Team Interviews: telesilla
Match Interview
Name: telesilla, also known as Ruth
Team: War!
I should warn you right now that this interview is all about the writing procrastination so I kinda ramble. A bit.
Let's talk about: telesilla!
1. How long have you been writing fan fiction and/or making fan art and/or whatever else (vids, knitted goods, pornographic gingerbread cookies)?
I've been writing fan fic in my head my whole life, but only started actually writing it in 1994. When got online in early 1995, I started sharing my fic with other people.
2. Have you participated or are you participating in any other fandoms?
Past fandoms: ST TNG, Phantom Menace, with some Herc-Xena verse and other versions of Trek on the side. Current fandoms: Lotrips, Misc RPF, SGA, and ST AOS with a little Leverage on the side. I used to be all about the fannish serial monogamy but lately it's gotten kind of poly.
3. What fanwork are you most proud of? Or, what is your favourite of your fanworks? (links, please!)
Although it's not the kind thing I normally write, I'm really proud of It's Growing Day by Day. My favorite (right now) is my in progress Big Bang fic "Make the Devil Feel Surprise;" who knew that the Mirror versions of John and Rodney could be this much fun to write?
4. As far as creative processes go, what type of writer/artist are you? Do you create an outline/find photo references/make maps, etc., or do you jump in and go with the flow?
For shorter pieces or for something like a square on Kink Bingo, I'll start with a basic idea and then just write and see what happens. For longer pieces, I'll have a beginning and an ending in mind, but I'm not always sure how to get there and I'm usually surprised along the way. I rarely do outlines, even for longer fics, because I've found that when I do, I almost always deviate from it pretty quickly. Since my deviations usually improve the story, I've kind of given up on the whole outline thing.
5. Where can interested readers/viewers find more of your work? (homepage, LJ fic index, etc.)
Almost all my work is a ChezRozilla. The few things that haven't made it there yet cane be found under the various fic tags on my Dreamwidth.
6. Do you write original fiction (poetry, screenplays)? Do you create original art (comics, photographs, quilts, wedding cakes)? Care to share?
I've only ever written one piece of truly original fiction; it's been published in a couple of lesbian erotica anthologies. However at least one of the RPF AUs I write with darkrosetiger--a huge sprawling vampire thing--might as well be original fiction. I'd share, but it's really fragmented and is posted all over the place.
7. How are you so awesome?
I'm the flash in the pan idea person. I'm the one who comes up with the challenge or the prompt or the idea for a new comm or the "let's do this RPG!" thing. Also, at least as far as I'm concerned, I write good dialog and smoking hot porn.
Let's talk about: SGA!
8. What do you enjoy most about SGA and/or SGA fandom?
The show: As much as the writers and producers of the show itself piss me off, I still love the characters and the setting and the universe itself. The show itself straddles the line between too abysmal to write fic for and so excellent that you don't need to, making it perfect for fan writers. Not to say that the show writers didn't occasionally knock out a good episode, but still they left a lot of holes that needed filling.
The fandom: As with all the fandoms I've been in, the best thing about SGA fandom is the people in it. There are so many wonderfully talented and creative people involved in the fandom, not just writers, but artists and vidders and podfic recorders and people writing thoughtful meta and wonderful readers whose feedback blows me away sometimes.
And of course, there are the awesome fanworks; there's just so much of it! Even now that the canon is closed, there's still brilliant stuff being created.
9. Why do you ship McKay/Sheppard? What draws you to the pairing, what do you like and dislike? Favourite scenes or episodes? Quotes? Screencaps? What other SGA pairings do you ship?
I really do love the John/Rodney dynamic so very very much, especially how they're both big damn dorky, geeky heroes, instead of being "the hero" and "the geek." I came into the fandom through the fic and mid-way through Season Three, which was interesting and kind of made trying to see the formation of the pairing kind of weird because I already had all these pre-conceived notions about the characters.
But really, John and Rodney had me at the whole "I shot him...in the leg", personal shield thing. I do tend to watch the show through slightly John/Rodney shaded glasses, but that doesn't stop me from appreciating the incredible John/Ronon vibe of "Outcast" for example, or the all too rare OT4 teamy moments. I also ship Rodney/Teyla even though canon doesn't give us much to work with.
10. Why did you choose to join Team War?
All the cool kids were doing it? Well, no, because I'm sure Team Peace has cool kids too. So really, more specifically, the two people in my chat group who were doing Match wanted to do War and since my original plan worked better for War, it made a lot of sense.
And really, I do like looking at conflict and how it shapes the people in the middle of it.
11. C'mon, you know you wanna! Just a bit of squee about your Match fic? [good example: 'very proud of my second scene' / bad example: 'When Rodney kisses John after they find out the butler did it'.]
OMG I started it and wrote many many words on it the other day! I was stalled for the longest time on Plan A and then, thanks to certain people who shall remain nameless until after the reveal, ended up going Plan B. So having over 1000 words is kind of significant and, for me at least, very squeeworthy. And I've fallen hard for the John I'm writing here, I really ha e. It's hard not to give anything away; just like last year's steampunk fic, I want to talk about this one in the worst way!
12. What are your 'tells'? How can a fic of yours be spotted in the wild? (again, go ahead and make origami out of the truth!)
I write about kink a lot, but then again, sometimes I don't. I've got a couple of minor stylistic tics and, if a fic isn't actually beta read, you'll find I have what my sister refers to as a "somewhat free form approach to comma placement."
busiakko -- In the wide, wide world of fanfic (not just SGA), there's a lot of kink-fic that just... doesn't work, or feels off. Yours does (TMI: at least for me). What do you consider important to the genre? What makes it work and makes it believably real? (And conversely, what are things that, in your opinion, make kink in a fic unbelievable? What doesn't work?)
I could go on at length about this--seriously, I've done hour-long con panels on the subject--but I'll try to keep it down.
The first real trick to getting kink right, as far as I'm concerned, is matching the kink to the characters in a way that works. I've written very formal D/s for characters before, for example, but I honestly can't imagine John and Rodney going in for the whole "Master/boy" thing. And while I do like Rodney on the bottom, I just can't see him as a sweet, obedient, pliant sub, at least not at the beginning of the scene. So really, the most important thing for me, both as a reader and writer is making sure that it's character first, kink second.
The other thing that either draws me in or throws me out of kink is the emotional component. A writer can do a Kink Bingo Postage stamp story involving four of my favorite kinks in my favorite fandom, but if there's no emotional connection between the characters it's just like reading a laundry list. The emotion doesn't have to be positive, but there needs to be something going on, because that sense of emotional exchange is a big part of why doing kink is so awesome.
taste_is_sweet --What's up with the cross-dressing and gender-bending, baby? :D Do you have any problem reconciling these versions of John and Rodney with the tv canon?
To me the cross-dressing is like any other kink; there's no reason John (for example) wouldn't have that particular kink; it's not as if canon's very forthcoming on their sex lives. In fact, with most kinks, it's actually easier to assume that they have them than it is to assume that they're gay--we've got canonical evidence that both John and Rodney aren't gay, but nothing to say that John doesn't like dressing up in girl's panties or Rodney doesn't like a good spanking now and then.
Genderbending, well that's another story altogether. It also encompasses a bit of a range, from FtM Meredith (again, while it's really unlikely, there's actually nothing in canon to say he's not trans) to my always female Jay and Meredith who are like any other AU versions of John and Rodney. The trick there, like other AUs, is to keep them recognizable as themselves so hopefully the reader will say "yeah Rodney would be like that if he'd been born female and gone into the military."
almostnever -- You also write wonderful SGA RPS, and you've written AUs in both SGA and SGA RPS. Since you're comfortable writing AUs, it seems like choosing between writing SGA vs. SGA RPS would be based on personalities rather than the differences in canon circumstances. So I'm wondering, how do you decide when a story needs to be about Joe, David, Jason, Rachel and the cast, versus when it works better for John, Rodney, Ronon, Teyla and the expedition crew?
Oddly enough, it's almost always the other way around. Instead of having a story and trying to decide who fits it best, it's more about wanting to write about a set of characters in a certain situation. I tend to think of Joe and Jason or Joe and David or all three of them as having a much more relaxed attitude (since they're not, you know, in the City on the Edge of Forever fighting evil robots and space vampires), so if I'm in the mood for a buddy fuck kind of fic or something easygoing, I'll go with the RPS. The only time I've wanted to do something with FPF that I did as RPF instead is the Keptverse, because it's an RPS only verse (well and also because Nancy's Joe is sooooo awesome). If I had writing robots, I'd do an SGA FPF AU of that 'verse.
kyuuketsukirui -- What is your favorite story length to write? Is that the same length you like to read?
Writing -- I've actually paid a little more attention to length and type of story in my more recent fandoms and I've realized that there's a cycle. When I'm new in a fandom, it's all short stuff, usually either porn that starts with them already in bed, or character pieces that are mostly about me trying to find my way into the characters. Then as I get a little more confident about the characters and the setting, things get longer, even the porn because I feel a need to explore the characters and talk about what gets them into bed and figure out why they have a given kink. And then, when I've told the easy stories (which I continue to tell along the way) I get into the AUs and the plotty things. SGA's actually been amazing for me as far as longer solo-written stories.
Reading -- For the most part, the longer the better. I read at an insane clip; last year when SGA Big Bang went live, I read three of them in one evening. So yeah, I love long fic a lot, although I'll trade a well written short piece for a long badfic series any day.
sabinelagrande -- I have to ask, because you gave me a kink I didn't know I had (one of, like, four, srsly cut that out):
Why de-aged McKay? What's the appeal in writing him?
Mwuhahahahahahahaha!!!! Um...sorry.
Actually the first de-aged McKay fics I wrote were in response to a request on the IJ Porn Battle and one thing kind of led to another. There's a totally shallow aspect, of course--David was pretty when he was young. It's not that I think David's unattractive now, but he was like jailbait pretty when he first started acting. When I put him with a young John (as in the arc I wrote with Hil where they meet in college) there's the whole romance of the first time and the idea of them meeting long before they meet again in "Rising."
With an adult John, there's the whole forbidden aspect regardless of whether Rodney's been de-aged and is still his 40 year old self, or is actually a teenager. I tend to dig around for an AU type John, whether he's just an out and out pervert or just a little more cynical and jaded than canon John.
Name: telesilla, also known as Ruth
Team: War!
I should warn you right now that this interview is all about the writing procrastination so I kinda ramble. A bit.
Let's talk about: telesilla!
1. How long have you been writing fan fiction and/or making fan art and/or whatever else (vids, knitted goods, pornographic gingerbread cookies)?
I've been writing fan fic in my head my whole life, but only started actually writing it in 1994. When got online in early 1995, I started sharing my fic with other people.
2. Have you participated or are you participating in any other fandoms?
Past fandoms: ST TNG, Phantom Menace, with some Herc-Xena verse and other versions of Trek on the side. Current fandoms: Lotrips, Misc RPF, SGA, and ST AOS with a little Leverage on the side. I used to be all about the fannish serial monogamy but lately it's gotten kind of poly.
3. What fanwork are you most proud of? Or, what is your favourite of your fanworks? (links, please!)
Although it's not the kind thing I normally write, I'm really proud of It's Growing Day by Day. My favorite (right now) is my in progress Big Bang fic "Make the Devil Feel Surprise;" who knew that the Mirror versions of John and Rodney could be this much fun to write?
4. As far as creative processes go, what type of writer/artist are you? Do you create an outline/find photo references/make maps, etc., or do you jump in and go with the flow?
For shorter pieces or for something like a square on Kink Bingo, I'll start with a basic idea and then just write and see what happens. For longer pieces, I'll have a beginning and an ending in mind, but I'm not always sure how to get there and I'm usually surprised along the way. I rarely do outlines, even for longer fics, because I've found that when I do, I almost always deviate from it pretty quickly. Since my deviations usually improve the story, I've kind of given up on the whole outline thing.
5. Where can interested readers/viewers find more of your work? (homepage, LJ fic index, etc.)
Almost all my work is a ChezRozilla. The few things that haven't made it there yet cane be found under the various fic tags on my Dreamwidth.
6. Do you write original fiction (poetry, screenplays)? Do you create original art (comics, photographs, quilts, wedding cakes)? Care to share?
I've only ever written one piece of truly original fiction; it's been published in a couple of lesbian erotica anthologies. However at least one of the RPF AUs I write with darkrosetiger--a huge sprawling vampire thing--might as well be original fiction. I'd share, but it's really fragmented and is posted all over the place.
7. How are you so awesome?
I'm the flash in the pan idea person. I'm the one who comes up with the challenge or the prompt or the idea for a new comm or the "let's do this RPG!" thing. Also, at least as far as I'm concerned, I write good dialog and smoking hot porn.
Let's talk about: SGA!
8. What do you enjoy most about SGA and/or SGA fandom?
The show: As much as the writers and producers of the show itself piss me off, I still love the characters and the setting and the universe itself. The show itself straddles the line between too abysmal to write fic for and so excellent that you don't need to, making it perfect for fan writers. Not to say that the show writers didn't occasionally knock out a good episode, but still they left a lot of holes that needed filling.
The fandom: As with all the fandoms I've been in, the best thing about SGA fandom is the people in it. There are so many wonderfully talented and creative people involved in the fandom, not just writers, but artists and vidders and podfic recorders and people writing thoughtful meta and wonderful readers whose feedback blows me away sometimes.
And of course, there are the awesome fanworks; there's just so much of it! Even now that the canon is closed, there's still brilliant stuff being created.
9. Why do you ship McKay/Sheppard? What draws you to the pairing, what do you like and dislike? Favourite scenes or episodes? Quotes? Screencaps? What other SGA pairings do you ship?
I really do love the John/Rodney dynamic so very very much, especially how they're both big damn dorky, geeky heroes, instead of being "the hero" and "the geek." I came into the fandom through the fic and mid-way through Season Three, which was interesting and kind of made trying to see the formation of the pairing kind of weird because I already had all these pre-conceived notions about the characters.
But really, John and Rodney had me at the whole "I shot him...in the leg", personal shield thing. I do tend to watch the show through slightly John/Rodney shaded glasses, but that doesn't stop me from appreciating the incredible John/Ronon vibe of "Outcast" for example, or the all too rare OT4 teamy moments. I also ship Rodney/Teyla even though canon doesn't give us much to work with.
10. Why did you choose to join Team War?
All the cool kids were doing it? Well, no, because I'm sure Team Peace has cool kids too. So really, more specifically, the two people in my chat group who were doing Match wanted to do War and since my original plan worked better for War, it made a lot of sense.
And really, I do like looking at conflict and how it shapes the people in the middle of it.
11. C'mon, you know you wanna! Just a bit of squee about your Match fic? [good example: 'very proud of my second scene' / bad example: 'When Rodney kisses John after they find out the butler did it'.]
OMG I started it and wrote many many words on it the other day! I was stalled for the longest time on Plan A and then, thanks to certain people who shall remain nameless until after the reveal, ended up going Plan B. So having over 1000 words is kind of significant and, for me at least, very squeeworthy. And I've fallen hard for the John I'm writing here, I really ha e. It's hard not to give anything away; just like last year's steampunk fic, I want to talk about this one in the worst way!
12. What are your 'tells'? How can a fic of yours be spotted in the wild? (again, go ahead and make origami out of the truth!)
I write about kink a lot, but then again, sometimes I don't. I've got a couple of minor stylistic tics and, if a fic isn't actually beta read, you'll find I have what my sister refers to as a "somewhat free form approach to comma placement."
busiakko -- In the wide, wide world of fanfic (not just SGA), there's a lot of kink-fic that just... doesn't work, or feels off. Yours does (TMI: at least for me). What do you consider important to the genre? What makes it work and makes it believably real? (And conversely, what are things that, in your opinion, make kink in a fic unbelievable? What doesn't work?)
I could go on at length about this--seriously, I've done hour-long con panels on the subject--but I'll try to keep it down.
The first real trick to getting kink right, as far as I'm concerned, is matching the kink to the characters in a way that works. I've written very formal D/s for characters before, for example, but I honestly can't imagine John and Rodney going in for the whole "Master/boy" thing. And while I do like Rodney on the bottom, I just can't see him as a sweet, obedient, pliant sub, at least not at the beginning of the scene. So really, the most important thing for me, both as a reader and writer is making sure that it's character first, kink second.
The other thing that either draws me in or throws me out of kink is the emotional component. A writer can do a Kink Bingo Postage stamp story involving four of my favorite kinks in my favorite fandom, but if there's no emotional connection between the characters it's just like reading a laundry list. The emotion doesn't have to be positive, but there needs to be something going on, because that sense of emotional exchange is a big part of why doing kink is so awesome.
taste_is_sweet --What's up with the cross-dressing and gender-bending, baby? :D Do you have any problem reconciling these versions of John and Rodney with the tv canon?
To me the cross-dressing is like any other kink; there's no reason John (for example) wouldn't have that particular kink; it's not as if canon's very forthcoming on their sex lives. In fact, with most kinks, it's actually easier to assume that they have them than it is to assume that they're gay--we've got canonical evidence that both John and Rodney aren't gay, but nothing to say that John doesn't like dressing up in girl's panties or Rodney doesn't like a good spanking now and then.
Genderbending, well that's another story altogether. It also encompasses a bit of a range, from FtM Meredith (again, while it's really unlikely, there's actually nothing in canon to say he's not trans) to my always female Jay and Meredith who are like any other AU versions of John and Rodney. The trick there, like other AUs, is to keep them recognizable as themselves so hopefully the reader will say "yeah Rodney would be like that if he'd been born female and gone into the military."
almostnever -- You also write wonderful SGA RPS, and you've written AUs in both SGA and SGA RPS. Since you're comfortable writing AUs, it seems like choosing between writing SGA vs. SGA RPS would be based on personalities rather than the differences in canon circumstances. So I'm wondering, how do you decide when a story needs to be about Joe, David, Jason, Rachel and the cast, versus when it works better for John, Rodney, Ronon, Teyla and the expedition crew?
Oddly enough, it's almost always the other way around. Instead of having a story and trying to decide who fits it best, it's more about wanting to write about a set of characters in a certain situation. I tend to think of Joe and Jason or Joe and David or all three of them as having a much more relaxed attitude (since they're not, you know, in the City on the Edge of Forever fighting evil robots and space vampires), so if I'm in the mood for a buddy fuck kind of fic or something easygoing, I'll go with the RPS. The only time I've wanted to do something with FPF that I did as RPF instead is the Keptverse, because it's an RPS only verse (well and also because Nancy's Joe is sooooo awesome). If I had writing robots, I'd do an SGA FPF AU of that 'verse.
kyuuketsukirui -- What is your favorite story length to write? Is that the same length you like to read?
Writing -- I've actually paid a little more attention to length and type of story in my more recent fandoms and I've realized that there's a cycle. When I'm new in a fandom, it's all short stuff, usually either porn that starts with them already in bed, or character pieces that are mostly about me trying to find my way into the characters. Then as I get a little more confident about the characters and the setting, things get longer, even the porn because I feel a need to explore the characters and talk about what gets them into bed and figure out why they have a given kink. And then, when I've told the easy stories (which I continue to tell along the way) I get into the AUs and the plotty things. SGA's actually been amazing for me as far as longer solo-written stories.
Reading -- For the most part, the longer the better. I read at an insane clip; last year when SGA Big Bang went live, I read three of them in one evening. So yeah, I love long fic a lot, although I'll trade a well written short piece for a long badfic series any day.
sabinelagrande -- I have to ask, because you gave me a kink I didn't know I had (one of, like, four, srsly cut that out):
Why de-aged McKay? What's the appeal in writing him?
Mwuhahahahahahahaha!!!! Um...sorry.
Actually the first de-aged McKay fics I wrote were in response to a request on the IJ Porn Battle and one thing kind of led to another. There's a totally shallow aspect, of course--David was pretty when he was young. It's not that I think David's unattractive now, but he was like jailbait pretty when he first started acting. When I put him with a young John (as in the arc I wrote with Hil where they meet in college) there's the whole romance of the first time and the idea of them meeting long before they meet again in "Rising."
With an adult John, there's the whole forbidden aspect regardless of whether Rodney's been de-aged and is still his 40 year old self, or is actually a teenager. I tend to dig around for an AU type John, whether he's just an out and out pervert or just a little more cynical and jaded than canon John.