danniperson

I've thrown myself into reading actual books lately. It's been a while since I've read so much outside of fanfiction.

I'm on a superhero kick right now.

To start:

Super Powereds series by Drew Hayes

In this world, there are regular humans, and also Powereds, which are people who have powers they can't control. The powers sort of burst out of them and they're generally looked down upon.

There are also Supers, who are people who can control their powers. They can fine-tune that control and learn more about their powers, but the difference is their powers aren't happening to them, they have some level of ability to make their powers happen.

Then there are Heroes, which are Supers who are trained and licensed for Hero work (aka superheroes).

At the start of the book, 5 Powereds are given a procedure to make them Supers, and they're enrolled in a Hero Certification Program (HCP) at a college called Lander. Their past as Powereds is kept secret from the other students. The series follows the main 5 characters through their 4 years at Lander while outside forces also come into play. Obviously things can get complicated in a superhero world, especially one like this.

Is the series great literature? No. But it's a really fun read. Lots of action and adventure! I also became obsessed with shipping 2 best friends, Vince and Nick, but AO3 has hardly any SuperPowereds fanfic at all. I think I only found like 3 Vince/Nick fics. -Sigh-

Villains Code series by Drew Hayes

Same author, different series. It's another world with heroes, but in this one the people with powers are called meta humans. The heroes have an organization called the AHC, or Alliance of Heroic Champions. There's also a guild of villains who follow what they call the Villains Code. They work to keep their crimes under wraps and stay off the AHC's radar. They also work to keep rogue criminals in check which is a help to the AHC and also the guild, as the two organizations more or less have peace between them. The AHC doesn't hound the guild, and in return the guild helps keep other criminals from causing too much trouble. Win-win, right?

The main character, Tori Rivas, is a meta human who ends up on the guild's radar and she's sort of recruited and ends up apprenticing between an infamous villain. She goes through training, joins the guild, aaand encounters all sorts of issues one has when they're a villain in a superhero's world. Also her mentor, Ivan is HOT. HOT HOT HOT. At least to a girl who loves morally gray badass characters.

I enjoyed Villains Code waaaay more than Super Powereds. Partly I think because of my love of morally gray characters and so much focus being on the villain characters (though there is plenty of POV of superheroes, too). It's an ongoing series and I just finished the most recent book, so now I'm just sort of...sitting here, processing everything, and being very impatient for the next book.

I'm pretty sure this series has jumped up to being one of my favorite series of all time, right after Harry Potter and Percy Jackson.

Next Up...

After Villains Code, I planned to read the new Rebecca Yarros book, Onyx Storm but I'm still feeling in a superhero/villain mood so instead I might reread the Villains series by V.E. Schwab, which comprises of Vicious and Vengeful.

My best friend also reminded me of the Renegades books by Marissa Meyer, which have been on my TBR for a while, so it might be time I got to those. (Actually, now I'm wondering if I DID read them?? Is it sad that I can't remember?)

ALSO, my partner's favorite author Brandon Sanderson has a series of superhero books called the Reckoners, which might be another good series to reread if I stay on this track.

Oh and also rereading the Villains Code because it really was THAT GOOD.

If I ever find my way back into fandom, I might just have to write a superhero AU.

It's been nice sort of losing myself in books again. I used to blow through books like nobody's business. There's something very comforting about losing a whole day (or more) in another world. And it feels like ages since I've felt so excited about something.

This week has been...insane! I feel a bit bad for my user subscribers on AO3 but...ah well. I have my stats blocked currently (another story for another day) so I don't have to witness people real time going "um okay enough of this."

It began...uh...when did it begin? Sunday? Who knows. It began recently on the House of Snarry Discord server. A "drabbles and drawbles" challenge, which is basically "create a thing and claim a team and try to get your team to win by creating more stuff." Which, I generally stay out of any "challenge" type things (and really anything with numbers will be my downfall), but this month the team were all BUGS and one was a BEE and if you don't know, I'm obsessed with bees. I love them oh so much!! 🥹Sweet lil baby buggies.

Anyway the mods sure got my butt with that one haha!

So I thought: "okay I can just write really short things and just for the challenge. Low stress. I don't have to put them on AO3 or anything. Just write for the bee!!!!"

And so...I did!

Good background information would be my current writing struggles. I'm writing a very big, meaningful story for a fest and am having all of the insecurity and second-guessing and panicking. All the bad feels, generally. I'm so close to the end of it, but also so close to trashing the whole thing, cuz wow is it bad. So shifting focus to shorter, other things helped me chill out a bit, and just have fun with writing! A million and one teensy tiny ideas I always thought should be worked into a slightly longer form work, I said "eff it!" and just wrote them. And it was a lot of fun, really!

Also, my bee won, as she should! Queen Bee that she is. 👑

Then...I ended up posting several of said drabbles to AO3 anyway. The first one I did was on a whim, and I reminded myself "well...AO3 is an archive, above all else..." The first one was a silly little poem, meant for a laugh. Then little by little I began to add the others.

They're still not all up, but I'll save a few for a downtime, I think!

It did help loosen me up, I think. I ended up writing not one, but two other fics this week. Not for House of Snarry, but for Kinkuary! One was a fic I hoped to write by the end of the month, so yay me on accomplishing that! But another I wrote on a whim on Thursday.

Thursday was Kinkuary prompt "size kink" and between a conversation on another server, and a fic someone else posted, I had a lightbulb go off in my head. So even though the day was half over by the time I even STARTED, I still began, finished, edited, and posted a 3k fic on Thursday!

All the more impressive considering I was at home that day recovering from a tooth extraction. And faring more poorly than I did the first time I had a tooth extracted back in October/November.

So...I don't know. This week was a nice break from Fest Fic. I got a lot done! Various drabbles of varying drabble length. (The longest being a penta-drabble!) And best of all...my drabbles are getting more love than I expected! Or some of them are, anyway.

I don't know. Some of these ideas were images I had in my head, strong images, and I felt that...maybe they didn't need a long fic, but they needed something more. But I guess I was wrong. These stories have received such enthusiasm!! It's like...bliss, in the way all flattery is, but also...validating, I guess? Knowing that I should trust myself more. That I don't have to obsess over things, or endlessly fiddle with them for them to be good?

My goal is to work on Fest Fic this weekend, so with luck I'll keep this week's accomplishments in mind and maybe feel less of an urge to throw Fest Fic into a dumpster fire.