Questions taken from AO3 Comment of the Day.
Image: Anthony Albright
I try to stay as close to the canon as possible, but there are places where canon contradicts itself and there are also times where the canon is just too unrealistic or difficult to work with. So while I do prefer to be canon compliant, I’m not as strict about it as I could be. That said, I’m good at stretching a point to its very limit.
One liberty I do not take with canon is having characters act out of character unless there’s a very good reason. Don’t misunderstand; if there is a good reason, I’ll do it. (I have a character acting that way in parts of Standing in the Dark; the extremely good reasons are obvious before the behavior manifests itself.) But I set the bar for determining “good reason” very high. If a character wouldn’t do something, I generally won’t write them that way.
32. How do you feel about smut?
I’m not very big on it, but I don’t categorically exclude reading or writing explicit-rated fics. If that’s where the story goes, then it needs to go there — and I have gone all the way to explicit, both when reading and when writing. I just need there to be a good reason for it to go there. PWPs can be fun, especially if they themselves are funny, but I generally finish a lot quicker than they do. (Yes, I meant to do that.)
33. How do you feel about crack?
I’ve written it, but it stays on my computer. When I was younger, I sometimes really enjoyed it, but as I’ve gotten older I’ve lost my taste for reading it. That said, I can still enjoy a really good crackfic when one comes along. (I’m looking at you, Team Basement, and especially you, Vin.)
I should also mention that I don’t see “implausible” and “crack” as synonyms. Just because a situation seems ridiculous or unlikely doesn’t make it crack, and some of the more ridiculous fics have left me rolling in the floor, especially when they themselves recognize that they’re ridiculous.
34. What are your thoughts on non-con and dub-con?
The short answer is, “I’m okay with it,” but that answer requires some nuance. I am not okay with them being excused or presented as acceptable behavior. But, as with explicit content, if the story goes there I’ll go with it. Non-consent and dubious content are, unfortunately, realities that people have to deal with sometimes. I won’t exempt my characters from that, and I’ve been known to do some really awful things to them, up to and including non-con and dub-con. I will, however, take a light hand with it.
I should clarify here that I do not consider BDSM to be non-consensual. The BDSM community, in fact, makes a very big deal about properly informed consent, and they’ve done quite a bit of thinking and debating about it. Now, that doesn’t mean I’m going to out and either read or write it, but BDSM elements on their own will not scare me off provided they’re shown correctly. (Early Star Trek: Discovery fan fiction has several really well done BDSM stories, many of which have frank discussions about consent.)
35. Would you ever kill off a canon character?
I not only would kill off a canon character; I have killed off a canon character. More than once, in fact. Standing in the Dark is setting a new record for me as it’s the first fic I’ve written that involves killing off more than one canon character. That said, the killing happens “off screen,” and, with one exception, that’s also true in other stories where I’ve killed off characters (either canonical or my own).
It’s not that I’m afraid to write a death scene; it’s just that I don’t find death, in and of itself, all that interesting. But others’ reactions to someone’s death do interest me and can make for great story fodder. That’s why I also write fics that are related to canonical characters’ canonical deaths, in addition to occasionally killing them off myself.