Teasel

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Fan
Name: Teasel
Alias(es): fictualities, Lydia Bennet
Type: fan author, essayist, recommender
Fandoms: Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings
Communities:
Other:
URL: Amazing Creatures; lydiabennet@LJ; teasel@LJ; teaselfiction@LJ; @AO3; @ff.net
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Teasel is an award-winning author, essayist & recommender in The Lord of the Rings fandom, active between 2002 and 2004. Towards the end of 2004, her primary fandom became Harry Potter, where she wrote fiction until around 2006, under the pseuds fictualities & Lydia Bennet. She continued to write meta into 2008, but subsequently left livejournal.

Lord of the Rings

Teasel primarily wrote about hobbits, particularly Frodo & Sam, but has also written about the race of ents. Her fiction ranges from slash-friendly gen to explicit m/m slash, from drabbles to chaptered stories, and from works that Tolkien could have written to Frodo/goat crack. Her writing is known for its originality, its use of symbolism, its luscious descriptions and its delicate pacing. Writing in Crack Van, kraken_wakes describes her as one of the most thoughtful writers I have come across in this fandom – her writing is reflexive and has a stillness to it which is very attractive. Added to this, her ability to weave together vague notes from Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit into a convincing and compelling story easily sets her apart.[1]

Her best-known work in this fandom is probably On Gorgoroth Plain, which was a surprise winner of the LotR category of the inaugural Mithril Awards, and was recommended by gen & slash fans alike. TheFourthVine writes this is the story that made me remember why I read everything I can, just because occasionally I find something so unexpected that it makes all the tripe worthwhile.[2] Heat Wave, a popular Frodo/Sam story set pre-Quest, is discussed by Anna Smol in "Oh...Oh...Frodo!": Readings of Male Intimacy in The Lord of the Rings.

Teasel's LotR writings were formerly archived at her personal website, Amazing Creatures (link; now offline), which also included her hobbit-centric recs and an extensive list of links to archives & Tolkien authors. One of her stories appeared in Cara J. Loup's zine Inside a Song. Some of her fiction is now archived at the teaselfiction livejournal, and at various archives including Archive of Our Own, FanFiction.Net, Henneth Annûn, Library of Moria & West of the Moon.

Amazing Creatures, Teasel's LotR website

Example Fanworks

  • Come Back to Me. Merry & Pippin meet one of the Entwives. Winner of the other races category of the 2003 Mithril Awards; the judges wrote Interesting idea and quite well thought out while staying close to the brief glimpses of the race in question that Tolkien gave us.[3]
  • Frodo Hill, or, Memoirs of a Young Hobbit of Pleasure. Epistolary Frodo/Sam and various interspecies & crack pairings, pastiching Fanny Hill. Aratlithiel writes How to describe this one...? Based on Fanny Hill, Frodo finds himself prisoner in a brothel, surrounded by beautiful ‘ladies’ who are enamored of him, and the object of lust for a certain Captain of Gondor. Oh, yes, and there’s a goat. Yes…a goat. And pirates. And turtles. *snicker* This has to be the funniest fic you will ever read. How this author managed to achieve the NC-17 rating in this particular style is a mystery but achieve it, she did.[4]
  • Heat Wave. Pre-Quest Frodo/Sam. Runner up in the slash category of the 2003 Mithril Awards and inspired art by Solarfall. Nestra writes This story is full of such quiet beauty, it breaks my heart, especially with the Ring looming over it.[5]
  • How Quickbeam got his name. Entslash drabble. Espresso Addict writes Gorgeous drabble that answers the question of the title in a rather unexpected fashion[6]
  • On Gorgoroth Plain. Very widely recommended Frodo & Sam gen. Winner of the LotR category of the 2003 Mithril Awards; the judges wrote Extremely creative, excellent use of symbolism. Could imagine recommending this to a LotR fan who had never read fanfiction, as an intro to why one does read fanfiction![3]
  • Revision. Bilbo tries to record how he acquired the Ring; accounts for the different versions of this story between different editions of The Hobbit. lame_pegasus writes Wonderfully told, deeply convincing and frightening at the same time - a Must-Read![7]

Harry Potter

Her HP fiction is archived at the lydiabennet livejournal and at Archive of Our Own & Skyehawke. She mainly wrote Harry/Draco, but her best known work is Changeling, a short dark gen piece that focuses on the Weasley family. Espresso Addict writes This creepy short story slips seamlessly into canon and could easily have been written by Rowling, yet it changes everything. ... One of the more original stories I've encountered in this fandom.[8]

Meta

Teasel's essays, reviews and other meta can be found in the teasel & fictualities livejournals. They include detailed character studies, brief essays on visual structuring devices in Peter Jackson's films of LotR,[9] and extensive, erudite essays on topics across fandom, fanfiction, literature, language, writing & journaling.

Example Fanworks

References

  1. ^ crack-van: Heat Wave by Teasel (PG-13) (accessed 25 January 2014)
  2. ^ thefourthvine: Slashy Nominations 5: Below the NC-17 Event Horizon (accessed 25 January 2014)
  3. ^ a b Award Winners: Mithril Awards 2003 (accessed 24 January 2014)
  4. ^ Light in Dark Places: Recs (accessed 25 January 2014)
  5. ^ Polyamorous Recommendations: Lord of the Rings (accessed 24 January 2014)
  6. ^ Espresso Recommendations: Lord of the Rings (accessed 24 January 2014)
  7. ^ lotr_fic_recs: RECOMMENDATION CHALLENGE #37: Thread started by Mona (accessed 24 January 2014)
  8. ^ crack-broom: Gen - Changeling, by Lydia Bennet (accessed 25 January 2014)
  9. ^ Amazing Creatures: Marginalia on the Red Book: Essays by Teasel (accessed 25 January 2014, via Wayback Machine)
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