18, 26!

• 18: any fanmixes you’ve made for this fic/verse?

I’ve never made a fanmix (though I’d love and heart-eyes forever if anyone wanted to do something for any of my stuff), but I like to listen to music and get inspired by songs, so that’s close enough. So, songs I can link to fics:

Florence + Machine, especially her first album, Lungs, which I listened to on repeat in that middle period between several years in on my obsession with the Silm but before I started to de-lurk and share my head-canons and write my fics. So the older fics/fics whose roots come from those years, “Brides of Death/Gift of Men”, that Andreth story, is Rabbit Heart (Raise It Up) and The Dog Days Are Over. “Howl”, where I zero in on the festival/ceremony of remembering their exodus towards Beleriand, is also that song and the fourth song, Howl. There’s several Florence songs that scream Aegnor/Andreth to me, and that one that’s the Lay of Leithian in pop song form, so there’s “Hold Fast Err Night Comes”, but I still haven’t written the exact scenes of Aegnor/Andreth fluff that Paolo Nutini’s Candy demands.

For “Of Ingwë Ingweron”, especially the early chapters, I listened to the Journey video game soundtrack.

Also when writing “Release from Bondage”, I listened to the Game of Thrones soundtrack, in particular tracks from season two and especially Theon’s theme and variations on it and Winterfell’s theme, for obvious reasons.

• 26: anything you’re planning to write in your fic that you’re worried readers might like?

Aha. ahaha. ha. hahahaha. I’m not a BNF and I’m not writing the fan favorites or favorite settings, my work is heavily OC centeric (and interconnected to each other), so I struggle with the feelings of wondering if any readers will like the very premise of my work with the desire that they should and would love it as much as me. In specifics- Am I respecting the horror of what I’m writing about, these imprisonments and death and war, and is the awfulness coming across to the reader in a way that they are satisfied? (then the counterpoint voice- is this too much? should this have been tagged for warnings and rated higher? Oh gods am I a bad/rude writer and triggered someone?)

With characters like Aglar- will this be too much screen-time connected to/about the Fëanorians- but it’s unflattering so will I have the lynch-mob from their fans?

Are my tangents on fish and food and rivers interesting? Is there enough romance? Too much unrequited love in the backstories of the Ten from Tol Sirion?

How much of Oromë among the Elves and the Three Prophets going to Valinor do I have to write to satisfy readers? Can’t I write slice-of-life and quasi-anthropological dissertations on early life of Ingwë and others and not betray the expectations of “Of Ingwë”? Can I flesh those scenes out enough?