#kreweofimp

bdsm roommates probably belongs in my abandoned folder as it was kind of “take 1″ before i wrote a delight for the soul, but in an infinite universe, i might write anything! 

“I’m a little confused. You’re a dom.” Cas squints. “Aren’t you?” 

This startles a laugh out of Dean. “Uh, no. Definitely not.”

Cas looks away like he’s gathering memories. “I’m suddenly realizing that all the reasons I thought you’re a dom are extremely stupid.” 

“Yeah, I bet,” Dean says, trying to hold down a smile. 

“Can we…?” Cas gestures vaguely towards the living ro

om, and Dean follows him out. They sit at opposite ends of the couch, as far away as possible. Dean hates it. 

“Now that you know I’m not a dom,” Dean says, “you plan on movin’ out?” 

“Of course not. Charlie’s lecture when I first moved in now makes a lot more sense now, though.” Cas drums his fingers on his thigh, a nervous habit that doesn’t come out very often with Dean. “But while we’re getting assumptions out of the way — no, I’m not straight.” 

and the a/b/o cnc is, you know, what it says on the tag! alpha dean and omega cas, just a lil pwp thing

Cas only likes this when he’s in heat. 

When they mated, Dean offered to wear Cas’s bite, on his neck where no one will miss that he belongs to an omega. Cas’s bite isn’t even front-and-center like Dean’s, but at the juncture of his shoulder where a shirt collar can easily cover it. 

But when he’s in heat — 

Dean’s waiting just outside the bathroom door when Cas finishes his shower. Cas startles backwards — he didn’t even know Dean was here.

Dean grabs him by the elbow and jerks him into the bedroom. The towel drops from Cas’s hand and he struggles, but not enough that Dean can’t overpower him. 

“What’s wrong, little omega?” Dean says. “Were you expecting your mate?”

OMG IM CRYING I LOVE YOU BOTH SO MUCH. (I have your wedding invitation hanging on my pin board right next to a print of punk!Cas btw. I hope I can make it out!) 

9 questions with kreweofimp

This week: @kreweofimp talks about getting into The Zone; finding community, and the importance of having a beta reader who does more than just check your grammar.

ASS: What do you most enjoy about writing fanfiction?

kreweofimp: There’s not a lot I don’t love about writing fanfic, but if I had to pick my favorite things, I’d narrow it down to two. The first is that I love The Zone. It’s a place where the rest of the world ceases to exist, it’s just me and the story. I tend to write in third person limited point of view, and when I’m in that zone I’m deep in my narrator’s head, processing what’s happening in the story as them. Usually this is Dean, I tend to write most commonly from his point of view, and I’ve always found it particularly easy to slip into his head. I’m very comfortable there, and getting deep into that zone feels like coming home.

The other thing I love most about writing fanfic is the connections. When I first came into the fandom, I had only a few friends who I could talk about my passion for SPN with. Fandom is still often looked down upon by larger society (particularly fandoms that are dominated by non-men), so it’s not necessarily something that’s easy to really share with non-fandom people.

I think I had a bit of an atypical fanfic writer experience, in that my first major work got a lot of attention almost immediately, so right off the bat I started having interactions with multiple readers, first through the comments on my works, and then later through Tumblr as well. Now I count a small group of fellow fanfic writers among my closest friends, I’ve spent time with all of them in “real life,” and I found the woman I plan to spend the rest of my life with (shout out to @shennanigoats!), an incredible fanfic writer herself, through my writing. And that’s after less than a year and a half of writing.

What aspects of writing do you find difficult when you write fanfiction?

There are times when I don’t feel like I’m quite in that Zone, and then I do a lot of second-guessing of what I’ve written. I can often still get a fair amount written in those circumstances, but I don’t generally feel good about it while I’m writing it or immediately after the fact.  I sort of expect my headspace to transfer to the fic, and that what I’ve written will read as generic or bland or just not quite right. Often if I come back to it hours or a day or two later and reread it, I feel a lot better about what I’ve written and it turns out that it fits in just fine with the rest, but I don’t really enjoy writing when I’m in that space.

Have you ever received hateful comments on your fic and how do you deal with it?

I’ve been very lucky in that the overwhelming majority of interactions with readers have been incredibly positive. Two exceptions come immediately to mind. One involves a reader on one of my current WIPs. Down to Size involves a relationship dynamic that is very much Not For Everyone. Dean and Cas are in a domestic discipline relationship, and I’ve been extremely open and clear in my author’s notes that many people may find it objectionable, and that everyone should avoid the things that make them uncomfortable.  

Despite that, I had one particular commenter who became incredibly antagonistic in comments, characterizing the relationship in a way that I found offensive (and that both Dean and Cas, in their in-fic personas, would’ve been even more offended by). I was lucky enough to have other readers and writers join me in engaging with the reader as I first tried to help them understand the relationship more fully, and then (when it became clear that they were not interacting in good faith), supported me in telling this person that they were no longer welcome to read and/or comment on my work.

In general, other commenters, even those that have questions or don’t feel great about something that happens in any given fic, are respectful and interested in honest dialogue. I will always be happy to engage with any reader who comes to me in good faith!

Conversely: what’s been some of your favorite feedback on your fanfic?

I can think of three things in particular that I’ll never forget. One reader on Snowbound discovered via the fic that Queer Studies was a class (and sometimes a major!) that existed, and told me they wanted to change their course of study to it. I’m still floored by the idea that I might have helped shape someone else’s larger life path.

Again in Snowbound, there was a particularly absurd scene in which Dean muses that he’s lucky he didn’t shout out something really silly during a scene, rather than an appropriate response to Cas. A reader was particularly tickled by this, and informed me later that they’d broken out the ridiculous thing Dean didn’t shout during an actual encounter with their significant other. The mental picture of a real person hollering “Teapot! Kindling!” during sex never ceases to make me laugh.

And finally, also while writing Snowbound, a commenter told me that they were bookmarking the work to show to their significant other as an example of a healthy BDSM relationship with good communication. I love thinking that my work might have helped someone move their relationship in a direction that’s both healthy and more fulfilling for them.

Looking back at these, it occurs to me that the feedback I love most is when I hear from readers that something I’ve written has had a larger impact on them and the way they live their life out in the real world.  It’s incredibly humbling.

How do you handle writer’s block?

This is a complex question, but the short answer is...not well. I’m still learning to navigate these waters. Early on, I was writing effortlessly at an absurdly fast rate, but over the past six months that’s really not been the case. I’ve had to work a lot harder to make writing happen, and I’m still trying to find a groove in which I really buckle down and make myself try, rather than just waiting for the urge to strike. Unfortunately, this means that my readers have had to do an awful lot of waiting on my WIPs, and I’m so grateful for the patience and support they’ve displayed.

Which Supernatural fanfic of yours are you most proud of and why?

This is a big question!  It also has multiple answers, because I’m proud of different fics for different reasons.

I’m proud of Cumulonimbus, as the very first thing I ever wrote and something that I think withstands the test of time and much more experience on my part.  I feel as good about its quality as I did the day I wrote it.

I’m proud of another short fic, Like Catnip, because I did something brand new in it--I borrowed someone else’s universe (with permission) and wrote inside it as a gift to them.  It takes place in the same verse in which the magnificent @relucant ’s Ready Check happens, and I feel like I did a great job of keeping the characterization stable with what she’d established and the tone of the fic compatible with hers.

I’m proud of (and still kind of horrified by) Half the Naked Distance, because writing it stepped so far outside of anything I had written to date, and it involved immersing myself in such a dark place. I’m proud of the power of the work and the fact that I dealt with incredibly difficult subject matter in what I believe is a respectful way.

I’m proud of Five Days in May, which was a collaboration with @shennanigoats AKA Dangerousnotbroken on AO3 for last year’s DCBB, and which we wrote so seamlessly that even the people most familiar with both of our work can’t tell who wrote what.  I’m proud of that story, and the writing process, and I’m grateful to it for being the catalyst that really cemented my relationship with the woman I love.

And finally, I will always be so proud of my behemoth, my Magnum Opus, Snowbound.  It was supposed to be a 20-30K PWP but (as so many things do), it got away from me.  It was written in three months and wrapped up at 255K of feels, fluff, smut, kink, a whole lot of ridiculous humor, and just enough angst.  It was a labor of love and it got me through an incredibly difficult time.  I will always, always be so proud of it and so grateful to it for what I gained in the writing of it.

What/who has had the biggest influence on your writing?

This is a question I have a hard time answering.  I’ve read so much fanfic that I’m absolutely certain there are dozens of authors who have shaped my work, but it hasn’t been a conscious process in large part, so it’s hard for me to easily identify who has had what kind of impact.

I think maybe if I had to tap an aspect of my work I am proudest of, it would be the humor in it. Humor is incredibly important to me, and my own sense of humor is, I think, one of my finest qualities and certainly one of my most effective coping mechanisms. Integrating that into my work has been a goal and a pleasure, and in that vein some of the funniest writers out there have been some of my idols. The ones that come instantly to mind are rageprufrock, violue, Bellarisa, NorthernSparrow, and the already much-mentioned shennanigoats/Dangerousnotbroken.

What are you currently working on?

I have two WIPs at the moment, both very different from each other. Down to Size is an absolutely ridiculous, cracky (but still sometimes very feelsy and intense) work born of a really silly idea and a one-sentence prompt. No Haven in this World is a sequel to Half the Naked Distance, and it is incredibly dark and painful, dealing with difficult themes and an incredibly rocky road toward healing.

I also have a couple timestamps to Snowbound that have been half written for a really long time and are waiting for inspiration to strike and help me figure out how to wrap them up.  

And as always, I’m batting around a dozen or more new ideas I’d love to tackle, when I finally wrap up my WIPs.  My co-author on Five Days in May and I also have another collaboration already all charted out and just waiting for us to start writing it.

If you could give one piece of advice to a new and/or struggling writer, what would it be?

As usual, I’m ignoring the directions because I have too much to say. I’ve actually got two pieces of advice. The first is, don’t worry about what you think is going to have mass appeal. Write what speaks to you, write what you’re passionate about, write what gives you joy (or in some cases, what demands to be written). And as much as possible, try not to get too hung up on hits or kudos or bookmarks. Some of the finest writing I’ve found is hidden away in obscure corners of AO3. Some of the things I enjoy most are almost completely unknown in larger fandom circles. Maybe your stuff will get big and maybe it won’t, but the number of hits or kudos on it will never change the actual words you’ve written. Try to find your validation in knowing that you’ve created something that you can be proud of, whether it has 100 or 1000 or 10,000 hits.

And my second piece of advice is this: a quality beta reader is your best friend. A beta user for software is intended to discover and alert the programmers to the bugs.  You need a beta reader who can do that, not just one who gives it a read and says “looks good.” Honestly, what I’m telling you to find isn’t just a beta reader, it’s an editor. Find someone who will tear your work to shreds, who will leave it so covered in red pen it looks like a massacre, who can turn it into something a hundred times better than what it started out as, while keeping it something that is unmistakably yours. And then take a step back, breathe, and don’t get defensive.  Behind every great writer is an even better editor, and it takes eyes other than your own to see the things you’re too close to see. Criticism is hard, corrections are hard, but probably the thing that’s most shaped my writing, not just of fanfic but in general, is that I’ve had incredible editors all the way along, starting from my mother when I was writing third grade essays.

And with that in mind, I need to give a shout out to @phaelsafe , @shennanigoats, @deadmockingbirds1 , and @majesticduxk , without whom my work would not look nearly as good as it does.

No new SPN until March 30!

See what happened, and what I just told @pod7et, was that I was just so excited that I was on spring break and could enjoy Supernatural and my wine and not have to wake up in the morning to go to a math class, that I paid absolutely no attention to the schedule that crossed my dash at least 5 times. 

Seriously. See where excitement gets you? 

And as always you can find my (very slow moving) work on AO3: KreweOfImp (no, nothing is abandoned. Just...very slow moving)

And you can catch me at [email protected]

Signal boost pls

awww I love you both so effing much my whole brain could burst, honestly. And it would be a good way to die. I”M SO HAPPY YOU’RE BOTH OCCUPYING THE SAME ROOM OMGGGGGGGGGGGGGG WHY AM I NOT THERE TOO???