First Place
Fan Fiction for the UnconvincedThis is an attempt at an informal essay on fan fiction, by a middle-aged woman who reads and enjoys fan fiction. It won’t really be a balanced argument—I will be concentrating more on what I see as the positive aspects of the genre. I’ll be using mainly examples from the Sherlock fandom, that being the fandom I’m most familiar with. (There will be some spoilers, especially for series 3, so if you haven’t seen the series yet and you intend to, it might be wise to give this essay a miss.)
Why do I read fan fiction? The basic reason is exactly the same reason I read anything—some of it is of astounding quality. I think fan fiction is often saddled with the image of being written solely by beginners and being uniformly terrible. But it’s like any other kind of fiction. You have beginners, you have the competent, you have the talented and experienced. The very best fan fiction writers write at a professional standard; the very best sto
FluffThe Diary of His Supreme and Condescending Majesty, King Stalwart Prettipaws, the One and Only
14th April
The housemaid has just given birth to a second child. It really is too much. So much noise. So much commotion. The footman appears to have forgotten I exist. I had to give the order twice this morning before I was fed.
However. I am the King - I must be gracious about the situation. They may be just servants but it is their home too. It would be cruel of me to expect them to leave at this stressful time. Perhaps I will go and stay in another palace for a while. My kingdom is certainly large enough for me to be able to find something to my liking.
Of course, there have been all those skirmishes with local pretenders to my throne recently. But I think the situation is now in paw. (No-one can yell and fluff themself up like I can.) It has undeniably been stressful though. And now with the staff reproducing… All in all it might be a good idea to get away for
Musical ChairsThree women.
Three bladders.
Two toilets.
Second Place
Third Place
StrengthMy grandfather was the strongest man I ever met. If you’ve ever seen someone on TV perform some superhuman feat of strength and thought that it wasn’t real, you’ve never met my grandfather. I have seen him rip a telephone book in half. He reached his full height of 6”4’ at the age of fourteen, and by the age of fifteen he had left school to work in the metal works. No one thought twice about it, because he was more than capable of the work and looked older than he was.
I am not strong. My joints frequently hurt, although I do not think I can convey to you how much of an understatement the word ‘hurt’ is in this situation. Most people didn’t understand why I didn’t run as long or as fast as the other children, or take delight in the frequent football scrimmages that almost all the boys I knew took such delight in. when I told them “I can’t, my legs ache,” they just told me to be strong.
My grandfather didn’t.
A Mathematical Proof Of HopeA prime number is a number divisible only by itself and one. For example, the number five can only be divided by five or by one. If you divide it by any other number, you won't get an integer (a whole number).
Needless to say, not every number is a prime number. Most of them aren't.
However, there are an infinite amount of them. There are an infinite amount of numbers, and because prime numbers are a subset of ordinary numbers there are just as many of them.
Think about that, for a moment. There are less prime numbers than ordinary numbers, and yet both of them are infinite. A paradox. By its very definition, infinity cannot vary in size, so there cannot be a bigger infinity or a smaller infinity. Numbers are both infinite and containing infinity. And yet this is the case.
There are, however, a finite quantity of people. A little over seven billion, at the moment.
Except that, in a sense, there are considerably more people than that. Perhaps not an infinite supply, but close enough tha
SchizophreniaHolding on to a thought has always been... difficult for me. They're so rarely interesting enough to hold my attention for more than a few seconds. Quite often, I'll tune out what someone is saying because something they said sparks a thought which leads to another thought which leads to another thought...
No, I don't get distracted by shiny objects. I'm a human, not a magpie.
I never really cared that I wasn't listening to what people were saying. My thoughts, as cascading as they are, were always more interesting than they were. Eventually, I did away with people entirely, living in my own stream of consciousness. Even now, it is difficult to continue mustering the willpower to finish this, instead of rushing off to read a Virginia Woolf novel.
Then, after I'd isolated myself from all those boring people and their slow, mundane thoughts, I became aware of a shift in my own though processes. I noticed that, when having a thought, I'd finish thinking the end of the thought before I'd a
While on the subject of WritersInk, they're in need of a new gallery mod (cause I'm leaving them ) so if you think you might be interested, send C-A-Harland a note! I've been with them for almost two years (I think?) and they are really one of the best literature groups on dA. You can't go wrong.
Hope you're all doing well