Dragoness Eclectic's Journal

Seriously. Any discussion of HP characters that involves Snape gets people piling on saying he's irredeemable, he's evil, no one would like him, any sympathetic depictions of him are OOC, and so on. People can write Bellatrix Lestrange adopting Hermione Granger, and that's fine. People write Voldemort mentoring Harry, and that's fine. But writing Severitus or other fics where Snape has reason to rethink his stupid grudge is somehow just wrong and OOC. Did you read the same books I did? I saw a tragic character that danced on the knife edge of overcoming his old grudge and feeling sympathy for Harry Potter--but ultimately made the tragic choice to hang onto his grudge. He could easily have gone the other way, and a fanfic AU where he did is quite plausible.

This is all very weird to me, because I come from fandoms where the biggest villains are also the most popular ships and characters to write interesting stories about. Villains who make Voldemort look like That Guy at the office who steals from the fridge--villains who commit mass genocide, and who have never repented of their deeds or goals. (Though they may have stopped committing genocide.) People who think Drarry is disgusting because you think Draco (a teenager under duress) is an irredeemable villain who should be in a human-rights-violating prison for life... have you heard of the Hannibal fandom?

Apparently I got so excited about Yuletide that I completely forgot to mention a couple of other works I posted to AO3, both featuring that enigmatic Lovecraftian diety, Nyarlathotep.

The Joker Problem

Someone is very tired of the Joker's perpetual escapes from Arkham. So is Commissioner Gordon, so he's more than willing to listen to the mysterious consultant who turns up in his office.

The Ha'tak

"I’m Colonel Jack O’Neill, by the way.” He held out one hand to shake. “United States Air Force.”
A peculiar smile crossed the dark man’s face; he clasped O’Neill’s hand and shook it. “Nyarlathotep, the Herald and Mind of the Outer Gods."

- OR -

False gods should not blow up a real god's house. The god might take offense.

It's been 20 years since I first wrote and posted my epic DBZ novel "Mythic Descent" to Fanfiction.net and my own website. (It's also on AO3 now). Hard to believe it's been that long.

I've been on a binge of reading mostly excellent and sometimes quirky fanfiction of Tolkien's Legendarium (a fancy way of saying Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, The Silmarillion and all the unfinished stuff collected in HoME, Unfinished Tales, and the three compilations Christopher Tolkien has put out lately.

Something I've observed on AO3 is that fanfic writers are making heavy use of the "Series" feature. Where on old Fanfiction.net people would have just posted new, loosely-linked chapters to a perpetually unfinished novel-length work, now I see people posting short stories that are connected as members of a series. It's probably a better fit. If we had had that feature back in the day, you can bet meme fic collections like "29 Dead Ends" would have been a series, not a chaptered fic.

And What Happened After by thearrogantemu

My absolute favorite--it's what happens to the Ringbearers in Valinor after the end of Return of the King. Not to mention what happens to a number of infamous elves you may know from the Silmarillion when there's sensible hobbits around. All of her Tolkien fanfiction are beautiful works I cannot recommend enough.

Return to Aman by bunn

This series is primarily about Maglor and Elrond, but it does touch on our favorite hobbits in Valinor. And Feänorian politics. The rest of her stories are also good.


clearer than clear water by martial_quill.

"Maglor is Tom Bombadil" series. Not actually crack-fic; the author builds up the concept very plausibly. Oh, and Goldberry is a half-maia like Luthien. Of course she is--she is the River-daughter. Literally. Like Fialleril with the Tatooine slave culture world-building, martial_quill does a lot of world-building, giving us interesting glimpses of an particular Nenyar (Avari) tribe's culture. Also a rare look at the early Second Age among the elves.

Sansûkh by determamfidd

All about the dwarves, living and dead. Draws heavily on the Hobbit movies for characters and some events, but is much better than the movies. determamfidd does some wonderful detailing and world-building with dwarven culture, an area Tolkien sadly neglected. Some very amusing Legolas/Gimli stuff, too. Still not quite finished, but mostly finished.

And last, but far from least, but totally not Tolkien at all:

The Double Agent Vader series by Fialleril.

A really awesome, beautiful and powerful Star Wars AU where Darth Vader turned double agent for the Rebellion a few years after RotS. Fialleril reminds us that slavery is practiced extensively on Tatooine, and goes deep into the culture of the desert peoples and slaves.

Posting stuff on FF.net is pretty easy--pick a rating, and a coherent enough description that people know what the story is about, and maybe list the characters for shipping fans.

Re-posting stuff on AO3, I find myself not only doing the mandatory tags and rating thing, but considering the optional tags.

....and "In Past Regrets" has acquired more nasty tags than anything short of "Hannibal" fanfic, I suspect. I knew that story was brutal, and only for mature readers, but... yeah. Genocidal Saiyajin mixing it up with Gloranthan Chaos cultists, writing both as evil as they are meant to be, is some serious ugly.

It's still one of my best stories. But damn, it's scary just to look at the tags on that sucker.

Just as a change of pace, here's a short Transformers:Prime vignette.

Reconstruction: Decision at my site.
FF.Net version.

[TF:Prime] The war is over, but one leader still functions. What now? (spoilers for "Predacons Rising")


...and I can't believe that I didn't post View From the Top to FF.net until now. That fic has actually been up on my site for quite some time now, and I just noticed that it never got uploaded to FF.net. Oops.

I know it's been a long time, but: new story!

Wendigo's Bane on FF.net
Wendigo's Bane on my site.

[G1, really late S3] Starscream finally takes his revenge on the thing that stole Skyfire from him and ruined his life so long ago--but the price may be too high. Sequel to "Revelations".

Further note, the E-Book "Tales of Starscream" has been updated to include this new story.

Merry Christmas and Enjoy!

[G1, really late S3] Ever since he got his body back from Unicron, Starscream has been deep in denial about one little problem-but he can't deny the obvious much longer. Skyfire, too, has been in denial-and Starscream has information on that crash in the Arctic ice so long ago. It's too late to change the past, but not too late for revenge.

FF.net, for commenting: Revelations

My site, for correct formatting: Revelations

New Starscream story up on my site and FF.net. There's some Blitzwing and Skyfire too, but mostly Starscream.

FF.net is bound and determined to screw up my formatting, so for reading purposes, I recommend the link to my site: Justice is Served.

For commenting purposes, FF.net:

Justice is Served

G1 S3 AU. Galvatron created the Decepticon Justice Division and sent them after Decepticon traitors, mutineers and deserters. The DJD is hot on the trail of their number one target: Starscream--but who is hunting whom?

Back from vacation. Pictures to come later when I have the ambition. However, got a few things done lately.

- cleared out mother's hat collection from master bedroom closet (okay, passed it to the daughter to see if she wants any vintage hats.)
- over vacation, finished a Skyfire fic, "Port Call". No, it's not up yet.
- over vacation, turned my DBZ and Transformers fics into collections of eBooks. Got permission from the artists to use certain pieces of fanart as covers, inspirational pieces, etc. If you want to read my fanfics on your Kindle or Nook or whatever, I have EPUB, MOBI, and zipped-up HTML packs available at http://www.republicofnewhome.org/lair/writing/ebooks.php
- as a bonus, eBook readers of "28 Dead Ends" get a preview of an unfinished 28, "On Vacation".