a-rum-of-ones-own

[a-rum-of-ones-own]

Hello! I'm a huge fan of your work. I discovered it just a week ago and have been completely engrossed ever since. While I adore all of your writing, I'm particularly captivated by the "O, Heiland" series ("A Cosmology of Blacks, Malfoys, and Assorted Individuals" and "Polaris"). I was hoping to ask for your permission to translate the series into Korean. And of course, I'll clearly credit you as the original author with each chapter of the translation.

I'm not a professional translator, but due to the nature of my work, I have experience translating English academic papers and literary works into Korean. If you grant permission, I'd like to upload the translated work to both AO3 and POSTYPE, a Korean website. Ideally, I'd only post to AO3, but unfortunately, it doesn't offer full Korean language support, making it less accessible to many Korean readers. POSTYPE, on the other hand, offers features to prevent unauthorized copying and redistribution. However, if you don't want to, I'll only post it on AO3.

I'll be sure to share the links to both sites with you once the translation is posted.

Of course, if you're not comfortable with a Korean translation, I completely understand and will happily respect your wishes. Any response from you would be appreciated!

Sorry for the long message out of nowhere! Hope it didn't freak you out. Have a great day!

Hello right back at you! I am so, so honoured that you'd want to undertake this enormous amount of work, and thank you so much for messaging to ask me about it first! I have absolutely nothing against any of my fanfiction writing being translated and reposted anywhere as long as I'm credited for it, no money is being made by anyone, and no AI is involved at any stage. I've just googled that POSTTYPE website, and it appears there are ways to monetise content there with a pay-per-view function - I would not be comfortable with that kind of monetisation, but if there are ways to post it there for free, I have absolutely no issue with that. (For the record, the same goes for fanart, playlists, bound versions of my writing, and any other kinds of fanworks - I'm THRILLED to see it all, as long as I'm credited and money and AI are not involved at any stage of proceedings. Even that idiot who keeps plagiarising Tromp as Writ (in case they are reading this) - I'd be absolutely fine with them writing a work of their own inspired by my writing/that setting/those themes, as long as they credited me, didn't use AI, and put some actual creativity into it rather than copying word-for-word!)

Thank you so much again for your kind words - I'm in a bit of a stressful life phase right now and writing had to take a bit of a back seat these past few months, but I am so very glad people enjoy my work and like it enough to be willing to invest this sort of time and effort into it. If you have any questions about the work, specific phrasings, word choices, feel free to message me!

[a-rum-of-ones-own]

Hi! I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news. someone plagiarized one of my Dramione fics and I posted it on Reddit. A redditor from the Drarry subreddit checked all the works from that writer and all are stolen from someone else. One of yours was there 😣

Starlights https://archiveofourown.org/works/51138592

og 'Tromp as Writ' by a_rum_of_ones_own https://archiveofourown.org/works/49255999

Oh my God, thank you SO much! This is the second time this has happened, both times with Tromp as Writ, both times re-written/copied as Drarry. How absolutely bizarre! I'll go report the fic, and would appreciate if others could do the same!

This is a direct link to the plagiarism. This is my original, for reference. What REALLY gets me about this situation is that the plagiarist removed the three most important scenes from my original (Hermione's failure to understand her wizarding clothes at the beginning, the Lavender scene in the flashback, and the scene at the dressmaker's towards the middle). The entire work doesn't make any thematic sense without these 🫠🫠🫠 How do you manage to fuck up plagiarising something 🫠🫠🫠🫠🫠

[a-rum-of-ones-own]

I read in another ask that you commented that you write in your other language, so I'm curious now.

What's your first language? 😊

German! I have family in the UK, though, so I kind of grew up with both. I couldn't do fanfic in German, though, for some reason I can't quite articulate 😂 Maybe because I read the original HP novels in English and the idea of using the German names for any of the characters and magical objects gives me a deeeeeeeeep sense of discomfort. Like, whoever decided to translate 'wrackspurt' as 'Schlickschlupf'??? Kill it with fire.

[a-rum-of-ones-own]

What is your Hogwarts house?

I've never done any official test, but honestly, I believe I'd be a Gryffindor, which causes me mixed feelings 💀😂 A slightly nerdy Gryffindor, though. The almost-a-Ravenclaw-sort.

[a-rum-of-ones-own]

Hi, Rum! This might be a bit of a random question, but do you participate in Dramione/Harry Potter/ fan spaces in general, apart from Ao3 and your Tumblr? Where do you fall on the consumption/creation spectrum?

Hey, not random at all!

I do have reddit and discord accounts (there's a discord for Cosmology that can be found here) but I'm not really very active on either of those. Unfortunately, I'm a tech noob, and I never fully figured out those two platforms🫣 I try to read along on the Cosmology discord once in a while because the people there are SO nice and encouraging, though.

Consumption/creation-wise, it kind of varies? I started writing fanfic as more of a writing exercise than anything else. Most of my original work and day-to-day-writing is in my other first language these days, and I was kind of craving an English outlet, so to speak 😂I do read a good bit of fanwork, though! How much and what exactly varies depending on mood and time and all that, but the care and effort and support people put into their works and communities really does astonish me time and time again. There's some really talented people out there writing/drawing/editing for free, purely out of passion, just them alone in their bedrooms. And, like, it takes SO MUCH EFFORT to create just a few thousand words of well-written text. The fact that there are entire communities dedicated to doing just that, and to supporting people who do, is still BONKERS to me. As far as I'm concerned, fandom is the online version of the women's bathroom at a nightclub: proof that people will share things with strangers out of the goodness of their hearts (be that lipgloss or supportive comments on novel-length writing) and that humanity is motivated by joy, at its core 😂

[a-rum-of-ones-own]

hey, does anyone want to lock antlers and drown together in a cold lake? it has to be weird.

[a-rum-of-ones-own]

I'm like if a chivalrous knight kissed a fair maiden's hand and said "my lady, I fight for you" and then walked off and immediately tripped over his own armor and fell on the ground

[a-rum-of-ones-own]

Not an ask, but a thank you for sharing that advice: ‘they’re characters, not people.’ It felt like a whole set of possibilities opened up because in my own fiction writing (that I struggle with more than non-fiction one), I sometimes worry about making characters realistic or relatable to people—that they are able to find themselves in the characters and connect with them. But if I just treat them as characters and concern myself with their interactions in and responses to the constructed world, then there exists a set of limitations that actually frees me up.

Ok, I realized I do actually have a question: what is your inspiration behind the fic titles? They are so wonderfully creative and eclectic. Do they come first or later?

It's SO freeing, isn't it? 😂 I still remember hearing that and just going 'wait...you're telling me that as long as my themes and conflicts are meaningful/relatable to the human experience, and my character interacts with these conflicts in an interesting way, I don't need to worry about giving them a bazillion personality traits and beliefs to make them 'relatable'????? Amazeballs.' Also, who came up with that idea of relatability anyways? Some amazing characters in writing are totally unrelatable, or only relatable on some meta-level. Like, I don't relate to Captain Ahab. He's an insane whale-hunting maniac, and aspects of him are totally unrealistic to a real person. It's the universal theme of fanaticism and obsession that makes him work as a character, not the specifics of his personality or biography.

The titles are a vibes-based thing, I'm afraid 😂They're usually the last thing I decide on, after the story is fully written. With Cosmology, the chapter titles come from this big glossary of astronomy terms, and I try to make them match the themes of the chapter. Some are from art (La Primavera is named for the painting), some from technical terms (Tromp as Writ is a weaving term meaning 'just weave the back of the cloth as indicated by the pattern', which I thought worked nicely with the motif of clothing, but also this idea of growing into oneself and coming into one's power and claiming the power you were always supposed to have, and how easy that can feel after the hard parts are all said and done).

[a-rum-of-ones-own]

You’re one of my favorite authors in the fandom and I love how many different ships and characters you’ve created for us. Thank you!

Most of your stories are heavily character focused and I’d love to know your approach and tips for writing this way. How you develop characters so beautifully?

Thank you SO much! I'm always so glad when people like my character writing. It's why I really enjoy writing fanfic - with fanfic, the characters are what's drawing people in, so you just get to indulge in all these meandering explorations that could never fly in original work.

Honestly, the best tip for writing characters I ever got was to keep in mind that they're characters, not people. To read as 'real', they have to interact with their constructed worlds in ways that aren't necessarily like how actual, real people do it.

Almost everything I write (including the little bits of original work I dabble in) is centred around one or two overarching themes. Like, Cosmology is very much about forgiveness and isolation and The Ghosts of Familial HistoryTM, Books of the Netherworld is about facing all your great, unknown potentials (for love, for violence) and seeing that they won't cause the world (or yourself) to go full-on Egyptian 'trial of the dead' on you and devour you for your sins. Méduse is about pride and its limits, adulthood, and the sacrifices you make for those you recognise as 'yours', Tromp as Writ is about womanhood and power and all that.

I think that in the end, for your characters to seem coherent and believable in the world you're creating, they have to fit in with these themes and motifs in ways real people obviously seldom do. That's why the Draco in Cosmology notices so many details about the Manor, Andromeda's cottage, or other houses - houses are metaphorical for histories and families in that work, and he's obviously interacting with family history throughout the entire story. Fleur in Méduse had to have a friendship with an older adult (I actually considered making her buddies with Minerva for a bit before I settled on Mad-Eye) for that theme of 'who's in adult, who's a child, and who is an adult/child in relation to whom' to work. And obviously, all these things are maybe not 100% fully realistic to real people - few people are that into houses, or have as thematically appropriate jobs as the Hermione in Books of the Netherworld - but I always feel like that's what makes the characters seem 'of their world', which makes them feel more realistic even (and especially) if that world is fantastical. I just always try to make the character interact with a main motif in some way throughout every important scene, and if I notice that a scene is devoid of interaction with the motif, I ask myself whether and why I feel like that needs to be in the story, and how it can be rewritten.

Also, I'm a firm believer in that characters should keep some secrets from the reader. At their most minimalistic, you really only need to give them a personality, and use that personality as a means of relating to the themes of the story - the reader can flesh out from there. One of my personal favourite little people I've ever written is the Mad-Eye in Méduse, and he's really just such a rough sketch. You just get these glimpses into him: That 'you're all so fucking young'-line at the table with Fleur, him taking a curse for Tonks, his horror at his birthday, him calling Fleur/Tonks/Bill/etc 'the youngsters' , him having been the one to debrief Andromeda after she ran off and obviously having some kind of relationship to Tonks' parents.... And it all ties in with that motif of adulthood and the sacrifices adulthood demands, so of course, he has to die in the end, because he is that motif. But beyond the motif, we know almost nothing, and we kind of just don't need to - anything more would just detract from his position in the world of that particular story.

Anyway, I could ramble about this all day, because I'm a sucker for thematically stringent, but otherwise meandering writing- I hope it helps somewhat!

[a-rum-of-ones-own]

Just got finished with reading Méduse and I feel like you could write anything and I would love the ship off the bat

Aaaah, thank you so much! If it's the sapphic stuff you like, I've got a completed Lavender/Hermione one-shot and a Ginny/Luna WIP up on ao3 right now!

[a-rum-of-ones-own]

Thank you for the recommendations! I’m excited to check out The Rib Joint and of course, A Skirt Full of Thorns. I’m all caught up on the Luna/Ginny fic, too, and excitedly waiting for an update ✨

Particularly intrigued by this line you wrote: “It's not just something you are, it is, to a certain extent, something you DO - a way of interacting with yourself and the world.” If you feel comfortable, can you share how being queer has affected your worldview and psyche like you mentioned?

Have fun checking all of them out, and yes, of course I can elaborate! Just a warning, it might get long, lol.

I'm probably going to phrase this weirdly, but in a way, I've always sort of disagreed a bit with our contemporary view of sexuality as this purely intrinsic thing within yourself you just 'discover' one day. Like, we've got this societal view that your sexual orientation just springs up on you, fully formed, one day when you're fourteen years old and get your First Big CrushTM. And of course that narrative is true for many queer people/women- they grow up, and one day in 9th grade, they realise they're in love with their best friend, and boom, queerness discovered. It's viewed as this intrinsic thing you are, rather than something you do, it's something you discover about yourself, not something you shape and that shapes you in turn.

And, obviously, that's correct to a certain degree- queerness is intrinsic, you can't choose to be gay any more than you can choose to be straight. But I do think there's an additional element to it. I've always experienced my queerness as sort of happening on two layers: the 'to be'-layer of 'I am attracted to women, that's an intrinsic fact', and a 'to do'-layer of 'I actively and consciously chose to follow up on that and discover what it means to me through... actually doing the thing and dating women'. And at least for me, that 'to do' layer feels more important to my own identity? In a way, I vibe a lot with the Greek/classical interpretation of sexuality as a behaviour. Like, I was never totally repulsed by men the way some lesbians are - I found dating them very 'meh', both physically and emotionally, but it wasn't mind-bendingly horrible. There was no huge intrinsic push away from them beyond a feeling of 'this is dissatisfying and would probably be better with a woman'. I still find men totally fascinating from a sort of artistic perspective (I mean, I have no issues writing straight romance, for Pete's sakes - I find it a really interesting way of exploring the world through a different lens).

I've now been exclusively dating women for pretty much all of my twenties, and feel absolutely no desire to change that. It's shaped me in a lot of ways - compared to my straight peers, I realise I have a different perspective on things like family, career choices, big moral values. 'Family' means something different to you when a lot of your friends and partners experienced family rejection (though I was very lucky in that regard). 'Career' means something different when it's both a means of safety and independence and something that occasionally pushes you into very heteronormative environments (I'm in law, and that's...not a very progressive world). Not dating men also frees you up from so many societal expectations, and after a while, you realise that that truly impacts everything from how you dress to how you speak and move and interact with the world. My general perspective on life became very female-centric after a while, not in the sense of being a misandrist - I just interact with women a lot more than with men. Their perspectives interest me more, I enjoy hearing about them more, they 'click' more with me. I think it shows in my writing sometimes: even stories I write from a male perspective eventually end up being about the women in them, about their histories and relationships to one another.

I personally feel like I 'discovered' queerness within myself as this sort of seed, and only once I actually watered the plant and watched it grow did I fully realise how big and important this tree I was growing was going to be to me and my life. I was always queer, but I became a queer person through years of actually doing queerness. 16-year-old me was absolutely also attracted to women, but she was this little germinating seed who still hadn't shed a thousand tiny forms of heteronormativity (and I'm sure I'll look back on myself at my current age the same way in 10, 20, 50 years!), right down to not yet being able to admit to herself that she was exclusively attracted to women, because that felt too scary and impactful for her yet. The attraction thing is almost incidental, I feel. What really shapes you is the bravery of actually standing up and saying 'this is who I am, and by God, I will live it'. The attraction just is. That bravery is a choice, and that shapes your character.

This is SO long, I'm so sorry XD I hope it helps, though. Have fun exploring!

[a-rum-of-ones-own]

Hi!!!

I’m currently reading A Cosmology of Blacks, Malfoys, and Assorted Individuals and just wanted to express how much I love this fic!!! Your writing style is so profoundly passionate and evocative. The way you describe the emotions and inner workings of Draco, his observations and interactions with others, and blend sensory details with atmospheric elements is so poetically done—I seriously can’t deal.

What spurred me to write this was the opening of Chapter 19:

“With their ancient, bony hands, they’d passed her golden bowls filled with brew of black cohosh. Narcissa, panting in the heated darkness of the room she was confined in, had gulped them down, red-dark liquid dripping down her chin and staining the near-translucent smocking of her nightgown.

Winds had battered against the curtained windows. The approach of an early summer storm. The air had been sweltering, hot, over-heavy with lightning that had not yet discharged.”

LIKE UGH…MINDBOGGLINGLY BEAUTIFUL. SERIOUSLY. It’s so viscerally described that I feel like I’m transported right into the room.

I’m trying to consciously pace myself through the remaining chapters because I don’t want to catch up ;( but could you recommend some books that inspired you to write this fic, or even books that influenced your writing? I would be eternally grateful (high-key already am just for the existence of this fic).

I am so thankful to have stumbled upon this gem. You are sosososo talented; I am truly in awe and can’t wait to read more of your work! xxx

Heeey! Thank you so, SO much! I had so much fun writing that scene with the midwives - I cannot resist including scary old ladies and weird little arcane rituals of womanhood in everything I write, lol. I'm a total sucker for it. Give me a scary old woman who may or may not be a morally grey agent of The Dark And Mysterious Powers of the Great Beyond, and I'm sold.

YES, I do have book recs! Fic-writing is, for me, an opportunity for total stylistic self-indulgence, and there are absolutely influences! In general, Cosmology takes a LOT of influence from gothic writing. That entire theme of a house/manor/castle as a pseudo-living thing, the curses of our ancestors coming back to haunt us, ghosts of the past (both in literal and non-literal form), that's all just plain gothic, and I LOVE writing and reading that sort of stuff. Jane Austen's first novel, Northanger Abbey, is a fantastic gothic novel and/or gothic parody, and it's a shame it's not read more widely. It's definitely her first - it's not as absolutely refined as the big names like Pride and Prejudice etc - but it's the one I love the most. There's a proper mystery plot, a cursed house, a romance, a haunting - it's just great.

If you're not a Jane Austen girlie, a HUGE influence for me is Donna Tartt, especially The Secret History and The Goldfinch. If you're into that ornate, atmospheric, scene-setting writing, both will be right up your alley - The Secret History has a bit more of it (and is, imo, the better one to start out with), but they're both just amazing. One day, I want to be able to write like Donna Tartt does. She's the OG, she's the GOAT, she's perfect, she's probably my favourite contemporary author.

Also: Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House. It's one of my absolute favourite books, but (warning!) it's not literary fiction or romance, it's very much the story of a haunting. If you're absolutely not into horror, stay clear. Similarly, The Perfume by Patrick Süßkind is BEAUTIFUL, but absolutely not a romance. I've only read it in the original and can't vouch for any translations into English, but judging by the reviews, the sheer VibesTM seem to come across even in translation. The original is one of the best books I've ever read, and I wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone looking for something truly unique. I've also recently read V.C. Andrew's Flowers in the Attic for the first time, and found it really good in that gothic sense, but mind ALL the trigger warnings on that one. I don't deal well with graphic depictions of more realistic violence/abuse, especially if it involves kids (stylised/fantastical and implicit violence is fine, but anything that reads too 'real' and 'logically possible irl' doesn't agree with my stomach), and it's got some of that. I skipped a page or two, but still found it a prime example of Southern Gothic.

Thank you so so much again! I hope to get the next chapter of Cosmology out soon!

[a-rum-of-ones-own]

I found you because of Dramione, but I’m staying for the sapphic romances. Been questioning and exploring my sexuality lately, and your F/F pairing stories are akin to a balm. The characterizations pull at my heart and sink into it. The overall themes easily carry and work with the granularities of the stories, and the beauty and skill of your words ties it all together effortlessly. Thank you for sharing your brilliance with us. I sincerely hope we get to read more of the rare pairs from you. I can’t decide whether I like Fleur/Tonks or Hermione/Lavender more and I’d love to have more of these dilemmas. Yes please and thank you again. That said, I’d love to know: what are your favorite sapphic romances or essays/ podcasts about being sapphic?

Thank you so, so much! My f/f stuff kind of sits close to my heart in a special way- obviously, all my writing is close to my heart, but the f/f stuff just resonates with my own life and experience a bit more. Writing straight romance is super fun because it's an opportunity to explore characters as characters, a bit more divorced from me, but the gay stuff always feels like tapping little 16-year-old Rum on the shoulder and going 'you'll be fine, you darling little idiot'. It's just always so lovely when someone likes it 😭

I'm currently working on a Luna/Ginny WIP, if you want to check out the first two chapters that are up already! No fixed schedule, but I'm promising nuns and soft angst and a Big Queer HaircutTM!

Oooooh, my favourite sapphic stuff! Let me get the recommendation bag out, lol. With the usual disclaimer that I don't know everything, have read too little, and am limited by my own experience.

First off, fanfic, because that's how we all got here. There's this one story called Skirt Full of Thorns by montparnasse that I think I first read in....2021? And I love it. I was one of those lesbians who clung to the idea of being bisexual for a long-ass time and against all reason (I was out there dating women and loving it, and dating men and feeling very 'meh' about it, and still didn't realise what that might mean until I was....21?) and this story just captures something about that idea of NOT figuring it out at 15 or 16, about the feelings that come with that. It's also political without being paternalistic, which is something I appreciate SO much in queer fiction. At least for me, queerness was never just about 'I'm into women', there is an entire worldview and way of moving through the world attached to it, a deconstruction of what it means to be female, and I always love it when stories reflect that without beating it into your head with a sledgehammer.

Then, essays! I'm currently reading The Rib Joint by Julia Koets, which is an entire essay collection, lol. I'm not fully done with it, so I can't vouch for the quality of the last bit, but what I've read so far is BEAUTIFUL. It's very haunting and has that Southern Gothic feel to it, and a very lyrical kind of prose. In other published fiction, Orlando by Virginia Woolf did something to my soul when I first read it as a pretentious little teenage twat, but it's...ya know. It's Woolf. It's not a beach read.

I'm not a podcast girlie, I'm afraid, but I AM a standup comedy girlie! If that's your vibe, PLEASE try 'Nanette' by Hannah Gadsby, and anything by Mae Martin. Also, show-wise, I really liked 'Feel Good' by Mae Martin, too.

Sorry if this is getting long, but I wish you the best of luck in your exploration process. If there's one bit of advice I would have liked to have heard back in my 'ohmyfuckinggod, seriously????'-stage, it's this: it's truly all less spectacular and important than you think, but also somehow deeper and more transformative than you'd initially assume. Kissing is kissing and dating is dating and sex is sex, and it's all just bodies in the end. At the same time, the things about queerness that go beyond the simple physicality of 'I have sex with women' go DEEP into your worldview and psyche, and those things are the ones that really shape you after a while. It's not just something you are, it is, to a certain extent, something you DO - a way of interacting with yourself and the world. My best advice really is to kinda....consider the geometry of your soul, in a way? Like, where does it jive, where can it catch onto something? And just try things. In the end, we all can only try.

[a-rum-of-ones-own]

Hi, Rum. Absolutely adore the variety and beauty your writing. Do you write non-Dramione stuff as well? What is your writing process usually like? Are you more of an inspired writer or one who swears by habits and consistency?

Hey right back at you, and thank you so, so much! Gosh, I'm still amazed people actually read what I throw out into the aether😂

Yes, I do write non-Dramione-stuff! As far as fanfiction goes, I've written a good few f/f stories that are up on ao3, plus some dabblings in other pairings. Irl, I also occasionally publish some original work short stories in print anthologies, but these are mostly in German. I'd love to write a full novel at some point, but I think that needs another couple years of life and heartbreak to germinate properly - I weirdly feel like I'd still be too young for it at this point, if that makes sense?

Unfortunately, I'm definitely an inspired writer. I am in awe of the people who can just sit down, set a timer, and produce consistent work at a consistent rate. For me, there's always some kind of initial spark or scene or idea, and it very much goes stop-and-go from there: sometimes I can't think of anything for weeks and weeks, and then it all suddenly falls into place and I can write four scenes in a row. The only routine I've really found to help bring on the writing mood is quiet time and exercise, and I'm afraid the process is terribly unglamorous: it's mostly me crouched over a laptop. The ONE real tip I have is to put on real shoes. A friend once told me wearing shoes helps her focus when studying/writing, and I swear to God she's right. There's something about it that wakes your brain up.

[a-rum-of-ones-own]

You are loved.

Reference here

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The Death of Cleopatra

Edmonia Lewis The Death of Cleopatra, 1876. Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the Historical Society of Forest Park, Illinois.

Edmonia Lewis (1844-1907) was Black American sculptor.

[a-rum-of-ones-own]

Today I discovered that a couple of TSH characters were based on actual people Donna Tartt knew at Bennington College- amongst them were students Todd O'Neal and Matt Jacobsen, who were the inspiration for Henry and Bunny respectively.

AND JUST—

There's even their own comments about it and it's so funny wait:

Here's the source