I Approached Your Imitation With Admittedly More Than A Little Trepidation. The Description Said That

I approached your Imitation with admittedly more than a little trepidation. The description said that a clone — Thrawn’s clone — was to be babysat. I skipped the fic several time. What I almost did was bypass the chef-d'oeuvre of you catalogue!

Partially, we have an elaborate what-if had Thrawn not experienced life as he did, but this evaluation would be selling the story far short of the masterpiece that it is. It is also a parallel story of sentience, and the realization that the clone — the “it”, the object owned — is indeed an independent, thinking, breathing individual quite apart from its Prime, Thrawn. Echoes of my all-time favourite episode of Star Trek TNG, The Measure of a Man written by the incomparable Melinda M Snodgrass, are tickling my memory…

We know that Thrawn did indeed have a clone in the EU, and when Mara Jade & Luke encountered that clone (still developing) there was a moral/ethical dilemma regarding his right to live, as independent of Thrawn’s crimes (not visiting the sins of the father, etc) When the same dilemma comes to pass in your fic, we are all delighted in the outcome (I know; I read all 60+ comments) Let’s discuss your point of departure in writing this fic:

We’re you inspired by the initial story of Thrawn’s clone (as mentioned above)?

We learn as much about Thrawn as we do about the clone, which I found pleasantly satisfying. Did you intend to make these revelations from the start?

There is altogether a sensual, bittersweet, and incredibly tender mix in this fic. It is powerful & it leaves an imprint. Do you feel these emotions, yourself, as you are writing?

Please feel free to depart entirely from my queries & discuss the genesis of this story as you will.

I am sure that it is patently obvious that I really liked this fic — as intense & cerebral as it often was (with a bit of kink thrown in to keep us warm) I do appreciate the time and effort it took to write, the pleasure it brought me, and most importantly the time you are giving me as you read this overwrought “Ask”

Thank you for this marvellous ask @beebee-76 that is (as is your wont) full of wonderful questions and generous with beautiful praise! Come follow me below the cut as I get to provide background and detail on this clone-centric story!

I first have to comment on your reveal that the summary of this fic—that the clone was to be babysat—put you off it! I am so glad you read it anyway, and I hope that future readers won’t skip it due to that info. I admit I don’t angst too much about summaries but I clearly didn’t do justice to this fic with that one! 😊 But wow, so happy you've dubbed it my chef-d'oeuvre and I can only wonder if it will remain in that #1 position when you’ve finished exploring my fic mansion 😊 What a glorious compliment. I’m just blushing with this “masterpiece” characterization and absolutely thrilled it inspired such interest and these fabulous comparisons (TNG has so many classic episodes and it’s an honor to be an echo of one!)!

So as to your questions and my “point of departure” when writing Imitation…

I usually start writing with just the idea of one thing I wish to accomplish. More often than not, it’s smut related to a specific pairing (since you read all the comments on this fic, you can see how shocked some of my regular readers were at the ‘no smut’ tag!). In this particular case, it was merely to contribute to the Attack of the Clones collection (hopefully with smut).

I am blessed with two online communities of enablers, one for each of my men, and we all decided to write clone-centric fic for a fun challenge. Thus I intended to write a clone Luke fic and a clone Thrawn fic to satisfy both camps 😊 For years I had been threatening a clone gangbang for Mara, and that one came easy (hahah pun assuredly intended). So my pervy general idea going into this one was to give Pryce a little double team action with Thrawn’s clone joining my evil OTP. You can see it didn’t work out quite like I had hoped hahaha!

I also try to (with all my stories) snug them into canon/Legends as close as possible, so I definitely wanted to use the actual existence of Thrawn’s clone in the Hand of Thrawn duology here. Naturally, I decided to set the fic on Nirauan, where we knew our blue stud had a clone in Vision of the Future, and I pulled all the details about the actual room and building/planet where the clone was “grown” from Zahn's book. The difference of course was I had to get Pryce there! But the inspiration from that book pretty much was limited to location and the fact of the clone being a thing in the EU, as well as the Chiss being its intended guardians at the tower. It made sense to me, that Thrawn’s ego would want a clone, so easy enough as a setup right?

You know Mara’s thinking Thrawn must’ve had a nice ass...

You also ask if I intended to make revelations about Thrawn from the start, and the answer is (almost always) to any “did you intend to” “did you plan to” a big loud “NO”.

I wish I could take credit for being smart enough to strategize how to use Thrawn’s clone to teach us about Thrawn himself, but it was accidental! I am the very definition of a pantser and I never outline or plot, I truly let my hands do the typing and follow and discover the story as it comes from fingers to screen, more often than not entirely bypassing my brain. It’s one of my favorite things about writing and of course one of the most frustrating. I can have a very clear idea about what I’m going to achieve with a fic--here it was “Sexy Threesome with Thrawn Clone” and obviously this fic is Not That. The characters always do whatever they want and I just witness and channel. It’s a kind of magic, really, and I know not all writers work the same way as I do, but if I had to put any actual planning or work into writing, I don’t think it would be the same kind of fun it is for me.

As for your beautiful question about feeling the emotions of the fic when I write, that answer is most definitely a big loud ‘YES’, but it’s even louder and bigger when I reread. It’s the ultimate test for me to review and read my story after the fact and if I have those butterflies in the stomach, the chest tightness where it’s warranted, the disgust or dismay or whatever the words are trying to convey, then I know it’s working and I’m pleased. In fact, I have a “butterfly” test when writing smut…there has to be at least one (hopefully more) parts where I have a physical reaction (squees are valid! Covering eyes with “omg did I really write that” mortification is also valid!) or I have to go back and work on more details to capture some sort of visceral, deep feeling with words.  I give myself bonus points if the flutter happens even after repeated rereads 🥂

It’s probably another reason I tend to only write fic with happy endings. I don’t want to finish a story and feel disappointed or sad, I want everyone to be sated, pleased, content, or at least have hope. The few fics I have written that have more ambiguous ends sort of haunt me as a result…

I’m so thrilled that you took a chance on a fic you had doubts about and wound up really liking it! As a fanfic writer, it’s the most rewarding thing in the world to not just have people read my stories, but know that they inspire thought after the fact, that you want to know more about it, the characters, the process, any of that is just warm-fuzzy inspiring and wonderful.  I also love knowing that my story didn’t disappoint, despite your misgivings, and I hope that my “Works” page never does!  Thank you for being such a fabulous, engaged reader.  Please have a Thrawn gif in thanks for this opportunity to gush at you this evening!