I already answered #8 over here. Would you like to choose a third number?
Anyway!
5. Share one of your strengths.
One thing I am good at is maintaining a consistent and non-self-contradictory world. Which in fanfiction terms means I am good at canon-compliance, both in the sense of acknowledging events and places, and in the sense of making sure my character interpretations are plausible extrapolations from canon knowledge. (In original fiction terms, it means that I abide by the rules I set up at the opening of my own story-universes.) This is not necessary for fanfiction, of course, and in AUs obviously some things get thrown aside and other altered, but I like putting things in order and building coherent structures, insofar as possible. World-building, timelines, you name it. I will make things make sense. (Even if canon itself didn't!)
7. Share a snippet from one of your favorite pieces of prose you've written and explain why you're proud of it.
This is from Knives, a story wherein Ginny Weasley captures Lucius Malfoy at the end of the war (it was written before the publication of Deathly Hallows) and keeps him as her prisoner for several years:
-----
He winces as you draw the knife along his bearded cheek; a narrow line of blood wells up through the gap in his skin and trickles through the tangled golden hair. 'I was under the impression that the righteous didn't lie. Then again, you did shelter and conceal the Dark Lord's soul for nearly a year, so I suppose--'
You're not listening anymore.
He's accusing you of helping Tom. He's accusing you of opening the Chamber, of Petrifying Hermione, and Colin Creevey (who died screaming and you couldn't save him), and Penelope Clearwater (who spends her days locked in the closed ward at St. Mungo's), and Nearly-Headless Nick (who faded with the other ghosts, holding the castle wards during the final battle), and Justin Finch-Fletchley (who betrayed the Order and died at the end of Harry's wand while you kept the other soldiers from interfering).
You are not like Tom. You are not like Voldemort. You are not like him. You can't be. You refuse to be.
And yet...
The knife is heavy in your hand. Blood coats your fingers, thick and tacky as it dries. Guilt and shame stab into your stomach, and he's breaking you. You have all the power, but he's winning. And you can't let him go.
You freeze him with a spell, while his mouth is open and dark. You haven't asked him any questions; you aren't looking for answers. He won't have to stand trial.
He doesn't really need his tongue.
-----
Ginny's been torturing Lucius for nearly a year by this scene, but I think this is where she really tips over the edge.
"Knives" was a combination of three things, really. First, I had wanted for a while to try writing a story about torture from the torturer's POV, to see if I could make the reader feel complicit the way Lolita makes the reader feel complicit in Humbert Humbert's pedophilia. Second, there's the story of the captured fly that Ginny tells Lucius much later in the story; that is directly taken from my own life. And third, I wanted to write Ginny going dark for her own reasons instead of suffering residual possession evil-by-proxy or whatever.
It was a weird fic to write, in a lot of ways. I tried to write it in third-person. I tried to write it in first-person (and I don't like first-person). But the story insisted on being second-person, and it has a very mannered, patterned style of prose. The scenes aren't directly connected to each other; they're more like a slideshow than a smooth narrative. Sometimes the sentences and paragraphs pull a similar trick. That jump-cut effect is deliberate. So is all the color symbolism, and the Snow White imagery, and the paralleling of Harry and Lucius.
"Knives" is a dark story, and it's a pretentious story -- second-person, outside of Homestuck fandom, tends to make readers jarringly aware that they are reading a story -- and it's a story that doesn't have a proper ending because I'm not always a very nice person. But I think it's one of the best things I've ever written, and the scene above is one of the key moments.
no subject
Anyway!
5. Share one of your strengths.
One thing I am good at is maintaining a consistent and non-self-contradictory world. Which in fanfiction terms means I am good at canon-compliance, both in the sense of acknowledging events and places, and in the sense of making sure my character interpretations are plausible extrapolations from canon knowledge. (In original fiction terms, it means that I abide by the rules I set up at the opening of my own story-universes.) This is not necessary for fanfiction, of course, and in AUs obviously some things get thrown aside and other altered, but I like putting things in order and building coherent structures, insofar as possible. World-building, timelines, you name it. I will make things make sense. (Even if canon itself didn't!)
7. Share a snippet from one of your favorite pieces of prose you've written and explain why you're proud of it.
This is from Knives, a story wherein Ginny Weasley captures Lucius Malfoy at the end of the war (it was written before the publication of Deathly Hallows) and keeps him as her prisoner for several years:
-----
He winces as you draw the knife along his bearded cheek; a narrow line of blood wells up through the gap in his skin and trickles through the tangled golden hair. 'I was under the impression that the righteous didn't lie. Then again, you did shelter and conceal the Dark Lord's soul for nearly a year, so I suppose--'
You're not listening anymore.
He's accusing you of helping Tom. He's accusing you of opening the Chamber, of Petrifying Hermione, and Colin Creevey (who died screaming and you couldn't save him), and Penelope Clearwater (who spends her days locked in the closed ward at St. Mungo's), and Nearly-Headless Nick (who faded with the other ghosts, holding the castle wards during the final battle), and Justin Finch-Fletchley (who betrayed the Order and died at the end of Harry's wand while you kept the other soldiers from interfering).
You are not like Tom. You are not like Voldemort. You are not like him. You can't be. You refuse to be.
And yet...
The knife is heavy in your hand. Blood coats your fingers, thick and tacky as it dries. Guilt and shame stab into your stomach, and he's breaking you. You have all the power, but he's winning. And you can't let him go.
You freeze him with a spell, while his mouth is open and dark. You haven't asked him any questions; you aren't looking for answers. He won't have to stand trial.
He doesn't really need his tongue.
-----
Ginny's been torturing Lucius for nearly a year by this scene, but I think this is where she really tips over the edge.
"Knives" was a combination of three things, really. First, I had wanted for a while to try writing a story about torture from the torturer's POV, to see if I could make the reader feel complicit the way Lolita makes the reader feel complicit in Humbert Humbert's pedophilia. Second, there's the story of the captured fly that Ginny tells Lucius much later in the story; that is directly taken from my own life. And third, I wanted to write Ginny going dark for her own reasons instead of suffering residual possession evil-by-proxy or whatever.
It was a weird fic to write, in a lot of ways. I tried to write it in third-person. I tried to write it in first-person (and I don't like first-person). But the story insisted on being second-person, and it has a very mannered, patterned style of prose. The scenes aren't directly connected to each other; they're more like a slideshow than a smooth narrative. Sometimes the sentences and paragraphs pull a similar trick. That jump-cut effect is deliberate. So is all the color symbolism, and the Snow White imagery, and the paralleling of Harry and Lucius.
"Knives" is a dark story, and it's a pretentious story -- second-person, outside of Homestuck fandom, tends to make readers jarringly aware that they are reading a story -- and it's a story that doesn't have a proper ending because I'm not always a very nice person. But I think it's one of the best things I've ever written, and the scene above is one of the key moments.