#i've stopped denying my angst fic title but i still put my disclaimer

[squirrelwrangler]

Fic author interview - tagged by @elwing. i think the mutuals who would be have been tagged but if a follower and wants to answer this, use me as your excuse.

1- How many works do you have on AO3?

80

2- What's your total AO3 word count?

287,637

3- What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Whatcha Gonna Call It? wins by a landslide with 268 kudos, 2. Tears, 147 kudos, 3. The Brides of Death, 111 kudos, 4. Book of Hours, 91 kudos, 5. Hold Fast Ere Night Comes, 85 kudos

4- Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

I try to reply to all of them, though sometimes I can't offer much more than a thank you.

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

ooh, that might be difficult. Since one of my favorite things to write is 'death of an elf', but I always have in the back of my head that for 99% of these cases the elf in question will eventually be healed, reborn, and reunited, even if the fic ends on angst the knowledge that this isn't final lessens the angst, at least for me. But my other constant well into which I am dipping is Aegnor/Andreth, which has a less certain and far more distant proposed rebirth reunion. And Kinslaying from the Teleri perspective. In its own way, The Swanships has the most fridge-horror delayed angst ending because the fic is building up what these objects mean, their source of community and safety, and ends right before they are going to be permanently destroyed right when most needed. Of the various Tol-in-Gaurhoth fics, every single one ends on or right before the death of the focal character, so it's a tossup on which one is the angstiest. It's down to what flavor of death seems saddest, the futile hope of Pins, the anger of Filial Piety, the despair of Take Thy Brother's Hand and the mental break in Kingfisher... Or the Hithlum fics- the stuff with Mornacu is really angsty and the happy ending reunion more delayed than anybody but canon Aegnor/Andreth.

Let's take the cop-out and pick one of the Andreth fics, and tie it between The Ring and Blood on Bone for a Lover's Burial.

6- What's the fic you've written with the happiest ending?

Okay so there are pure fluff fics that I've written. They exist!

But I think in the spirit of this question, for a single fic, it has to be Release from Bondage because the final chapters are all about how the horror of Angband is defeated and the main couple admit their feelings and get to now live in freedom and paradise. With the coda of Our Lady of Canine Compassion because what is happier than an abused dog warg also getting reborn and adopted into a happy home as a pampered toy dog named Cuddles

7- Do you write crossovers?

....YES and no. Fusions. feels like 50% of the time the fic is that variation of a crossover where the characters and/or plot or even just small details are directly inspired to the point of an AU, but these are never pure crossovers of canon interactions.

8- Have you ever received hate on a fic?

Got into an argument in the comments of one fic but never hate. At least not for the fics themselves.

9- Do you write smut?

Tiptoe around it and some very light smut in the finale for Release from Bondage. One day I'll copy over the smutty paragraphs to Ao3.

Then there's everything with "Cold/Baby Shower". Which never gets fully explicit but is overloaded with D/s vibes and is basically a porn with plot fic that censor blurs the actual porn. And Baby Shower is the "millisecond post-climax" fic.

10- Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I know of.

11- Have you ever had a fic translated?

Twice by the same person I think. Howl and Whatcha Gonna Call It? were both translated into Russian for two collections or challenges.

12- Have you ever co-written a fic before?

No

13- What's your all-time favorite ship?

Well, discounting original characters, looking at my fics it should be obvious that in canon it's Aegnor/Andreth, with some Theon/Jeyne

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

I tell myself that I'll finish or get to all the fics. For a long time Warpath home was one I wasn't sure about but now that I know how I want to expand out Faron's angle and tie into the Author Findis, it has a better chance.

OII is the one that I scream at myself for lost inspiration/drive to write and the one that will be most stubborn about because of the scope - esp because the parts I want to write about and the parts that need to be written/that readers want don't always align.

15- What are your writing strengths?

I think when I nail my descriptive prose it reals sells itself. And I usually find writing both action and dialogue to be easy.

16- What are your writing weaknesses?

It's hard for me to plot out and write multi-chaptered fic and commit to finishing those in a reasonable time frame. My sentence structures can get convoluted and dropping articles for clauses, some of which is reflective of my manner of speech which in itself is partially dependent on dialect - I know some features would be damn obvious if I was reading what I wrote out-loud and y'all heard that Texan drawl. Also my character voices and personalities aren't as distinctive as someone to whom that was their strength would be.

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

I dislike it if it's more than a phrase or two and if it's more than a sentence I start to dislike it, because it makes reading comprehension extremely difficult on the readers and ruins the flow. And the POV- if the character understands the second language they would be at least partially translating and if they don't they wouldn't discern the words. Better to describe the dialogue than transcribe it untranslated in the body of a fic. Written text in-universe I give more leeway. Authors' notes are an excellent place to put the untranslated text.

18- What was the first fandom you wrote for?

Fanfic? Tolkien

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

ASoIaF proper maybe, or Star Wars. Not just a fusion. Well, the ASoIaF would just be writing out that silly modern AU or maybe the Selyse constantly trying to assassinate Robert.

20- What's your favorite fic you've written?

uuuuh. Let's got with In Need of a Cold Shower.