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![]() Author has written 17 stories for Avatar: Last Airbender, Lord of the Rings, Sherlock, Doctor Who, and A song of Ice and Fire. 09/18/2023 - I updated AtD at last! About the Author: Greetings, lords and ladies, wizards, detectives, Elves and Men and Hobbits! You may call me Gauchadeutsche, Tasarien of Caras Galadhon, or Sarra Manderly, the latter two being my nicknames on Archive of Our Own, where I also post my stories from the sunny Arizona desert. My Inspirations: A girl can't recommend Tamora Pierce often enough. I wasn't the kind of kid who needed Harry Potter to get into reading; I've always been a bookworm. I used to go to the public library once a week, take a whole stack of YA novels, read them all, and return the next week for more. But I barely remember most of them. Tammy's books stayed with me for good, and they continue to inspire me to this day. Lady Knight Keladry of Mindelan and little wizard-in-training Arram Draper are my Eastern Lands spirit animals. I can't neglect JK Rowling's Harry Potter entirely, because it is what got me into fanfiction in the first place. But I won't deny that I was unhappy with the last two books, and every new addition to the canon (see: Cursed Child, Fantastic Beasts I, II, and III and those awful after-the-fact tweets) makes me more disillusioned with this universe. Obviously, my biggest inspiration is going to be the father of modern fantasy, J.R.R. Tolkien. I'm the kind of writer who will agonize over background details that my readers will barely notice, that might not make it into the final product at all, but the whole universe has to be built (or at least be well into construction) before I can put characters in it. You can imagine how the Tolkienverse, with its dozens of books of extra material, appeals to my heart of hearts. I love the details flowing through the LOTR trilogy and enriching it. I've read The Silmarillion enough times that the spine is falling apart, and you can bet I have The Children of Hurin, the Book of Lost Tales, and all that good stuff on my shelf. Peter Jackson's LOTR trilogy is a masterpiece and I love it (especially the extended editions), but in my writing, I will always default to book-canon. Avatar: the Last Airbender is the greatest cartoon ever. If I ever want to write a redemption arc, I will attempt to make it like Zuko's, because if you must copy, copy from the best! Currently Working On: Aemon the Dragonwolf, Part IV: Rise and Fall. My muse ripped me out of Middle-Earth and into Westeros (an odd occurrence, considering I've never watched the show or read the books), but here I am, writing a novel-length fanfic for a super-long, complicated, unfinished series that I've never read in full. And yes, despite the long hiatus, I am still working on it! Next up will be Aemon the Dragonwolf Part V: The Crown of Winter. My Middle-Earth stories will be just as long, if I ever get back to them! I've had one percolating in my head for years about Aragorn in his ranger days, and I'm cringing at how I left The Fading unfinished. I have no excuse. |