#seriously though between the hate comments and the plagiarism fandom can be a deeply weird place

[conundrumoftime]

Twenty questions for fic writers

From a few people!

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

At the moment 59 under my name, plus a couple of anonymous ones for fic exchanges that haven’t hit the author reveal date yet.

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

345,058

3. What fandoms do you write for?

At the moment: Rings of Power, Silmarillion and LOTR. My other big fandom is Babylon 5, although my much-loved WIP for that one is currently on hiatus.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

I don’t think these are my top 5 fics by a metric I care about given my love for small fandoms and obscure niche content alongside the Haladriel juggernaut stuff, but with that in mind:

- Shadow-Bride, my big Haladriel WIP, my baby, my love, my precious;

- A man is a god in ruins, my first multi-chapter Haladriel, which started life as a short ficlet to be the ‘+1’ of a 5 Things fic and took on something of a life of its own;

- Silver Queen, my first half-Maia Celebrian story - really I just wanted to give her enough half-Maia powers to blast ambushing orcs down a mountain;

- Five times Halbrand’s secret got revealed, my second (I think?) fic for Rings of Power. One of the scenarios turned into Shadow-Bride, and the +1 scenario in which Galadriel doesn’t learn his secret (well… arguably…) is ‘A man is a god in ruins’.

- Lady of the Seas, second part of a Haladriel two-parter; Haladriel smut with Sauron doing a lot of thinking about Ossë and Uinen.

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

I try to! I got behind at one point and had to declare temporary amnesty. I am so grateful for almost all (see answer to q8) the comments I get, and I love responding to either discuss things or just say ‘thank you’. I never manage to find time to do it as soon as I would like.

6. What’s the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

This would probably be one of my Babylon 5 ones - either ‘A spirit haunts the year’s last hours’, an AU drabble where the Minbari took Valen prisoner and now Delenn has her own pet god figure; or ‘MIssing’, about Delenn searching for Lennier after s5 and not finding him.

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

‘Tar-Mairon of the Shire’, a Rings of Power AU where the Harfoots really did find Sauron. Does what it says on the tin. My summary for this one is ‘Hobbits make everything better, including Dark Lords’ and I stand by that.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

Yes! A ridiculous amount! I have had multiple comments inviting me to harm myself in various graphic ways over making the wrong fictional characters kiss. I get the most hate for writing Celeborn in a way the haters have decided is mean to him (?? he’s fine!) and particularly on my G-rated baby ficlets. Who can even fathom this, honestly.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

I do, and mostly the ‘overly wordy’ kind.

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written?

I was going to say yes but apparently nothing I have on AO3 is a crossover and I can’t remember what I’ve written in my pre-AO3 days. So: yes I think so! once! But alas, can’t remember what.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not the whole fic in a copy/paste sense, but: yes. I won’t lie, it was pretty weird and unpleasant to discover, but once I’d got over the initial “?!” reaction I saw it a little differently - that kind of plagiarism was obviously coming from an author who was insecure in their own abilities, was deeply jealous of mine, and who ultimately was missing out on much of the actual fun of writing. What’s even the point of fanfic if you aren’t coming up with your own work? It’s not like we’re getting paid! How unsatisfying must it be to have readers like your work and know it’s actually someone else’s thing they’re liking anyway, right? So I ended up in a place of taking it as a compliment in the ‘imitation is the sincerest form of flattery that mediocrity can pay to greatness’ sense.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yes - one of my Rings of Power fics got translated into Russian. I am very happy, and very impressed by the translator’s work.

13. Have you ever cowritten a fic before?

Yes and it didn’t go well and I nearly fell out with my co-writer friend over it because we had different schedules and different takes on the story, so: never again.

14. What’s your all-time favorite ship?

It’s probably one I haven’t even written for: Jack and Irina in Alias. It’s got everything I love about ships! They’re enemies working for rival organisations, they’re married, they try to kill each other, they can’t quite bear to do it, they have to sort out awkward co-parenting arrangements, they plot, they dance, there are stabbing attempts… honestly, SpyParents forever.

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish, but doubt you ever will?

I plan to finish all my WIPs! I only have three at the moment: Shadow-Bride; Set Fire to the Stars (Babylon 5 pre-series Minbari worldbuilding with Branmer, who I love); and All The Kinds of Alive You Can Be (Rings of Power Sauron/Celeborn where Sauron shapechanges into Galadriel).

16. What are your writing strengths?

Especially these days (I’m a fandom old) I like that I’m happy to try writing new things based on thinking it would be interesting and I’d like to go with it, and not being intimidated by finding the fandom too scary or writing in a different direction to popular fanon or getting a baffled “that’s… nice… I guess?” reaction from my usual readers. I love writing Rings of Power Celeborn; I love writing fics about him raising half-Maia Celebrian; I get untold fury about this from a lot of the Twitter fandom youth, but I continue to have fun :)

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

I have tons about my actual writing (dialogue, endings, failure to come up with titles I’m happy with) but along the lines of the above answer: I wish I was better at doing long multi-part fics, because the ones I’ve done I have had loads of fun with but I usually stick to one-shots because I don’t feel like the energy of the story will keep going long enough.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

A few of my fics across fandoms have language as important, and specifically, different languages belonging to different people/who’s speaking and what they’re speaking in. My Silm-LOTR Galadriel/Celeborn fic ‘Softest of Tongues’ is a lot about Quenya and Sindarin, and how inadequate translation can be - one of the tags is ‘Sapir-Whorf hypothesis as a metaphor for the pain at the heart of your marriage’.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Poltergeist: the Legacy, back in the late 1990s. Fandom OLD. (I am glad none of those stories nor the forums they were written in have survived the ravages of internet time, I tell you.)

20. Favourite fic you’ve ever written?

I have a few and the thing they all have in common is ‘I am really pleased I was able to make this thing I like work’. So:

- Tar-Mairon of the Shire (Rings of Power), for combining hope and Hobbits and History of Middle-earth, in a way that is both fluff and also genuinely sincerely written Sauron redemption;

- Civil Twilight (Rings of Power), for getting Haladriel and Galadriel/Celeborn into the same fic and for a take on Celeborn I’m really happy with;

- Softest of Tongues (LOTR and Silm), for writing Galadriel/Celeborn in a way that got the exact right language-as-symbolism and the tone of sadness and love and hope and grief that I was trying to hit;

- Deceptions (Babylon 5), for being a short fic that still captures Lennier going from protective to horrified in realising how terrifying his boss is (and also for Delenn making Neroon bow to her)

- Things That Go Bump In The Night (Ghosts), because I was not sure if I could write comedy fic for a comedy, and it turns out I could!

Tagging: @bad-surprise @stitchingatthecircuitboard @liminal-zone @myrsinemezzo @ophidion @formerlyir @hazelmaines @wyrd-syster and anyone else who wants to do it!