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notesofliberation · 7 days
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mary oliver / james baldwin / soul (2020)
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glitterypirateduck · 4 months
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GPD's Deep Dive - FATUM NOS IUNGEBIT by @kneelingshadowsalome
Welcome to GPD's deep dive, where I interview authors of fan fic series. You'll get a behind the scenes look at how their work was created, new insight into the characters, and more.
Today's story is from @kneelingshadowsalome
Summary From the Author: You have seen him in your dreams. The seer has divined his coming. But nothing has prepared you for witnessing him in the flesh. (Historical AU where König fights for the Roman Empire in an auxiliary unit, finds a cute barbarian woman and decides to keep her as his own.)
A note from me: This story contains what some consider darker elements that I normally do not repost on my page. The story includes groping and fear of SA (including use of the term "rape") by the protagonist. I felt that the author used these themes in a way that was relevant to the time period of the story and was not salacious. That being said, before continuing, please be aware that these elements are present in the story and the Deep Dive. As always, read all warnings from authors before proceeding.
Answers will come directly from the author and are not edited by me (unless I catch a typo).
Warning - Spoilers below for FATUM NOS IUNGEBIT. Please read the series first before proceeding.
To read all of @kneelingshadowsalome work, click here. Enjoy!
What was your inspiration for writing FATUM NOS IUNGEBIT ?
I got this ask about the spoils of war trope and König as a Greek or Roman warrior and immediately got enamoured with the idea. Even if the image of a half-naked Greek demigod König is lovely, I decided to go for the Roman AU. Even though it’s later revealed that König is not actually a Roman in this fic but a barbarian king’s son who’s been brought to Rome in chains…
What is the meaning behind the title?l and what significance does it have in the story?
Fatum Nos Iungebit means “Fate will unite us”. It’s a reference to the invisible side character in this fic which is literally Fate.
This story takes place during the Roman Empire. What kind of research did you have to do to write this story? Were you surprised by anything you learned and did you change any parts because of it?
I did some quick research on subjects such as how Romans fought, what kind of armour they wore, how their portable camps were set up, and what kind of supply logistics they had for distant campaigns. I also researched things like plant poisons, what kind of fabrics people used at the time and how a slave could gain their freedom in Rome. What surprised me was how much research a historical AU like this requires: I would’ve had to study lots and lots about both the history of Rome as well as the traditions of Germanic tribes to ensure my choice for the year of these events was plausible, for example! It’s just one sentence at the beginning of the fic, but it would’ve required days worth of work. So now it’s just there and I hope it makes sense.
I find the interaction of the reader and the old woman/seer fascinating. How does her prediction intertwine with the story?
This story has many supernatural, mythical elements, and this is one of them. The seer’s prediction follows, almost haunts reader wherever she goes, and the things the old crone said would happen do happen – just not in a way anyone expects. I wanted to give the story a feeling that no one knows where the prediction ends and fate begins or if everything is just a huge, odd coincidence.
What does the seer mean by "become a tree"? I feel like there is more to it then hanging out in the tree?
This is a mythical way of speaking, and I wanted to include it in the fic to shake readers out of their modern way of thinking. In many different cultures, people have talked to the wind or turned into their respective totem animals for ages. To us, it may look like they are speaking to themselves or that they remain humans, howling and growling and trying to act like beasts, but to them, they truly *are* bears or eagles or jaguars. In an animistic worldview, you can “become a tree” in many ways. Fee did it by climbing the tree and keeping still, and no one saw her, right? :) Only after falling with the branch (or *as* a branch!) does she become “human” again.
Konig is immediately enamored by the reader, why?
As jolly and carefree as he seems, König is actually a man who’s out of hope. He has a tragic past and we find out he’s just kind of lost with himself and his purpose in life. König has visited a seer too, and so he’s acting according to his own personal beliefs. When he sees Fee drop from a tree, it’s basically proof that the prophecy is true because she fits the seer’s description exactly: she told him he would meet his woman during the next campaign and that she would resemble a fairy. So you can only imagine König’s shock when he finally gets what he’s been looking for, his own little fairy, and the first thing she does is try to kill herself…!
Can you give us a bit of Konig’s point of view from his first night with Fee? Does he understand he is making her uncomfortable with his actions and groping her or is he oblivious?
He’s not oblivious at all, and I think he tries to treat her as best as a lonely, superstitious, lovestruck man can. It’s just that because he believes his dreams have finally come true he can’t entirely keep his hands to himself… He’s just extremely happy to have finally found “his woman” from the edge of the known world!
There's a lot of miscommunication happening in the story which makes for several great scenes ranging from funny to angsty. How did their language barrier help drive the story?
Communication is great, but I liked to explore the vulnerability between the characters through this. How do you communicate without words? How much can be said in other ways? And how amazing it is when the first fragile words are finally spoken? (Or how embarrassing it is that König has understood reader calling him ugly for gods know how long?)
Speaking of miscommunication, I really enjoyed the humor in this story, which often occurred around the language barrier. Was it your intention for these moments to be funny and more light hearted? (Ex. “No touching” “shut up” “dont you dare translate that”)
Yes, it played a crucial part in this story to offer readers some comic relief. Otherwise the story would have become too heavy and dark because the threat of SA is present through most parts of the fic. It also amplifies the impression of König as this dumb brute who can’t even speak well, although if you think about it, he learns her language so quickly it’s almost frightening!
How did you balance the darker content of the fic (some groping and fear of SA from reader) with the romantic side of the story?
This was very tricky because there is a lot of coercion happening on König’s side and I’m aware that this is not what all people would deem romantic at all (hence the warnings and tags!) König is a traumatised mess, and even if that’s not an excuse to abduct and grope reader, he still has an immense amount of respect for her and is capable of self-reflection. He treats her like royalty compared to how the Roman soldiers treat their spoils of war, and despite sometimes behaving like a slave to his lust, König never forces himself upon reader. He wants a willing partner, so he has no other option but to try and woo her, which, of course, places reader in a predicament.
Can you tell us more about the translator? Where did the idea to add this character come from?
I wanted to bring in “a third wheel” to create more tension and let reader see how König acts around an actual Roman. We later see how König despises the Roman soldiers and quite nonchalantly treats the translator like a slave (König thinks he’s better than the Romans because he’s royalty and has better manners etc). The translator doesn’t act very slavelike, however, and I think it made a funny dynamic – a barbarian who thinks he’s better than his conqueror and a slave who thinks he’s better than his master.
Why did Konig not force himself upon the reader? Why is he so different from the other soldiers? Ex. Showering her with gifts, protecting her, feeding her, etc.
This has mainly to do with his Germanic roots and how women were treated in ancient Germanic society. Violence against women and wives was usually punished either by the woman’s own kin or by the society’s code/law. Men were the ultimate protectors of their wives, and women supported their husbands in war and peace and sometimes followed them to the grave out of loyalty. König thinks he and reader are fated to be together, so he treats her like a wife already. And wives are not treated badly where he comes from! This means he will protect her and provide for her, but he also needs to show her what a great husband he would be through this ‘Choose me, choose me!’ behaviour. He literally feeds her in one chapter.
Can you provide us more details on the Mother Doll?
Ok, so the doll’s description is very similar to the numerous statues found across Europe, and this is where I took huge liberties because these figurines are archaeological finds from the Paleolithic age and late studies find they might not even be associated with fertility cults. Still, I love the Venus of Willendorf, and even if it has nothing to do with Roman culture or Germanic fertility goddesses, I loved the idea of a lonesome König carving himself a busty woman to bring him luck and a fertile wife.
At what point does the Reader realize her feelings for Konig are true? Is it when he goes to war without her blessing or does she just feel guilty because he’s been treating her kindly?
The turning point is when she finds the statue and realizes he’s not just a cold-hearted brute but a human man. It gives her a sense of connection because she immediately recognizes the deity he’s carrying. The gifts and the fact that he doesn’t actually assault her help a lot, too, but her heart starts to truly melt when she sees how goofy this man is and how he simply wants to make her feel good.
How does the reader come to terms with falling in love with her captor? She clearly knows it’s “wrong” but also can’t deny her feelings.
I think this has more to do with survivor’s guilt than anything else in the end. Perhaps she finally accepts that she’s allowed to have happiness and love despite all the past suffering? The last straw is when König tells her his story on the beach and there’s this magical moment where she surrenders to whatever fate has led her here. Even if it makes no sense, she feels strongly for him, and for some reason or another, they were brought together. And not because she’s supposed to kill him…
What was your favorite part of the story to write and why?
For some unfathomable reason, I loved to write the part where König parades around naked and makes Fee very, very flustered :)
What was the most difficult part to write?
Oddly enough, the smut! I wrote it, rewrote it, then edited it half a day. I usually want the smut to happen both in the mind and the body, and I want there to be a lot of emotional fireworks, so it’s sometimes difficult to balance between these things. This was also a slow burn fic so the risk of an eventual smut scene being anti-climactic is big.
When reader find out Fee means Fairy 😭. That’s it. That’s the question.
Yes, size kink is a thing and it’s easy to do that with a character like König who has no right to be that tall! I also liked how reader treats König as this barbaric, ugly giant while König only has heart eyes for his new possession, cute like a fairy.
Where are Konig and Fee today?
They are living their happily ever after somewhere far away from Rome, in a lovely little hut König built for her – and for their growing family, because let’s face it, Fee gets pregnant within a year!
Is there anything you’d like to share with the readers that I haven’t asked about?
I want to add a secret kernel of knowledge on König’s backstory: his real name is Wulfric, which roughly translates to ‘King of Wolves’. As the future king, he had to go through an initiation rite when he was young (he tells Fee he killed his first wolf when he was fifteen!) ‘König’ is simply a title for a chieftain of the tribe. He likely has a Roman name too, but he prefers to use the term ‘King’ because his Roman name is no true name; true names are knowledge, and knowledge is power. It is mentioned in the last chapter that König reveals his real name to Fee and this is a big moment, especially because women are traditionally known to be powerful spellcasters where he comes from. König exposing himself like this means he’s giving his life in her hands. And of course she uses it when they’re making love, creating one of the most binding love spells of all (as if these two need it). Lastly, I’m so happy that people have enjoyed this story. Much love to everyone who read it and this lovely interview! <3
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grammarpedant · 8 months
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Man, this interview has so many great moments in it. This part, in which Martha Wells responds to a quote from an NPR article, is fascinating as analysis of her own work, and as writing advice:
I think one of the things that caused [so many people to identify with the character in different ways] is being so specific about Murderbot's feelings and its reactions to things and what it saw and basically how it was affected by things. There's this old bad writing advice that... the more general, or generic, you make a character the more people can identify with it, and it's actually the opposite. The more specific you are about the character's pain, the things they like, all these are the little bits and pieces that make up a personality, the more people are going to find commonality with that.
I like that she emphasizes in this section that she's calling it "identifying" with the character, instead of using watered-down terms like relatable or, as the interviewer suggests, projecting or reading into. Murderbot's so compelling as a character, inspires such love from its fans, not because it's a blank slate self-insert onto which any of the reader's traits might be projected, but because it is SO opinionated, SO specific in its likes, dislikes, idiosyncracies, preferences and desires, that its very fullness of personality, its distinct and irreplaceable asshole self, is what draws in the reader.
And I find that this is so true of my own experiences as a reader of the Murderbot Diaries. I relate to the character not as a mirror of my own self, or by putting myself in an empty vessel, but the way I relate to a friend, already full of its own struggles, identifying commonality in, as Martha Wells says, our struggles and pain.
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makingofstories · 1 year
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Tamsyn Muir interview about TLT in Celsius 232 (2022)
This post is a transcribe of an interview/talk made to Tamsyn Muir during the Celsius 232, a multimedia festival about fantasy, scifi and horror genres celebrated in Avilés, a city in the North of Spain. The interview was about her saga The Locked Tomb. In this interview Tamsyn Muir talked about topics such as how the trilogy turned into a tetralogy, fanfiction, her favourite cliche and translations. She also answered fandom questions from the public.
Click on Keep reading to read the whole interview!
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Thanks to Comic Astur for recording the interview. They have another interviews during Celsius 232 in their channel, both to Spanish and non-Spanish authors. So check it out!
I want to share this interview and to transcribe it so everybody can enjoy it. Also, although I was in the festival, I couldn't go to this talk. So I'm glad that it was recorded because I found it interesting.
A lot of people came to the event cosplayed as Gideon, Harrow and other characters. Here is a photo with all of them!
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This interview was made in July 2022, so the books discussed are mainly Gideon The Ninth and Harrow The Ninth.
In the scenario there were three people, as you can see in the video. Tamsyn Muir (center, author of The Locked Tomb), Gabriella Campbell (left, interviewer (and author of books such as Pequeños restos de magia, El día del dragón...)) and Diego García (right, interpreter). Gabriella did the questions while Diego translated everything to Tamsyn and then to the public.
Now that everything is clear, let's start!
Interviewer: Well, I'm going to start very seriously. I think that I don't need to introduce to you who Tamsyn Muir is. You also now Diego a lot. *laughs* Before anything else, I'm going to be very formal and I'll start by reading a bit of Tamsyn Muir's biography from Wikipedia. *everybody laughs* So I'll need to use my glasses.
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*Gabriella, the interviewer, takes some aviator sunglasses that were on the table and she puts them on, the glasses really look like Gideon's so everybody started laughing and clapping. Tamsyn Muir nods and does a thumbs up 👍 After this joke, Gabriella takes the glasses of and puts on her regular glasses to read*
Interviewer: Tamsyn Muir is a New Zealand author of fantasy, science fiction and horror. She's been nominated for a lot of prizes and her first novel was published in 2019. I think that you may know what's its tittle... *everybody laughs* She was born in Australia in 1985 and she moved to New Zealand when she was five years old.* Now she works as a teacher in Oxford.
*in Wikipedia it says that she moved to New Zealand when she was nine months old, but in the same Wikipedia article in Spanish it says five years old. So yeah, someone can confirm which is correct? hahaha
The Deepwater Bride was published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction in 2015, was nominated for the Nebula Award for Best Novelette, the World Fantasy Award—Short Fiction, the Eugie Award and the Shirley Jackson Award. Amazing. Then it came Gideon. It's the first book of The Locked Tomb trilogy. It was pulished in 2019. It won the third place in the Goodreads Choice Awards for best science fiction in 2019. Charles Stross describes it as: "Lesbian necromancers explore a haunted gothic palace in space!" *everybody starts clapping*
What the Wikipedia doesn't say is that this woman is her translators' terror. *everybody laughs* She does a lot of bad jokes and has a lot of memes. She also made me lose a whole week of productivity because I slept several nights at 5AM to finish a book.
My first question, which is something that I think that everybody is interested in a bit, the biggest and most important question of all... is... Who is Gideon Nav's favourite p*rn model?
Tamsyn Muir: There are so many... *everybody laughs* How can she pick?
Interviewer: There must be a favourite.
Tamsyn Muir: No, no, [she has a] special place in the heart for a lot of them. She's ready, she's waiting available.
Interviewer: Now a more serious question. I'm not saying that this wasn't a serious question. Tamsyn has talked before about this, but everybody asks what happened with this trilogy with four books. She has made to us a Douglas Adams? What happened with Nona? Why Nona?
Tamsyn Muir: Why not? It wasn't meant to be this way, I'm sorry. There were going to be three books, and it was going to be over this year. But my editor asked me: "How is Alecto going? Are you nearly finished?" And I said: "I've finished the first act." I could see his face, it was on camera. He was very sad. And he said: "Okay, that's fine. How long is the first act?". And I said that it's not that long, 140,000 words. And he said: "The first act?? How many acts are there going to be?". I said four. He said: "We can't publish that, it would kill people". So we took out the first act and that's where Nona comes from. And it is her story, it is the story of one girl and I think I'm ok with it now. I'm happy with having and extra book. It is it's own thing. Maybe I'm sorry that we don't actually get to have that very very very big book that I intended. But Alecto will be done and will not be small.
Interviewer: One thing that I found while doing an exhaustive investigation on the internet is that Tamsyn Muir has written fanfiction. I think that it can be noticed in Gideon [The Ninth] and Harrow [The Ninth], right? There's a lot of incredible details [that can be related to fanfiction]. A lot of these details are memes and other cultural references. Many have come from Tumblr and other social media, including fanfictions. All these tropes and resources are present in fanfiction, such as the cafeteria. You may recognize that the moment in the cafeteria is a common resource in classic fanfiction. Social roles inversions too. There are a lot of details like these. My question is, which is your favourite cliche?
Tamsyn Muir: I thought it couldn't get any harder after who is Gideon's favourite p*rn actor. There are so many fanfiction cliches that I love. And I think that my favourite ever, and this is very cliche of me, is probably arranged marriage. I have to say that I got to do a little bit of this when I was writing Nona. You won't find it in Nona. This is because my editor got angry at me. I stopped writing [the book] to write an alternative universe so I could prove something could happen. I only got 30,000 words into it. Not that long. And then I had to stop. But I wanted to get it and maybe it will be out there some day. Not that my editor has anything to say about it. But arranged marriage is definitely my favourite ever cliche. It's a good one.
Also, there is only one bed.
Interviewer: Another question, this is a fast one because I'm personally curious. Do you still do fan fiction secretly? And about what show, book or cultural product?
Tamsyn Muir: I don't do it anymore. I've retired. I don't have time! I would love to. Oh, what fanfic would I write? I think I would embarrass my agent-mate Martha Wells and write Murderbot fanfiction.. So that is why is good I have retired.
Interviewer: Another thing that I found in my great and exhaustive investigation is that some people found Gideon and Harrow's relationship and described it as an intimate friendship. You know where I'm going, right? Some people described it even as a relationship between sisters. *everybody laughs* So I wanted to ask Tamsyn. I don't know, but I thought, with my personal bias, that maybe there is something romantic between them.
Tamsyn Muir: I have two sisters. If I behaved the way that Gideon and Harrow do to each other with my sisters I would be arrested.
Interviewer: Talking about this, we don't see in Gideon [The Ninth] and Harrow [The Ninth] any kind of explicit erotic scenes. But I, and some people may too, see that you make repulsive things strangely sensual and sexual. I don't want to do spoilers about Harrow The Ninth, but in one scene happens a reconstruction of an arm. And I found it deeply sexual. I just wanted to know if this was done on purpose.
Tamsyn Muir: I didn't do it on purpose, but after I wrote the scene and read it back to myself I thought: "Huummmmm??". The books aren't very sexual, but for Harrow [this moment] is the closest in some ways that she gets, so you should all worry about the future.
Interviewer: Another thing that we all may be in agreement is that Tamsyn's world is really complex. I think that you need a map just to follow every character. I was really lost in the beggining, when they're in that kind of battle royale for the keys. All those houses, characters and personalities... As a reader you may feel overwhelmed. How do you work with this world? Do you have your own encyclopedia? Is everything in your head? How do you maintain coherence [throughtout the story]?
Tamsyn Muir: [I'm] Very optimistic. Specially with complicated things like in the first book, it's very important to have knowledge of who has certain keys and unlocked certain rooms. I thought that I could keep it on my head. I ended up with a very complicated Excel spreadsheet. In every single book I say to myself: "This will be the one when I write down in detail everything that's happening, everything that goes on. I will write notes for myself". And in every book I hate myself because I never do this. It is luck, it is sometimes little bits of paper all over my house. And it's definitely my copy editor, who I think must be the most exhausted person in the world.
Interviewer: Going back to the memes and the references... I remember reading Gideon [The Ninth] and Harrow [The Ninth] without problems and then starting to search through the internet. I found a lot of memes [that I didn't get on my first read]. Between this and words about anatomy that I had to search on the dictionary, I talked with David Tejera (book translator of The Locked Tomb to Spanish), who's right there on the first row. Come on, give him an applause! *everybody applauses* I looked at how he translated stuff that I didn't know how could be translated. Do you have any kind of connection with your translators? Do they ask you about a lot of stuff? Do they insult you?
Tamsyn Muir: I know I'm going to say this wrong but: Lo siento, David Tejera. I'm so sorry. All of my translators are very patient. Sometimes very confused. And David of all of them has been, I think, the most patient and not the most confused. You know, it's wonderful having close relationship with translators simply to get to see how things that are put in English translate or don't translate into different languages. I'm not a linguist. I don't speak many [languages]. So it is been wonderful getting a little bit of the languages, specially into the romance. And I always really appreciate translators who do talk to me because they don't always. And I think that, for what I heard, specially for the Spanish edition of Gideon [The Ninth], that shows the fantastic book [translation] it is. So that's all David.
Interviewer: *to the public* Do you want me to ask about the translation of a meme or do you want another question? *the public agrees to the meme question* We may be thinking about the same [meme]. I'm sorry for Diego [the translator], but I'm going to read the phrase in English, then David's translation and then I'll explain where's the difficulty. The original says: "so I'm shut in here —wallled in, really— to prevent the Nine Houses becoming none House, with left grief." The translation is: "y por eso me encierro aquí, entre cuatro paredes, para evitar que las Nueve Casas se conviertan en la Ninguna, con todo mi pesar". This has logic. When David read the original he may asked himself what was Tamsyn trying to say. None House, with left grief comes from the meme No pizza with left beef. It's and old meme from Tumblr, if I remember correctly, in which people shared photos of absurd pizza deliveries. There was one pizzeria that let you choose the ingredients that you wanted. One option was none. You could also ask for each half of the pizza with different ingredients, left and right. Somebody shared a photo of their none pizza with left beef. *while Grabriella was explaining this Tamsyn was laughing a lot* Now imagine David in this situation. It's a perfect translation, but the meme is lost. Here in Spain we couldn't get the joke if it remained. This kind of pop culture jokes are compensated with erudited references.
Tamsyn Muir: Even in Spanish it still makes me laugh! I'm sorry, I just have a very childish sense of humor. I'm so glad I can laugh at the none pizza with left beef joke in Spanish! Sorry hahaha (she didn't get that the joke wasn't really there but we'll forgive her because she was just laughing a lot 😭)
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Tamsyn Muir: There is no explanation. It's so stupid. And yet, for who was saying it, he knew that nobody would get it. But he wanted to put it in it for himself, and I feel that. But I'm sorry. hahahaha
Interviewer: John does a lot of references. Is John an excuse so you can put in all the jokes that you like?
Tamsyn Muir: I have to think about this because it may be a spoiler. There are many characters who are ways of me slipping in things I like or like to say. Ianthe Tridentarius is one of them. But John has a special place in the story that perhaps you'll understand more of when Nona [The Ninth] comes out. That's a worrying sentence I just said. Perhaps you'll understand a little bit more of the jokes that John is making and why is saying them. I have an actual plot point.
Interviewer: There are just five minutes left, so we have time for one question from the public.
#1 audience question: Do you have any playlists for the characters? If you have one, share it please!
Tamsyn Muir: I can't say anything yet. I mean, I would love to see that, but...
Interviewer: I have to say that there are a lot of fan playlists. This one was quick, so one more.
#2 audience question: If Nona had a birthday cake, which would be its flavour?
Tamsyn Muir: I have to think if it's a spoiler again! Nona has no taste, so it does not matter as long as it is covered in confetti and coloured icing. It would be disgusting! Lots of colours. Icing. It doesn't matter about the cake.
Translator: *after translating* Well, we have time, so one more.
#3 audience question: I imagined God as Taika Waititi. Do you have any actors/actresses that make you think about Harrow, Gideon or Ianthe?
Tamsyn Muir: Oh, that's hard. Sometimes when I think about Harrow... I love the maori actress Erana James. But Erana James is very beautiful and I'm not sure Harrow is that beautiful.
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Translator: Ok, 3 more minutes. Any more questions?
#4 audience question: I think that Gideon is a character who is really open about her sexuality. Has somebody said you anything about Gideon's openness when talking about her sexuality?
Tamsyn Muir: I don't think anyone has to thank me, because I want to thank everyone who has responded to Gideon the way I wanted her to be looked, as a butch lesbian. I just wanted to put someone in who my 17-year-old self [would like], and the way that people who responded to her is like going back in time and telling my younger self that it's ok. So thank you!
People in the public: Thank you!!
Interview: Well, one last applause!
*really long applause, everybody loves Tamsyn*
Tamsyn Muir: ¡Muchas gracias!
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Although I couldn't assist to this talk, I was able to go to the signing. There was a really big queue, but I had a great time with some friends who wanted their copy signed as well.
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A photo with Tamsyn Muir, with my friend @alphathedm as well who's also loving the books! Tamsyn had some of the names to sign to written in her arm. 😂
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My Gideon The Ninth copy signed 🥰
This is more of a fandom post and while I like to post stuff with more advice for professionals, I'm in the TLT fandom and I wanted to post something about it.
Thank you for reading!
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copperplatebeech · 4 months
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20 questions for fic writers 2023
Thanks to @totallysilvergirl and @calaisreno for tagging me!.
1. How many works do you have on AO3?
195, currently in a holding pattern as yet another PWP one-shot turns into an actual narrative.
2. What’s your total A03 word count?
918,179. A lot of those nearly 200 fics are short.
3. What fandoms do you write for?
Primarily Good Omens, with a decent excursion into light Johnlock stories (crossover and straight-up), Star Trek (DS9 and TNG), and Doctor Who (also all crossovers with GO), and a smattering more of GO crossovers ranging from Hellblazer to the Desert Peach.
4. What are your top five fics by kudos?
Looking Good, Mr. Fell, which took off after what must have been a rec on some very active GO social media group (no idea where, I got nothin’); Funny Old World, surprisingly – it’s the Hellblazer crossover, in which Aziraphale walks out of John Constantine’s summoning circle and reads him the riot act; The Rake, a festival of Victorian smut (Aziraphale took up a hobby in the 1800s) written to offset the misery post-s2; Binary Stars, my first, brief Sherlock/GO mashup (thanks to Silvergirl for the encouragement); and Never Letting You Go, an early and cautious venture into AzCrow dom/sub experiments.
5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?
As quickly as I can. I love comments. Comments make me write. Comments make me think. Comments make me a better, more responsible and sensitive writer. Comments lift me up and I want to respond with thanks. Sometimes I only can think of a clever series of emojis, especially if the comment is brief, but I cherish each one.
6. What’s the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?
Probably The Infinite Which Was Hid, which drew anguished cries for an ultimate resolution, something for which I’m a pushover.
7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?
I lean to happy endings, but I’m thinking one of my AUs – I’d guess A Business Arrangement, if only because the narrative arc in that one was so fraught.
8. Do you get hate on fics?
Only if you count the perplexing people who bookmark a fic only to leave a derogatory note on the bookmark, something I’ve come across a few times. (Just assume authors will look at their bookmarks; when I started on AO3, checking the other bookmarks in the profiles of readers who'd bookmarked me was my first way to hunt up other fic I’d probably like.) I mean, unless you consider yourself a widely consulted resource with a duty to warn a horde of followers away from a fic that you judge bad enough to precipitate anaphylaxis, why would you keep a bookmark on a fic you didn't like? I don’t care now, but the first time it happened, I was pretty new on AO3 and it really screwed my day in the caboose. Don’t do this.
9. Do you write smut?
Does a hobby horse have a wooden hiney? Genre-wise, I’m all over the place – I write crack, comedy, angst, fluff, romance, drama, and yes, whole-hogging smut (sometimes blended with one or more of these). Post-Good Omens Season 2, I've been consciously consoling myself with a rash of extremely smutty fic. It’s not always necessary to depict explicit sex in the story you want to tell -- I've written fic in which the pairing could be read as ace -- but it’s incredibly freeing to write stories in which the sex says a lot about the people who are having it and the way they connect. And, you know, a little heat is good for the blood.
10. Do you write crossovers?
Love them (see question #4). Get a bang out of making the connections – the parallels of pairings, the overlap of character traits – things like juxtaposing Crowley’s and Julian Bashir’s James Bond fanboying in Our Man Crowley, and TV Crowley’s eerie resemblance to the vampire Cassidy (Preacher comics) in Until The End Of The World. I’ve also done crossovers of GO with Star Trek Next Gen, Hellblazer and The Desert Peach as mentioned above, Sandman (comic), Doctor Who, and Torchwood, and for a bravura turn, Richard Wagner’s Meistersinger.
11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?
Not that I know of.
12. Have you ever had a fic translated?
One into Russian, and now I can’t remember which, and my eyes, with six distinct ocular ailments, are too much of a wreck to go looking.
13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?
A few with my beta bestie @twilightcitysky – we have a little dump of short, dirty, dialogue-heavy GO one-shots under the series title Naughty Bits.
14. What’s your all-time favourite ship?
Aziraphale/Crowley, no contest.
15. What’s the WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?
Let’s not go there. It would either hex the work(s) or result in my spending three or four weeks in the near future suddenly seized with the drive to complete it to the detriment of all other responsibilities.
16. What are your writing strengths?
Voice and tone most of all. I found somewhat to my surprise that I had a knack for making the Good Omens characters sound plausibly like their screen selves, so that readers comment they don’t need to be told who’s speaking, and also for giving an OC narrator a unique voice, like Roger the Demon in Immigrant Blues or Major Tom, Crowley’s Rat Commander. I love tracking the cadence and vocabulary choices that make up a person’s characteristic patterns of speech, and using paragraph construction and word choice to set a mood.
Sensory imagery is another thing I get comments about – scents, tactile sensations and so on.
17. What are your writing weaknesses?
A tendency to write incredibly long sentences full of dependent clauses. Sometimes I get to the end of one of these monsters and realize it’s covered half a page. This is why I edit repeatedly and obsessively, in hopes that this is the only time you’ll ever find out about it. As a corollary, occasionally I realize I have written a phrase like “precipitate anaphylaxis” and had probably better use more transparent wording (see #8, above).
I also wish I were better at writing “case fic,” because I’ve thoroughly enjoyed playing in the Johnlock sandbox, but I’ve never been good at writing a whodunit-type plot.
I’m sure there are others but I’m too close to see them.
18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?
I have done it, with all the unwarranted assurance and bravado of someone who learned her German and Italian from opera and art song, and am infinitely grateful to readers whose native language it is for pulling me aside to correct a solecism. I’ve asked at least one of these good people for help in the future.
19. First fandom you wrote for?
The Man From UNCLE. While it was still airing – I am Old. I shared the fics – we called them “compos” – with other devotees of the show; we passed our ballpoint-cursive productions around the school cafeteria, and had no idea anyone else anywhere ever did the same kind of thing.
20. Favourite fic you’ve ever written?
I swear, I can’t really pick but Lift Me Up, O Lord comes close. I put so much of my experience as a gym rat into it.
Tagging @twilightcitysky, @ngkiscool, @hasturswig, @ukcalico, @feraltuxedo (with, of course, no pressure).
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ariadnaltos · 1 year
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ND Stevenson interview about She-Ra and animation in Celsius 232 (2022)
This post is a transcribe of second interview/talk made to ND Stevenson during the Celsius 232, a multimedia festival about fantasy, scifi and horror genres celebrated in Avilés, a city in the North of Spain. The interview was about She-Ra and The Princesses Of Power. There was another interview about his comics that I attended, but I couldn't find recordings of that one. In this interview ND talked about topics such as Catra's choices, toxic relationships, Nimona's film adaptation and Lumberjanes' TV adaptation. He also answered questions from the public.
Click on Keep reading to read the whole interview!
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Thanks to Comic Astur for recording the interview. They have another interviews during Celsius 232 in their channel, both to Spanish and non-Spanish authors. So check it out!
First of all, Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays! This post is being released on Christmas day in Spain, so I think it's a good moment to make a gift to the SPOP fandom. 🎁🎄
I don't do professional trancribes, I just want to share this interview. I love Celsius 232 and hearing ND Stevenson in person was a great experience. I want to share this with international fans. The interview is in a mix of Spanish and English, so I'll translate the Spanish parts (and also use some of Diego's translations that you can hear in the video) and I'll transcribe everything in English. I'll also add some notes here and there about the interview.
The auditorium opened some minutes before the beggining of the talk. It was almost full. There were some cosplayers of She-Ra, Adora, Catra and even one cosplayed as Finn, Adora and Catra's post-canon child. There was also a baby cosplayed as She-Ra (baby She-Ra!!). Some people brought with them pride flags because of the series nature. 🏳‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ When ND Stevenson entered the auditorium everyone started clapping.
In the scenario, as you can see in the video, there were three people. ND Stevenson (center), Jorge Iván Argiz (left, interviewer) and Diego García (right, interpreter). Jorge Iván did the questions while Diego translated everything to ND and then to the public.
The interviewer started the talk remembering that ND Stevenson will come back to Celsius next year, for Celsius 2023, and he also claimed the importance of animation. Then, he asked his first question:
Interviewer: When you make a comic you have full control. You have a blank paper or a screen. You have your pen and you can do wathever you want. However, when doing an animation film, even if it has a main creative, it's a hugely collective work. How it was your first experience? How it was entering the animation industry and realizing that it's a huge teamwork effort?
ND Stevenson: Getting into animation was actually kind of an accident for me. I didn't plan to go in that direction. When I started out writing comics I thought of myself as an artist first before I was a writer. And so getting hired as a writer in animation was kind of a surprise for me. And I wasn't sure if it was something I was going to stay with. But my first job was amazing. It was working for Craig McCracken who did Powerpuff Girls and a lot of other stuff that defined my childhood and other people's childhoods. It was a very cool job to work with him.
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Thinking of myself as a writer... it took me a while to accept that. But also, the collaboration of animation was what made me fall in love with animation. I also had always loved animation as a kid. Sneaking into my parents room where the TV was, when they were out of the house, to watch Teen Titans, which was my favorite show. To be behind the scenes, to be able to share this world that we were building together with the rest of the crew, that was... I immediately became addicted to that.
To write a comic it is all you. And unexpected things still happen but it all comes from your own brain, you own hands. With animation, everybody has a little piece of that world. And so, I would look over people's shoulders and ask to be in meetings that I wasn't technically a part of, just because I wanted to know everything and see everything. And so that is what made me fall in love with animation and that's what eventually lead me to make She-Ra.
Interviewer: Now we're going to talk about She-Ra. She-Ra as a character already existed, created as a base for a series of toys. I think that it started in 1985 and it was a show with near a hundred episodes. She-Ras was a twin sister to He-Man and she had a similar story to him, it was kind of complementary. But you made something completely new with this character and this universe. This seems wonderful to me. The first example already appears in the tittle [of the show]. The original series was called She-Ra Princess of Power. But here we're talking about She-Ra and The Princesses of Power. This collaborative spirit that you liked a lot when making animation shows was translated to the animation series. I imagine that this was the first decision [that you made], to bring a more complete arc for characters and to create not just one, but multiple princesses of power.
ND Stevenson: Yeah, the show ended up being- it was about teamwork. It's not just what the show was about, it's also the way in which we made it. It was a show that was made under a lot of pressure, not just because of She-Ra, but because we didn't have the biggest budget and we didn't have the longest timeline for making it. And so it was really something that if we were going to pull it off, we had to rely on each other to do it. And so that was something that really brought us together.
But that show, taking it from being- I hadn't watched the show myself [before], the original show from the 80s [when I was] growing up. But I loved it when I watched it [as an adult]. I had a lot of love in my heart for that show. Trying to pay that off and take that so it could appeal to new fans as well and still make old fans happy was always the line to find and walk. Taking it from one princess of power to an entire team of princesses who are very powerful and making it more about that, about the group instead about the one individual. That was something that was very important for us to do. Because it was so personal for us, with how the show was being made, because we were so close to each other. It was important to show that aspect of friendship and teamwork, and relationships in general. And love in every form. That was our inspiration behind that aspect of the show.
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Interviewer: I would like to know if from the beggining it was always clear that the series was going to have that format and that number of seasons. The first season was a presentation of the princesses, almost one per episode. For me the series starts having more pace when each episode develops these stories that connect with each other. I would like to know if the series was already thought like that or if after season one you still had freedom to make changes.
ND Stevenson: The production of the show was actually pretty unsual in animation. The show had already been greenlit for 26 episodes before I was even hired for the show. They just bought the rights to She-Ra and they knew that Netflix had already ordered the first season. They also knew that they wanted to do 52 episodes total. So when I was hired it was my job to pitch that second season. And so, when I pitched the show, I'm kind of a wordy person, so my pitch was supposed to be like 20 minutes and it was like over an hour [in the end]. And I was lucky that the people I was pitching to were receptive and interested, but I pitched all 52 episodes. That is part of why it was so long, because I wanted to have this conception of it.
Some things stayed the same and some things changed over time, but we had certain ideas that stayed the whole time. For example, an early idea was that Catra was going to get a promotion at the end of every season and move further up the ranks. And also she was going to betray somebody in each season. That really ended up in the show. She just keeps kind of working her way up the ranks and eventually decides that she's out of there, going back to Adora. That was something that stayed true over time, but there were some things that we found along the way. A lot of things were really unexpected. At the very least, it was very helpful to have those broad strokes figured out from the beggining. I'm glad they didn't just cut me off after 20 minutes of talking cause that would be embarrasing *laughs*.
Interviewer: One of the best things that has happened to YA narrative is the shift from just entertainment and fun spirit to topics that were forbidden before. This change probably happened because of the new young people creating new stuff for young audiences. Some of this topics are abuse, bullying, mental health... She-Ra is about some of these topics, toxic relationships are very present in the show. There are multiple cases. It has been talked a lot about the relationship between Adora and Catra, but the relationship between Catra and Scorpia is also another perfect example of a toxic relationship. Something that someone denies, although everybody is warning them. I would like to know more about these messages that can make the audience think about their own relationships. Tell us about it.
ND Stevenson: I'm of the believe that it's important just not to see representation of good behaviour and role models that we can model ourselves on. But is also, I think, a good thing to see representation of characters making the wrong choices and doing the wrong thing. And Catra is defined by that. This was [something that] the crew [asked about as well]. People would come and they'd be like: "so, you told me that she's gonna join the good guys again, right? She'll be OK? When is that going to happen?" And people started to stop believing me that it was going to happen.
AJ, who voices the character, I would [tell her] "We have a big run for you today, Catra is going to do something new, but I promise that she's going to be OK in the end". And she'll be like: "yeah, sure, you say that every time". But I think that's why [Catra] was very beloved among the crew and by me. She's a character who kind of consistently always makes the wrong choices. And it can be so frustrating. Because you'll yell at her at just be like: "OMG, you know you don't want that, why can't you just do the right thing?". And that, I think, in it's own way can be something that also tells us how to make decisions ourselves. So when you see somebody who we sometimes want to scream [at], sometimes we're compelled to do things that make us a bad friend or bad people. And it's important, I think, to know the consequences of those wrong decisions.
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Catra is someone who expresses those things and my hope is that it is cathartic in it's own way, but it's also a little bit of a cautionary tell. She ends up alone at the end, without any friends. And that's the consequences of her actions. But then it's also something that it's- you know, there's nothing you can't come back from. There are things that if you work, if you make yourself vulnerable and open yourself up and try to make amends for your mistakes, it is possible to come back. That was something that was very important for us to show. It's my believe that it's important to see characters, specially female characters, making those bad decisions. We found it cathartic, and I hope that it was cathartic for others as well.
Interviewer: Now two short questions about the animation. First, it is traditional animation, or at least it looks like it, with some touches of CG here and there. I wanted to know if it was a conscious decision so the show would look like it was intended, or if it was because of the low budget and short production time which you said you had.
The second question is about the aesthetic of the ancient buildings. It makes me think about an illustrator called Roger Dean. I don't know if it's by chance or if it was an inspiration for this aesthetic.
*a fly 🪰 flies near the interviewer and he tries to hit it*
ND Stevenson: We had an option on pursuing 3D animation as well. It was something that was done at this studio I was at, at DreamWorks, pretty often. But it was also for an epic... There's a fly!! 🪰
*the interviewer and translator agree and everybody laughs* There's a fly in my... flying over and over... 🪰
Yeah, for epic action scifi fantasy it is harder, it's more expensive to do CG animation. And you have fewer resources. One thing that happens is that the characters can't go to many places because every room and setting has to be build in three dimensions. My friends who are writers working on shows in 3D have limitations of what they can use. They have a set number of characters and a set number of locations, which is true in hand-drawn as well, but less so. You don't have to design the whole thing if you'll only going to see it from one angle.
So that was a lot of the reason of just what was posible with the show. But also, I thought it was important because She-Ra was one of the last shows in the 80s animated in the US, before everything moved overseas to be animated in South Korea and Canada, France and Ireland. It felt important to stay true to the original and the hand-drawn look of the original.
As for Roger Dean, that was definitely one of my inspirations. You have very sharp eye! That very epic... The science fiction illustrations of the 70s and 80s that you would see on the cover of a paperback... That is how I wanted the world to feel. But populated by characters who felt a bit newer. As a kid, I always loved this covers because you would see these floating rocks or the sky with dozens of planets and moons. I wanted to capture that feeling. It always sparked my imagination to see those illsutrations and I wanted to capture that in the show.
Interviewer: Before starting with the questions of the public I have to ask about the adaptation of Nimona into a film, as well as Lumberjanes' TV adaptation. Tell us a little bit about both projects.
ND Stevenson: You're gonna see the Nimona movie early next year, I think february or march. *big applause from the public* So get excited because I just saw the newest cut and it has a lot of the animation. I've seen the board drawings for a while, but I started to get the animation and it is completely surreal to see really dumb drawings that I made as a teenager like, suddenly being executed in three dimensions and it's gorgeous and the style is amazing. So I'm very excited for everyone to see it.
And Lumberjanes is still in the development period. This is a little more standard. I said that She-Ra was unsual in the animation industry and part of that is that the development happened very very quickly. Less than a year. For most animated projects it takes longer than that. So on Lumberjanes we are still on the development phase. We haven't launched into the actual production of the show yet. It's still on the writing and creating the look of the show, finding a studio and everything like that. I think that I'll hopefully have more news about it soon for you. And I think that it's going to be also really cool. So... yeah. *applause*
Interviewer: Great. (To the public) Any questions?
#1 audience question: 1) I heard some rumors that you had trouble with Netflix because the series did not have as much advertisement as they wanted, the low-budget... That was the case? 2) Would you be interested to start working for other platforms like Amazon?
ND Stevenson: Something that not many people know it's that I actually haven't worked for Netflix. I created She-Ra as the show that you saw on Netflix, but I made it at DreamWorks. DreamWorks is it's own animation studio and they had a deal with Netflix that Netflix would stream the shows that DreamWorks was producing. So that was the deal. That's different now. They still do co-productions with DreamWorks, but they [Netflix] created their own animation studio after a year or so after I started working on She-Ra. So actually I didn't have much interaction with Netflix at all. I didn't get notes from them. I didn't know my executives there personally... Actually, I did, but... One of my executives was actually a good friend of mine. But I didn't actually have meetings with Netflix in any way.
If there's rumors about being trouble with Netflix it's certainly not in any kind of working relationship way. They are pretty mysteryous, they guard their algorithm pretty closely. But yeah, that was my experience with Netflix. For me it was very positive. I can't speak any more to what their reaction towards the show was because we were in different places. Hope that answers that.
I'm not currently working with Amazon, but that's something that is definitely... it's pretty common in animation to kind of move around from studio to studio. So it's definitely posible.
#2 audience question: I'm almost 30 so I'm a bit old for the She-Ra target audience, but me and my friend loved it because there is a lot of queer representation. For me and my friend that is very important. I was wondering how it felt because we're more of less of the same age, so we've grown up with similar cartoons and there was nothing that showed you what queer means. We didn't really see ourselves in mainstream shows. I was wondering how it felt to put for the queer community out there this clear representation.
ND Stevenson: It was obviously pretty important for me in a personal level. But another thing that I don't know if that many people know it's that when I got the job I wasn't out yet as gay. So it was certainly not something... Honestly, the show is probably responsible for making me way gayer, just working on it. *everybody laughs*
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But it was something very important to me, just in the world of the show, you know? For me, it's always queer characters, they're always on the front of what I make, even before I was out. But also it's something that is defined by the show itself, what makes the world feel more alive. So I felt that having very fluid gender expression was an important par of the show. Because honestly, the original show has fairly fluid gender. He-Man wears pink and purple in his clothes and then wears a furry diaper when he transforms as He-Man. All the characters are wearing tights and belly shirts and men and women, there're not non-binary people in the original show, but it makes sense for us that there would be. So there's something for me that made the world feel more alive. And again, rainbows and drag queen princesses were such a big part of the original that it just makes sense to [have them] and it made our world feel bigger and more expansive. So that was a lot of my thinking behind it, and sometimes it was an easy sell I think. We were pleasantly surprised that the studio would be very receptive for Bow to have two dads. And Double Trouble, we were very excited about that and very supportive of hiring a non-binary voice actor.
And then there were other things that were a harder sell. I got on the phone with a lot of different people for the Adora and Catra relatioship and had to pitch it a bunch of different times to different people. Got a few notes at first. And then, you know, appealed it, and then the noes turned into yeses. And I still didn't believed it until I was actually watching the final season on Netflix. I didn't believed it'd really happen. But it did so, yeah, that was really cool.
*when the interpreter was translating this answer by ND he tried to hit the fly 🪰 and everybody laughed and applaud, it was really funny*
Interviewer: (To the public) One last question with a short answer?
#3 audience question: In the series there's a lot of characters. I wanted to ask who do you relate to the most?
ND Stevenson: I think all the characters have little bits of me and the rest of the crew. I think almost every character is sort of- there's someone on the crew who identified with them really strongly and that person became more expert on the character. So we have someone who strongly identified with Entrapta, or Tecnia as you said... (Tecnia is the name of Entrapta in the Spanish dub <3) I forget they have different names sometimes. Which is a great name, Tecnia is a great name! *public laughs* But yeah. Almost all of the characters had some counterpart among the crew.
For me, I think that I sort of related the most to a tie between Adora, Catra and Glimmer. One of the things I struggled with on the show was that I was very young when I was hired and I'd never been a manager before. And I mostly just worked on my own stuff and so, having to suddenly become a leader was a thing that I found very difficult and very scary. Like, I really really wanted to do a good job. I wanted everyone on the crew to be taken care of. And it was very difficult and terrifying. That's something that I think all three of those characters deal with in different ways.
Glimmer unexpectedly becomes the new queen. Adora changes sides and suddenly has to deal with all the guilt of having been on the bad guys side before. And Catra has this drive and this ambition, but she also starts to fall apart the higher up the ladder she moves.
I put a lot of those feelings into the characters. With Glimmer there's an episode where she can't go on missions anymore with Bow and Adora because she needs to stay and go to meetings, which was like my everyday. Everyone's going to do something fun and I have to be in a meeting, I can't hang out with [other crew members]. Like Adora in the episode where they play D&D and she keeps just being like: "no no NO, we're all gonna die and everything is gonna go wrong" and she's trying to anticipate every possible way it could go wrong. That was a lot of like, you know, having to conceptualize and keep consistent a story that was going to be told in such a long period of time, with such a large crew of people. That was how my brain felt a lot of the time. A lot of these feelings were poured into she show through the characters. Those are the characters that I think I have the strongest connection to.
(ND is, in fact, wordy, so it wasn't a short answer LOL)
Interviewer: There are big threats and the world needs to be saved a lot of times, and at the same time what you're woried the most is if the characters will recover their friendship... What's going to happen next? Someone will pay attention to Scorpia? *everybody laughs* This shows us something that happens in our lifes as well, that a big event can change you as much as an event that may seem small. This series also shows us that being different is cool, being the same as everyone else can be pretty boring. Being different can be even desirable. ND said that at the beggining he started working with someone who changed his life and who gave him a show such as The Powerpuff Girls, and I anticipate to him that right now, very very soon, there will be people that will say "I'm working for ND Stevenson, who changed my life thanks to She-Ra and his other works". To make easier our wait for the next year [Celsius 2023], when he comes back to Avilés, we're gonna say goodbye to him with a very very strong applause.
*all the public applauses, ND does a heart shape with his hands 🫶 He also thanked the Celsius 232 organizers and the public for coming*
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This interview was done on Friday 22nd, july 2022. ND Stevenson made another talk/interview the day before. After that one talk I went to the signing and got my copy of Nimona signed. He was really nice and we could talk with him a little bit. He seemed really happy to visit this event in Spain and I'm really excited to see him next year. At that time the Nimona movie will be out, so I'm sure that we'll be able to know more about it and his future projects!
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Photo with ND Stevenson during the book signing on Thursday. My boyfriend and I went together. We both love Stevenson's stories. <3
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Thanks to ND Stevenson for coming to Spain and to Celsius 232!! I've been going every year to this event since 2018 and they always have great authors and the festival is really nice. I've learned a lot of stuff thanks to this festival and with talks like this one that ND made. The event is mostly about books and literature, but as you can see other forms of media are in Celsius 232 as well.
That's all! Thank you so much for reading this whole thing. I hope that it was interesting. <3
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capricorn-0mnikorn · 1 month
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"An artist that I spent time with encouraged me to, in front of an artwork, challenge yourself to notice five things. And those five things don't have to be grandiose, like: 'This is a commentary on masculinity in the Internet age.' It could just be, you know, like this yellow makes me want to touch it." [...] "I think being around art ultimately helps us widen and expand our definition of what beauty is. And I think beauty … is that moment when our mind jumps the curb. It can feel uncomfortable, but it also is something that draws us to it. … It's something that all of us need more of in our life. And art can be the gateway to finding more of it. It doesn't have to happen with the traditionally beautiful artwork."
Bianca Bosker, in an interview with Elizabeth Blair. Morning Edition, from NPR. 7 February, 2024.
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longreads · 1 year
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“I was kind of pitching this story as The Perfect Storm meets ‘Consider the Lobster,’ David Foster Wallace’s famous essay about lobsters and whether we should eat them. That story starts out as this delightful jaunty travelogue to a lobster festival in Maine, and then it turns into a harrowing, Peter Singer-like essay on animal welfare.
I thought this one had similar potential, because the narrative is incredible. It’s hard to explain how so few cattle survived this swim, when a whole herd of them and horses was washed into the water; how do just three cattle survive this swim, if it didn’t come down in some way to their individual willpower, their conscious desire to stay alive? And if individual cattle have these kinds of capacities, then something more complicated is staring back at us in the meat aisle of the grocery store than I think many of us have considered.”
In this excerpt from The Creative Nonfiction Podcast with Brendan O’Meara, J.B. MacKinnon discusses his @atavist feature, “True Grit,” the astonishing story of the Cedar Island cows who survived a hurricane.
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gailcarriger · 6 months
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Gail Carriger Interviews the charming Trip Galey (tea, fae & a silly sense of humor)
Today I have invited the absolutely charming and lovely Trip Galey round for tea to talk about his new book A Market of Dreams and Destiny!
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About you, the Author!
Tea or coffee and how do you take it?
Always tea, never coffee! If it’s black tea, a small splash of milk and a lump of sugar. If we’re talking fresh mint tea (I know, I know! It’s technically a tisane, but still!), just a bit of something sweet to counterpoint the delicious double bite of hot water and cool mint.
We (the Authorbeast of this bog) whole heartedly support this message, of course.
Please describe your personal style for author appearances.
There will be a hat, always a hat. Usually it will be in the ‘pork pie’ family of headgear, though the occasional trilby or fedora might make an appearance. I quite fancy having a top hat with a small dragon curled around the brim someday. Other sartorial staples include
a shirt that is in some measure geeky, or gay, or (ideally) both
a blazer with some manner of pin badge on the lapel (Be Gay! Cast Spells!)
and always, always a pair of deliberately mismatched shoes.
Again, this Authorbeast is in WILD approval.
If I were to observe the writer beast in its native environment, what surprising thing might I see? What does the environment look like?
Changeable. I do not currently have my own dedicated writing space, so aside from myself and my tablet or phone, you might see a kitchen table with some form of homemade cake on it (angel food, at present), or the leather-and-polished-wood of the study carrels of the British Library, or the absolutely hideous grey sofa that came with our current flat, or the charming and hyper-manicured environs of my local Victorian park (weather permitting).
If you could travel in any type of conveyance, what would it be?
Train. But not just any train. No tea, no shade, but American trains are rubbish. No, I’m talking about European trains. The kind with tables built in, and charge points, so I can sit and write and watch the world pass to the gentle rocking motion of the carriage. Heaven!
Again, we are in complete agreement. Some day I must just take off for foreign climes and putter about on trains for the better part of a month. What joy could be mine!
No deviating: vanilla or chocolate ice cream on a plain or a sugar cone?
(Gail will use this to determine your level of sanity.)
Vanilla ice cream on a sugar cone!
Gail pronounces Trip = slightly bonkers.
What’s most likely to make you laugh?
This is a tricky one. In general, it would most likely be snappy dialogue or witty one-liners, delivered by a skilled actor or comedian. Not everything hits, of course.
Then there’s my brain, which does this thing where every so often something will strike it as absolutely HILARIOUS and that thing will just get stuck in some crevice or cranny in my mind and whenever it comes up it’s as funny as the first time I encountered it. It could be a line from a film or a random meme that social media chucked in my face. The other denizens of the Writer Flat know these secrets and on occasion abuse them mercilessly.
Gail: OMG I do this too!
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Since writers inevitably end up in the bar, what’s your poison?
A pint of cider. If for any reason I require the buzz to hit sooner rather than later, drop a shot of vodka, glass and all, into that bad boy. I am not a diminutive individual. Sometimes these measures are entirely necessary and justified.
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Author Trip Galey
Trip is a writer, a doctor of the academic persuasion, and a researcher of all things pursuant to bargains, exchanges, and compacts of a faery nature. It is inadvisable to attempt to make a deal with him. He has been, in the past, a reluctant cowboy, an Ivy League collegian, and an itinerant marketing professional. Mostly harmless.
Trip can be found here.
About your book!
What should readers eat while consuming your novel?
Either their favourite food or their least. Barring that, whatever makes them think of London!
What form does evil take within its pages?
Greed. Brutal, extractive, exploitative greed.
Which one of your characters would you most want to kiss and why?
Rhys the pawnbroker, though for reasons I won’t go into here as they are not yet revealed! (Though if you need a reason, we can say it’s because he’s somewhat based on the character of Neal Caffrey from White Collar.)
What’s your favorite period in history and does it influence your world building?
I adore periods of history known for excess (as much as I abhor the reasons for them). Give me the decadence of the 1920s, or the dramatic opulence of the Late Baroque period. And I can’t help but respect the eye-searing, neon intensity of the 1980s. And yes, they absolutely do influence my world building and my general approach to storytelling.
Frankly, sometimes more is more.
Which one of your characters would you most like to slap and why?
Garog Graspar. It’s not enough that he’s greedy, malicious, and cruel; he’s stupid and willfully ignorant as well.
Without spoilers, what’s the funnest (or funniest) part of the book?
For me, hands down, it’s the moment that involves
exploiting a loophole on a deal
a five-syllable, ten-dollar word
and an unflappable entity with more legs than arms.
If your story smelled of something, what would that be?
Elderflower cordial and hot copper.
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A Market of Dreams & Destiny 
A tale of faery bargains, nascent industrial action, and clever shenanigans in an alternate Victorian London where magic can be found around every corner, and anything can be had…for the right price.
Gail’s thoughts:
I’m guessing from that pitch alone, that those of you who enjoy my Parasolverse books are probably gonna love this one. I don’t write the fae per-say but I do write fae-like characters (Lord Akeldama and Preshea both spring to mind). Also I think if you are, specifically a fan of Romancing the Werewolf, you’ll probably love this.
Yours (destined to be killed by a tumbling TBR pile),
Miss Gail 
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ettawritesnstudies · 6 months
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Congratulations to Lila Mary on publishing her first book! @writeblrfantasy has a lot more cool stuff coming up, but if you want the first sneak peek of her debut, check out this interview we did.
ARC review is going up next week, and if you need a transcript, there's one available on my blog:
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I think it’s amusing to see author interviews and them talk about their writing and say things you disagree with for example “I think plot is my strong suit” and you think their characters are strong but their plot is unrefined
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inkcurlsandknives · 3 months
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My FIRST author interview with iWrite an awesome local youth writing group goes live Tomorrow at 6:00pm CST you should definitely tune in!
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glitterypirateduck · 4 months
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GPD's Deep Dive - Playlist by @deadbranch
Welcome to GPD's deep dive, where I interview authors of fan fic series. You'll get a behind the scenes look at how their work was created, new insight into the characters, and more.
Today's story is from @deadbranch
Summary From the Author: You meet a mysterious, good-looking man in the officer's on-post gym. He's listening to music in his earbuds but keeps glancing at you as you move around the room. You decide to see what he's about. He's got a secret he hopes won't turn you off...
Answers will come directly from the author and are not edited by me (unless I catch a typo).
Warning - Spoilers below. Please read the series first before proceeding.
To read all of @deadbranch work, click here. Enjoy!
What was your inspiration for this story?
I honestly had no plans to write for König, but I wanted to challenge myself to write for someone other than Captain Price.
Additionally, I saw a lot of fics that portrayed König’s social anxiety in a way that I thought was unrealistic for someone who would have fought anxiety most of his life and was able to cope well enough to be promoted to colonel.
This is no easy journey—the military doesn’t just grant that lightly.  It’s a product of years of commendations, steadfast reputation, networking, martial and leadership competence, and the ability to interview well.
I wanted to try my hand at writing König, in a more realistic way.  I thought either the fandom will hate it (and that’s okay) or the fandom will appreciate it.  The overall positive response was a pleasant surprise to me.
What is the significance of the title?
I titled my series “Playlist” after I wrote the first two chapters.  The first chapter was an intended one-shot called “Twenty-Five or Six to Four” after the eponymous song by Chicago, but there was enough interest in the one-shot that I wrote the second part “Land of a Thousand Dances” after the song by Wilson Pickett.  It was then that I decided to write the series and name it “Playlist” with the intent that each of the chapter titles were songs from König’s playlist when he’s lifting weights at the gym.
The titles of your chapters are all names of songs. How did you choose the titles, and do they have significance in each chapter?
Each song title loosely represents something he’s feeling in the chapter, some more than others.  Most of the fandom likely imagine König’s playlist as mostly metal, death metal, hard rock, etc.  I imagined him as someone who likes music that lets him escape, refocus, soothe, enliven, or motivate himself in the moment.  He has a diverse playlist.  The titles chosen are as follows:
Twenty-Five or Six to Four by Chicago
Land of a Thousand Dances by Wilson Pickett
Ain't No Sunshine by Bill Withers
Voices Carry by ‘Til Tuesday
Sweetest Perfection by Depeche Mode
When the Levee Breaks by Led Zeppelin
Paradise Circus by Massive Attack
Hurdy Gurdy Man by Donovan
Change (In the House of Flies) by Deftones
Need You Tonight by INXS
Stuck in the Middle With You by Stealers Wheel
Easy (Like Sunday Morning) by Faith No More (covering The Commadores)
I challenge my audience to figure out how the songs bring meaning to the individual chapters.  There’s definitely a tone shift in some of them that’s obvious, some are less direct.
König is frequently portrayed as someone with anxiety and social awkwardness. You have a totally different take on him. Why develop him this way? What was your vision for his character?
He still has some awkwardness about him, and he definitely has anxiety, but he’s good at masking and has developed coping mechanisms that help him perform his duties with professionalism and competence that exceeds expectation.
His chain of command and subordinates have no idea he has anxiety.  He’s not ashamed of it per se, but he prefers to keep his health status private, especially involving mental health matters.
My version of König struggles from time to time, but he doesn’t use medication.  My portrayal of him hearkens back to the reality that someone who’s gotten this far in their military career either finds a way to cope (and thrive) in their role, or they rejoin the civilian sector.
Similarly, we often see the female opposite of König portrayed as frail, scared, or weak and again you chose the opposite. Why this portrayal?
I understand why authors write a love interest to be the polar opposite of the canon character.
It can be fun to write extreme opposites, but there’s also a heavily implied power imbalance when you make König’s love interest small, physically/mentally weak, etc.
I don’t see König as someone who likes to use his size and strength to intimidate someone he cares about.  If anything, I believe he feels uncomfortable at the thought of someone surrendering to him in a way that could be construed as dubious consent.  I see him as wanting to be with someone who is his equal.
His anxiety tells him he may not be worthy of love.  He wants to be confident that the woman in his life has genuine feelings for him, not driven by fear or intimidation.
König or, I should say, Markus, doesn't wear his mask for most of the story. Why leave it out?
I didn’t want to write König/Markus with his sniper hood because everyone assumes he wears it all the time.
My version of König only wears the hood on mission.  Otherwise, he’s just Markus.  I chose not to specify his last name, since it wasn’t important to the story.
When he meets Reader, the metaphorical mask he wears is her not knowing his name, rank, or what he does.  As long as she doesn’t know he’s the same man known as König, he feels some measure of safety, as though he can see if she’s interested in him without the potentially fetishizing complication of being known as the semi-legendary hooded killing machine.
The chemistry between Markus and the Reader is immediate and the relationship develops quickly. What caused the spark and what kept the flame going? Is it only lust or is there more to it?
In the beginning, they were both attracted to each other physically.
The subtle emotions and social cues communicated in how they look at each other, how they interact (even without words) added to the chemistry between them.
The forbidden nature of what they were doing felt reckless and exciting.  Both are high ranking officers and have likely led careful careers where they made very few mistakes. They’ve cultivated polished, professional images that bode well in promotion boards, and they’ve made purposeful decisions to favorably guide their trajectories.  Both were looking for something edgy, a little dangerous, and…verboten.
Especially as a woman, Reader was careful not to be perceived as having “f*cked her way up the chain of command,” so to speak.  Similarly, Markus has been careful to keep his anxiety concealed.  Both are tired of hiding and being careful.  They want to reveal themselves and enjoy each other as their authentic selves, without shame or reservations.
Why did you choose to have the characters travel and have a mini vacation as some of their first encounters?
Their first date is to a greasy spoon style diner, well away from post.  Since they’re playing with fire by pursuing something with each other despite not knowing names or ranks, they want to do this in private, without the prying eyes of brass or other soldiers.
Civilians don’t realize this, but soldiers love gossip more than anything.  The military is a very catty place, and male soldiers are the cattiest.  That sounds silly but ask any veteran.  Soldiers love talking about female soldiers sleeping around and they make up all kinds of crap.  They’ll even lie about getting a hand job or oral sex from someone they haven’t even met.  It’s pretty toxic.
Reader and Markus’s desire to explore their feelings and each other is pure in that they mean no harm to one another.  They want to do this exploration in private.  They go to Myrtle Beach to relax, take their time, and if they get a little noisy, no one on post will be the wiser.
The reader seems more concerned and anxious about his identity and the relationship than he does. Can you tell us a bit more about that and why it was important to the story?
As mentioned above, she’s worked hard to project a specific image for herself to continue garnering professional success in the Army.  Promotions aren’t merely rewards for hard work.  There’s a huge political aspect to it.
Women are held to a higher standard than men in all the soft-skills aspects of officership because women are first and foremost seen as physically inferior, so they must ‘make up’ for this deficiency by being better at everything else, including “moral turpitude.”
Male soldiers are allowed (expected) to sow their wild oats, but women are expected to either be married (and faithful) or be single and virtuous (celibate).  The idea of a female officer just dating around or having fun is seen as failure of moral character and could cast an unfavorable light on her next promotion board.
Reader is concerned that not only could she be attempting to date someone of the ‘wrong’ rank, but she could also pay the long-term price of having failed some arbitrary moral turpitude standard in the eyes of chain of command.
The reader says, "If you worship me...there will be no going back." What does she mean by this?
She’s been looking for someone just like Markus her entire adult life.  Her warning to him is also a warning to herself.  If she makes herself vulnerable in this way she may fall in love with him, and the same may be true for him.   Ultimately, they both run the risk of getting hurt.
I hereby give you the award for most realistic sex scenes. (Realistic body geometry, use of pillows, condoms, anatomically correct language like clit, anus, etc.) Why is it important for these scenes to be realistic and how do you make sure they are written this way?
Thank you!
I don’t mind a little poetry in bedroom scenes, giving flowery names for anatomy, and euphemisms for sex acts, but I felt that Markus would not describe these things in this way, nor would Reader.
With English being his third language (I HC that his second language is French), I see him using correct terminology for most things, just out of habit for clarity’s sake.
Reader is very specific about what she wants professionally, so I see this carrying over into her personal life as well.  Being specific improves the likelihood of getting what she wants.
Does the Reader’s confession of having body image issues, resentment toward the people she grew up with, the guilty boyfriend, etc. play a larger role in this story than we see at surface level?
It does.  Reader and Markus are similar in a few ways, but one that runs very deeply and goes back to childhood is their need to prove their worth.  To prove someone wrong of their assumptions.  To prove they can do the impossible.  To prove they are worthy of love despite their perceived weaknesses. 
Where did you come up with the idea of the game they play? Orgasm = Information
I thought it would be a nice way to help them get to know each other but without putting their intimate physical exploration on hold just to have a conventional conversation.  A game like this requires a trust.  They’re taking a gamble on both having good intentions.
Why did Markus choose to tell her he is König during sex?
Markus has lingering guilt for their relationship escalating so quickly without her knowing who he is.  Although it’s her choice not to ask, he feels the greater burden of truth is upon him because how would she know he’s not just some officer, but a notorious killer.
He reveals his mission-tied moniker in the fearful hope that she will either reject him outright or accept him.  He can’t bear sitting somewhere in the middle anymore.  He has a desperate need to get it over with.
Line of the year, "Then fuck me, König." How did it feel writing that?
It felt good.  Really good.
During the leadup to that scene I was still ambivalent about how I wanted the chapter to play out, and ultimately how I wanted the series to end.  The line came to me suddenly and I wrote it before the wording slipped away.
I sat back and took my hands off the keyboard.  I said, “That’s it.  That’s the line.”  It was then that I knew how the series would end.
My favorite scene was the combo of doggy style, anal stimulation, and ass slaps. No question. Just telling you I think about it daily.  Respond if you wish.
I love that you enjoyed that scene.  In truth, I was hesitant to add the minimal anal stimulation (the pad of his thumb pressed to her anus) just because a good portion of the audience may not be into that, but it felt right to write Markus this way.
He’s the kind of man who would do almost anything for Reader to please her sexually, but he wants to make sure it’s what she really wants, she’s not just going along with it.  He would love to help her test her limits, to explore her ability to experience pleasure, and to let her do the same with him.
Markus recognizes they’re still in the early stages of their relationship.  Their chemistry and nonverbal cues encourage him to push things along by combining three major stimuli to elicit a (favorable) reaction in Reader.
Why is Markus so interested in getting back to work after their trip?
He has a classic anxious fear that maybe this wasn’t what he thought it was, that Reader isn’t that into him and he’s read too much subtext from what happened between them.
He’s hoping that diving back into work early will help him forget her.  He can become König again.  He’d rather feel the malaise of boredom and separation from a love that never blossomed than feel the sting of outright rejection.
What does Markus's dream represent?
As König he recognizes the monster within.  He is Markus, but he is also König.  If this is true, then Markus must be a monster as well.
He dreams of living in the deepest part of the sea, beyond the reach of sunlight.  He can see humans at the water’s surface, enjoying what life has to offer, but he can only look up and watch.
Reader drags him from the deep, pulls him ashore, and attempts to breathe life into him.  He was never dead, but he never felt alive until now.
How do you envision Markus and the reader's future?
König will be put away for good.  Markus will leave the service and put away the sniper’s hood.  He and Reader will likely get married, maybe even attempt to get pregnant.  I didn’t write any of this because not all fulfilling lives involve marriage or children.
I want the audience to decide for themselves what happiness looks like for Markus and Reader. 
Is there anything about the series you'd like readers to know that I haven't asked you about?
The audience can guess where König and Reader are posted based on the mention of Ardennes (the street) and their geographic proximity to Myrtle Beach.
My RL husband was posted there for most of his military career and his stories and descriptions helped me write this series.  Although my husband doesn’t read my work, he’s happy to share the male soldier’s perspective, since I only know what I’ve experienced as a woman.
I’ve been fortunate to have my own experiences to draw from in my writing, but where I draw blanks, I have an incredible primary source in my dear husband.
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pumpkinbunned · 1 year
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Martin Scorscese speaks about his journey as a director and mentions his hidden cult classic "Goncharov"(1973) An interview with Martin Scorscese by Rolex
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suzy-queued · 3 months
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New Year's Ask Game for Fic Writers
To close out 2023…
1) What fic did you have the most fun writing this year and why? Or, if you can’t decide, what was most fun about writing this year for you?
It was a lot of fun writing the Masquerade story, because there was a lot to consider. Should I use my own voice or try to mimic someone else's? Should I write a story that I normally wouldn't take a chance on? Game-ifying fic writing makes it really exciting. And now it's fun to guess on everyone else's stories!
2) What’s a scene/story that you finished and felt “wow, I really accomplished that, that actually went so well”?
Chapter 13 of Out of Nowhere. I knew from the beginning that I'd have to write that angsty sex scene, and I felt like I was training for a marathon leading up to it. It had to balance anger and love, had to involve force but not be rapey. There were so many complex and competing forces in the scene, and I wasn't sure I could pull it off.
3) What helped provide the most inspiration for stories, if anything? Was it poetry? A song on repeat? A gorgeous gifset? A walk outside? A book you read that made you want to change everything? Whatever it was! Tell all.
Songs! Always songs. Murder ballads. Heavy metal opuses. Raw 2000s emo. Give me all of it.
4) What is something you want to share about what you’ve written this year? A particular line, a comment that made you feel really good, a scene that was difficult to write — you get to choose! What do you wish someone would ask you about when it comes to what you’ve written?
I tried to write novels back between 2012-2018. I wrote 2 YA fantasy novels and pieces of four others. But none of them ever felt complete. None of them gelled in my mind. I don't know why. I shelved them all. Then, I discovered the Gallavich fandom. I read the fics and a fire got lit inside me. And now I've written five novel-length stories. FIVE. And they all feel right! I can't thank this fandom enough for being supportive, inspiring, and transformative. I may not have a ton of fics, but completing a fifth multi-chap makes me feel like a superhero.
And to start off 2024…
1) Do you have any writing/creation goals for the year? What are they?
Finish Out of Nowhere, which will happen ... any day now!
2) Is there a fic or idea that you’re really excited to be able to continue to work on in the new year (shout out to my fellow fic writing folks who take forever to finish wips, sometimes it’s nice to be able to continue working on something even if you wish you’d gotten it done! Now you get even MORE time with it!)
I am exited to continue the @galladrabbles series No Sleep 'Til Nashville. It makes me giggle to put all the fandom tropes in there. It might go on for the entire year, who knows? There's a lot of story left to tell, and I have a lot of shenanigans planned.
3) What’s something new in your writing you want to try/are going to try? A different writing style? Different fandom? Darker works? Fluffier? Longer or shorter?
I might write more short stories this year. I might write a non-Gallavich original novel (if the idea strikes). All I know is that I'll always be writing something.
4) What’s something you love about your own writing that you will continue to appreciate in the new year?
I love creating suspense — in a scene, in a chapter, in an entire fic. I enjoy the challenge of making every scene sing, or at least having narrative tension. I don't see that going away. Here's hoping I can succeed!
Tagging, if you'd like to participate: @sweetperversiongirl @sweetbee78 @depressedstressedlemonzest @juliakayyy @notherenewjersey @metalheadmickey @creepkinginc @whatthebodygraspsnot @arrowflier @crossmydna
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dragonpyre · 3 months
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Fic author intervieeeeeeew. Thanks for the tag @nyelung
If you want to, @llisona @sishal01 @wrencatte
How many works do you have on Ao3?
Thirty. Four of those are art pieces.
2. What's your total Ao3 word count?
441,611. A quarter of that is one fic
3. What are you top fics by kudos?
Time Travel? What the fuck? 13,327
Prodigal 3,284
A Song of a Sweet Rose 3,009
Forget Me Nots 1,349
Winchesters in Beacon Hills 993
4. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?
No. I feel like it artificially inflates the comments to kudos ratio and I don't wanna give false advertising
5. What's the fic you've written with the angtiest ending?
I don't like angsty endings. I need happy endings! However, for a gift exchange I ended the piece on a rather... unsavory note :3
6. What's the fic you've written with the happiest ending?
Prodigal! Everyone gets reunited at the end and becomes a happy family! Also the only fic I've ever completed...
7. Do you write crossovers?
Totally. I've written like four.
8. Have you ever received hate on a fic?
Allllllllllllll the time. But mostly on my big fic. Apparently people have opinions on how you should write your own au. And get mad when it's not done their way
9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?
Nah. not my jam. The most I've written is kissing.
10. Have you ever had a fic stolen?
Not to my knowledge.
11. Have you ever had a fic translated?
Yes. Into Spanish via podfic (sort of. it was on youtube with my permission).
12. Have you ever co-written a fic before?
Technically yes. I drew art for a fic that was posted in the fic itself (did sort of collab with the author on the plot itself).
13. What's your all-time favorite ship?
Gonna get real 2014 on you when I say this. Destiel. I was obsessed with SPN in high school and that shit show of a ship still remains #1.
14. What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?
Like. All my BNHA and SPN fics. I'd like to finish my BNHA fics but like. I don't think it's gonna happen
15. What are your writing strengths?
I'm told I write angst well. I think I write emotional scenes/dialogue well, but I can't be sure. I'm my own worst critique.
16. What are your writing weaknesses?
I want to say fight scenes but I think a few of my friends would fight me on that.
17. What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?
Gonna be honest, never really thought of it. If it's non important dialogue, I write it in the og language. If it's important, italicized in English.
18. What was the first fandom you wrote for?
Harry Potter. It was a self insert oc (but not really).
19. What’s a fandom/ship you haven’t written for yet but want to?
Non, I think. I write what I want to when I want to. The only things I haven't written are ideas I'm too scared to flesh out (for fandoms I have already written for).
20. What’s your favorite fic you’ve written
Time Travel? What The Fuck? hands down. It's my special little guy. Fucking huge fic. Need to finish it so I can get to that ONE SCENE that inspired the whole thing
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