e

Oh, this is a fun one!

( Noncon )

( Hurt/comfort )

( Sad robots/werewolves/otherwise not-quite-humans )

( Mutual pining )

( Good consent )

( Found family, but like, literally )

( Online relationships )

At first I thought I had only one site I wanted to rec for this, but actually I guess I have three!

• Screencapped.net is a great repository of movie and TV stills. Most of their caps are in downloadable zip files you have to make an account to access, but in my experience, they're absolutely worth the trouble!
• The IMFDB, or Internet Movie Firearms Database, is a fantastic resource for anyone writing a character who uses firearms on the big or small screen. They break down every weapon every character is seen using, with visual evidence, and honestly, I'm in awe.
• And I've only recently found this one myself, but The Tool-Kit by Emma Darwin is a collection of writing-related blog posts on a fascinating array of subjects, from narrative proximity to your characters to figuring out what to gloss over. As with any advice, take what works and leave what doesn't, but I'm finding it really interesting to explore!

It turns out that going a week without adequate sleep really makes it hard for me to keep up with this challenge, go figure! But I think I'm finally starting to catch up again, so here goes.

I had to think a lot about what canon or canons I wanted to rec for this challenge. There are so many shows I love! amovingtarget even suggested that I could use this post to rec a canon I haven't seen yet to myself, and for that I know exactly what I'd pick: The Great British Bake Off, which from everything I hear is really sweet and soothing and something I definitely need to try.

But finally I realized what I need to rec here, and it's the romance novels of Courtney Milan!

She's someone whose books I'd seen recced for ages, and I even wanted to give them a try once I saw someone talking about the one with a shy black mathematician being wooed by an Irish pro-suffragette satire columnist, but although there have been romance novels that I've admired and enjoyed, it's never been my genre as much as science fiction and fantasy and fanfic all are, so I guess it was easy to leave her work on my to be read list.

Then one day I learned that Courtney Milan is the pen name of Heidi Bond, whose witty and insightful blog I'd followed wayyy back in the day when she was a law student. And once I knew that, I absolutely had to try her work -- more than ten years after her blog's deletion, I still remembered it fondly, so obviously I had to read her published writing! And luckily enough for me, the prequel novella to her Brothers Sinister series was (and is) available as a free sample, so I was quickly able to discover that her published fiction is really, really good.

Mind you, she isn't an entirely traditional romance author. As she says about her decision to self-publish in her FAQ:

In case you’re wondering, the push I was getting from my traditional publishers was that the books I was writing for them were already too quirky.

So do I think I would have been able to write the Brothers Sinister as I did? No, hell no. What would have changed?

Everything. I mean, completely everything. The notes on everything would have come back as “NEEDS MOAR JERK.”

So if she doesn't write alpha assholes, what does she write?

So many fantastic things! She writes about men who are virgins and unmarried women of breeding who aren't; about peers and the sons of coal miners; about scientists and journalists and activists in spades -- and this is just in her Victorian era Brothers Sinister series, which is about not a family of sinister reputation, but just about a handful of nerds who think it's funny that they're all left-handed. She writes about bad sex and great sex; about contraception and past sexual assault; about blood family, and found family, and the times when the two overlap. She also writes fantastic secondary romances I sometimes love even more than the primary ones -- and one of them is sapphic!

I think my personal avorite of the Brothers Sinister series is number three, The Countess Conspiracy, but all of them have characters and moments I love. And so far I've only read one of the four series her website lists -- I think next I need to try the Cyclone Series, which is contemporary and looks super intriguing.

So yeah -- if you're into het romance that's refreshingly low on toxic masculinity, consider giving Courtney Milan's writing a look!

I think what I'd most like to recognize about myself here is how good I am at getting excited about things. That might sound silly! But I really like hearing about things that people are working on, and I also really like exploring new ideas, and I think that makes me pretty good at cheerleading, or bouncing ideas around with, or just talking forever about random AUs for the fun of it.

I'm not the person you'd want to go to if you needed someone to really push you hard to meet your goals, but I am someone who will be here for you 100% along the way and cheer for every bit of progress -- and the times you take a much needed rest! -- as well as for making it across the finish line. And I'm not the most likely to tell you that I think you're flat out wrong (unless it's about something I have strong moral feelings about), but I will absolutely explore every side of the issue with you for as long as you're interested. And I'll enjoy doing it! And that's something I really like about myself.

Thinking about this a little more, maybe isn't surprising that a lot of what I'm happiest and most proud about isn't the fic I've written or the fanart I've drawn, but just the conversations I've had about different aspects of a character's personality, or what they'd be like if they had magic, or what might happen if they ended up with a sentient roomba. There's something about tossing ideas back and forth like that that's really rewarding.

I'm not usually much for setting explicit goals, a fact which I think causes some sorrow to my more organized friends and family members. But there are a few things I'm hoping to work towards this year!

( Chocolate Box )

( Driving lessons o_o )

( Cleaning up )

( More and better connection )

( Moar muscles, moar Strong )

And you know, this entry actually felt a lot better to write than I was expecting, so points to snowflake_challenge once again. ♥

Snowflake Challenge January 1 - 31

For the second challenge of the month, have over a thousand words of ramble about my meandering course through fandom!

( many fandoms, several kinks )

Ultimately, I seem to be tragically monofannish by temperament, and at the moment, I'm between great fannish obsessions. There are plenty of books and shows I enjoy, and I can enjoy fanfic about them, not to mention fanfic for things I've never seen; but there isn't anything right now that quite fills the place that Person of Interest or White Collar or Harry Potter did.

But that's okay. I'm still having lots of fun in fandom -- and you never know what could be right around the corner!