Igenlode Wordsmith

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Fan
Name: Igenlode Wordsmith
Alias(es): Igenlode
Type: fanwriter, meta writer, reviewer, translator, artist, moderator
Fandoms: Phantom of the Opera, Love Never Dies, Harry Potter, Pirates of the Caribbean, Blake's 7, Crimson Peak, Frozen, rarelit
Communities:
Other:
URL: on Fanfiction.net, on AO3, on Wattpad, old Fanfiction.net account, Dreamwidth blog, personal website, Deviantart
Click here for related articles on Fanlore.

Igenlode Wordsmith is a writer of fanfiction and original fiction who has been active in multiple fandoms from the late 1990s to this day (2020). Most of Igenlode's works are gen, sometimes with background het, except for the Phantom of the Opera and Love Never Dies stories that feature romance more prominently.

Unusually for the Phantom of the Opera fandom, this author is a fan of Raoul de Chagny and Raoul/Christine pairing.

From the Fannish Autobiography

My name is Igenlode -- it's three syllables, "Igen-" as in eigenvector (for the mathematically-minded among you -- otherwise, it's the "ai" diphthong followed by a hard "g") and "-lode" as in "motherlode", and stressed as the latter. No, it doesn't mean anything; it's just a name...

I originally discovered fanfiction in the late 1990s and had a number of stories published in "Blake's 7" zine format. (In actual print, that is, which we actually had to pay to buy...) What I was looking for at the time was 'further adventures' of the characters, in the spirit of the commercial "Star Trek" or "Doctor Who" novels, so I was rather taken aback to discover that fanfic consisted largely of emotional rehashes of the characters' onscreen relationships: however, I learned that I had a knack for writing convincing 'darkfic' in which the characters suffer betrayals, terrible mistakes and irreconcilable clashes of loyalty, and that in the world of "Blake's 7" this sort of thing fitted right in with canon! (I've always had something of a canon obsession; one good thing about the final episode of the series having been broadcast long before I ever encountered it was that at least canon couldn't change retrospectively under you, as would happen to my later fiction...)

My first online fandom took place courtesy of the IMDb discussion boards, where I became involved after the release of the first "Pirates of the Caribbean" film: as a fan of oldfashioned adventure stories I was extremely excited to experience a real riproaring swashbuckler again, although typically it was the conflicts of loyalty within the film that sparked off my writing instincts, and the character of Norrington with whom I actually identified the most. It was at this point that I discovered the existence of fanfiction.net: my original account (to which I have lost the password) with the stories attached to it is still located at http://www.fanfiction.net/u/701934/Igenlode, and features my first attempt at a consciously AU fiction ("Live for Me", exploring the aftermath of Jack Sparrow's execution). "A Fine Woman", never intended as AU but thoroughly invalidated by the film's sequel, set up a confrontation between Norrington and a happily-married Elizabeth which attempted to be fair to both sides: it's very much a 'classic' Igenlode fiction and one of my most successful attempts at handling my favourite themes of loyalty and unrequited affections. "Seldom What They Seem" was my attempt at writing a swashbuckling Caribbean romp of my own, with a certain amount of input from Sid Meier's 8-bit "Pirates!" game: sadly it was never quite as good as the angst-ridden character pieces.

My other online fandom was the "Harry Potter" community on Usenet ('newsgroups' -- remember those?), where we would analyse each book in minute detail as it came out and speculate endlessly on the motives of the characters and Whether Snape Was Evil: I was always on the not-evil side (and was of course ultimately proved correct!) but got frustrated by authors' attempts to write a fluffy, redeemed Snape. The appeal of the character, to me, lay in his dark side, with which my own misanthropic tendencies could fully identify, and I wrote "Water-horse" in an attempt to create a Snape who was both consistent with canon (i.e. deeply unpleasant) and yet an understandable protagonist. "Through Older Eyes" was my response to the infamous events of the Astronomy Tower, which really got remarkably close to the final 'truth' :-)

With the publication of the final Harry Potter novel, the old discussions on Usenet and at the Sugar Quill site (where I was for a time an official beta-reader) died away, and I ended up inspired by the love-triangle in a silent gangster film, "The Way of the Strong" -- producing possibly some of the most obscure fanfic ever conceived (and archived only in email...)

After a long break I was advised in the spring of 2013 to return to writing -- or at least to uploading my considerable fiction backlog -- in the hopes of improving my frame of mind. I was very sceptical about this... but apparently it has worked. At any rate, I ended up writing five new stories in the course of that year and in consequence have felt much more buoyant (the same, alas, cannot be said for my characters, who are as darkly tormented as ever!)

My most recent fandom is an unexpected encounter with "The Phantom of the Opera", sparked off by a freebie newspaper cover disc which included five tracks each from Lloyd Webber's "Phantom" and "Love Never Dies". And, looking at my fiction output, it seems to be about time I 'came clean'... apparently so far as the "Phantom" fandom goes, I'm a Defender of Raoul. A disconcertingly rare phenomenon, I discover, but I don't seem to be inspired to write anything else.[1]

Tropes in Igenlode's Stories

In the humorous drinking game, or, rather "a strictly non-alcoholic observation test" Igenlode identifies the following tropes:

  • characters getting "gratuitously injured"
  • character death, including major character death
  • a character "commits an act of gratuitous non-swearing"
  • unrequited love
  • characters having accents
  • historical references
  • characters sharing telepathic links
  • flashbacks, including large parts of the text being narrated in flashback
  • referring to characters by more than one name
  • characters being described as unattractive
  • characters having an unsavoury past or behaving in a deliberately unpleasant manner
  • the use of multiple narrators

One of the hallmarks of Igenlode's more recent writing is Love Never Dies Canon Divergence AUs. Many of those are fix it fics in which Raoul and Christine mend their relationship.

Works

Fanfiction

Phantom of the Opera

Stories based on the book:

  • Count Philippe Takes a Hand - If the Viscount isn't prepared to set his relationship with Christine Daaé on a more appropriate footing, then the Count will just have to do it for him... Much embarrassment ensues.
  • Christmas as it ought not to be - Raoul had never enjoyed Christmas very much.

Stories based on the musical:

Stories based on the movie:

Love Never Dies

Blake's 7

  • Blue Remembered Hills - "Blake and Gan find themselves trapped in an unfolding space opera on the planet Newparis, where the mysterious masked genius known as the Ghost takes an all too personal interest in a talented young girl...". Crossover with Phantom of the Opera (the Leroux novel).
  • Half a Savage - Pre-canon story about characters from the Horizon episode.

Pirates of the Caribbean

  • Live For Me - Jack Sparrow is dead, by the hangman's rope. Elizabeth has to marry her Commodore. And Will Turner's life tastes of ashes. All that remains is a dull hatred for Norrington and the aching question of Jack's last, cryptic advice...
  • A Fine Woman - When an old and valued servant gets herself in trouble, Elizabeth Turner encounters Norrington again. But six months of marriage turn out to cast a fresh light on events for both of them.

Other Fandoms

Meta

Fanart

Websites

  • The Ivory Tower, Igenlode's personal website. Includes fiction, illustrations, reviews and other things
  • Rescue Raoul! - a Fanfiction.net community "dedicated to the best of the stories that feature Raoul de Chagny. Raoul-friendly fiction that rescues our favourite Vicomte from bashing and ridicule (although not always from tragedy...) Whether in a speaking or non-speaking role, in love or in despair or even occasionally dead, he's always in character - and true to Christine."

References

  1. ^ the current profile on Fanfiction.net
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