Gosh, thank you! In no particular order, my favorites are:
No Righteous Path (Supernatural – Destiel)
Burn Down the Sky (Mass Effect – mShenko/Others)
The Unexpected Duet (Supernatural – Destiel)
Your Favorite Hello (Supernatural – Destiel)
What If, What If, What If (Mass Effect – mShenko)
#4: How many fic ideas are you nurturing right now? Care to share one of them?
I actually have a few, for once! 😀 A few of them I can’t share because they’re reserved for a few Big Bangs, but I’ve been noodling around with post-Mass Effect Andromeda canon fics and maybe a few AU’s. I need to actually finish the game properly to be able to put more ideas into them, but I’ve got some that don’t focus on romance, and a couple that do. My Ianto ended up with Gil, if you’re interested to know. 😀
#8: Share a snippet from one of your favorite dialogue scenes you’ve written and explain why you’re proud of it.
“Would you like me to pray with you?” a deep and calming voice asked, hushed in the empty room.
Kaidan turned his bloodshot eyes to the isle and saw a tall, dark-skinned man dressed in nondescript chapel robes. “I don’t really…” he cleared his sawdust throat. “But my friend, Ashley is religious, so I thought I’d… um… would you like… pray for her?”
The tall, lithe man, sat in the pew next to Kaidan and said, “My name is Thane. And yours?”
“Kaidan.”
“What would you like me to pray for, Kaidan?”
Kaidan swallowed several times to fight back the tears, but his voice was still broken when he said, “that she’s still alive. They made me leave when they were working on her, and there’s no news and I-”
A gentle hand on his arm stopped his tearful ranting. “Close your eyes, listen to my words, and find your calm.”
Kaidan did as he was told, wiping his wet cheeks as the chaplain began to speak in a hypnotic tone. “Lord, before you now is not a man of God, but a man of prayer. He seeks healing and life for his friend, Ashley. He prays that her time is not finished on Earth. That she may return to her friends and family for awhile longer before meeting your eternal embrace. The man before you may not seek your love or your salvation, but because he seeks the salvation of another before him, despite his beliefs, that is just as holy. Please hear his prayer through me and take care of your daughter, Ashley.”
This one actually came to me easier than I thought it would because I LOVE writing dialogue a lot. But, I liked this scene from Burn Down the Sky so much because it was a way for me to explain my religious proclivities in a story. I’ve been put down a lot for being queer and religious, and it’s hard to explain how you feel about God and love and tolerance to people who don’t want to listen, so I found it pretty important to me to be able to put my feelings out there in a story.
#9: Which fic has been the hardest to write?
That’s another one that I can easily say was Burn Down the Sky. To date, it’s my longest (116K) and most popular (15K hits) fic. But it took an entire year to write, almost to the day. A lot of stuff happened when I was writing it. I got divorced, lost my dad, lost my job, had a huge amount of turmoil. But the story was always there waiting to be written. And a lot of readers were there to share it. It’s got more of me in it than anything I’ve ever written, and since I’d never written anything that long before, it was so freaking difficult to do. In comparison, my second longest fic (almost finished at 94K right now) I started 2 months ago. So that should give you an idea of how hard it was to write.
#16: If you only could write one pairing for the rest of your life, which pairing would it be?
I don’t like this question at all. As of today, I’d have to go with Destiel because that’s what I’ve been writing the most of and feel most drawn to. But that’s not a forever answer. Just a today answer.
#30: Do you accept prompts?
I do! Sometimes I ask for the them, and sometimes I just get them randomly. Either is fine. I don’t always get to them in a timely manner, but I don’t mind getting them at all.
STOP STEALING MY CAT! 😀
#2: Is there a trope you’ve yet to try your hand at, but really want to?
Yes, indeed! I’ve never written d/s before, but I’m delving into it soon!
#3: Is there a trope you wouldn’t touch with a ten foot pole?
Incest and especially twincest. I have a twin, so I just can’t. I can’t even read it when I love the author writing it. I just leave it for the people who like it and stay away myself.
#20: Describe your perfect writing conditions.
These days, honestly, my perfect writing conditions are just quiet with nothing else hanging over my head. It’s so rare. It’s pretty obvious when I get those conditions because I can knock out a whole chapter and a half in a day if I can get some uninterrupted quiet time.
However, my wishful thinking writing conditions are in comfy clothes, a cup of coffee, and either music, or a TV show marathon on in the background that I’ve seen a thousand times.
#7: Share a snippet from one of your favorite pieces of prose you’ve written and explain why you’re proud of it.
The sound of his mirth rumbles through Cas and into Dean. It’s a joyous sound, incongruous to the setting. Almost startling him out of his laser focus on Cas’s body.
That sound really shouldn’t be here. Maybe his imagination is still good enough to think they’re somewhere else. Somewhere they should have been. He’s getting depressed, but Cas’s mouth is on him again. It’s sucking out the air, thoughts, everything. He’s so grateful. Blessed. Happy. He tangles his fingers into Cas’s hair, pulling him closer. Cas’s fingers close around Dean’s cock, stroking once up and massaging over the tip. “Ah, fuck, you can still work miracles,” Dean gasps. Happiness. He hopes it’s fleeting as much as he’s enjoying it now. It can’t sustain the life he lives. He knows that. Happiness can only get him killed faster, but in this illusion of privacy, it’s delicious. He’s high on it.
This is from my Endverse oneshot, Rituals for the End of the World. I loved this moment, and in fact writing this whole oneshot, because it’s one of the few, and maybe only, times where I can honestly say, “this came out exactly as I’d planned. The right words were in the right place the whole time.” And that’s a big deal for me, seeing as I’m not much of a prose person. I’m much more comfortable with dialogue.
AND THE OTHER (in honor of you):
Kaidan held his breath until he felt close to blacking out. For a moment, the sounds and screaming and shouting of nurses and doctors faded into a dull, pounding roar, like the ocean he remembered visiting in high school. He should have gone back some time. It had been so peaceful. Blacking out. His vision tunneled, the edges the same color as the tag he was staring at. Slowly… the soldier on the bed lifted his arm, dangling the tag off of his wrist. He opened his mouth and Kaidan’s lips parted, too. Help me. Now. Kaidan was sure the man hadn’t been able to speak. But he wouldn’t have heard, anyway. It was all fading to blackness. Was that even what the soldier had said? His face was fierce.
I think about this fic I wrote for you all the time. It’s another case of the words and ideas just being there how I pictured them and how they should have been. If any of you are wondering, this is from War, After (Feels Like Home) that I wrote for @ltleflrt after stealing her Mass Effect OC and fucking him up good.
Well, you know, I’ve actually been thinking about that a lot. Short answer? I actually wouldn’t be surprised either way at this point.
Here’s why I think they might not:
1. The showrunners go through an awful lot of trouble to show how heterosexual Dean is. It seems that every time we get an inkling of Dean being anything other than a straight dude, an episode or two later, we’re treated with an unrelated scene of Dean reinforcing his heterosexual nature.
2. The show has a few… let’s call them “problematic at best” writers. A couple people who pen episodes that do a lot to reinforce harmful themes and horrible stereotypes. I’m not sure they’d let Destiel happen without at worst: ruining it. At best: making it tragic.
3. They’ve already gone 12 seasons without it. This isn’t a be-all, end-all thing. There have been shows that have dragged on romantic tension for ages. It’s not an impossible thing, but the longer we go without, the more difficult it is to write in.
Here’s why I think they might:
1. The showrunners are very aware of the fandom. Thanks to Creation cons and the like, the actors, producers, and writers are very aware of the fandom and how many of us feel. They know how popular Destiel is, to the point they refuse to answer questions about it, anymore. They absolutely realize what they’ve been doing with the show and how numerous their numbers of queer fans, and others who would adore seeing such a relationship happen between two main characters on a popular show. The meaningfulness of it would be extremely widespread.
2. The writers have written very good queer characters already and shown that their sexuality isn’t the main focus. In most media these days, the issue with LGBTQ+ characters is that it’s all they are. SPN has shown that they can get beyond that, and in fact, make it interesting. Or a non-issue. In “Safe House,” Naoki Himura makes a passing reference to her wife being out of town when her daughter is in a coma. That’s it. Aaron is gay, and at first, his sexuality is used as a tool to make Dean think he’s actually being tailed rather than flirted with. Charlie almost ruins breaking into Dick Roman’s office because it’s impossible for her to flirt with the male security guard. That’s good stuff! As a queer person myself, I found all of that delightful!
3. All of the queer characters in the show have been received by the fandom in an overwhelmingly positive way. Aaron, Charlie, Crowley, etc. are favorites in a lot of places in the fandom. And whether or not Dean and Castiel get together in the end, there will be cheers and boos either way. But that’s typical on any show with any romantic arc. Some people will like it, and some people won’t.
4. Everyone knows what’s going on, and they weren’t stupid about the mix tape. Jensen has said that what he likes about SPN is that the writers and actors have a sort of symbiotic relationship. That the actors take the lines, ad lib some things, and the writers watch the show and inform their choices from what the actors are doing and around and around. Which brings us back to the mix tape. That scene did not, in any way, get to final cut without someone in the writer’s room and/or the cast going, “you know what this is going to look like, right?” It was a willful decision. And frankly, Destiel shipper or not, Season 12 has been much more overt with the Destiel undertones than any other season. I have friends and family outside the fandom who watch the show and also think Dean and Castiel are without a doubt, in love. Because, yes. If they were a male and female pair, they would have been getting down and dirty like, seven seasons ago.
I’ll add this to the supplemental materials in the fic, but don’t worry – this isn’t something everyone knows! I haven’t read a lot of A/B/O either, but you’re right about it being all different.
In the NRP universe, I’ve made it so that omega biting alphas isn’t necessary to form a blood bond. Only the alpha’s bite is needed. Omega’s don’t usually feel the urge to bite. In the last chapter, it was strictly an act of desperation on Castiel’s part, and won’t really DO anything except mark Dean.
Honestly, I think that sort of thing would actually be considered a kink more than anything else. 😀
After you told me that to my face, and I was shocked to my very soul hearing it, I basically just made it my mission in life to have one sentence in every fic that I was sure would piss you off. Every time. I’m like, “okay, multi-chapter fic, we just need one sentence in the entire fic.” And I never try to write it, but I always seem to recognize it the second I re-read it, and go, “oh, yeah. That’s the one. That’s the one that’s gonna make Ltleflrt so mad.” It just cheers me up so much. 😀
This is another compliment that goes straight to my core because I try extremely hard to keep it simple. To convey the most complex things in the simplest way. I admire more than anything, writers who can just carry you along with prose where you sort of float along with it rather than getting dragged under by complex prose. So the fact that I’ve accomplished that, even for just you, I’m so so so happy to hear it! THANK YOU! That means the world to me!
All y’all ask me about what you remember me for as a writer!
I appreciate you saying this because I often plan oneshots and my shorter fics around an idea of, “I wonder how so-and-so would feel about this?” That’s how I ended up with Bang Zoom. I thought, “how would Vanya feel about Ianto being an astronaut?” And the first thing that came to mind was them standing there the night before launch saying goodbye across the road and Vanya wearing a horrible shirt because he says, “I can’t be pretty, so I have to be bold.” The entire fic revolved around that. 😀
And I’m never sure that I get everything across when I’m writing, so it means more than I can even say to hear that you think there’s a definite emotional impact there. Thank you so much! ILU2
Jupiter Astrid James 