28, 33, 49 :) 💕
Ooh, these are fun ones!!
28: What is something you wished you’d known before you started posting fanfiction?
...you know, I’m honestly not sure! I have been super fortunate to have had a very lovely and gentle trajectory through the world of fandom and writing fic: starting out with little flipped-perspectives/missing moments in HP on fanfiction.net and gradually moving up to the stuff I post now. My writing has really evolved and changed, and obviously there’s some stuff I wrote back then that I cringe at now, but I don’t know that there’s anything I wish I had known or done differently, because I’ve been so grateful for the journey.
33) What’s the biggest compliment you’ve gotten?
See above re: fortunate! I have had some absolutely amazing readers and amazing compliments, and I don’t know that I could elevate any one person’s words over another’s because it all depends so much! Outside of comments, there was the time when a writer I hugely admired invited me to write stories with her, which rendered me nearly catatonic (and began a beautiful collaboration!). Then there was the time that @zaera-d drew me a wonderful piece of fanart, which sent me bouncing off of every single available surface.
But on a sappy and sentimental level, I would say the greatest compliment is every time my writing or my thoughts on fandom/characters forge a connection between me and another person. I’ve made actual friends through fandom, online and in real life, and the knowledge that I am able to create that kind of connection is the biggest compliment, honestly. <3
49) Can you remember the first fic you read? What was it about?
HAHA this is actually a funny one. I can indeed remember the first fic I read, and it scared me away from fanfiction as a whole for a long, long time. I don’t remember what it was called, but it was a 200k Snape/Lily AU where they went back in time when they died and relived their lives or something. A friend recommended it to me-- a friend who, while she is lovely, has very very different taste from me in fanfic-- and I just could not put my finger on what upset me so much about it. At the time, I thought it was the very concept of fanfic that upset me: the idea of twisting something I loved so much into something that made me feel so wrong on a soul-deep level. I have since come to realize that it just wasn’t my ship, didn’t portray the characters in a way I enjoyed, and contained bashing of characters I loved, and I’ve learned to steer clear of that kind of fic-- but that experience did make my journey into reading fanfic very specific, and for a long time I wouldn’t stray from canon at ALL.
...I hope you don’t regret asking the questions, haha! I know that was QUITE the ramble. :) Thank you so much!!
