Dictacontrion
| Fan | |
|---|---|
| Name: | dictacontrion/dicta_contrion or Dicta |
| Alias(es): | Dicta, @dictacontrion (primary tumblr), @1Dicta (side tumblr for BBC Radio 1 DJ Nick Grimshaw and One Direction) |
| Type: | fan writer, community moderator, reccer, meta writer |
| Fandoms: | Harry Potter, One Direction/Radio 1 RPF |
| Communities: | HD Erised |
| Other: | Dreamwidth Journal |
| URL: | AO3 Page |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
Dictacontrion (she/her), also known as Dicta, is a Harry Potter fic enthusiast and Draco/Harry super enthusiast. She's an intersectionality-loving queer feminist, an emerging anglophile and cheese devotee (except blue), an INTJ Slytherin, and in favor of the Oxford Comma[1]. She's been active in the Harry Potter fandom since 2013, reading, writing, and reccing primarily for her OTP, Draco/Harry (Drarry), though she's read and written other pairings, primary slash. She is also a regular reader in other fandoms, most notably in One Direction and Radio 1 RPF.
Reccing
Quotes
Starting in mid-August 2013, Dicta began to post daily Drarry fic recs on her tumblr in the form of quotes she pulled from the fics she read and enjoyed. These daily Drarry quotes were immensely popular and she continued to post a minimum of one quote/rec per day every day for seven years. In July of 2020 Dicta announced that on August 14, 2020, the seven year anniversary of when she first started posting the quotes, that while she still planned to continue reading, reccing, and posting quotes, they would no longer be going up daily. She celebrated this final month of daily posting with a final countdown of quotes from some of her all-time favorite fics, and concluded with a heartfelt post on the importance of reccing.
Reclists
In addition to the quote recs Dicta posted daily for seven years, she also frequently posted rec lists in response to tumblr asks requesting fics with specific content or themes. A masterlist of the reclists she's compiled over the years can be found on her dreamwidth journal and is organized by genre, era, length, trope, career, featured character, type of smut, and miscellaneous.
Fanfic
Dicta is a fannish writer and enjoys participating in fests and challenges. As of April 2021 she has written exclusively in the Harry Potter fandom, with the majority of her fics focusing on the Draco/Harry pairing. She enjoys writing Explicit works and exploring complex themes, as well as writing tropes with a twist. For a complete selection of her works, see her dashboard on AO3.
A selection of her most well-known Draco/Harry fics:
- Any Instrument
- Endowment
- The Vanishing Department Series
- Moneymaker Series
- Make Me a Headline (I Want to Be That Bold)
Other Fannish Activities
Tumblr Resources
Dicta has used her tumblr blog to provide a number of resources for fans and writers alike. Through a combination of original posts and reblogs of other people's contributions, Dicta's tumblr blog is a fount of knowledge, meta, and thoughtful commentary. Her 2014 post, Appreciation without Anxiety: Commenting 101, all about how to comment on fanworks, remains extremely relevant to this day and is still frequently linked and referenced. She also has tags on Queer(ing) HP; Fanfic Writing Gold, for fanfic writer resources; and On Representation, which contains posts relating to representation in fanworks and canon.
Tumblr 101 Posts
One of the series of posts Dicta is most well-known for is her Tumblr 101 series from 2016. Being active in various fannish spaces, including tumblr and the journals, she was aware that many journal-based fans found navigating tumblr difficult and confusing compared to the journals they were used to. In order to help these fans navigate this new space, Dicta put together a series of extremely informative posts designed to help get fans started on tumblr and to answer some of the most frequently asked questions she encountered.
Tumblr 101 Posts on Dreamwidth:
- Tumblr as a Coffee Shop AU: the shape of tumblr community
- Tumblr 101: Setting Up Your Blog* Tumblr 101: Content
- Tumblr 101: Communication
- Tumblr 102: Q&A
Meta & Commentary
Dicta has frequently posted various discussions and bits of commentary on her blogs, primarily in response to thought-provoking tumblr asks. You can find many of the below posts (and more!) by searching her meta and fandom tags on tumblr.
A non-exhaustive round-up of some of Dicta's unlocked meta and commentary posts on tumblr and dreamwidth:
- Does a fic author need canonical evidence for a character’s non-white race before writing them as a POC?
- On Happy Endings
- On Taboos in Fanfic
- On Real Person Fiction
- On the Difference Between Enjoying Queer Fanfic and Fetishizing Queer People
- Cursed Child Casting + JKR's reaction + Retconning Race? = Thoughts
- Are there any adult WOC in HP canon?
Fest Moderator
While Dicta's primary forms of fannish engagement are reading, reccing, and writing, she has also co-moderated fests in the Drarry fandom. She was one of the founding moderators of HD Collab, a Harry/Draco fanworks collaboration fest, and in 2018 she joined the moderation team for HD Erised.
An overview of the communities and fests Dicta has moderated: