#ty for the opportunity to navelgaze about my fic

[a-whale-bone]

For the ao3 asks: all of them or as many as you can! Questions 4/5/6: There is no love manual for robots. For 18/19/20: Heart/Gear. For 21/22/24: Essential Maintenance. For 27/29/47: while(true).

Thank you for indulging me! I've answered p much everything except the questions about music because I don't really associate writing and music and can't answer them...

1. What fic of yours would you recommend to someone who had never read any of your work? (In other words, what do you think is the best introduction to your fics?)

Either "Episodic Memory" which is kind of a distillation of All The Things I Like in droidshipping or my short series "Radio Heart" which feels like my quintessence Cassian/K2 stuff.

2. Go to your AO3 “Works” page, to the sidebar with all the filters, and click the drop-down arrow for “Additional Tags.” What are your top 3-5 most used tags? Do you think they accurately represent your writing habits?

Robot/Human Relationships

Pining

Developing Relationship

Robot Sex

Food

The first four are… yep, that's it, that's me. I didn't realise I wrote about food enough to tag it that often, though!

3. What are some tropes or details that you think are very characteristic of your fics?

Robots, hurt/comfort, hand stuff, people fixing one another, hair stroking, a whole lot of earnestness. I also love an AU.

4. What detail in [insert fic] are you really proud of?

In "There is no love manual for robots" my favourite detail is probably when Cassian pushes Bodhi back against Kay to kiss him and Kay puts his arms round them both because he is SO BIG.

5. What do you wish someone would ask you about [insert fic]? Answer it now!

Was there anything I wanted to include in "love manual" but didn't - and the answer there is yes! There was a scene between Bodhi and Chirrut, talking about Jedha and people they'd lost, and Chirrut tells him about how he and Baze have been together forever and Bodhi gets all wistful and how he'd like to have something like that. Chirrut, ofc, already knows something is up and gives him some cryptic, well-meaning and probably unhelpful advice.

6. What’s one fact about the universe of [insert fic] that you didn’t get a chance to mention in the fic itself?

In "Love manual" Bodhi and Chirrut briefly talk about the Force and whether droids are alive enough for the Force to be a thing for them, and I am here to tell you that yes it is.

7. Any worldbuilding you’re particularly proud of?

Worldbuilding is probably one of my weaker points, but I am proud of the worldbuilding in my robot orchestra origfic Electric Sonata, especially the stuff about music by and for androids being different from music by and for humans. I had a lot of fun working on that fic.

9. How do you find new fic to read?

With difficulty! I track pairing tags on AO3, and browse recent exchanges, but otherwise I only really find things if someone recs them to me.

10. How do you decide what to write?

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ usually if something won't leave my brain I'll write it to get it out. Then it's a mixture of inspiration, deadlines, or guilt.

11. Are you partial to a certain character/pairing or are you more equal-opportunity? If you are partial to any character/pairing, why do you think that is?

I wish I were more equal opportunity! But I latch onto particular pairings or characters like a little gremlin and that's pretty much that. My current favourite ships are Cassian/K2 and Bodhi/K2. The robot/human angle works for me, there's elements of loyalty kink and competence kink that work for both ships, and lots of opportunities for hurt/comfort and two people who are very different and messed up finding something together.

12. Are there any tropes you used to dislike but have grown on you?

AUs! Years ago I used to only read canon-verse stuff, but I absolutely love AUs now.

13. Are there any tropes you used to like but don’t anymore?

Soulmates. I would read it for my ships still, but I don't really like predestination for a romantic relationship much now.

14. Are there any tropes you would only read if written by a trusted friend or writer?

Recovery from non-con / abuse. Amazing in the right hands, but very easy to do in a way that wouldn't work for me.

15. What’s your favorite AU that you’ve written?

I'm going to discount Everybody Lives AUs because they barely even feel like AUs in Rogue One fandom, lol. It's got to be "darkness, moonrise", my His Dark Materials AU. I love HDM, and figuring out how to blend that world (and not just daemons) with Rogue One was so much fun. And I got attached to everyone's daemons.

16. What’s an AU you would love to read (or have read and loved)?

I kind of want a mundane Rogue One AU that still keeps the plot? Like sure it's a coffee shop, but also they need to steal the blueprints for the Big Evil Not-Starbucks Coffeeshop that's going to put them out of business. K-2 is a belligerent sentient espresso machine.

For AUs I've loved: "1 Rogue Street" by @r0b0tb0y is an amazing haunted house AU (with bonus Midlands jokes), "Never So Human" is @bright-elen's fantastic Tam Lin AU, "Sparks" also by Bright Elen is a modern-ish AU where K2 is a dating app and he and Cassian fall in love, and "chaos, yet harmony" by @rain-sleet-snow is a canon divergence featuring one of my favourite f/f rarepairs Jyn/Ahsoka.

17. What highly specific AU do you want to read or write even though you might be the only person to appreciate it?

I accidentally talked myself into shipping Bodhi and Kay while writing my His Dark Materials AU, because I sent them off together so the other ships could spend time together. So I want to write an Everybody Lives AU of my AU where they hook up. Will anyone read it? No. And yet I have a half-written fic I occasionally go back to.

18. If you wrote a sequel to [insert fic], what would it involve?

"Heart/Gear" is mostly angsty but the sequel would probably include Cassian and K figuring out a way to use Cassian's new spinal implants in a sexy way.

19. If you wrote a spin-off of [insert fic], what would it involve?

A "Heart/Gear" spin-off would be some kind of caper with Jyn, Bodhi, Baze and Chirrut trying to find and restore a KX chassis so K2 could be reuploaded. There are probably explosions.

20. If you wrote a prequel to [insert fic], what would it involve?

"Heart/Gear" would have a super angsty prequel of Cassian trying and failing to get by without Kay, all while pretending he's coping and the rest of Rogue One trying to help him while he refuses to be helped.

21. If you wrote a “missing scene” in [insert fic], what would it be?

Well "Essential Maintenance" is a PWP and one scene so I don't know if it could have a missing scene, but perhaps another scene at the end where K2 and Bodhi go over all the exciting new data and that gets them going again because they are NERDS. (I deeply believe that K and Bodhi are nerds at heart.)

22. Who is your favorite character in [insert fic] and why?

Bodhi is my fave in "Essential Maintenance". I love top!Bodhi, and I like his pragmatic problem solving approach to sex with Kay. I like writing Bodhi as a techy guy.

23. What’s a trope, AU, or concept you’ve never written, but would like to?

Time travel! God I love time travel. I just need to have some kind of plot, because you cannot wing time travel the way I wing so many fics.

24. Are there any easter eggs in [insert fic], and if so, what are they?

Not much space for Easter eggs in PWPs like "Essential Maintenance", but this line, sort of:

"He did enjoy Kay making him wait, winding him tighter and tighter until he felt like he was going to shake into pieces."

Even when it's not angsty I always want to have some reference to Bodhi being in pieces, because I have a lot of thoughts and feelings about post-Bor Gullet Bodhi being a bit broken.

25. What other websites or resources do you use most often when you write?

Wookieepedia, ofc.

26. Would you rather write a fic that had no dialogue or one that was only dialogue?

No dialogue. It probably wouldn't be readable, but at least I wouldn't have to worry about my dialogue being OOC.

27. How long did it take to write [insert fic]? Describe the process.

It took maybe two weeks or so to write "while(true)". It was an exchange fic so I was on a deadline. The first couple of days I was throwing ideas around but none of them were coalescing into a plot. I had the scene where Cassian has to fix an inert K2 and it was going to lead to Cassian doing something reckless and K later being mad at him, but I couldn't get it to hang together. Then I tried something more light-hearted. Eventually I realised that I had lots of moments, all with a different tone, and that a 5+1 type fic could be a good way to look at different points in the relationship. Throwing out the need for a full plot made it all flow.

28. Does anyone read your fics before you post them? If so, who?

Not often, though I should get a beta reader really. Occasionally lovely Bright Elen will look over something when I'm flailing about it not working and be very kind about it!

30. Have you ever written something that was out of your comfort zone? If so, what was it, and how did it affect your approach to writing fic thereafter?

I have, but I've not published it because I'm not happy with it. I'm not really a dark writer but I tried to write something a lot darker and more morally complex than I usually do and it's kind of a mess. But it was interesting, especially to realise how often I take some easy routes or make characters nicer than they maybe can or should be.

31. What’s your ideal fic length to write?

Depends on the fic! I love drabbles and also 100k epics.

32. What’s your ideal fic length to read?

Depends on what I'm in the mood for. Sometimes I don't have much brain space and want something short and sweet, other times I want to dig into a novel.

33. If you write chaptered fics, what’s your ideal chapter length to write? Is it different from your ideal chapter length to read?

About 3-5k words, both to read and write.

34. What aspects of your writing are inspired by/taken from your real life?

Ahaha some stuff is not meant to be shared online. I did enjoy setting some scenes of "darkness, moonrise" in Oxford, as I used to live there and could use real places I knew well.

35. What aspects of your writing are completely unlike your real life?

I have never lived in space or fallen in love with a single robot :(

36. Do you visualize what you read/write?

Absolutely, to the point that I get stuck on descriptions because I can't explain what I've visualised.

37. Promote one of your own “deep cut” fics (an underrated one, or one that never got as much traction as you think it deserves!). What do you like about it?

"Clockwork" is a steampunk AU that I had a ball writing. I think steampunk lends itself really well to Rogue One!

38. Did any of your fics get surprisingly popular (whatever that means to you)? Which ones? Why do you think they were so successful?

I don't know about surprisingly, but "Brief Encounters of an Unusual Kind" is my most popular, as it caught the first wave of The Mandalorian's popularity. I was quite surprised at the reception to "Changing Protocols" with my clone trooper and B1 droid OCs! That got a lot more traction than I expected.

39. Is any aspect of your writing process inspired by other writers or people? If so, who?

I can single-handedly credit Bright Elen for getting me into droidshipping <3

40. Do you tend to reread fics or are you a one-and-done kind of person?

I reread my faves constantly.

42. Have you ever received a comment that particularly stood out to you for whatever reason?

On "Episodic Memory" someone wrote 'But, here comes a story that defies all the typical aspects of love and you make me fall deeper in love with the idea of love' and honestly it made me a bit weepy because holy shit??? I love that commenter.

43. If you take/write prompts: what’s your favorite prompt fic that you’ve written?

One of the exchange prompts was for steampunk AU and I loved writing "Clockwork" so much.

44. If you take/write prompts: do you prefer dialogue or scenario/narrative prompts?

Definitely scenario/narrative.

45. What’s something you’ve improved on since you started writing fic?

Writing generally, I think! But also having some kind of plan before I write something, instead of haring off on a half-baked idea and then getting discouraged when it doesn't work.

46 - answered!

47. If [insert fic] was a pair of shoes, what kind would it be? Describe the shoes.

Since "while(true)" is like five fics in one it would have to be a pair of those multipurpose running shoes that are good on trails and road and look nice enough that you could sort of get away with them as a casual normal shoe.

48. What’s the last fic you read? Do you recommend it?

"Desert Sunrise" in the SW Rarepairs exchange, a Beru Whitesun/Pelli Motto fic. Definitely recommend, I really enjoyed it!

49. What are you currently working on? Share a few lines if you’re up for it!

The final chapter of Circuits and Glow, which I hope to compete by the end of the year. Here's a bit from that:

"K-2SO rebooted, and for eight-point-two seconds he did not know where he was or how much time had passed. His optics flickered in and out. The sound through his audio processors was distorted and his vocabulator was offline. His last memory was corrupted. Panic flooded his processors, and he desperately sought the last complete memory file."

And my Rogue One Hunger Games AU (hopefully ready for AO3 next year):

"A lot of people were surprised when Jyn Erso emerged as the victor of the Hunger Games. District Nine hadn’t had a winner since Steela Gerrera over two decades ago, and Jyn was no Steela: too small, too light, too unassuming.

More fool them."