ermingarden: medieval image of a bird with a tonsured human head and monastic hood (Default)
I hope all who celebrate had a pleasant Superb Owl Sunday!

Very late, but here’s Snowflake Challenge #4: Set your own goals!

A big goal for me this year is improving my writing process, making it more systematic and having stronger divisions between the brainstorming, outlining, drafting, and editing phases. I'm mainly focused on my professional writing - learning how to craft better legal briefs - but I expect that what I learn will impact my fanfic writing as well.

Relatedly, if anyone has recommendations for books or other resources you found really helpful when it comes to improving your writing - product or process - I’d appreciate hearing them! (I’ve read Bryan Garner’s The Winning Brief, Brand & White’s Legal Writing: The Strategy of Persuasion, and Ross Guberman’s Point Made.)
ermingarden: medieval image of two people with books (reading)
Snowflake Challenge promotional banner with image of snow-covered mushrooms and green moss. Text: Snowflake Challenge January 1-31.

We'll just ignore the dates on the Snowflake promo banner, shall we? Anyway, I was delighted by the "Recs Countdown" format but then had a hard time coming up with categories appropriate for each number, so they're a bit random, but without further ado, I present to you...

Five Dragonlance fics:

Travellers (46k) by Allthatisnot
The Raistlin/Magius Dragons of Eternity fix-it my soul was yearning for.

Wither and Bloom (38k) by Skull_Bearer
Excellently unnerving take on both the Tower of Palanthas and the Curse of Raelanna, from a superb Dalamar POV. And it's gorgeously illustrated!

A Dragonlance Carol (9k) by fayolin
This was my Yuletide gift this year and it's amazing! Brilliantly Dickensian.

The Lord of Nothing Series (350k+, ongoing) by ceremonial_motions
Raistlin learns what his plan to kill Takhisis would have led to earlier than in canon. Raistlin/Dalamar, phenomenal canon divergence.

Lucky (1.5k) by [personal profile] rachelmanija
A little bit of Raistlin & Tanis from the Chronicles days. A nice look at that relationship, with great Raistlin and Tanis characterizations.

Four favorite fics not on AO3:

Luke Skywalker and the Outer Rim Profiteer (Star Wars, 22k) by Niralle
A hilarious spoof of a certain kind of Expanded Universe novel. Excellent outsider POV!

Growing Pains (SW, 156k) by ruth baulding
A series of vignettes from Obi-Wan's apprenticeship.

The Tempered Steel (Silm, 113k) by Lyra
A rightly renowned account of Maedhros' captivity, rescue, and recovery.

A Long and Weary Way (LotR, 445k), and its appendices, by Canafinwe
Aragorn captures Gollum and brings him to Mirkwood. Things repeatedly go sideways along the way.

Three unexpected but brilliant crossovers:

Testing Limits (SW x Portal, 28k) by [personal profile] atamascolily
"What if the AI Luke encounters on the Eye of Palpatine were GLaDOS" is a question I would have never thought to ask but that absolutely needed to be answered. A brilliant fic that can be enjoyed with minimal or no knowledge of Portal.

Love is All You Need to Destroy Your Enemies (Night Vale x Dresden Files, 222k) by shadydave
Carlos from WtNV and Carlos from the Dresden Files are the same person! Also, mind-bending time travel.

A Star to Steer By (SW x Stargate, 99k) by dogmatix and norcumi
Honestly, I know nothing about Stargate. But I do love this fic. Absolutely fascinating AU take on the Jedi and the clones!

Two fics that felt like sequels to canon:

Ciel D'Oro (The Name of the Rose, 19k) by CenozoicSynapsid
After leaving the abbey, William and Adso get tangled up with a murder in Pavia. This was a Yuletide gift for me back in 2020, and it still blows my mind whenever I reread it - it truly feels like a sequel, and it's just utterly brilliant!

The Lost of Winter (Cemeteries of Amalo, 20k) by [personal profile] fiona15351
Set after The Grief of Stones, as Thara tries to adjust to the loss of his abilities as a Witness vel ama and he and Iäna inch vaguely in the direction of romance. Also, there's a mongoose. (Full disclosure: I did beta this fic - but that's not why I think it's great!)

And one thing I wrote myself:

The Archives of Beleriand series is probably my favorite of the things I've written; it is also the reason I know how to code footnotes on AO3. Check it out if you like weird academic pastiche! (And the art by [personal profile] fiona15351 and Fandom_fun13 is so lovely!)
ermingarden: medieval image of a bird with a tonsured human head and monastic hood (Default)
Snowflake Challenge promotional banner featuring feet in warm socks, a mug of hot chocolate, a notebook with 'dreams' written on the cover, and a guitar. Text: Snowflake Challenge January 1-31

Today's challenge is to talk about my "fannish origin story." My first fandom was Star Wars, especially the old Expanded Universe novels. Like many people, I was writing fanfic before I knew there was a word for it, and certainly before I knew about online fanfic archives and fan communities! (I actually had a secret ambition of writing a Star Wars novel myself someday.)

Someone pointed me toward fanfiction.net before too long. I joined FFN in 2012, and when I checked the dates on my profiles I was shocked to see that I only joined AO3 in 2013 - in my memory the stretch of time when I was on FFN but didn't know about AO3 is longer, for some reason.

When I was first entering fandom, a lot of the people I looked up to were active in journal fandom, and I was honestly pretty intimidated. It took until 2018 for me to get up the nerve to join the cool kids on DW, and I'm very glad I did! The conversations I've had here have shaped my attitude toward writing and fandom in a really positive way - and, of course, I've made friends <3
ermingarden: medieval image of a bird with a tonsured human head and monastic hood (Default)
Snowflake Challenge promotional banner featuring feet in snuggly socks, a mug of hot chocolate, a notebook with 'dreams' written on the cover, and a guitar. Text: Snowflake Challenge 1-31 January

Here's my challenge for 2021: Write one sentence every day.

No restrictions on what sort of sentence; a new sentence on your WIP counts, but so does a text to a friend. It sounds like an easy thing, and most of the time you probably complete the challenge without even trying - but there are days for me, and there may be for you, too, when it's hard to do even this much. This year, I'm determined not to let a single day go by without either creation or connection.
ermingarden: medieval image of two people with books (reading)
Snowflake Challenge promotional banner featuring a cup of frothy coffee or hot chocolate on a plate with a piece of greenery and a cozy comforter with a sprig of baby’s breath. Text: Snowflake Challenge: 1-31 January.

Rec at least three fanworks you didn’t create.

First things first, I have to rec the absolutely mind-blowing novella CenozoicSynapsid wrote for me for Yuletide:

Ciel D'Oro (18766 words) by CenozoicSynapsid
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Il nome della rosa | The Name of the Rose - Umberto Eco
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Adso da Melk, Guglielmo da Baskerville | William of Baskerville
Additional Tags: Case Fic, Murder Mystery, Monks, Scholastic Philosophy, Polyphonic Music
Summary:
The second book of Adso of Melk, in which is described his journey to the city of Pavia, together with a description of the cathedral which is named San Piero Ciel D'Oro, and of the tombs of Augustine and Boethius and other famous men who are buried there. Containing also a narrative of a most infamous murder, and the investigations of this matter which were made by the learned friar William of Baskerville, employing methods of deduction. And in addition some discourses on music sung in one voice or in many voices, namely which of these is most fitting and proper for the celebration of the Holy Offices and the most solemn feast of the birthday of our Saviour.

This is one of the best works of fanfiction I have ever read. Heck, it's better than most published novels! The plot is so clever, and the author really captures the interplay of allusions that characterizes the source text. And the strength of the intellectual element doesn't come at the expense of the emotional element; there are moments that really tug at the heartstrings. I can't recommend this more highly!

Here are two fantastic Silm fics written in 2020, both Maedhros-centric:
Read more... )
I posted a big bucket of Star Wars fic recs here for May the Fourth, but there are always more:
Read more... )
Enjoy!
ermingarden: medieval image of a bird with a tonsured human head and monastic hood (Default)
Snowflake Challenge promotional banner featuring feet in snuggly socks, a mug of hot chocolate, a notebook with 'dreams' written on the cover, and a guitar. Text: Snowflake Challenge 1-31 January

1) On the academic side of things, my goal is to do all of the assigned reading in advance of each lecture this semester - I let myself get pretty far behind on my civ pro reading last semester, and I have no desire to repeat that experience.

2) My fannish goal is simple: Write fic! Even if it's bad! I'm not setting any specific word count goal.

I actually wrote more in 2020 than I had in a few years. I posted six fics, totaling just over 7k words, which is...not really a lot, but it's infinitely better than nothing! What changed for me in 2020 was that I began participating in fests and exchanges - every one of those six fics was written for a fest or exchange, in fact. The built-in time limit meant I had to post things even when I didn't feel satisfied with them, and I was very pleasantly surprised to discover that people liked them anyway! Hopefully remembering that will make me feel more confident about posting (inevitably) imperfect fics in 2021.

I'm also working on some fic ideas for which there will probably be very little general interest - including at least one fic for Templar Knight Mysteries, and I've never found anyone else who's even read those books, let alone a fandom community - but hey! Life is short, write niche fic!
ermingarden: medieval image of a bird with a tonsured human head and monastic hood (Default)
Snowflake Challenge promotional banner featuring a cup of frothy coffee or hot chocolate on a plate with a piece of greenery and a cozy comforter with a sprig of baby’s breath. Text: Snowflake Challenge: 1-31 January.

Who, from one of your fandoms, would you most want to have dinner with (or tea, or a random afternoon visit), and why?

I'm going to answer this twice, once for Tolkien and once for Star Wars.

My chosen guest from Middle-earth is Gandalf! With a life that long and well-traveled, he must know more interesting stories than just about anyone else - and he'd be a lot of fun to talk to as well. His indulgent attitude toward the Hobbits suggests he'd probably put up with my questions relatively well!

As for the Galaxy Far, Far Away, I'm going to go with a perhaps more unusual choice: Tionne Solusar. I frankly adore Tionne, and I'd love to hear her thoughts, both as a Jedi Master on what it's like to be a Jedi and as a Jedi historian on what "being a Jedi" means and has meant in different times and places.
ermingarden: medieval image of a bird with a tonsured human head and monastic hood (Default)
Snowflake Challenge promotional banner featuring feet in snuggly socks, a mug of hot chocolate, a notebook with 'dreams' written on the cover, and a guitar. Text: Snowflake Challenge 1-31 January

In your own space, introduce yourself!

I keep my profile up to date, but it's pretty basic, so I'll say a bit more here.

Hi! I'm Ermingarde (she/her pronouns, please). I'm in my early twenties and in my first year of law school. I studied Classics in undergrad and my research focused mainly on medieval Latin literature; I'm always happy to talk about any of those topics. I love to read, mostly sci-fi and fantasy (although I've been on a nonfiction/sociology kick recently). I enjoy baking and am learning to crochet. I've sung in choirs since I was nine and have been desperately missing it this year!

I read a lot more fic than I write, but one of my goals for 2021 is to post more - we'll see how that goes. My main fandoms are Star Wars and Tolkien's Legendarium. Star Wars was my first fannish obsession, and you never forget your first love...I've been captivated by the Galaxy Far, Far Away since I read Showdown at Centerpoint almost fifteen years ago. The Lord of the Rings stole my heart when I was in high school, and the Silmarillion made its way in a couple of years later. I read (and very occasionally write) in other fandoms as well, including Earthsea, Rosemary and Thyme, Narnia, and, most recently, Tamsyn Muir's Locked Tomb Trilogy, but my interest and involvement in these waxes and wanes. I keep all my fics on AO3 here.

I'm always looking for new friends, so please say hello, especially if we have any interests in common! <3
ermingarden: medieval image of a bird with a tonsured human head and monastic hood (Default)
Day 6: Create a list of at least three fannish things you'd love to receive, something you've wanted but were afraid to ask for - a fannish wish-list of sorts.

1. Absolutely anything based on Maureen Ash's Templar Knight Mysteries book series (The Alehouse Murders, etc.). I have read them all, love them to pieces despite their shortcomings, and have yet to find a single fanwork of any sort for them. The Internet is a big place; surely there is another fan of this series out there!

2. Fics with Maedhros and Amlach! Amlach is so interesting, yet I have found only a few fics in which he features.

3. My stocking at fandom_stocking is here, with some general likes and dislikes, if you feel so moved.
ermingarden: medieval image of a bird with a tonsured human head and monastic hood (Default)
Day 5: Promote three communities, challenges, blogs, pages, Twitters, Tumblrs or platforms and explain why you love them.

For this one I went a little far afield and recommended three kind of obscure but neat things on the Internet, all of which I either stumbled across by accident or had pointed out to me by a friend, so now I'm passing them on!

Read more... )
ermingarden: medieval image of a bird with a tonsured human head and monastic hood (Default)
Day 1: Talk about your Happy Place—the things that give you joy, calm you or keep you sane.
(Jumped in on Day 2, going back and doing this now.)

My first fannish Happy Place was the Star Wars Expanded Universe. I was an odd kid and frequently teased, but when an elementary school classmate gave me a copy of Showdown at Centerpoint it was my gateway into a world that made sense, that was clearly laid out and consistent, in a way that social interactions at school didn't and weren't. When my parents got divorced and so much in my life changed, Star Wars - specifically Star Wars novels - remained a constant. The local used bookstore had a couple of shelves of Star Wars novels in the sci-fi/fantasy section, and I would go every so often and buy another beat-up paperback that I would devour in an afternoon.

This particular Happy Place I valued because of its stability, but when the sequels were greenlit and the universe rebooted, so that the Expanded Universe I knew and loved became Legends, Star Wars couldn't be for me what it had been. It had been a safe place for me because of its constancy, but that was gone. That's not to say that I think the sequels are bad, or that the change was necessarily for the worse - but the very fact that Star Wars had changed meant I couldn't rely on it in the same way anymore.

However, what Star Wars had been to me, the Lord of the Rings became, and much more besides. I had read the Lord of the Rings as a kid, but hadn't fallen in love. In high school, though, when I read it again, I fell completely head over heels into Middle-earth. Today, the feel of the paper in my edition of the Lord of the Rings - a long-ago gift from my great-aunt to my mother, who doesn't really like fantasy, and then passed on to me -, the look of the typeface, the familiar cadence of Tolkien's prose, all give me that sense of stability that has been characteristic of my fannish interactions as long as I have been a fan. Although I do engage with other fandoms, that constancy, as today's prompt put it, both calms me and brings me joy.
ermingarden: One of JRRT's heraldic devices for Lúthien. (tolkien: luthien)
Day 3: Share a favorite piece of original canon (a TV episode, a song, a favorite interview, a book, a scene from a movie, etc) and explain why you love it so much.

One of my favorite characters in the Lord of the Rings is Halbarad, who is one of the Northern Dúnedain, Aragorn's kinsman, and the leader of the Grey Company (and who was tragically cut from the movies). I love in particular what he says to Aragorn at the entrance to the Paths of the Dead:

'This is an evil door,' said Halbarad, 'and my death lies beyond it. I will dare to pass it nonetheless'

These lines are an expression of the - not selfless, but self-forgetting - dedication to goodness, even if you yourself cannot enjoy that goodness, that the heroes of the Legendarium possess and that makes them so admirable. For Halbarad's foresight is reliable, and he does in fact perish bearing Aragorn's standard on the Pelennor Fields. Halbarad's lines here make me think of what Frodo says to Sam near the end of Return of the King:

'I tried to save the Shire, and it has been saved, but not for me. It must often be so, Sam, when things are in danger: some one has to give them up, lose them, so that others may keep them.'

When Frodo first takes up the burden of the Ring, he does not yet know this. Halbarad knows, and follows Aragorn into battle anyway, because he values higher than his own life a peace he will not live to see.
ermingarden: One of JRRT's heraldic devices for Lúthien. (tolkien: luthien)
Day 2: Rec at least three fanworks that you didn’t create.
Read more... )
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