Get-To-Know-Me: @shireness-says
Weāre excited to introduce the authors and artists who will have signed up for this event! Stay tuned in September, and make sure to give them lots of love.
Tumblr/Ao3 handle: @shireness-says/shireness
How long have you been involved in fandom? I've been writing since 2017 and lurking for another couple years before that. Gosh, time flies!
What draws you to this event? Well, you know, I just thought "someone out there has such a brilliant idea to put this together, I ought to go show my support --"Ā
Ā It's me. It's my event. I'm greedy and I want more historical fics and the least I can do is participate, you know? At least get folks a new chapter of one of my historic WIPs.Ā
Do you have a favorite historical period to learn or read about? Reading, I've always been such a sucker for those cheesy regency romances. Call it cliche. Learning, I bounce around a bit more - I definitely had an Egypt phase as a kid, and I got really into bronze/iron age bog bodies for a while. Recently, I've had an itch to learn more about the Renaissance. Ask me again next week and we'll see what happens.Ā
Why do you like historical fics? PINING. Pining. I like enormous amounts of feelings having to be condensed into tiny gestures. I'm weak for that stuff.Ā
Beyond that... well, itās interesting, you know? Historical fics have these built-in boundaries that writers have to work around when crafting their fics, by virtue of the time period and all the societal stuff that comes along with that. Itās fascinating to see the ways authors view our beloved characters fitting into those circumstances.Ā
What is the inspiration behind your story? Iāll be bringing you all a new chapter of A Fate Woven in Thread and Ink (with more art by the excellentĀ @eirabach!). I really want to finish one of my MCs this year, and while I want to support our wonderful authors in this event by throwing in my own two cents, I donāt have the time to commit to anything new. I hope youāre all excited all the same!Ā
Do you have a sneak preview or summary you'd like to share?
Killian has imagined this moment so many times over the years: the things heād say, the things sheād say if things were ever out in the open between them.
None of them had ever involved an umbrella.Ā
All the same, the moment feels right in a way that Killian canāt describe, like things were always leading to this. Fate has brought them to this moment, and now, the universe can finally exhale.Ā
āItās you,ā Miss Swan finally says. Other women might have whispered it, or breathed it, or some other melodramatic gesture, but the circusā magician has, ironically, always been made of more practical stuff. When Miss Swan speaks, the words are acceptance, the last action needed to fully recalibrate the world as she knows it.Ā
āIndeed,ā he finally says. Any scripts have been thrown out the proverbial window as they stand here under identical umbrellas.
āHow long have you known?ā
āSince the beginning,ā he admits without pause. Thereās no point to obscuring or lying deflecting. āSince your audition. You wereā¦ different. The things you were doing were real, even if they were so obviously different from my own efforts. It wasnāt hard to put the pieces together.ā
A silence stretches between them, though it is somehow not uncomfortable. It feels like sheās sizing him up, perhaps trying to piece together their previous encounters with this new information. He would not blame her; heād be doing the same in her shoes. Itās been over a decade that heās known, after all.Ā
āMay I interest you in a drink? A chance to talk this over?ā Killian offers as a last resort.
āNo, I donāt think you can. Not right now.ā And with a nod and a crisp sweep of her skirts, she continues on her merry way, as if theyād never met.Ā
Killian watches her walk back into the rain. The whole thing should discourage him, he thinks, should encourage him to keep his distance and not seek to learn more about the woman he has always struggled to view as merely his competitor. Instead, his fascination only deepens. They have time - and Killian is willing to wait however long it takes to have that conversation.
(It is only as he turns back into the rain, some minutes later, that he realizes -Ā
She never did return the umbrella.)
@shireness-says is the mod for this event, and Iām going to stop talking in the 3rd person because itās getting real weird.Ā
My fic will be dropping on Friday, September 24th.
