i. you wish you could rage against the gods, rage against the sky and the earth and the places below that, rage until hades comes to collect you himself. but death is hollowing, and you are nothing compared to achilles.
ii.
they often ask you why you chose to love a monster. you think of how he could have torn the world apart with his bare hands, yet he used those hands to hold you night after night, wrapped tight around you, to keep you together. you shake you head. you open your mouth, but you don’t have an answer for them.
iii. achilles was meant to be a god. gods do not kneel for mortals, yet he kisses you like you were the one who should be worshipped. he murmurs your name into your trembling thigh, a name that should not be worthy enough to pass a god’s lips.
iv. sometimes you wonder if this is what it feels like to love a god, to feel unworthy and overwhelmed by his attention. knowing he could have had anyone he wanted, but he chose you and what you can’t give him.
v. but most of the time you wonder if this is what it feels like to be in love with a mortal, knowing he will leave you soon. knowing he will succumb to nothingness, oblivion and eventually to hades.
vi. you wonder if you were worth his godhood.
vii. achilles was meant to be a soldier, a hero to be worshipped in stories told to children. he was meant to be perfect, untouchable. instead he takes your hand and defies his mother. defies the rest of the world.
viii. you wonder if you were worth the death of so many men.
ix. people come to see his grave as time passes. truths turn into stories, stories into legends, legends into myths. people forget. they do not remember the curve of his smile or the way his hair shone under the sun.
they do not mention his beauty could have rivalled helen’s.
they do not know how soft his hand felt against yours, and how it became rough after years at war.
x. they do not remember how he gave up his divinity for a boy like you.
If your fic is 1000 words long, you can’t tag it slow burn. It’s not slow burn. That is a matchstick. And this is my personal bias here but if those motherfuckers you’re writing experience significant forward momentum in their relationship in under 5k words, then that is just a regular old burn. Slow burn should be borderline intolerable and a mistake to start reading at 2 in the morning.
If the fic doesn’t have multiple scenes where two people almost kiss but then don’t because of a contrived interruption that they are both grateful for and angry about, until the desperate reader is forced every other paragraph to mutter, “this is fucking ridiculous, this is bullshit, I’m so fucking mad, please update sooooooooooon,” then it isn’t a slow burn. It is a romance and that is a lovely thing but. Slow burns should feel like being set on fire unto your death but the tinder is people not kissing and the spark is people who don’t admit they love each other and the whole thing is. You know. Slow.
CORRECT
I once read a slow burn where the main pairing didn’t even speak to each other ontil 80k words in
This is the funniest fucking thing I’ve ever read and the only true slow burn fic
It took me a couple of hours to transcribe this but here’s what I wrote today, a musing on Hector and Lilina getting resettled after Lyn’s death. (I was in a melancholy mood).
I think it’s nice to keep track of word counts like this. It helps a lot when I’m feeling discouraged to see how much I’ve done, even though so little of it is “usable”. Every draft taught me something different, and that’s far more important.
I was created of beeswax and honey, with a butterfly for my heart. He should have used a spider or iridescent beetle.
My master gave me hair from strips of ash-tree bark and lips of rose petals. Violet-black chokeberries became my eyes, and he sculpted the planes of my face with kid-gloves until it was as perfect as perfect could be.
He named me Melea, for it is the word to invoke the power of the Ash.
I breathed a breath of life and rose to my feet, more graceful than the rippling clouds that were my first sight through his chamber window. Master touched my chin with his cold fingers. He was sharp and bright like the sun on ice. He said, “Welcome, Melea. Here is your order: find my rival August Curran, make him love you, and rip out his heart.”
The butterfly in my chest cavity fluttered as the command settled into my ashwood bones.
***
Master’s housekeeper dressed me in an elegant gown of violet with cream lace and black-pearl buttons. My hair was lifted onto my head and pinned under a cap that frothed with netting and spilled over my eyes. The housekeeper sighed and whispered, “Such a sight I never saw. No need for color on your lips or cheeks, Miss Melea. ‘Tis life and beauty glowing through you like a sunset.”
She shuffled me out the door with a parasol, and boots buttoned up my ankles. The street was damp from an early morning rain and the air smelled of water and oil and dank horses. But also, the breeze hinted of sun-warmed brick and window-box flowers. And the teasing scent of those high-up graceful clouds. I tilted my face and saw the billows of white fluff spread in strips and ripples against the bright sky.
Today we’re joined by TC Doherty. TC is a wonderful fantasy author who has just released her first novel (The Ghost, part of the Celestials series) with a sequel on the way. TC loves the fantasy genre and her books are all LGBTQ+ friendly. Like many ace authors, TC wants to write the diverse narratives she wishes she had access to when she was younger. Her book sounds fascinating and definitely one worth checking out. It’s clear she’s a talented and dedicated author, as you’ll soon read. My thanks to her for taking the time to participate in this interview.
WORK
Please, tell us about
your art.
I write fantasy novels, both middle-grade and young adult.
My work is aggressively LGBT+ friendly. I’ve loved the fantasy genre my whole
life, so I really try to take advantage of it to write the sort of diverse
narratives I wish I had access to growing up.
What inspires you?
My roommates more than anything. I can’t tell you how many
stories have been written just because of jokes they make. Other media too, especially
fairy tales! Real life, and sometimes dreams.
What got you
interested in your field? Have you
always wanted to be an artist?
Jack London’s Call of
the Wild. No, really. The book had such an indescribably profound effect on
me. Upon finishing it, I knew that I wanted to be an author too. And I’ve been
writing ever since!
Of course, I loved reading from a very young age, so perhaps
it was inevitable.
Do you have any kind
of special or unique signature, symbol, or feature you include in your work
that you’d be willing to reveal?
Well, I’m passionate about fairy tales, mythology, and
legends. Many of my books have these types of story-telling elements and motifs
in them. Other than that, I really love gryphons and I think they’re criminally
under-used so I put them in as much of my work as I can get away with (so
really…almost all of it).
What advice would you
give young aspiring artists?
Forget about inspiration. If you want to be a hobbyist, then
it’s your buddy, but if you want to go farther than that, inspiration does more
harm than good. Learn how to work even when you don’t want to – later you won’t
be able to tell the difference between work you did when “inspired” and work
you did because it had to get done, and no one else will either.
There’s no such thing as a perfect first draft. Or a perfect
second draft. Don’t let fear of imperfection stop you from creating, or from
reworking as many times as you need to.
ASEXUALITY
Where on the spectrum
do you identify?
I refer to myself as a homoromantic asexual.
Have you encountered
any kind of ace prejudice or ignorance in your field? If so, how do you handle it?
In my field not really, but in real life certainly. I’m very
open about my orientation and so I run into a comparable amount of ignorance.
For people who are curious and want to learn, I’m happy to share and answer
questions. For those on the rude side, I ignore them. It’s not worth the fight
trying to convince someone who doesn’t want to see you as human.
What’s the most common
misconception about asexuality that you’ve encountered?
There are two I see with equal frequency. The first is that
asexual people are broken, the second is that we’ll change our minds when we
meet the right person. Both are harmful in different ways, but especially the
narrative of “brokenness”.
I didn’t learn about asexuality until I was already eighteen
or nineteen, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t know something was up. With no
positive examples in media, and no one even admitting it existed, I couldn’t
help but think of myself in terms of “what’s wrong with me”. That’s something I really want to change.
What advice would you
give to any asexual individuals out there who might be struggling with their
orientation?
There’s nothing wrong with you. Don’t let people pressure
you into doing things you don’t want to do. Surround yourself with people who
accept you for who you are. There’s no shame in taking time to figure yourself
out, or to find the perfect lifestyle for you. And you don’t have to be a
“gold-star” asexual to be welcome among us.
Finally, where can
people find out more about your work?
Lanonima Tumblr Backup 