Fluxweed AMA

ask me anything

Fluxweed

The Four Doors and All I Have to Do and more drarry

disclaimer

AMA contains spoilers to Fluxweed works.

I noticed that The Four Doors is part of a small exchange of legilimency fics. What's the story behind that exchange? What was the initial kernel of an idea that became the final fic?

you can blame conversations with @Lep | laughingd0g for quite a few of my fics, and the four doors is absolutely no exception
this time last year i was tentatively dipping my toe in being an active drarry creator for the first time in ~10 years, and was beyond lucky to have lep beta my first fic back (say no to this). turns out that lep is also an amazing human being and we got talking - the subject of legilimency in fic came up and i was looking for more projects to work on in the fic world, and thus the idea of a 10k legilimecy-themed fic exchange was born! (obviously my one did not end up being 10k)

and the initial kernel for 4d was the legilimency scene in the leaky cauldron! i knew i wanted to write some kind of charged legilimency scene between the two of them – the whole rest of the fic was written around that!

The whole legilimency therapy premise was so interesting. I remember when I first read The Four Doors I thought Draco would just start "digging" in Harry's head to find the hidden memories, which of course wasn't the case. How did you come up with the exact therapy?

i thought it was important for harry's character that he do the work to recover the memories himself, rather than having draco just pop in and find them all – draco is v much there to facilitate harry's journey to mental control. i also wanted to tie in little bits of meditation - harry was SO stressed pre-memory loss; poor guy needed to know a few techniques to help himself calm down a bit

Hi!! I hope you are well. I wanted to ask, how do you do your characterization (like I have found that you try to incorporate some elements of their characters as given in Canon but all of your characters have more to it than just that, which I really like) , especially with Percy/Harry fics. I found them so interesting

hi! thank you! i hope you're well too!!
also characterisation is my fave thing to do, bc i love literally every character so much!! i def try to stick to canon characterisations as much as possible, but also allowing for what the aftermath of the war/the years of fame/shame/blame (lol) would have done to them.

Hi Flux! Harry’s childhood, battling Voldemort for years and the war are enormous determinants for his emotional landscape, how did you approach a characterization where those factors didn’t influence him? How did you end up with this Harry? (Four Doors, Harry without his memory)

ah! in that case, i mean – in the books, harry is pretty ridiculously well-adjusted as it is? obv he had his angstier moments, but imo he reacted far too reasonably for all the shit he'd been through! i just took my own personal view as an adult reading about a teenager having all that pressure on him and applied those opinions to him, leaving him, like, mainly just dismayed about the whole thing, and wondering why everyone else acted like it was normal!

First of all, thank you so much for taking part in this AMA and for gifting the fandom with such wonderful fics. I read The Four Doors only this morning and was very moved by it. I even cried with happiness at the end! It seemed to me that Harry only became aware of the fifth door, and thus his memories, once he was aware of and willing to acknowledge both his sexuality and his feelings for Draco. Would you say this is accurate? And how did you decide that Harry was unintentionally responsible for his memory loss? Also, will you ever do a follow up one shot for this fic so we can see how they are getting on? Thank you again!

omg, thank YOU for being here and for reading 4d! i'm honoured! idk if i should be spoilering things? but just in case, 4d ending: harry's realisation was a combination of a bunch of things! (i.e., i was 45k into writing a 10k fic and i was ready for him to get back to normal asap, ha). it was mainly that he was finally, like, super relaxed and at ease w himself (he didn't feel like he had to avoid thinking about ron, or his own feelings for draco) - being closed-off in any way was obv not ideal for his recovery (there's a closed-door/self-acceptance metaphor somewhere there, if you squint). his mental control had also strengthened SO much after having panic-hidden away his fantasies - and the catalyst of the physical stuff (the kiss, the duel) was the final thing to push him to remember his "true self", the auror who helps people, and who gets to kiss people without ethical complications

Draco's post-war regret is an intense topic. What's your approach to exploring the subject of his redemption?

i like exploring the different paths he could have taken since hogwarts - sometimes i like him absolutely torn up with guilt, sometimes i like him avoiding the topic in v unhealthy ways, and sometimes i like him still very much a bit of a bastard!! (actually, i usually like him still a bit of a bastard lol) - i think the key to him actually being "redeemed" (which is a complex topic in itself - what is redemption? does he need it? in whose eyes?) will always come down to someone actually listening to + understanding him, and him acknowledging the damage he did, even if he didn't have that much control over his actions

Hi there Flux! Speaking of Percy (love him), are there any other characters/pairings/triads you'd like to explore? Are there any you just love and enjoy and would like to see more of in general whether or not you'd write them?

hello!
LOVE to speak about percy, so thank u for this!! also absolutely yes, i'm 13k into writing a 10k (lol) ron/harry/draco right now!! i'm so intrigued by so many different characters and pairings - not sure there's anything i'd blanket refuse to read/write? i feel like, essentially, most humans just need to talk to each other without judgement (the listening to + being understood thing again haha) to be able to like each other, so imo there's pretty much always a way a pairing can work. as for things i want to see more of … hmm. harry/percy is the pairing that got me writing again after a super long break, so that'll always hold a special place in my heart! i just want the characters who made bad choices to be loved despite their past, damn it.

If you don’t mind me asking about The Marriage Contract series (which I love just, omg, so much), there were moments in which I couldn’t help but wonder what was going on in Draco’s head. Harry doesn’t know him very well, and thus his POV is inevitably skewed, but in moments when we see how hard he tries as he plans the wedding, his standing aside as the celebration happened, how careful he was with his words when talking to Harry, I just thought, over and over, “well, damn, he is also marrying his childhood rival after all, how does he feel about that?” And he comes across as so careful and vulnerable, so guess that’s my other question

omg! so glad you like that one - it was an absolute killer to write! i do sort of intend to explore that universe a little more in future, and if i do then a bit of draco's backstory (like, why was he in wales? what happened to narcissa?) will absolutely be one instalment. but during contractually obligated, his motivations are absolutely tied to doing what he thought narcissa would have wanted, in the only way he thinks he'll ever be able to get it (imo, he'd given up hope on that big, beautiful wedding she would always talk about, so in a way the contract is a bit of a blessing in disguise for him). ALSO imo he's not actually that mad about the fact that it's harry, lol - there's a line near the end where draco says “She wanted me to be happy, too.” - narcissa wouldn't have ever done something that'd make draco suffer. she def at least suspected something

I had so much fun reading Adventures in Truth and Texting. I was howlinnggggg. I actually really loved your characterization of Ginny and the use of her as a supporting character. Is this version of Ginny your headcanon or was this just a fun rendition of her?

omg, truth and texting was SO much fun to write - and part of the reason is that ginny in that fic is actually based entirely on myself, so i get a very big head when people say they like her! (one of my betas - once again the incredible @Lep | laughingd0g - actually called me out on it during revisions, haha)

hi fluxx!
what do find easiest or hardest to write - where to start a scene/chapter, or where to end them? do you have any strategies to help with the difficult ones?

hello!!
i find endings soooo much more difficult than beginnings! i can't tell you how many things i've started writing and never actually finished, so lack of practice is definitely to blame here! i try out loads of different strategies (bc i'm still learning how to actually write things! i don't rly know what the best method is for me yet!) but the best advice i've been given is, like, just stop when you've run out of things to say. sounds obvious, but actually quite tricky to figure out when you're done, and when you're still writing just for the sake of it.
(also i think there's much more pressure on scene endings to "wrap up" what has come before - with beginnings, you can just throw the characters into a new situation and see what they do)

Okay, sorry, I ALSO have a Percy question.
What intrigues you about Percy Weasley? He's the only other character you've published besides Drarry, and he's not a common character for HP writers to play with, in general. I love your versions of him, and am curious how you feel about the Bespectacled Boy.

ha, i mean. i didn't give a single shit about percy weasley til i had a harry/percy sex dream out of nowhere in like 2017. it was incredibly stephenie meyer of me and i'm embarrassed about it. but i'm weak for snippy little bastards who made bad decisions under a lot of pressure and ultimately for reasons of wanting to feel important. i'm surprised there isn't more percy love in hp fic, honestly, given the similarities i see between percy and draco, and the popularity of vaguely morally grey clever/nerdy characters in wider fandom as a whole (sherlock, L/light from death note, tony stark, spock, etc etc)

If magical folk could have plant forms, the way they can have animagus forms, what forms do you see for Harry, Draco, and the crew??

draco - i considered cactus (spiky) and snake plant (obv) but neither of them need much care and attention and honestly, i feel like draco would shrivel up without care + attention even in human form. maybe something needy and fancy like an orchid - or a gardenia, which is the flower they had at the wedding in contractually obligated (after i put far too much research into the matter, haha) harry - i think harry might actually be the snake plant, you know. i like the parselmouth thing, and also snake plants do pretty well in shade (tho not quite cupboard-under-the-stairs levels) and actively dislike being fussed over, unless you know how to handle them ron - monstera. pretty easy to get along with, fairly popular, not super fussy BUT monsteras will actively grow towards darkness rather than sun if they don’t get enough light - and i think of all the “good” characters, ron could be swayed by darkness the easiest (as with the horcrux in dh) hermione - something like an indoor citrus plant? quite picky, needs a lot of light (which i interpret here as, like, the light of knowledge. enLIGHTenment.) but can produce delicious fruits of wisdom
"the crew" could mean any number of people so i'll stop there for now!! loved this question tho!

Have you written anything (a fic, scene, drabble, whatever) where you had a particular idea in mind but in the process of writing it came out significantly different than expected? How did you deal with that?

oh, tons!! in four doors, the original scene of harry waking up without his memory used to be compleeetely different - in the very first draft, he floo-called ron and hermione + there was a whole exchange where he didn't know how to pronounce hermione's name - it ended up being contrived and not very funny (tho it was very funny in my head). for wrapped, i wrote 6k, felt it went entirely in the wrong direction, and deleted most of it. and quite often i'll start aiming in one direction and something will come out with entirely the wrong tone - imo it's just a case of being able to be critical about what you've written and ask yourself if it does the job in the best way. and if what you wrote accidentally comes out better than your original plan - that's the ideal situation, imo, even if it means more work! sometimes the process of writing a thing is the best way of figuring out what actually needs to be written, in my experience!"the crew" could mean any number of people so i'll stop there for now!! loved this question tho!

Okay, a Four Doors question that's been on my mind for ages... Did you ever, for even a moment, consider torturing us by having an even bigger open ending to the fic, and ending it at CH10 and leaving out the final chapter? Because as I was reading the last lines of chapter 10, I thought for sure it was going to end there, and it was going to hurt so much but also be delicious in that open ending kind of way. I was glad as hell that it kept going and ended where it did.

omg, no! i'm not opposed to writing more painful-for-the-reader fic, but i always wanted 4d to have a good resolution - both harry and draco deserved it! the ending it does have is actually a little bit before my original plan, which was to end on them actually going on the date and being able to have a decent conversation, lol - but it felt like the asking-out scene in the office was where the actual resolution for both characters came, so that's where it felt right to finish - tho this question made me realise i never answered a previous question from @Ash - so sorry!! i'm absolutely going to do a little follow-up oneshot where they DO have the date and the conversation and the … you know …
. less of a "see how they're getting on" follow-up and more of a "see how they interact without harry's memory loss being a factor, literally a day later" follow-up, haha

I absolutely loved show them the night that they dreamed about before. I wondered how you decided on all the power mechanics within the different relationships.

thank you so much!! that one was based off @chuck al's brilliant prompt for hp triad fest - they specified "dommy percy" and "draco with low self-esteem" in their likes, and the draco/percy employee/employer relationship in the prompt itself, so that dictated a lot of how that fic went! everything else was me trying to make the unequal relationships even out a bit - i looove writing surface-level power imbalances, but i never want them to actually be unbalanced, you know?

I haven't read your entire catalog (yet!), but in the fics I have read either Draco or Harry already have feelings for the other (sometimes both do) and have been pining or merely biding their time, waiting for the right moment to confess. Do you tend to prefer approaching a story from this angle, or is it just happenstance? Do you have a preference as a reader versus a writer for stories that start with one or both of them already having some feelings for the other versus stories that build their relationship from the ground up (previous animosity of their school rivalry all the way through to becoming lovers)?

oooh, interesting question!
with drarry, i tend to like writing harry being completely oblivious, never having even considered it before, and draco having been lowkey obsessed with famous celebrity harry potter since literal infancy
and i actually prefer reading and writing stories where there is absolutely no intention to confess, but Circumstances end up pushing them together somehow! i'm 100% here for the journey from enemies -> lovers; i rarely read established relationship fic, and with getting-together fic, i usually lose interest once they've actually done the getting together bit. not sure what deep truth that reveals about me, but there you go!

re 4 doors: custard or icecream?

custard :')

Any future drarry plans on the back burner? Something you’d be willing to tease?

omg, so many! after the aforementioned dronarry fic + 4d and marriage contract follow-ups, i have: - a ~30k 8th year fake relationship fic (but the fake relationship is between draco and hermione - harry doesn't know it's fake) that i want to make my next main project - this is gonna be a test of me actually planning a longer thing properly - 50k already written of a little mermaid AU (lmao) that needs another ~10k and a biiig polish (it was my nanowrimo a couple of years ago) - 6k already written of a very silly ~10k pwp that i started literal years ago that i might actually be able to finish now! - an, idk, ~100k mutal pining auror fic that i am going to pour my heart and soul into - i have 20k written already, but this one is gonna be so dear to me, so i want to keep improving a bit as a writer before i get properly stuck in! - like 5 other docs that have ~2-3k written because i get an idea for a single scene, write it, then shy away from doing the rest of the work to make it a fic
so who knows which of them will ever see the light of day!