Anghraine

I'm sure it's happened before, but I noticed a deleted AO3 comment on one of my fics that (to go by past!Elizabeth's response) had been entirely pleasant. I am guessing the commenter deleted to avoid association with the fic itself (we get dark, only to shine—so it's not beyond the bounds of possibility that someone could be harassed or worried about harassment for commenting favorably on it, given that it revolves around adulterous sibling incest between murderous teenagers, or that they themself came to disapprove of the fic's existence). Or maybe they ended up getting disaffected with me personally and didn't want to leave a compliment, or maybe they deleted all their comments to everyone, I don't know.

But :(

(I don't at all disapprove of the power to delete stuff like comments, but my archival sensibilities are troubled by things just going away.)

A fic meme, grabbed fromshadaras!

Name:

Anghraine / Elizabeth

Fandoms:

Tolkien, mainly LOTR; Austen, mainly Darcy/Elizabeth; Star Wars, mainly Skywalkers and Jyn/Cassian

Where you post:

Wherever I happen to be active, but also at AO3 under anghraine.

Most popular multi-chapter fic:

Season of Courtship, the Darcy/Elizabeth engagement fic I wrote 15 years ago (but revised … maybe 7-8 years ago?). It was surpassed for a long time by some other fics, but picked up a ton of kudos/bookmarks this year for some reason, so now it’s well ahead of the rest in both bookmarks and kudos. [ETA 3/17/2024: the gap has only widened since then, idk why.]

Favorite story you’ve written so far:

That’s hard to say … I’ve written a lot. In some ways, my short P&P sequel The Letters of Elizabeth Darcy, 1796-1798 will always be a fave because it came out so closely to what I wanted it to be. But the dearest to my heart are probably always going to be my Lucy Skywalker series starring f!Luke, and my f!Darcy/m!Elizabeth fic, First Impressions.

Fic you were nervous to post:

Hmm. Perhaps Better Choice, my very flawed Faramir-goes-to-Rivendell fic, which is the first fic I posted anywhere. I thought of we get dark, only to shine because of its many taboos, but Borgias fandom was so nice that I don’t think I much worried about it, beyond hoping people would read it. IDK … I’m a very nervous person, and I definitely am on the edge of my seat after I post a fic, but I don’t think I’m usually nervous about posting fics in this sense.

How you choose your titles

They’re usually general statements of what the fic is about (“Redemption,” “Anomaly,” The Jedi and the Sith Lord), references to a quote from the canon (Season of Courtship, tolerably well acquainted), or excerpts from songs (“But Thou Didst Not Leave His Soul In Hell,” “like a storm in the desert”).

Do you outline?

Sometimes—I have some things that just start with an idea, others where it’s pretty clear in my head, but I ultimately work best when I have the structure and some details all sketched out.

Complete fics:

169, says AO3. Mostly one-shots, of course.

In progress:

Posted WIPs that I have active plans to continue at this time: once I’m writing fic again—Lucy Skywalker, tolerably well acquainted, and Fíriel (f!Faramir) are at the top of my list!

Posted WIPs that I have given up on: I’m terrible at really giving up on things, tbh. I always have scraps that I poke at and things like that. Such Terms of Cordiality is vanishingly unlikely, though.

Exchange fics due soon/unrevealed: none. I had the sense (speaking for myself) not to do exchanges this year.

WIPs that live in my fanfic folder and are incomplete and who knows when they’ll be finished: not a whole lot, actually, in the sense of things that haven’t been posted. I mostly do post my WIPs. I’ve got the companion fic to my Darcy-Fitzwilliam headcanons in the folder—we’ll see how that goes.

Coming soon/not yet started: hahahaha, nothing. I’ve got quite enough to be going with.

Do you accept prompts: not exactly, these days. I don’t mind them, and if they inspire me, I’m glad to write when I can spare the time, but at this point they don’t usually kickstart me and I just feel vaguely guilty when they do but I don’t have the time/energy, so I don’t actively invite them.

Upcoming story you are most excited to write:

It’s not a story, but there’s a scene in the Fíriel-Éowyn-Merry fic that I’m reallyyyyy looking forward to (though it only has Fíriel and Éowyn in it).

Tagging, if you want to do it: elperian, incognitajones, irresistible-revolution, kaz, ncfan

I was looking at my AO3 page, and … I have a pretty jumbled mix of feelings about what I’ve written, honestly.

I don’t expect many people to care, but going with the top 11:

1. Season of Courtship (Austen): I wrote it at 19 alongside The Rich Are Always Respectable, alternating on a schedule, in fits of depression and mania. A few years later (in a better frame of mind), I revised it—some sections quite substantially. I’m glad people like it but feel kind of weird about it being The One.

2. per ardua ad astra (Star Wars): I wrote this in a haze of Rogue One feelings between early 2017 and mid-2018. I was dealing with some mental health issues, but not 2005 hell, and it helped with them. I feel vaguely bad about the perpetually unfinished half of a chapter on my Drive, but I am fond of the fic generally.

3. But Thou Didst Not Leave His Soul In Hell (Star Wars): I was listening to The Messiah and had the idea of a bunch of short SW fics set to various lyrics; this is one of them. It was a strange but fun project and super soothing after Austen fandom, so it’s nice to see such a short thing up here.

4. we get dark, only to shine (The Borgias): I wrote this during my MA, and the academic and fic research crossed over heavily, which made both easier. I’d finally gotten diagnosed as bipolar and put on mood stabilizers, I was getting A’s in everything, and its fandom was the absolute nicest I’ve ever been in. Best fandom experience bar none.

5. tolerably well acquainted (Austen): I had some P&P feelings and started self-indulgent drawer fic that just kind of grew. Slowly. Very slowly. But eventually it reached the point where I decided to post what I had, and … it’s still ongoing.

6. Contradictions and Varieties (Austen): this comes from my better Austen fandom days. There was a prompt at Firthness and the first half of the fic was my fill for it, and then I tacked on an ending later. I feel like the division is very obvious and it’s pretty uneven, so I’m kind of meh about it.

7. Anomaly (Austen): the ace!Darcy fic, inspired by the ace manifestos community on Dreamwidth. I thought of actually writing a manifesto for him, and then just wrote fic instead. It’s not my best fic, but it is my precious child and every nice comment warms my heart to this day.

8. Ten Facts About Harry Potter (Harry Potter): my take on Slytherin!Harry, something I’ve always deeply loved in concept and very rarely in execution. It’s … eh.

9. First Impressions (Austen): also not my best fic, but I planned it for a year and then wrote it for a big bang, and it largely turned out the way I wanted it to turn out. That doesn’t often happen! And I had friends who were super encouraging the whole time, and was in a good place mentally, and … it was a joy, really. 

10. The Talk (Austen): It sure exists. (More seriously, it’s not really “me” and feels very remote.)

11. Redemption (Star Wars): this was my first SW fic ever and I shoved a lot of my ambivalence about ROTJ and the PT into it while trying to stay away from fix-fic implications. It was really fun to write for a new fandom, so I just did whatever popped into my head, and … it doesn’t bother me, since I had such a good time writing it, but in retrospect it’s a strange little thing.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[ETA 2/28/2024: I don't think my top 11 by kudos looks exactly the same now, though it's similar: 1) Season of Courtship, 2) But Thou Didst Not Leave His Soul in Hell, 3) per ardua ad astra, 4) we get dark, only to shine, 5) Contradictions and Varieties, 6) Anomaly, 7) tolerably well acquainted, 8) The Talk, 9) Ten Facts About Harry Potter, 10) A Cunning Plan, and 11) First Impressions.]

I reblogged a post about how getting degrees in ostensibly impractical fields can help you ... write highly accurate fanfic in specific fields. flame-cat on Tumblr reblogged it with:

tolkien ghostwrote this

I tagged it:

#lkadsfjkla #laughing at both but #can't lie a significant part of getting into early modern studies was... not caused by wgdots but def tied up in it #and i can never tell ANYone irl about it lol #THANK U FOR MY ACADEMIC CAREER NEIL JORDAN #actually it was a paper on the borgias that got me into my phd program too #DOUBLE THANKS

I reblogged a screenshot of a Tweet (I don't know where the original is) from Ryan Boyd talking about how difficult it is to write good sex scenes and how romance writers deserve credit for trying where a lot of serious literary writers often don't risk writing about good sex.

I replied:

Yeppp. The only time I really managed to write them was when there was enough badwrong that I had too many other things to worry about, lmao. I do have a romance novel (...series) perpetually in the works, but the idea of writing sex scenes for it just ... stymies me.

imabratzdoll said:

hello!! I was wondering if you have any plans to continue writing for the borgias? not to pressure you or anything!! we get dark, only to shine is my favorite fic ever and I reread it all the time. happy new year!💓

I replied:

Belatedly, thank you very much! I’m glad to hear that it’s still enjoyable, even stopping in kind of the middle of nowhere.

I’d like to say I’d definitely come back, since it was probably the most enjoyable fandom I’ve ever been in, but I honestly don’t know. These days, I spend my fannish time going pretty much wherever the impulse of the moment takes me. Sometimes it takes me back to previous fandoms—I always go flitting back to Austen/Tolkien/Star Wars, for instance. So I could end up wandering back. But also, I might not.

Sorry—I’d like to be clearer, but that’s about where things stand.

[ETA 9/17/2021: I probably won't, unfortunately, since I had a lot of plans for it, but I do have a lot of respect for people who are willing to admit outright that they like that fic and want more of it/like it.]

I got a lovely comment on we get dark, only to shine from a person who mentioned crying at Jeronima's death and then wished me well generally. It's ... :')

(For context: we get dark, only to shine is the longest and most #problematic of my longfics, an AU of The Borgias that brings in as many historical details as I could unearth and weave in without breaking the show's canon. Jeronima is a not-quite-OC; Jerònima de Borja/Girolama Borgia was a real person, but I make her Rodrigo's niece instead of his daughter, move her death to a later date, and manufactured her personality and history out of nothing except my own purposes. So I'm quite touched when people care about the subplot that turns on her death, and about her death scene in particular.)

(Stolen from shadaras)

List your top fanfic on AO3 for every year, sorted by kudos.

I wasn't sure whether to list them by the date posted or updated, but it was easier to go with updated, so that's what it is.

( Read more... )

Things are going pretty well!

- I mentioned some trouble with my bff under f-lock, but he hasn't hinted at any issues, so that's good. 

- I also got sucked back into Game of Thrones this season—not in a fic/meta way, but in a reading lots of fic and reblogging things way

- Suppressing the urge to respond to every 'yeah pretty much except *quibble*' to a LOK post with NO YOU'RE WRONG THIS IS WHY. But I stand by my opinion that a) Korra was completely justified in her anger at Tonraq and Tenzin in S2, b) Korra was completely unjustified in her treatment of Mako at the same time, c) lighting unarmed people on fire is always morally dubious, d) LOK fandom was absurdly awful in their interpretations of S1-S2, and e) a lot of that came down to ill-advised pacing and structure in those seasons. WE WILL NEVER AGREE ABOUT THIS THERE IS NO POINT. 

- I followed a long-time supportive follower who turns out to be into a lot of the same things and also a SJ person taking on the extremes of SJ Tumblr. She reblogs and writes a lot of anti-gatekeeping, so I've ended up reading and appreciating those, but it also introduced me to the fuckery of 'SGA' rhetoric, which as an ace lesbian raised Mormon is ... not a trigger per se, but certainly viscerally repulsive. So I've ranted about that a bit. I'm honestly very, very relieved that everyone I know (and some I don't) have been supportive about it because THE FUCK???? (I'm also annoyed as a quietly androgynous person, but the Actual Conversion Therapy Term component kiiiinda overwhelms everything else.)

- Practicing my Spanish on Duolingo, this involves occasional screaming. LOOK LA AMO IS COMPLETELY LEGIT.

- istg I will finish the already-late chapter of my longfic (we get dark, only to shine, my Very Problematic and yet also very pretentious Borgias fic)

I just posted the forty-fifth chapter of my longfic.

This is just ... what??? I myself am wondering if I'm a Pod Person! Where did I find the discipline for forty-five chapters of anything??? My own original novel is barely into its eighth, and my longest fic before this was ... I think around 80k, and written in a 2.5-month manic haze.

Now that I think of it, though, wgdots is really the opposite: written with mania-depression dialed far down care of proper treatment. And accomplishing something like this through discipline and work is really much more satisfying than something that's more like a chemical spill. 

Apparently, all I needed was murder, incest, politics, and very extended family drama with borderline OCs. And Lamictal!

¯\_(ツ)_/¯