What are your thoughts on casual modern phrases/slang in Fantasy lit? (or phrases such as "in a minute" in an outer space setting)
How important is it to not break that immersion vs connecting the readers with your characters?
There's definitely a line to walk.
Word choice and turns of phrase are important - they convey all kinds of things, especially where it comes to dialogue and narration from a specific character's perspective.
A favorite example courtesy of Hijikata from Hakuouki - same scene, same character, same voice actor, same exact line, but translated and localized by two different companies to noticeably different effect. Especially in print media, word choices do a lot of work.
Modern slang and out of place turns of phrase can undermine the effect you're trying to evoke with your writing. On the other hand it's possible to get too hung up on authenticity - language is complicated and the words and phrases we use are inextricably connected to all kinds of cultural and historical context. You can't avoid it; it's senseless to try.
The best way I've heard to think of it is to treat it like you're localizing your story from another language. I say "localizing" rather than "translating" because I've come to appreciate the distinction; translation is converting information accurately from one language to another, but localization seeks to preserve the effect of the translated text in a way the audience can understand it.
To use your example: they probably have minutes in space, and if the time measurements used by people who aren't bound to the rotation and revolution cycles of a particular planet, you still need to make sure your audience can grasp what you mean. "What the fuck is a chronon?" breaks immersion just as much as using out of place modern phrasing can do.
It bothers me when a character says "use proper English" in a work that has no England, but I have in the past made the executive decision to have a character say "touché" in a setting that had no France. I imagine the balance point between "too much" and "not enough" falls a little differently for everyone; ultimately as a writer I have to use my best judgment.
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
✓ Live Streaming✓ Interactive Chat✓ Private Shows✓ HD Quality✓ Free Actions
Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming
1. What was the first fandom and/or pairing that you wrote fic for?
Hi, have we met? Have you been to my page before? I really need to stop presuming everyone knows things like this because this is how I get into fights on Reddit. But yes, back to your question, it's Sevastian x MC.
30. Tell us an idea for a longfic you want to write in the future.
Oh, now you're being cute. A longfic? Wth! I average 1k word fics, long is not in my vocabulary 🤣 I will say, I've had a few requests from some of you out there to write a season 7 for a certain LI, so if I ever was to write something longer, it would be along those lines. But don't hold your breath waiting for that to happen 🤣
Squall Leonhart and Rinoa Heartilly from Final Fantasy VIII, my original fandom OTP. I’ve probably written more about them than any other fic, and though it’s been a hot minute since I’ve written anything new for FFVIII, Squall and Rinoa and their relationship dynamic have left a permanent mark on my writing - especially Squall, who is eveything I love in a romantic hero.
By which mostly I mean “aloof, stoic professionalism on the outside, utter emotional garbage fire in need of rescue on the inside.”
🎁 have a quote from a WIP?
I batted back and forth with myself for a while on how deep to dig into my files of unfinished fiction and whether to stick to fanfic or not, considering that how much any of my WIPs can really be said to be in progress is always pretty dubious.
Anyway, here’s two different and unrelated excerpts for you.
“Why make the suggestion in the first place if you’re so against it?”
Because I’m not strong enough.
The answer rested on the tip of his tongue, too bitter to swallow. As much as this whole situation galled him, fact remained fact: he lacked the influence, not to mention the manpower, that it would take to challenge Juliano directly.
He’d grit his teeth and send this woman into the trenches, knowing full well what he was sending her to, because like it or not he needed the opportunity she could give him.
But some things a man in his position couldn’t admit to out loud. Especially not to a woman with eyes like Elizabeth Colvin’s.
This one’s from “Reason or Rhyme,” the Gotham Memoirs Vittorio fic I swear I will get back to when I have the chance.
The other is from an older original piece that is still more conceptual than really planned, but which I still really want to do something with one of these days:
Keeping herself propped up suddenly seemed like far too much effort. As the car’s drivers side door swung open, Raine sank back down onto the corrugated surface of the truck bed and closed her eyes. From there she heard rather than saw him approach, steps light and measured, the long shadow he cast in the headlights flickering against her eyelids: the central figure of all the problems she’d tried to forget.
“Warden.”
“Special Agent.”
She’d hoped to sound as calm and dispassionate as he had, but to her own ears her voice just sounded petulant. Saying anything else seemed like a bad idea. Instead she kept her eyes shut, as though if she didn’t acknowledge him any further, he might go away and leave her alone.
No such luck.
“What the hell have you been drinking,” he said with a flatness in that rich voice that made it not so much a question as a demand for explanation.
“Two for one margaritas, mostly.”
She opened one eye to find Alsandír standing at the side of the truck, looking down at her. In the stark backlight of the headlights, he was all sharp contrasts, silver and shadows like some kind of moody artistic photograph in a style there was probably a fancy name for. Chiaro… chiaroscuro. Something Italian like that.
He drew in a slow breath, the line of his jaw shifted fractionally as the corners of his mouth tightened. “With incredibly cheap tequila, by the smell of it. You are in no shape to drive.”
“A very astute observation,” Raine enunciated the words with great care to keep her mouth from stumbling over them like it wanted to. “That’d be why I’m not driving.”
He lifted an eyebrow.
“So your solution is to spend the night out here?” he asked, a note of incredulity creeping into his tone. “Because that’s safe.”
“Oh, go away,” she muttered sourly, closing her eyes again and lifting a hand to flap it in his direction. “Nobody asked you.”
Her arm caught up short against his palm, and he closed his hand around her wrist -- not a tight grip, but trying to tug free of him proved fruitless. By the time Raine opened her eyes to frown at him, he was already moving around to the tailgate, pulling her up and along with him until her feet touched the ground and she was sitting nominally upright.
“Hey,” she protested, but he gave no indication that he’d heard.
“Can you stand?”
Insulted, she hissed a breath out through her teeth. “I’m not that drunk.”
He said nothing to that. He just stood there, watching her with that too-steady gaze, inhumanly still except for the barest ruffle of the breeze over his hair. Expectant.
With a half-voiced grumble of capitulation, Raine braced her hand against the tailgate and pushed herself the rest of the way up so that she could sit on her own. It wasn’t standing, but it seemed to satisfy him, because he let go of her wrist and took a single, precise step back.
“Where are your keys?” he asked her.
She patted her hand against the hip pocket of her jeans, not so much by way of an answer as to reassure herself that she hadn’t done something stupid like leave them in the ignition. The hard edges of the keyring pressed back against her palm, unyielding and familiar. She had just enough time to think that if he meant to take her keys from her, it was going to be a fight, before he said “Good,” and turned away.
Raine sat on the tailgate and watched as he went back to his car, moving around to the passengers’ side to open the door. Her mind felt thick and sluggish, like the summer humidity had crept into her head; when he turned back towards her and said, “Get in,” at first she only blinked.
“...No thanks,” she decided after a moment, and heard him breathe out a quiet sigh.
“I’m not leaving you out here like this.”
Something about the absoluteness in his voice, like he was saying something that had already been decided, had her bunching up her shoulders with rebellious tension.
“Go to hell,” Raine shot back. “I don’t take orders from you.”
“Dios mío, it’s not an order--” He broke off with a hiss, for once sounding as aggravated as she felt.
Curling her arms around herself, she hunkered down to rest her forearms against her knees and looked down at the ground. Presently she heard his steps on the gravel again. The distorted length of his shadow split the flood of light from the headlights like a knife as he walked back toward her; even when he stood right in front of her, close enough that if she kicked out it would catch him right about in the kneecap, she kept her head bowed and glowered at the toes of his no-doubt-designer shoes.
“Raine. I am asking you. Please.” The word sounded awkward in his mouth, as though it were something he wasn’t accustomed to pronouncing. Surprise had her lifting her head to find those pale eyes fixed upon her, implacable. “Get in the fucking car.”
For a long, taut moment, neither of them moved. Raine was the one to finally break eye contact, uncurling herself with a little huff.
“Fine,” she said, “if you’re going to make this much of a thing out of it.”
She gripped the end of the tailgate with both hands, but as she pushed herself off and onto her feet, the ground tilted dizzily underneath her. Off balance, she pitched forward with a very undignified sound, and would’ve planted her face right into his chest if he hadn’t caught her by the shoulders.
Catching the upward quirk of his eyebrow, Raine glared up at him. “Shut up.”
“Mm,” he said, and hitched a steadying arm around her by which to steer her towards his car.
What type of characters do you find the most fun to write?
I didn't really manage to address this question earlier in all my tldr, so I'm glad you have put it into a separate ask for me to address properly!
The answer is yes. Yes I do have favorite character types to write, and the two main ones are: emotionally compromised jerkfaces and Studio Ghibli heroines.
"Emotionally compromised jerkfaces" may possibly be reasonably self-explanatory, at least if you look over my major fandoms and favorite characters therein. I've talked about Squall Leonhart from Final Fantasy VIII before, and he's a prime example. So are Antares and Nikolai. Mr Darcy is somewhat less of an emotional trashfire, but he's got more than enough outward aloofness and snobbery to make up the difference.
You get the idea, right? A crunchy outer shell of maladaptive behaviors hiding a core of squishy inner vulnerability, in one fashion or another. Delicious.
Occasionally it's fun to mix it up: a dangerous, malevolent exterior masking a heart of innate nobility and sensitivity (Luck Gandor, Vittorio Puzo). Charming, flippant nonsense over a core of absolute conviction (Caligo, Sevastian). The bright, confident and/or apparently guileless paragon who is actually carrying around a mess of secret traumas (Mu la Flaga, Dyrk Magz). The important thing is the contrast, the disconnect between the outer mask and inner mind.
Meanwhile, my heroines tend to be reasonably practical Plucky Girls, or former Plucky Girls who've been obliged to grow up a little more than they'd like but refuse to let the bastards of the world grind them down. Characters who'd be at home as the leads in a Miyazaki film, basically. I've never found a better way of summing it up than that.
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
✓ Live Streaming✓ Interactive Chat✓ Private Shows✓ HD Quality✓ Free Actions
Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming
I know you've recently been reading a substantial amount of Pride and Prejudice fanwork, would you consider writing one yourself and in what kind of setting? (I know I've asked you this before but didn't get any details of your ideas because.. timezones zzz!!)
I have certainly been thinking about it!
I go back and forth with myself on the subject, because on the one hand, this is a classic story that still speaks to people over 200 years after it was written, and has been re-interpreted so many times in so many different ways. I can't help wondering if I really have anything to bring to this, or if I'm just tempted by the lure of a guaranteed and apparently insatiable audience? Do I really need to try to reinvent this particular wheel?
On the other hand, it's an interesting challenge, isn't it? To see if I do have something to bring to this well-known and much-loved story, to try my own take on it. And I do love it - I'd have to, to read as many versions of it as I've read over the past two months and counting.
I haven't made up my mind yet. A retelling of a well-known story is in some ways an even bigger undertaking than trying to craft a wholly original plot, but I have some thoughts about things I might like to try if I decide to make the effort.
The main one is the space opera retelling, which I think could be a lot of fun. I do love space opera, and I can absolutely see Pride and Prejudice playing out in some kind of old school mecha anime Space Hessians aesthetic, like just going full Legend of the Galactic Heroes with it.
My favorite "elseworlds AU" retellings (The Muse notwithstanding) have been the ones that retain elements of period setting elegance while also freeing the characters from at least some of the Regency-era bigotries and stiff social rules or replace them with different ones. A space opera setting would be great for that. Plus providing the opportunity for some good old-fashioned "fuck capitalism" in its angle on the divide between the haves and the have-nots. What's the mark of elevated social class in this setting? Ownership of real, workable land planetside, same as owning an estate during the Regency? Or the reverse - the ability to travel freely in space rather than being stuck of necessity in one location, perhaps?
I've also considered the possibility of using my Regency fae setting idea (elaboration to come in another post) for a Pride and Prejudice retelling. It'd be a big undertaking that would take even more work to adapt into something which would be recognizably the same story without being exactly the same story just with different wallpaper.
Still, I feel like there are interesting things that could be done with the themes of "just because a thing is held to be common wisdom doesn't necessarily make it true, you have to employ your own judgment" vs "the folly of holding yourself and your own judgment so much above other people that you reject common wisdom just because it's popular opinion aka being a goddamn hipster". Plus the question of, like, if impropriety is a step away from potentially creating actual danger to people's lives or sanity, how does that change things? If Lady Catherine can include among her arguments "involvement with you presents a concrete danger to my nephew," how does that impact Elizabeth's reaction?
And so forth.
Something that I would never try myself, but which would be really fun in the right hands, would be a retelling set in Japan during the Warring States Era or thereabouts. Samurai Pride and Prejudice! I am too white and way too American and lack the cultural and historical knowledge that would be needed to do it justice, but I would absolutely love to read it.
Can you tell us more about The Ciphered Letter and what inspired it?
This one is really a combination of two separate and unrelated sources of inspiration.
"Who curses someone to never have good coffee?"
"...girl I knew."
One is a Mage: The Awakening campaign I played in. Because I had no earthly idea how anything in Mage worked, my character - Stephanie "Stevie" Arden - started off as a brand new baby mage who spent the entire first campaign barely awakened to her magic and targeted for kidnapping by a cult who planned to sacrifice her to a Lovecraftian cosmic horror. GOOD TIMES.
The rest of the player characters came to the rescue, and the climax of that first story arc involved the entire team including my character shamelessly ripping off St. Patrick's Rune from A Swiftly Tilting Planet... which I can't use in any of my own personal work for obvious reasons, but trust me, it was badass.
Anyway, one of the other player characters was @senshilegionnaire's Pryderi Jones, a Welsh mage with a tendency toward snark and setting things on fire (there was an unfortunate incident in the backstory involving evil werewolves and a nuclear power plant). SB gave me permission to borrow the character for my own nefarious purposes and I have yet to do anything with that generosity, but I still really want to.
(Pryderi Jones is, incidentally, the dude responsible for the running gag about the Welsh faerie mafia, via certain threats made to some probably supernatural, definitely cannibalistic Scottish gangsters. Then the actual Tylwyth Teg took exception to being thus invoked and kidnapped him, but that's a whole other story.)
ANYWAY--
The second part of this whole idea comes from a random-ass unsolicited email I received many, many years ago, which consisted of an attachment and the text "To you the ciphered letter has come." No other explanation, and web searches located no additional context.
I was never so stupid as to open an unsolicited attachment from an unknown sender, but I burn with curiosity to this day.
“Make your choice, adventurous Stranger,
Strike the bell and bide the danger,
Or wonder, till it drives you mad,
What would have followed if you had.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Magician's Nephew
Yeah. Just like that.
As I resigned myself to never solving the mystery, I made up my mind that I should use it for a story, and I feel like it would suit Stevie and Pryderi very well. I admit I have yet to get very far in planning anything out specifically, beyond the arrival of a Mysterious Ciphered Letter which, either via its cryptic and encoded contents or simply by its existence, becomes the key to revealing hidden truths and a whole mess of danger for Pryderi to set on fire.
I'll figure it out one of these days, I swear to god.
🌸Is there a route that you’ve replayed several times? What makes that route special to you?
🍐Did one specific moment in their story stand out to you? What part and why?
🍒If you could design your own LI, what would they look like? (Maybe chose parts of existing MC / LIs - person x’s eyes, person y’s smile, etc)
🍑If you could design you own LIs personality, what would they be like? (Maybe chose parts of existing MC / LIs - person x’s sense of humour, person y’s bravery, etc)
🥁Do you want a slow burn or a whirlwind romance? Do you have a favourite LI in each of those categories?
Thank you @aliboo for the ask!
🌸 - Yes, Sevastian. I love his route so much, I never get bored rereading him. Everytime I read it, I feel I'm finding parts I glossed over on previous reads.
🍐- That's like asking me to pick only one of my babies! I think multiple people asked this, so I can give a few different answers. His final scene. I knew leading up to it that this would be his final episode, but damn, that scene just...no words. Yes, it's made me cry everytime I've read it and I don't think anything else will ever impact me like that.
🍒 - Sevastian, but a few inches taller 😌
🍑 - I'm sure this is cheating, but Sevastian again 😂
🥁 - I suppose I prefer a slow burn over whirlwind, tho it would be nice if we had an occasional whirlwind amongst all these slow burns. Since I can't figure out what exactly makes a slow burn or whirlwind (is it how fast they kiss? Go to bed? I'm confused), I'm going to stick with very obvious routes. For slow burn, it's gotta be Xenia (sorry Cal, your route went somewhere, and never quite returned). For whirlwind, I'll pick Renzei.
