Tumblr crosspost (14-16 October 2019) - writing meme

[anghraine]

This has multiple dates because I did a writing meme, and I figured I'd compile the responses into one post.


October 14th:

ladytharen (elperian ) asked for 👻- 2 or 3 sentences from something you haven’t posted yet (if this isn't asked yet)

I replied:

I tend to be an instant gratification person and just post whenever, so … let’s see:

But Luke had always been more of a brother than anything else, long before galactic coincidence made it official. Jyn didn’t seem anything like a sister, for all that they’d collectively pronounced her Aunt Jyn from about five days after Ben’s birth. She was simply Han’s friend.

squirrelwrangler (heget ) asked for 💻 💬 💘:

I replied:

💻 = three works of yours that are must reads

Ummm. I wouldn’t really call anything I’ve written a must-read.

The ones that people most often have read, though, are per ardua ad astra (the one where Jyn, Cassian, and Bodhi escape Scarif only to get sucked into the Death Star, at AO3 here), Season of Courtship (the one that follows Darcy and Elizabeth’s engagement with attendant family drama), and … hmm, maybe First Impressions (the one where Darcy and Elizabeth are genderbent as Henry Bennet and Catherine Darcy).

[ETA from the future: I sorted my AO3 works by hits to see if that gave an idea of what my most-read fics actually are, and it's per ardua ad astra, Season of Courtship, and ... lol, we get dark, only to shine, a fic revolving around adulterous teenage sibling incest between a countess and a Catholic priest. Its hits might be exaggerated, though, because it has so many chapters, in which case the next would actually be tolerably well acquainted, my canon-compliant fic expanding on Elizabeth's evolving feelings at Pemberley and afterwards, at AO3 here.]

💬 = describe one of your completed works in three words

Padmé becomes Empress!

💘 = what’s your favourite AU? Least favourite?

Favourites are difficult, but it’s probably one of the genderbent ones, which is really my favourite fic trope. In terms of how much I think about them, that’s probably Lucy (f!Luke) or Fíriel (f!Faramir).

Least favourite is … uh, not something I often think about it, either. But I have absolutely zero desire to continue Such Terms of Cordiality, one where Darcy and Elizabeth meet at Ramsgate and (too) quickly fall for each other, which has far too many points of departure to feel like it has much of anything to do with Austen.

suddenwildmagic asked for ☺️- a line that made you feel a fluffy happiness

For one hazy moment, Jyn imagined my, er, friend transformed into my wife, across the stars.

From my Jyn/f!Cassian fic, something greater than once they were.

suddenwildmagic replied:

bwawww :)

-and I said:

:))))

Oct 15th:

brambleberrycottage asked for ☺️, 💜, and 👀?

I replied:

☺️= a line that made you feel a fluffy happiness

After he cleaned and capped the quill, Logan shook his head.

“Ascalonian, eh?”

“Our father was from Ebonhawke and our mother’s a Langmar,” I said, and he looked surprised all over again.

With a quick laugh, he said, “Then get out there, little sister, and make our ancestors proud.”

(from pro patria, my Guild Wars 2 fic, at AO3 with footnotes here)

💜 = top 3 favorite lines

It’s a bit random since I’ve written so much, but three that I like are—

1:

Here, he was a constant presence for half the year and a constant authority for all of it.

However affected the two of them might have been by their acquaintance, it could not compare to that. Elizabeth’s injured emotions, though not nothing, mattered less—far less—than the mass of lives winding out in the shadow of Pemberley.

(from tolerably well acquainted, linked above)

2:

She remembered with perfect clarity how weakened she’d been in the Houses of Healing, so exhausted and unsteady that she might have fallen if not for Imrahil hastening to her side. In her splintered vision Aragorn shone like a star. Like Eärendil. And frail as she must have seemed in that moment, he said: You are a woman of staunch will, lady, to have contained the poison of the Nazgûl so far. Men live who else would have died, whose lives I swear shall now be preserved. For I too am a healer, and I say to you: it may be that you were born for this hour, Fíriel daughter of Denethor.

(from a hard matter, the post-victory piece of the f!Faramir fic)

3:

“We are free from the threat of the Dark Lord, forever, when we would have all been slain or enslaved, and there will never again be such a war against such an enemy.”

(from princes of the city, a conversation between a royalist Imrahil and Stewardist Ivriniel)

👀 = favorite response to one of your works

It’s hard to pick one over more than a decade of fic writing, but comparatively recently … I really got a kick out of rain_sleet_snow’s comment on a hard matter:

I will not hear a word against the footnotes. The entire reason I successfully read the actual Silmarillion is because I picked up enough tidbits from your (always highly erudite and definitely much more accessible) fic to stop giving myself 1 headache per chapter. I love the way you use canon.

I especially love it here, where an AU with potentially quite dramatic changes involved settles neatly into a canonical base like nothing ever happened. I recently re-read LotR, and though a different person with different experiences Fíriel nonetheless feels so true to Faramir’s basic character and values. Her very careful semi-hidden sparring with Aragorn - he must have know that was the trickiest negotiation he’d face in the city - has so many undercurrents, and yet they all come out clearly in your writing. I really like Fíriel’s perspective on Aragorn, and the way it draws out the element of almost being a bit of a Chance right in his life/character: not a chosen king, but an heir with a totally indirect and historically rejected blood claim, making his way largely on his wits and personal qualities and a very thorough elvish education.

October 16th:

laufire asked for Writer Ask Game: 💜☕️👻

I said:

💜 = top three favourite lines

As with before, it’s hard to pick from among my *squints* 210 fics at AO3 and a handful of others elsewhere, but I’ll grab at three I do like!

1:

She didn’t feel afraid, and she doubted that Cassian did either; they’d just never had the chance for this, the trust or time for shyness, uncertainty, the thrill of anticipation crackling beneath, for—well, for being young and in love, and a little stupid with it.

(from life, like a swinging vine, an Everybody Lives Jyn/Cassian team bonding fic)

2:

I have sent Lydia a note of what might be termed congratulations, and some money. No doubt the birth of her son is a fine occasion for a new bonnet.—Forgive me, but I cannot cherish your illusions as to her character or W.’s. Yet it seems cruel that our niece and nephew are living in squalor while Elizabeth and Edward and Eliza will never know what it is to want for anything, and I wear pearls in my hair.

(from The Letters of Elizabeth Darcy (1796-1798), an epistolary fic sketching out the first two years of marriage through excerpts of her letters)

3:

“We meet at last!”

Still smiling, he knelt before an astonished Túrin.

“Few remember the lordship of Dor-lómin and Ladros, but it shall not be forgotten while I live! I am Tuor son of Huor, the brother of your great father, and you, Túrin and Niënor, are my nearest kin in this world. My sword is yours, cousin!”

(from aurë entuluva, an improbably happy Túrin/Tuor/Niënor fic)

☕️ = favourite passage

Ummmm. The same disclaimer goes, but … let’s see, I really liked this ending:

“Fa valiyat khiris ai-dûru,” he says coldly, then my father is truly dead, and though Anakin says nothing, Luke hears him recoil from it, hears him hear. Then he remembers: condemnation is easy for the freeborn, however bitter to a freeborn child of slavery, so even now he will not abandon him.

And in the end, Anakin gasps aiyat, aiyat through dying breaths, and pà khariyad eir-yanù … eir-yanù—his last words are in Alsaraic, their words, his own words.

(from what are we living for, my main Skywalker language fic)

👻 = 2-3 sentences from something you haven’t posted yet

Cheating a little, since I’ve posted an excerpt, but …

If she were both lady and captain in Ithilien, she was more in Minas Anor, a prophesied hero whose glory could only be compared with the fallen Boromir, the King, the greats of old. So other names came to her ears, familiar now that she knew the favourite tales of Gondor: Beren, Túrin, Haleth.

Éowyn, not one to tire of glory, smiled at this.

(from the fragmented Fourth Age fic I poke at every few years)

incognitajones asked for 🎲- your favorite chapter/part from a multiparty series ?

I replied:

One of my favourites is Ch 13 of per ardua ad astra, which deals with the aftermath of Alderaan’s destruction and incidentally includes the first time Cassian admits to himself that he loves Jyn (though he’s too traumatized to realize he’s done it).