#ravenpuffheadcanons

4. What book do you think it should be a requirement for you to be a consultant for if it was to be adapted into a play or movie or something?

Oh, good question! I do think Peggy and Roger have some similarities of character - partly just from their family positions as younger siblings to very determined characters, though Roger is perhaps more assertive about occasionally doing his own thing and not getting bossed around than Peggy is? The only time I can remember Peggy standing up for herself off the top of my head is off-screen, when she says they had "a whole argument and a half" about how Amazon vanished when they had the war with the Swallows... Although Roger doesn't so much argue back as sometimes just go off and do what he feels like, while Peggy tends to be too swept up in Nancy's schemes to do that!

But especially, I think they have similar senses of humour - look at Peggy sneaking up on Roger while keeping watch on Squashy Hat in Pigeon Post, I could very easily see Roger doing that; and then Peggy's the one to fall for Roger pretending he can't find the golden gulch the first time he leads them all there. So I can easily picture them having a great time trying to one-up each other with funny stories!

I'm going to talk about "Sylvia", because it unexpectedly became one of my favorite things I've written this year.

This was inspired by Tolkien's Roverandom. The scene where they fly off the edge of a flat Earth to get to the moon made me desperate to use that imagery in a Treasure Planet type of world with spacefaring sailing ships.

I was a few days behind on the Chesterton Challenge at this point, so I looked over the list of unfilled prompts to see if there were any that lent themselves to story ideas. "Letter" offered a nice concrete story spark--someone could get a letter that led them to take a sailing ship off the edge of the world.

I let this story be driven purely by aesthetic. I wanted a slow, thoughtful vibe that let me capture the dreamlike imagery of this Victorian spacefaring world, so I went with third-person present-tense and let myself be inspired more by cozy Victorian novels than by space adventures. I wanted quirky touches to make it clear this was a mishmash fantasy world rather than a true historical fantasy--thus, the pink sneakers. I wanted to make use of the types of romanticized images that I used to gather for story-sparking Pinterest inspiration boards--thus, the letter comes in a bottle.

And anyway I just let this story unfold as I wrote it during a couple of free hours. The writing process was mostly me not letting the words get in the way of the story--using short sentences to keep the focus on the imagery of this moment, giving just enough info to spark the imagination rather than give the full story.

I don't know why, but my favorite detail might be that Sylvia's brother "married a moon maiden". I assume she's some kind of alien, but not specifying details keeps this universe fantastical and mysterious and intriguing.

I think Sylvia's hesitation at the end is a bit of a stretch--me trying to add in conflict to a story without any so I can end with some kind of resolution. But it does lead to my favorite line: "Let the man remain a memory and a mystery, wrapped in mists of nostalgia that keep him soft and harmless and far away."

Ah! This one is a neat little one that I need to get back off the ground. It’s been co-written by me and my sister @keyofmgy and is technically a crossover AU between AoS and the first season of The Terror, an anthology series that aired on AMC, along with some real-life historical fact for the plot. The basic premise is that the character Goodsir survived, and he and Silna returned to Scotland to start a life together. Fast-forward to 1869 I think it is, and Jemma is among the first group of women to be admitted to university in the UK, at the University of Edinburgh. There she meets Fitz, a fellow student studying engineering, but she also meets Goodsir, who is the conservator of the Royal College of Surgeons at the Edinburgh Museum next door, and their lives all become intertwined as Jemma struggles to make her way at the university and earn her spot in academia.

Basically it’s just an excuse for me and my sister to marry our two separate primary fandoms and is probably not as exciting and interesting as the document name makes it sound! But we’ve discussed plot for a lot of it, even if we haven’t properly outlined it, which makes my teeth itch lol, and hopefully one day we’ll get it finished and out into the world!

Oooh, that's a good question! Technically, I have written some AU snippets as a meme on dreamwidth some years ago, but none of them developed into full-fledged fics or even ficlets... I wonder if it's because the setting feels so integral to the stories? The ships, the Lake, they're practically characters, which may be making it hard to AU it?

It's pretty early to cast anybody yet, so I can't say for sure. I will say that Lily is called Lily because her character type reminds me of Lily James as Cinderella. The artist has very Ben Wishaw vibes. I wouldn't cast either of them in a movie (they're both too old), but those are the face claims.

5 - What’s a book you’ve enjoyed partly because of external factors (read it on holiday, gift from a friend etc)?

Hmm, tricky, I don't think I have one? I got a lot of books for Christmas (Swordheart and Paladin's Strength by T Kingfisher, Empire of Ivory by Naomi Novik, Witches Abroad by Terry Pratchett), but I am pretty sure I would have enjoyed them regardless! Shout out to my poor boyfriend's doomed attempt to get me Empire of Ivory in the same edition as my other Temeraire books - he tried very hard but it was just not doable... the one he got is pretty though!

7 - Is there a book that you intensely disliked, and thus need to get your complaints off your chest?

Ah, Babel. It should have been a book I loved - the gaps in translation are magic? Fantastic concept! - and yet, and yet. I have so many irritations with it - for all the pseudoacademic Talking About Colonialism and Imperialism, only the British have ever committed it apparently (particularly irked at how South America seemingly doesn't exist in this world other than footnotes on Potosi silver which do not mention, you know, Spain); all POC are good, all white people are evil; "no there are no gender barriers here feminism is nonsense" says the one single female professor to her "dressed as men because otherwise they couldn't even be here in the one place in Oxford that admits women" female students (and is then allowed to be a Good character, presumably as a reward for shutting down Lottie?)...

9 - Who is the most memorable character you’ve encountered on the page?

Oh, I think this has to be Murderbot! Poor bot just wants to watch its serials in peace and keeps getting interrupted by things like "its job", "humans caring about it", "it totally not caring about humans shut up it just has to save them because reasons" - such a good character, and a fantastic narrative voice.

16 - Have you ticked any books off of your “I swear I’ll read it one day” list? Was it worth the wait?

Hmm... I did re-read (or possibly read in full for the first time?) Robinson Crusoe and read Swiss Family Robinson this year. I had completely forgotten Crusoe's "woe is me for I am a wretched sinner" bits, and the long drawn out recovery of his estate in the end, to the point where I wonder if I'd only read an abridged version previously? As for Swiss Family Robinson, the island is the most hilariously geographically implausible setting I ever read 😂