#SEADLA

[terresdebrume]

Fic writer interview

Merci pour le tag, @almost-a-class-act ! :D

How many works do you have on AO3?

372 :D

Most are fics, but I do have a little under 30 fic covers hanging around there 😊

What's your total AO3 word count?

988 968 words! My goal this year is to crack the million xD

What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Fun fact, this top has not changed in years and my more recent writing habits mean it's unlikely to ever change at this point xD

S.O.S. Ecrits Avec De L’Air (aka SEADLA) an unfinished Tony Stark/Loki fic in which everything starts because Loki stops Tony from commiting suicide.

 We Shall Have Peace, a fic in which Steve Rogers comes out of an 80+ years long captivity to discover Loki turned the earth into a utopia.

Dots: 2-4, 1-2-3, 1-3-6. A fic in which Tony Stark is a university student, and Loki is his blind teacher, and they fall in love.

Wooer Wooed. A fic in which Tony Stark tries to teach Loki how to woo someone and ends up surprised by the results.

Corny Lines For Thanksgiving A fic in which Tony Stark sees Loki iand Thor interact from his office window and mistakes them for a couple.

Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

Yes! I like showing my appreciation and it feels more polite :D

What's the fic you've written with the angstiest ending?

Say it three times and it will be done, in which Loki sends Tony Stark a very sad letter to tell him he's giving up on him and their not-relationship.

What the fic you've written with the happiest ending?

Oh shit, I've written so many of these xD But I guess I'll go with a top 3:

Clark Kent, of Krypton because it's one of the ones where the protagonist's situation changes the most drastically.

Once more, with kissing because the protag ends in what would probably be my dream configuration for any kind of romantic relationship.

All on my own because it's probably one of the more hopeful endings I have.

Honorable mention to A summer evening in Philly. for being the most recent :P

Do you write crossovers?

Rarely. I did write a Battlestar Galactica x The Walking Dead crossover once for a friend, but that's about it. When I mix fandom, I gravitate more towards fusions :P

The fic is called Killing zombies (and other fun activities), if you're curious.

Have you ever received hate on a fic?

I think I got maybe...three angry comments on AO3 so far? One was pissed because the protag hated his stepmother, another was angry that I'd posted negative meta on a ship, and iirc the last one accused me of making a character stupid because they didn't understand a word as a little kid who was communicating in a language that wasn't his first language.

Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

I try my hand at it on occasion x) It's probably not the greatest but so far no one told me it sucked so we'll see how it goes in the future xD

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I'm aware.

Have you ever had a fic translated?

If I rememeber correctly there were projects of translation into Chinese and Russian for some of my fics, but I can't recall if they were completed or not xD

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

No. I toyed at the idea but it fizzled out, mostly because of me.

What's your all-time favorite ship?

I honestly have never thought of it that way tbh xD

But my two oldest ships are Taichi/Yamato from Digimon Adventure and Hyoga/Shun from Saint Seiya. I've liked those since I was a kid. As in, I first discovered Hyoga/Shun when I was under 10 so.

What's a WIP that you want to finish but don't think you ever will?

I'm not going to answer that one, I don't want to jinx it xD

What are your writing strengths?

I think I'm good at dialogue and worldbuilding.

What are your writing weaknesses?

I struggle a little more with description, and also The Doing Of The Sex. Also I sometimes worry that I do the writing equivalent of same-facing my characters, but I guess it might also be because I have A Type.

What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

More often than not, saying "[x] said in German" or "[x] switched to Italian" is more than enough. It's clear, concise and avoids the two main risks of foreign dialogues: losing the readers who don't understand the target language and (if you're not fluent yourself) making a grammar mistake that takes readers who are more fluent than you out of the story. (Example: I've recently stumbled across a Band of Brothers fic where Liebgott used Sie to address Webster. Sie is a formal form of address, which I guarantee Lieb wouldn't use for his fellow soldiers, especially not Web, and so seeing it made be tick hard even if I didn't spontaneously understand the rest of the sentence.)

That being said! All rules are made to be broken, and I've written a fic that was intentionally in 3 different languages and another where a significant chunk of the dialogue is just em dashes with footnotes. In the first case, I used the script format and the language juxtaposition to mimick the sort of humor you'd get from a more fast-pace, visual medium like a movie or show (and also because I enjoyed the idea of a fic that was a bit of an in-joke with readers who mostly understood all three languages).

In the second case, I used the em-dashes (intersped with the few words the POV character understands) to force the reader into the protagonist' shoes, because the whole plot revolves around her distress and frustration about being unable to understand the language her family speak.

So, you know. Do what you want x)

What was the first fandom you wrote for?

It was a very, very intense plagiaristic fic for Lord of the Rings but with Harry Potter style wizards. I don't think it was very good, but I rememeber having fun with it.

What's a fandom/ship you haven't written for yet but want to?

For a long time, that fandom was Digimon Adventure but I've done it now so... non, for now, I think x)

What's your favorite fic you've written?

... I'm gonna cheat and link you to my AO3 porfolio for my top 11 :P

Tagging : @takingoffmyshoes, @kyttwrites, @nemainofthewater, @ghostinthelibrarywrites, @liesmyth and @talysalankil :)

[terresdebrume]

I have to say, though, I’m absolutely floored by the response I got to the SEADLA discontinuation! I didn’t even expect one person to react outside of my friends circle, but I got so much love out of it--people are awesome <3

[terresdebrume]

I am extatic youre finishing/reworking this fic I think about it time to time and thought it was lost to time so this is wonderful news! I love it already

Hi Nonners, I’m going to assume you’re talking about SEADLA and...well, it’s actually quite the opposite.

I would love to give a similar concept a try some day, but for the reasons I exposed in the explanation post, the current version is not going to change anymore. I’m very grateful for your enthusiasm, though, and I’m sorry I have to crush your joy >

[terresdebrume]

So between the Grading Days, Christmas and the TIC related excitement of fic prep, I haven't really done actual writing do far these holidays (as in, adding words to a draft). For next week do I:

Continue the SEADLA rewrite in the hope of finishing the story and only leaving myself the second and third drafts to do next year before publication

Try and restart TIC even though maybe two long term projects at the same time aren't all that good an idea after all (it didn't work out so well this year)

Try and work on the Drumfred thing I have ideas for but am otherwise kind of stumped about

Try and take care of the two prompts that have been sleeping in my inbox for literal months at this point

Unearth the one original story prompt I have left in my inbox (it's been over a year now I think?)

Actually try and write some things for said original verse

Fuck it and mess around with pinterest boards all week.

Whatever the choice I'm not getting to it until the 1st of January but still. It pays to ponder it :P

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In writerly news: I have now officially reached the end of the rewrite-y parts of SEADLA and am entering New Plot territory. It’s harder than I thought it would be, but hey. Worth the effort, I think.

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Oh my god. I think I might have been writing trans Tony/Loki all along.

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Look, I’m gonna need someone to either drag the Drumfred bunny out of my brain with pliers or make me talk about it because it’s GrowingTM and it’s not helping my sudden but not entirely unexpected ‘Nope’ state where Nano is concerned. I need help guys.

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Well, it’s a day later than I thought it’d happen (Yay exhaustion!) but I did reach the 25k mark!

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30k mark reached just in time to meet my daily goal! :D

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Ending today’s writing session at 23 227 words!

If I’d managed to write properly yesterday I’d probably be at 25k by now, but I can reach it tomorrow, it’s no biggie. Either way, I’m still a couple days early, which will definitely come in handy by the end of the month.

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That moment when I realize this fic has turned into something like 80% dialogue x)

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20k marks : check ! Well, only according to OpenOffice. Nanowrimo.org says it’s only 19 935, but tbqh the difference is small enough that I’ll take mine as being enough.

Plus, I’m generally not too far off from AO3 counting so it’s all good in my books :P

[terresdebrume]

Going through SEADLA and finding the first fledging exploration of gender in the fic is just...a strange sensation tbh xD

Fun, in an odd way, but let’s just say that if I were to write a story about gender these days it wouldn’t quite go this way. I might change Loki’s gender arc (or the bits we see of it, anyway) a little, too, but honestly I think the theme itself will have to wait for a future fic xD

[terresdebrume]

I think one of the numerous things that frustrate me about the SEADLA rewrite is that the characterization is completely off imo. I mean, it’s internally consistent, so SEADLA!Loki always acts like SEADLA!Loki (and same with Tony), but between the fact that I was a lot younger and less experienced when I started this AND the fact that we’ve had three more movies to see Loki since I started this before Avengers came out, SEADLA!Loki is very much not MCU!Loki and it’s somewhat frustrating because there are things I would like to adress about MCU!Loki tbh.

Oh well. At worse I’ll just rewatch every Loki movie ever and write another fic:P

(...And you know what, actually, writing this makes me realize I need to go and mark a couple fics as discontinued and abandoned over on AO3.)

[terresdebrume]

It’s almost five on day four of Nanowrimo and I’ve only gotten like 500 words down (my goal for today is to pass the 10k line and and then keep going for as long as I can stand it) but on the plus side I’ve managed to figure out the endgame/remember what I used to be going for so there is that. Also theres something like a quarter of a chapter that’s going to be erased, but it’s bad smut so it’s not that big of a loss really.

[terresdebrume]

Starting a rewatch when you have fic to write is never a good idea. Not even if you're watching (one of) the fandom(s) you're trying to write for x)