(Aka, B2WM of LiveJournal. Yes, that comes from Boromir II's Warg Mistress; everyone goes through their Suethor phase. Just "Warg" will generally do nicely, though.)

Basically, I write LotR, Discworld, and occasionally Potter, Firefly, or a random other fandom. I've also gotten hooked on Fullmetal Alchemist and Wolf's Rain, so don't be surprised if a lot of my newer fics are based on the manga and anime, respectively. They're crack for the Wargish soul. As to what's happened to Warg in the past several months, what with my already infrequent update schedule taking a nosedive, I refer you to Georgia of The Freelancer Collaboration. And York. And Utah, you fic-killing bluetard. Most of my fic isn't fit for this site, but I'll keep my best here. And "Wargs to Live By," just because it ties all my Lord of the Rings pieces together. My old bio can be found on my livejournal info. If you want to read it or just go bug me there. (At b2wm.livejournal. com/52978.html#cutid1)

My major obsession, if it wasn't obvious, is the extended Hurin clan, especially Boromir, Imrahil, and Denethor. The Den/Fin Files, written for the 50lyricsfanfic challenge on LJ, are a series of loosely connected short stories set in bookverse canon, mostly centering on the relationship of Denethor and Finduilas and their family, of all things. There may be minor references in one fic concerning another, but they can be read independently of one another. All of the Files I've written so far can be found on LJ if you click the Finduilas banner in my userinfo. It may not show up on this page, but I also now have a shiny little D/F icon for all the Files.

TV Tropes will ruin your vocabulary, but it'll also enhance your writing skills. tvtropes. org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HomePage

Member of Critics United. I always sign my reviews, because if I wanted to extensively rant or squee at everyone, I'd just leave it in these lists:

Ten reasons why Warg is squeeing over a fic: (From "need it to read it" to "OMEI this just exploded the super-sweet-freakin'-shiny-mega-special-awesome meter and can't currently review because I'm doing the happy fangirl dance":)

10. The formatting, spelling, and grammar are all flawless. I will read a fic with occasional typos, because everyone makes 'em, but the best writers fix them.

9. The canon cast is in-character. I don't care if the main protagonists from the show/book are front and center or if the original cast barely warrants a side-mention, but what we see of them makes sense for what we know of them and their current situations.

8. The OCs are well-rounded and contribute to the plot instead of hijacking it. Minor roles that stay minor don't have to worry so much, but the more prominent original characters look like people whose stories just didn't come into focus during the original series, but they totally could have been there all along in the background and the 'verse is a little richer for their presence.

7. We get a fresh perspective. I love my Royai-Edwin, Spike Spiegel, Vimesy, Tsume, and Golden Trio as much as the next fangirl, but I also like to see the minor characters get a turn in the spotlight. Buck the trends. Stand out. Take a chance to make a minor character your own hero.

6. New and exciting plots throw me for a loop. Yes, we know what happens in canon. But what about before the events of the canon story? After? What were these people doing when the original author left them alone for five minutes? Awesomeness.

5. We get expansions to the mechanics and cultures of the 'verse. Maybe it's the practical, everyday uses of a spell. Maybe it's a nifty little piece of technology and its impact on how the heroes communicate. It could be a well-researched language, or the details of an environment, or insight into what it takes to accomplish a particular feat of skill. Maybe the way the aliens evolved physiologically makes them appreciate different values. Any way you choose to make the verse more real, I will be all over that like Ax on a Cinnabon.

4. The language has style. Descriptions add to the scene, the subtext is mind-bending with possibilities without making the piece as a whole impossible to understand, the metaphors have wit, beauty, and immediacy, and it's just a pleasure to read. Although I tend to go with short fics when I'm feeling lazy, twenty thousand words counts as a short fic when it reads so smoothly.

3. The PoVs are sharp and strongly in-character to the point where I can hear the characters' voices and could tell who was narrating a chapter even if the name never came up. Not everyone has as distinct a diction as Hagrid, Cheza, and the moles of Redwall, but this author has gone beyond merely getting the characters to being able to put sound to still words. The story sounds like a missing scene from the original piece, and I could even hear Wendsleydale as a distinct muse loud and clear.

2. The overall bittersweetness makes me optimistically cynical. I love a fic that can maintain a mood and pass it on to the readers. Sometimes I'm in the mood for fluff, and there are authors who are really good at sweet and cute and I love 'em for it. Sometimes I'm in the mood for a really dark fic. I know authors who bring the horror and I fear them for their awesomeness. But those who can juxtapose the light and dark and come up with a bittersweet symphony? Congratulations, you win at Machiavellianism.

1. *Warg could not be contacted for further comment; there was merely a high-pitched squeeing noise.*

Warg's top ten pet peeves in published fics - er, tips for beginning writers:

1. Paragraphs are your friends. Make sure each speaker gets a new one.

2. A/Ns belong at the beginning or ending of the fic. They kill suspension of disbelief in the middle. Ditto emoticons and random song lyrics. (Who the crap is singing? Also, do you really need the full lyrics to the latest pop song in there to the point where you violate ToS for copyright? A single line or two can work beautifully, if you really want to start a song on the old inner soundtrack, and that way you're not constantly breaking it up, sprinkling the shattered bits all over your fic, making the Inner Soundtrack skip, and therefore ruining both the song and your story.)

3. "Quotation marks work like this," Warg said. "The final period is replaced with a comma inside the marks if you've got a 'said' synonym for a quote tag. If your speaker is doing something unrelated to speaking during the identifying beat, or the sentence ends with a question mark or exclamation point, (never both; that's what italics are for, and please don't make me have to quote Maskerade about multiple exclamation points,) then stick the final punctuation in there as usual." She paused to demonstrate. "Just remember Rule One and never paragraph incautiously when quoting little bald wrinkly smiling men."

4. Try not to change PoV and tense more often than necessary. Yes, seeing other characters' thoughts can be interesting and present tense makes things exciting, but swapping up too much can give your readers whiplash. Third-person PoV will cover multiple viewpoints without confusing the issue of "I," and present tense is fine if you can keep to the present... at least for the chapter, please.

5. Check your spelling, grammar, and homonyms at least twice, 'cause everyone's prone to typos. FFnet's spellcheck comes in handy, as long as you can tell the difference between "to," (directional,) "too," (also,) and "two," (the number,) "they're," (they are,) "there," (place,) and "their," (belonging to them,) "its" (possessive,) and "it's," (it is,) "you're" (you are,) and "your," (possessive,) "lose," (fail,) and "loose," (not tight,) "heal" (cure) and "heel" (the part of your foot where the pointy part of the shoe goes, or slang for an antagonist,) "throne" (what kings sit on,) and "thrown," (past tense of throw,) "rain," (precipitation,) "rein," (the lead rope on a horse, or referencing the slack in one's metaphorical leash) and "reign," (rule,) "straight" (not crooked or slang for het,) and "strait," (a narrow channel connecting more easily navigated bodies of water, literally or metaphorically, like the band,) "quite," (very,) "quiet" (silent,) and "quit," (stop,) "then" (later,) and "than," (comparative,) and other such homonyms, though it's not as of much help when it comes to preventing unintentional sentence fragments and run-ons... But hey, that's what beta-readers are for.

6. Bold, capslock, underline, and italics are for emphasis only, not any and everyone's normal mode of speech and certainly not for narration. Unless Harry Potter and Edward Elric are having a rage-off with Visser Three while Death of Discworld adds commentary, I DON'T KNOW WHAT WE'RE YELLING ABOUT. It's in FFnet's ToS, people. Speaking of ToS, consider anything that breaks guidelines for non-story or original-work content published as a fic chapter my zeroth pet peeve and that crap reported.

7. Save the character sheet for the RPG. Yes, I like some detail in my stories, but if the plot comes to a screeching halt to describe just how pretty the OFC is, it's a paper-doll infodump. Detail's like spice. Pepper it in and mix well; don't dump a metric buttload of it all on top like salt on my great-grandma's mashed taters. This is Warg's "not caring about the OC's super-special-awesome appearance unless and until it affects the plot" face. I don't mind bits and pieces of detail woven throughout the plot, but description dumps are for making paper dolls, not a story. In the words of Lavernius Tucker, if it doesn't matter, why tell us about it?

8. Mentioning "it's my first story"/"the summary sucks but the fic is good!"/"please RR!" in your summary doesn't incite my interest. (Unless we're including bile fascination.) I would rather see something cliched in the summary than nothing at all. And better yet still if the summary doesn't give away the plot like a spoilerific trailer.

9. If you can't explain a sudden change in canon characterization, plot, rules of the 'verse, and/or relationships in a way that the audience can follow, then just why are you changing it? Same rules for adding a major OC. What does this person add that the canons can't? Respect the canon and respect your characters by giving them their own actions and the freedom to face the consequences. Don't steal all the canon characters' glory and let them get away with it via deus ex machina. If this new guy is really so much better than the people who are known to be the best in their field, then why don't we know about it? Why haven't the known badasses heard of it? How did it get better than them when we know what sort of advantages, sacrifices, and commitments the known tops have made for their skills? If this new character is so important to a major canon character, how'd it never get mentioned in canon? What does it do for the canon cast that they would want to or have to be associated with the new person, as well as why would it want or have to be around them? There are good answers to these questions sometimes, but if you don't show the answers to the readers, we assume it wasn't thought through.

10. When a character is so powerful that no one else matters to the plot, especially if said character is angsty and/or condescending towards others, expect me to hate it just a little bit, at least. Even if your secondary characters don't get as much screentime, they should still have motivations of their own and lives beyond "make the main character look awesome and contribute to hooking up the OTP" that show through whether they're interacting with the leads or not.

I am by no means an expert on fantasy languages, but I'm something of a dabbler. Here are a few of my favorite resources:

LotR:

Orcish (The Black Speech): angelfire. com/ia/orcishnations/orcishphrases.html

Sindarin/Queyna (Real elvish): http://www.fanfiction.net/u/560866/

Anduniac: uib. no/people/hnohf/adunaic.htm

Now we can understand each other a little better, eh, zwiero?