Writing is Hard

if you put potatoes in your medieval european style fantasy world people will by and large not find it jarring and accept it as a normal fantasy trope

if you put, say, black people in your medieval european style fantasy world a whole demographic of people will get very angry and accuse you of breaking their immersion

Choke. Just think about it, seriously. Think about what choking is and imagine speaking while it’s happening. That would fuckin’ hurt, man.

Hiss. Look, it’s just not possible, okay? No matter how “evil” you want your character to seem.

Snarl. Animals snarls. The Beast from Beauty and the Beast snarls. The Hulk snarls. You know who doesn’t snarl? PEOPLE WHEN THEY’RE SPEAKING.

Shriek. Come on, 99% of the time, “shriek” is not the word you want.Let’s face it: if you put an exclamation point at the end of the sentence, your reader gets the picture. Don’t bring to mind banshees and screaming toddlers.

Hiss is a low, threatening whisper. Raw, guttural, vicious. It is NOT a literal hiss like an animal, it is a tone of voice that serves the same function. Someone will hiss that they’re going to cut your throat- a message from one person to the other.

Snarl is the same kind of thing. Not literal, it’s a tone of voice that serves the same function. It’s raw and gutteral like a hiss, but more savage than vicious. It’s loud, it’s showy, it’s intimidating. It’s very alpha male, big man, look at how fucking dangerous I am. I’ll take ALL of you on. Even if they’re snarling at one person in particular, nobody better back them up or they’re gonna get fucked up too.

Shriek. Come on, seriously? We’ve all heard people shriek either in fear or outrage. High pitched, loud, out of control, feminine. Men can shriek, but it’s funny and emasculating. Think angry italian women throwing pots and pans or ladies on tables who just saw a mouse.

“Fuck,” he breathes, and his thigh shakes.

Ilya looks down at Shane looking up at him, staring with dark glassy eyes. The corners of his puffy pink lips quirk up from where they’re wrapped around the head of Ilya’s cock.  He pulls off and nudges him with his nose, content and unhurried while Ilya squirms before him.

“Shane,” Ilya says, half-request and half-warning, and Shane grins at him before he takes him in his mouth again.  He’s soft lips and light, unhurried lapping, and Ilya wants to just grab his face and fuck it.  He weaves one hand down into Shane’s hair instead, and braces the other on the headboard.  His hips buck up on their own a little anyway, and he bumps against the back of Shane’s throat.  Shane moans, and he absorbs the vibration.  

“Shane,” he repeats with more urgency, and Shane pulls off with his shiny, sinful smile again.  Ilya huffs, and it sounds like he's whining. 

“You wanna come?” Shane asks, and No I want to throw you over the back of the bed and fuck you, make you feel as ruined wrecked obliterated as you’re making me.  I want to hear you keening like a starving, desperate animal.  Then I want to come.

“Yes,” he grits, instead of all that.  And still, Shane takes his time, rubs Ilya’s twitching, spit-slick cock against his cheek, until Ilya grunts and pleads, “For fuck’s sake, Shane.”

And finally, finally Shane gives it to him, gives him pressure and suction and fast wet heat.  He comes groaning with Shane’s nose buried in his curly hair, so hard he still sees stars when he opens his eyes again.  

Shane cleans his mouth with the back of his hand, and comes up to lay beside Ilya, flushed and smirking with self-satisfaction.  Ilya can’t wait to wipe it off his face.  He’ll make it torture, endless, agony and bliss.  Just as soon as he can feel his legs again.

--

I had a big fanfic in a previous fandom where one of the big reveals was the involvement of a kind of infamous villain, whose presence was built up to and foreshadowed through the whole fic until his reveal without ever mentioning his name, so that the name drop would be a gut punch. It worked especially well because of who the villain was and his presence in that fandom space specifically (it's very complicated) and if it was an original story this reveal wouldn't work at all the way it was written in the fic. Because if you don't have a predisposition to think about that character and his relationship to the hero in a very specific way, then just seeing their name won't do much to you; the reveal and the recontextualisation it pushes upon you hinges on your previous knowledge of the source material.

I think it's an interesting tool fanfic authors are given. One of my favorite fanfic of all time is partially a re-imagining of its source material's canon, and something it does is introduce antagonists much earlier in the story or deepen npcs' stories. It then works to evoke a tragic irony that again wouldn't work if you didn't know the source material, and it's something the author obviously has a lot of fun with.

Before I started writing in earnest, I did not understand how much writing was going to eat into my fic reading time. We joke about having too many tabs open, but I have a different problem: the amount of tabs I have open on new fics is way smaller than it used to be. My ao3 wrapped would be a sad affair. Unless I’ve subscribed to an author or come across something on my dash, I basically don’t see it

Which has really driven home for me how much fandom cannot just be creators. You have to have people who want to read fic and meta discussions and joke posts. You have to have people who want to look at art and gifs. It has to be mutual.

Community thrives on flow. You have to have that movement of people sharing things with each other for a community to exist