it all the more egregious.

Equally as foundational, is the reduction of fanfiction to gay porn written by straight cis women for straight cis women - fanfiction is not only shit writing, it’s perverted and weird.

I’ve never been ashamed of the fanfiction I write, or read. Embarrassed maybe, of those first earnest attempts at writing. But fanfiction does not have a monopoly on bad writing. I can just as easily find the same trash in Barnes & Noble. So, quality is not and never has been a valid criticism.

Q8: What’s your favorite piece of fan fiction you’ve ever written? Why?

A8: A gen fic I wrote for Star Trek (AOS). I’m a leisurely writer, and stories don’t just hit me whole and complete in one go. But this one did. It took three hours to write and I didn’t have to think about where I was going after finishing a paragraph, the next was already there, I just had to type it out. It’s never come that easy before or since. It’s not my most popular piece of fanfiction, but I can go back and read it and not feel like I need to change anything.

Q10: Do you write outside of fan fiction?

A10: I do - until recently I was writing up lesson plans for classes I was co-facilitating. Generally, when I’m not writing fanfiction I’m working on creative non-fiction. I use the frame of gender analysis and sexuality studies (among others) to write about my life.

Q11: What site do you prefer to write and post your fan fiction on?

A11: An Archive of Our Own (AO3). The tagging system is superior and the site is far more user friendly than ff.net, which is an absolute dumpster fire.  

Q12: What’s something you want people outside the fan fiction community to know about the fan fiction community?

We’re not a monolith. Teenage girls are the cultural face of fanfiction, but so many of us are in our 30s and 40s, old fandom queens from those first private mailing lists, boards, and LiveJournal accounts. We have soul sucking jobs. We have degrees in STEM. We teach college, have kids and debt, and friendships that have lasted decades.. We are not, and never have been a homogenous group of straight cis women. Asexuality and gender fluidity abounds. Plenty of us experience disability and chronic illness.  And we aren’t a small group of weirdos obsessed with Johnlock. We’re an enormous and diverse group of weirdos who have created a literary movement.

[redfivewritingby]

Projects in Progress: 5/5/2017

Ooof, I haven’t done one of these in awhile.  Although, looking over this list, I realize I was more productive than I thought I was, so that’s good, because April was something of a dumpster fire at times. 

NEW SINCE LAST UPDATE

Maneater, Chp 7 - Anchors Aweigh, My Boys, Anchors Aweigh!: Out on the open water, a new dynamic emerges between Hannibal and Will as the hunt for the killer shark begins.

Maneater, Chp 8 - Oh Brother, Where Art Thou: Back at port, a meeting with Captain Quint turns violent, and Will isn't the only one in trouble. This fishing trip is having an interesting effect on Will and Hannibal better start watching his own back. 

Maneater, Chp 9 - Brody: Will and Police Chief Brody have a heart-to-heart, and Will learns that small town politics can be as dangerous as shark infested waters.

Maneater, Chp 10 - Georgia On My Mind: It's been one week since their arrival, and Will and Hannibal have nothing to show for their efforts. Well, maybe not NOTHING. Will and Hannibal have certainly become a lot closer.

Maneater, Chp 11 - Predators: As the hunt drags on, Hannibal's person suit begins to fray at the seams. 

HANNIBAL

Maneater: Jaws/Hannigram AU  multi: currently writing chapter 1: read now chapter 2: read now chapter 3: read now chapter 4: read now chapter 5: read now chapter 6: read now chapter 7: read now chapter 8: read now chapter 9: read now chapter 10: read now chapter 11: final pass chapter 12: final pass chapter 13: final pass chapter 14: final pass chapter 15: third pass chapter 16: second pass chapter 17: writing chapters 18-21: outlining

Remember The Ravenstags: Becoming - Hannigram Football AU multi: currently writing chapter 1: first pass chapter 2: first pass chapter 3: first pass chapter 4: first pass chapter 5: first pass chapter 6: writing chapter 7: outlining chapter 8: outlining chapter 9: outlining chapter 10: outlining

Some Other Worlds Are Even Less Kind: Part 2 - WoT/Hannigram AU pre-writing/research: reading The Great Hunt part 1: read now  (No prior knowledge of the Wheel of Time necessary.)

IN THE MEAT LOCKER: (On hiatus to be returned to, maybe, one day, hopefully. Curious about any of these? Drop me an ask and I’ll post something from the WiP. Who knows, maybe it’ll encourage me to go back to one of them sooner rather than later.)

Rowan: AU inspired by the Irish folk legend “The Adventures of Nera”, Ace Will The Firebird: the fluff filled aftermath to the smut filled  “Always Loved a Man in Uniform.” Closing Costs: Will and Hannibal go apartment hunting post-Fall. Will is a grumpy butthead. If You Could See Him Now: Carry On fanfic from Fiona’s perspective  Part 3 of Nothing Sweeter: aka that thing where Will and Hannibal get drunk on Frose and hilarity ensues Kittens and Things: Hannibal brings home a kitten for Will. Sex in a hammock occurs. Untitled sequel to Lost and Found: a series alternate season one moments--first dinner at Hannibal’s house Kentucky Downs: Brady/Welker/Edelman drama Farmtruck: a hannigram street racing story Remember the Ravenstags: A Game of Inches: Hannigram Super Bowl AU two parter: currently writing part 1: read now part 2: currently writing ripping my hair out

Current Published Word Count for 2017: 48,976 Goal: 150k for 2017

Read more on A03.