Listener's Supplemental Fanfic Blog
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“Nothing in Common”
Almost a decade ago, I styled myself as the wizard rock “band” Muggle Studies. I wrote four songs, recorded three, and that was about the end of it. I’m a decent guitarist, but my singing voice is pretty terrible. The strength really is in the writing.
This is the one un-recorded song, “Nothing in Common”. I don’t even remember how the music goes, but since the song doesn’t really rhyme, I think it depended upon that. So, sorry. Anyway, it’s supposed to be a duet between Ron and Hermione, mostly sung together, but parts of it call-and-response, as labeled by (H) and (R).
“The Hermione Fanfic Song (Ode to Inell)”
Almost a decade ago, I styled myself as the wizard rock “band” Muggle Studies. I wrote four songs, recorded three, and that was about the end of it. I’m a decent guitarist, but my singing voice is pretty terrible. The strength really is in the writing.
Inell is one of my favorite fanfic writers. She can make Hermione believable in any situation, and the writing itself is strong. Her favorite pairings of mine are H/Hr, Cedric/Hr, and Pansy/Hr. After reading most of her stories, I wrote this song. I think it has the best music of all of them, even if the lyrics are a bit suspect; I’m particularly proud of the brief guitar kicker/solo I wrote and recorded.
The song is also a bit of an homage to Harry and the Potters — specifically their song “Save Ginny Weasley”.
Inell tends to write explicit stories, and this song does contain some allusions to that — don’t click “Read More” if you aren’t comfortable with it.
“Ron’s Lament”
Almost a decade ago, I styled myself as the wizard rock “band” Muggle Studies. I wrote four songs, recorded three, and that was about the end of it. I’m a decent guitarist, but my singing voice is pretty terrible. The strength really is in the writing.
In terms of songwriting, I think “Ron’s Lament” is probably the most straightforward. The song is from Ron’s POV, and he’s lamenting the way his character was marginalized in the Order of the Phoenix film.
“Mpreg”
Almost a decade ago, I styled myself as the wizard rock “band” Muggle Studies. I wrote four songs, recorded three, and that was about the end of it. I’m a decent guitarist, but my singing voice is pretty terrible. The strength really is in the writing.
This was the first song I conceived (see what I did there), and it was to address the plague of mpreg fics on the various archives I frequented. This song is from Harry’s POV.
ON10: my story notes
As with the past two “On” stories, here are my notes from On Slayers, Fairy Tales, and Towns in Maine. Do not read them if you haven’t finished the story, because they do contain spoilers. My notes are after each section, in italics.
Apparently there was only one bathroom at 1630 Revello Drive. A three-story house (if you include the basement), and only one bathroom. Bad planning on the part of the production designers; I mean, most houses would’ve at least a powder-room in on the first floor, right?
(via Floor Plans)
ON02: the original outline
Here’s the original outline for “On Doctors Named Allison and Witches Named Sarah”. Because this is the most involved story, plot- and character-wise, that I’ve written, you’ll find that the chapter paragraphs are a bit long. I broke them up a little as I went, and annotated the notes a little differently.
ON01: the original outline
Here’s the original outline for “On Ramona Flowers, and How She Became a Slayer”. I actually got through about five chapters of this story before I started outlining, which is why the tone of it shifts a little bit in Chapter 6.
This particular outline went through a couple of revisions before I got it hammered out to where I liked it.
As before, I’ll annotate after each chapter/section.
ON02: notes
The following is a list of the notes I took while watching The Craft in preparation for writing “On Doctors Named Allison and Witches Named Sarah”. I didn’t use all of this — I didn’t know how the story was going to go, only that Sarah would be a main character, so I made as many notes as I could.
Dreaming 1: the original outline
For those of you interested in the writing process, here’s my original outline for “Dreaming of How It Was Going to Be”. You can compare it with the story and see how things differed. I’ll also annotate it a bit as I go along.
Dreaming 1.5: the Firefly Musical Episode
Dreaming of How It Was Going to Be, Episode 1.5: the Firefly Musical Episode
I got into Buffy fanfic because of Firefly — that is to say, some years ago I read a Buffy/Mal fic that I really enjoyed, but lost the URL. I started googling for it about eight months back and eventually landed on Twisting the Hellmouth, a Buffy crossover fic site. I never did find that Buffy/Mal fic, but I did find a lot more fics that I really enjoyed.
One of them was “Legend”, by ShayneT.
If you go through the “top” menu on TtH, you’ll find that Legend is at the top of a lot of categories. It’s 100,000 words, completed, and has 47 chapters. It’s a Buffy/Star Trek TNG crossover, and it is by far one of the best fanfics I’ve ever read.
The story begins with the episode “The Most Toys” — the one where Artie from Warehouse 13 kidnaps Data because he’s a collector of unique and expensive items. Data, while imprisoned, discovers the Buffybot and repairs her. After he’s rescued, he takes it upon himself to re-integrate the Buffybot into society, albeit 350 years after her construction. Meanwhile, the Enterprise stumbles upon another sleeper ship similar to the one in “The Neutral Zone”, and in one of the cryo-stasis tubes, the crew finds a perfectly-preserved Buffy Summers… one of the most notorious war criminals in the history of the planet Earth.
The story progresses through “The Most Toys”, “Sarek”, and finally “The Best of Both Worlds”, and incorporates a few characters from Voyager along the way, before coming to an explosive conclusion where someone you never expected to be strong… oh, boy, was she ready.
ShayneT did a masterful job working Buffy canon, TNG canon, and the Eugenics Wars into a cohesive, well-told story that keeps the reader’s attention from moment one. Broken down into three major arcs — the arrival of Buffy and the Buffybot, the trial, and the battle with the Borg — “Legend” is as good as (or better than) many of the Star Trek tie-in novels that I’ve read over the years (and I’ve read a lot of them). And the climax… well, let’s put it this way: I was standing around at a work event, reading, trying not to be bored, and then it happened, and I literally got teary-eyed. It’s just so well-done, so perfect, and so believable… and yet so completely unexpected that I honestly never even considered the possibility of things going the way they did.
I highly recommend “Legend” to anyone who enjoys great storytelling, whether you’re a fan of Buffy, Star Trek, both, or neither. You won’t be disappointed.
