Hey, I’ve been loving your fic Angel and wanted to know about the writing process. Where did the idea come from? What drew you to tomione? Do you see yourself writing other tomiones? (Please, I beg you) 🙏🏻
Ohhh boy, buckle up because I'm gonna ramble!
I'll start with what drew me to Tomione as a fandom and some background. I was never really 'in' fandom; had never read any fanfiction prior to late 2024; and never much cared for Harry Potter as a series when it was released. I started reading AO3 after getting into Rings of Power and Galadriel x Sauron as a ship (seriously. they totally wrote the show that way and I will die on that hill).
From there, I followed the writers who I really enjoyed in that fandom over to other ones they had written for – namely Darklina (still never seen the show, read a ton of fics!) and Reylo (despise it in canon, but it has a whole ton of amazing fic written for it). The fic that one-shotted me into Tomione in particular was The Warp and The Weft by the amazing @dillpicklepanic, who I had found via some Reylo fics she had previously written.
It was throughout this time that I kind of figured out - from reading a million things all over these fandoms - the specific tropes I enjoy and dislike. I found I didn't particularly care for fics set at school/early in life, nor the 'standard HEA ending with marriage and children' - as someone who is married and has children, the idea that those things mark an end of a story is crazy to me. I wanted to read something where someone had had their 'HEA', and then went out of their way to fuck it all up again!
I love when the FMC is deeply flawed/unlikeable; the MMC is not only irredeemably evil and terrifying, but also kind of a pathetic loser (this really applies to most of the aforementioned fandoms: Sauron is kinda the Assistant Regional Manager of Evil compared to Morgoth within Tolkien's Legendarium. Kylo Ren - enough said. And Tom Riddle was best known for failing to kill an infant and spent a good portion of his life working retail. The fuck kinda Dark Lord is that?)
I suppose what gave me the idea for Angel was a perfect storm of a few things that happened in the summer of 2025:
There were a few fics that were a direct inspiration - some Tomione, some not. The biggest one was probably Happy House by @screamingmandrakes (currently privated I believe), which was an in-universe time-travel fic featuring a Tom with severe mummy issues. The second was Patented Nightmare by neilistic, which was again in-universe and had a 39-year-old messy, twice-divorced Hermione investigating Tom Riddle's past, via an interactive smut spell. The third is a Reylo fic called Summerblood by @malreverie which was a serial killer AU featuring a very vulnerable and VERY scary 17-year-old Ben Solo;
I watched Plein Soleil, the earliest film adaptation of The Talented Mr. Ripley, which starred a praeternaturally beautiful, 24-year-old Alain Delon as Tom Ripley; it suddenly occurred to me that he was absolutely perfect on the unsettling/evil/hot axis that a young Tom Riddle demanded;
I developed a hyperfixation on Stock Aitken Waterman as producers and songwriters, particularly their earlier, less commercially successful work. This primarily came about due to it being great cardio music; but there are also a few songs of theirs where the lyrics are pretty unsettling for super-happy shiny pop music, and it kinda of stuck in my head;
I read a Tumblr post from a Tomarry fan who seemed to be extraordinarily cross with the existence of Tomione as a ship, posting a picture saying, 'Never let tomione fans forget, Hepzibah x Tom is more canon' and my immediate reaction was 'uhhhhhh hook it to my fucking veins'. This led me on a search for both that, and older Hermione/younger Tom. There wasn't much of either of those things, but the idea stayed with me.
Ultimately, it all coalesced when I had a conversation with my mother about someone we knew who had left her marriage (and her job) to be with a teenager:
Mother: "—of course, she said that she waited until he reached the age of consent, but the suspicion is always there if you've been teaching them for longer, isn't there?"
Me: "God, I don't think there could ever be a teenage boy that would make me blow up my life like that; I mean, goddamn."
Mother: [sighing heavily] "She could have at least molested an attractive child."
Me: "...Jesus Christ, Mum."
And then the entire story essentially manifested itself in one giant lump, and I had to angrily plot it out in its entirety to stop it consuming my every thought!
From there, the only way I can describe the process of writing is like I'm watching the film of it in my head, and I have to sort of transcribe what I'm looking at. I dunno, I've never written anything before 🤷🏼♀️
As for other Tomiones after this? Hard to say; I want to get this story and the accompanying ones out of my system first before attempting anything else. I've got a vague outline of a Star Wars fic in the back of my mind, as well as an idea for a biiiiig chunky Original Work, but all of these will take time (I am not a pantser; I need to meticulously plan and research everything otherwise I get super anxious). But! I am not saying no. I need an idea to grab me and for the planets to align 💕
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