What are you currently reading (fic or otherwise)?
the nice reviews that people left me for the review event

What are you currently writing?
like 5 different iterations of vic/g

What are you currently watching?
way too much asmr in an attempt to trick my brain into not being anxious

Where do you hang out on the forums a lot right now?
uhhh fairyland

What are you currently reading (fic or otherwise)?
I just finished Blood Heir by Amélie Wen Zhao and I’m about to start the next book in the trilogy! It’s a magical Anastasia retelling featuring a lost princess who has powers she doesn’t want and a soft boy masquerading as a crime lord. 10/10 would recommend!

What are you currently writing?
I’m working on my yet-to-be-named fantasy novel featuring a magical college, a cult trying to take over the local government, and a rag-tag ensemble of bisexual disasters.

What are you currently watching?
Right this second I’m watching a twitch streamer duo (mikeburnfire) play through fallout mods.

Where do you hang out on the forums a lot right now?
I’ve been browsing podcast recommendations a lot recently because I’m caught up on most of my favorites. We don’t have a ton in the thread, but I just picked up Noble Blood to listen to (which is a @Raspberry_cordelia rec) and tbh it’s so good!

What are you currently reading (fic or otherwise)?
tomorrow will be different by sarah mcbride, the poppy war by r.f. kuang, and a veritable fuckton of legal opinions (#lawschool)

What are you currently writing?
quidditchfic, because of course i am. i just can't stay away from my angry little hot mess characters.

What are you currently watching?
gilmore girls even though i kind of hate it. someone please give me suggestions for something better to watch lol

Where do you hang out on the forums a lot right now?
the review event forum, because where else would i be 

What are you currently reading (fic or otherwise)?
I... am not reading anything, apart from what I validate. I ought to change this but  I've truly been slacking, to be honest. Oops.

What are you currently writing?
My muse is... yet again preventing me from writing, but I do try to write on my Drastoria WIP, the Marauders chatfic AU which I have the first chapter up for, or like actually starting Witchipedia. 

What are you currently watching?
I am re-watching The Good Place (also bc I want to compile quotes for a challenge) but I am also in the middle of Bridgerton!

Where do you hang out on the forums a lot right now?
Eh... mostly the staff area/IT area, and reading up on what everyone is doing with the review event. Also something I should be bringing more variety in but I've never been too good at finding a place I usually hang out in, aside from staffer areas. Wish I knew how to change that, tbh.

What are you currently reading (fic or otherwise)?
Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard! I'm rereading it, it's one of my favourite series! Fic wise, just trying to get through the Inky noms before voting starts, which is... difficult as I'm so busy but slowly making it through 

What are you currently writing?
I'm rewriting Ladies of Chaos! Its a Royal AU of my lcf bbs, and it was a crossover but then I decided I didn't want to do that, and instead of focusing on Molly and her perspective, I really wanted to give each of the girls some spotlight. Hopefully rewrites of the prologue and first chapter will be up soon, as well as a second chapter!

What are you currently watching?
BBC's Sherlock  I watched a youtube video that reminded me I never actually finished it, so I'm going back! Also Teen Wolf because the sixth season is hard to get through due to my inability to finish any tv show because it makes me sad (i don't think i ever finished it irl for that reason...)

Where do you hang out on the forums a lot right now?
The Fairyland event! But also I'm thinking of trying to put all my thoughts about everything (*cough cough* Teen Wolf) in the Fandom Talk so we'll see if we get there

What are you currently reading (fic or otherwise)?
I am currently reading The Gilded Ones by Namina Forna for my monthly book meet. It can be intense violence-wise but the writing is so good and compelling. As for fic, I'm lucky enough to be reading two fics before most of the chapters are on the archives - A Madness Most Discreet by @FurmidableRogue, which is an amazing dark romance between Regulus and an OC during the height of the war, and Bygones by @Jo Raskoph, which is a Pansy/Padma story, and Jo's writing is so beautiful. I highly recommend both these stories!

What are you currently writing?
I'm still working on my YA fantasy about fairies in a rural Australian town. It's close to 45k words now and I'm still on track to finish it by the end of March I've also been writing short pieces in between - there might be a new Blishwick story up soon

What are you currently watching?
I'm watching The Big Bang Theory at the moment I've only seen episodes here and there so I've bingeing them from the beginning now!

Where do you hang out on the forums a lot right now?
I've been a little bit absent from the forums recently, but I've enjoyed writing a handful of little dances and activities for the review event.

 What was the inspiration for The Color of Violets?
As one of the vocal proponents of Melanie/RonsGirlFriday’s Noir Challenge, how could I not enter a piece? Throw in @aurevoir’s Version of Me Challenge, and I found myself exploring new aspects of writing—and also realizing that I’ve written noir aspects before in my OG fic, A Place Not Far From Here.

Anyway, now that I had a genre of what I wanted to write, I needed a story—and what better way to tell a fan fic story than use a plot from the original text? Turns out, telling a well-known story from a different perspective is a lot more challenging than I originally anticipated, but more on that later. For now, I had the major canon event and some noir elements… now how to put them together?

A poem! Since death is a pretty heavy theme in noirs, I combed through some poems on the topic, and I came across one of my favorite poets, Pablo Neruda. His poem, “Nothing But Death,” had the watery imagery I wanted to develop (my reasons are spoilers, lol), so the poem became the epigraph. I got the title The Color of Violets from the poem, and all of the chapter titles are phrases taken from the poem (i. The Sound of Death, ii. Falling Out of the Skin into the Soul, iii. From Bells Somewhere, iv. The Broom is the Tongue, v. The Color of Damp Violets, vi. A Shoe with No Foot, vii. We Die Going into Ourselves, and (currently being written) viii. Dressed as an Admiral).

What three songs would you put on a soundtrack for this fic?
Hmm, this is probably the toughest question because music is something I think about the least when writing a story. Sure, some songs inspire certain scenes, but only sometimes. But I would have to say the following three pieces resonate with the overall story of The Color of Violets:

1) “Rainlight” by Max Richter – the hollow harmonies and subtle melody help depict a feeling of longing. Evan longs for his wife and child, for some peace, for justice.

2) “Love & Hate” by Michael Kiwanuka – another rather somber song, but the lyrics definitely support some of the suffering Evan—and other characters—endure.

3) “I Could Have Stopped It” by Ólafur Arnalds – no, Evan, you couldn’t have stopped it.

What drew you to writing this during the First Wizarding War?
One of my favorite things to do in writing fan fiction is experiment with different head canons to not only enrich the source material but also challenge some of oversights and shortcomings of the fandom (and we all know that Harry Potter has plenty of that). The First Wizarding War has so much backstory, but a lot of it is glossed over, which leaves room for lots of interpretation.

Since my retelling of a major canon event takes place in the First Wizarding War and the common trope of a 1950s private investigator fit so well together, autumn of 1957 seemed like the perfect time to set this story—and this time also fits well with a couple other canon events, which I can’t quite say because of spoilers. However! Many clever readers have already figured out the major canon event, and at least one has already caught the connection between my femme fatale, Salome Bell, and canon. I will say that no one has caught the last tie to canon yet, but that will be unveiled in the final chapter. I don’t like writing details just because, so everything included in  The Color of Violets is there for a reason. While there is some mystery and intrigue, I think the driving point of my story is to showcase how tangled webs in the First Wizarding War became, and how these webs collude justice.

What has been the most challenging part of writing this fic?
The characters have been the most difficult thing for me to write. First and foremost, homeless people and sex workers play some pretty crucial roles in this tale, and I did not want to over romanticize them. They are all deserving of their own stories, and I hope I was able to achieve some nuance and complexity in their characters, however briefly they were included. People with these identities are human beings who ought to be treated with dignity and respect, and while The Color of Violets reflects some of the hardships these communities face, I tried to be very mindful of how I wrote their words and actions, and I think having my protagonist being incredibly kind is one way to have these supporting characters showcase their own humanity.

Furthermore, Evan Thorn is my first male protagonist in a major piece, so exploring his character really pushed me as a writer. I also had to grapple with the trope of the hard-boiled detective, especially since they tend to be cops. I think having one of Evan’s primary drives being to achieve justice helps lessen the blow of his participation in the system, though some of his overarching guilt also is derived from his participation. Evan isn’t squeaky clean, either, by eliciting inside help and having unsupervised access to morgue laboratory equipment as a civilian. Overall, Evan is driven to seek justice for marginalized communities (homeless people, poor people, and even LGBTQIA+ people, since the “clampdown efforts” briefly mentioned in chapter five refer to the times that the British police went over homosexuals in the early 1950s—As a member of this community himself (who has the privilege of passing as straight in addition to his socioeconomic status), Evan has a ton of empathy and does what he can when he can), but Evan also has a dark past with losing his lover in WWII, his family in the early 1950s, and an important court case while working in a corrupt and unjust system. His sense of duty and his kindness are admirable—but they also cause a lot of turmoil.

The big baddie of the story,

was also difficult to write because I have a difficult time writing people who lack empathy and who are super manipulative. I don’t want to elaborate too much due to actual spoilers, but conceptualizing his motives were hard because, well, let’s just say I relate way more to Evan than to him!

What are you currently reading (fic or otherwise)?
I'm not reading a ton of fic at the moment unfortunately, but I've loved getting the chance to read some of the amazing stuff on the FFT archive for the review event! Two of my favorite fics I've read for that are Hardened Hearts Say Unimaginable Things by @prideofprewett and The Fifth House by @Ameripuff!

In terms of books, I've been doing some comfort reading lately so lots of Terry Pratchett, and I just reread Ella Enchanted (a childhood favorite!).  I'm currently reading One for the Blackbird, One for the Crow by Olivia Hawker, the first Sabriel book, and rereading Middlemarch for a year of Middlemarch reading challenge.

What are you currently writing?
So my current WIP is Luna Lovegood and the Forgotten Circle, which I've been writing off and on since 2016 - it's my new year's resolution to finish this year, though! I'm due to publish chapter 34 this coming week and I'm currently writing chapter 36.  I'm also about to finish polishing a oneshot I wrote for the untranslatable words challenge about Hermione's Goodreads feed

What are you currently watching?
My husband and I joke that we're always several years behind tv-wise, so we're currently watching Breaking Bad for the first time - we're at the end of season 3 right now and it's crazy intense.  I also love The Americans but I can only watch a few episodes at a time.  And for comfort watching, the trifecta of Broad City, Bob's Burgers, and the Great British Bake-Off!

Where do you hang out on the forums a lot right now?
In normal non-special event times I love looking through the challenges forum! I also love looking at WJs  

What are you currently reading (fic or otherwise)?
fic wise? since we're just rounding up the review event i've read a lot more fic in the last few weeks than i have done over recent months which has been incredible. a couple of standouts are and all the pieces fall by @down-in-flames (taylor's quidditch jily that's so far just two characters who really need to get a room hating each other for... reasons) and lingering darkness by @grumpy cat (which is kris's seriously addictive, seriously aesthetic, seriously dark poetry collection which is just ) so like if anyone hasn't then go read those. book wise... fire and blood (the asoiaf targaryen history book which is a mess of characters you'd die for and characters you just want to die.)

What are you currently writing?
currently i've got three wips (whoops) and a few one shot ideas, my main focuses rn are as the lights went out which is my angsty, messy jsp/oc fic about smoky clubs and mistakes made in the dark, and then up in flames which is the rewrite of my old sirius/oc marauders novel. i never got yaxley finished because i just sort of fell out of love with the way I was writing it and had so many things i wished id done differently, so it's nice to have a second go at it. and like... somehow make it darker than the original  

What are you currently watching?
disenchantment (which i'm just rewatching on loop at this stage because it's incredible) and i've also just started a vampire diaries rewatch which like... i'm a year into no work now so if anyone has any recs for series they think i'd like please (i'm begging) tell me because there's only so many times i can rewatch the same supernatural netflix stuff before i go mad.

Where do you hang out on the forums a lot right now?
i think most of the time i'm just lurking in writers journals and the earworm thread. i'm pretty set on trying to update my wj as much as possible this year and since I'm actually writing a lot this seems to be going fairly well so far!