Did you ever believe?

Day 7 – Have you ever had a fic change your opinion of a character?

Oddly enough, no. I mean, I've never written a fic that changed my own opinion of a character - I am pretty passionate in my likes and dislikes. Now, age and wisdom has changed my perspective on characters: (See: Relena from Gundam Wing, pretty much half the cast of Rurouni Kenshin), but that was all in their own canon and no effect on the writing I've done or will do. Generally even if I dislike characters I try not to carry my prejudices through to my writing.

On the reverse side, I have wanted to slap a few characters after writing them, but that's more from a fan side versus a creator side. Misunderstanding and idiocy is what fuels a lot of stories - if characters wouldn't be so stupid and stubborn and prideful and would just talk to each other issues could get worked out easier - but unfortunately that wouldn't make for interesting fic now, would it?

Day 6: When you write, do you prefer writing male of female characters?

Woo, loaded question! Well, maybe only kind of loaded. Anyone who's been reading this journal probably has noticed that ... the majority of the characters I talk about, either in general or as my muses, are male. It's not because I don't like female characters - not at all, I love a lot of female characters - but I can't associate with them in my mind. I can't get in their heads. I don't know what it IS, as I consider myself a straight female, but I have an easier time of associating with male characters.

I have no shame in saying a lot of the male characters I prefer is because damn, I'd hit that, and I'm not interested in women that way even when I find them aesthetically pleasing; but when it comes to writing looks do not matter and headspace does. This is why I'll never be a professional writer, even my original stories focus on male characters as the main despite the fact in one of them the woman is the main character. I just can't seem to write women comfortably.

Also, the few female characters that have wandered in through the musebox don't STAY long. I think they have an off-site muse house because they visit often, (it's no He-Man Woman Hater's club in there, just ask Ed when Winry is over, ha) but they don't stick around.

In conclusion: male, but not because I hate female.

( 30 Days of Fanfic )

Day 5: If you have ever had a character try to push their way into a fic, whether they are your "muse" or not, what did you do about it?

Well ... let them, mostly. That's why Kenshin and Kaoru developed their own subplot in the mashup universe, for instance - a subplot that actually started to turn up IN CANON in bits and pieces - (Dear SPN Writers: STOP STALKING ME. No, really - when my friend's first reaction after an episode is to call me and go 'So, Kripke's still stalking you I see' WE HAVE ISSUES.) - woo, tangent. I never intended to toss RK into my Supernatural AU. Also, random characters who get pissy about showing up DO turn up in cameos. (See: John and Mary Winchester's cameo in my Fullmetal Alchemist bigbang fic.)

In conclusion, I just don't say no to them, they get cameos if the fic isn't in their universe.

( 30 Days of Fanfic )

Day 4: Do you have a "muse" character, that speaks to you more than others, or that tries to push their way in, even when the fic isn't about them? Who are they, and why did that character become your muse?

I have two. I have had two for nigh on seven years now. Other "muses" come and go, they wander through the musebox of my brain at will, but two have become permanent fixtures. The first is Himura Kenshin, and the second is Edward Elric.

Kenshin, he has been my muse almost a decade. He moved in roundabouts 2001, usurped my brainspace from the pilots who had been lounging about. Edward settled in late 2003. There is a long-running joke about the Freudian archetype of the psyche - id, ego, and super-ego. My Id would be Edward, impulsive and lacking in control; short of temper and loud of voice; while Kenshin is the super-ego, constantly at odds with the id, polite and reserved and the quiet diplomat. I know I'm simplifying things immensely, but it works.

It can also work with the fact that Edward and Kenshin are in turns my shoulder-angel and shoulder-devil, and they will occasionally switch roles just to fuck with my head. Yeah, we have that kind of relationship.

I am not as crazy as that sentence makes me sound, I promise. *coughs into hand*

( 30 Days of Fanfic )

Day 3: For each of the fandoms from Day Two, what were your favorite characters to write?

Jeeeeez epic long question prompt is epic and long. I'll trim the list down to current writing fandoms, just because.

Fullmetal Alchemist: This is an easy one; Edward is my favorite to write. He's one of my dedicated muses, he's chewed out enough space in my brain that it will be a decade before I can reclaim it - and given he's settled in for the long haul, it could be longer than that. I find him fascinating and, strangely, a kindred spirit in both good qualities and bad. It's easy to find myself in him and makes it easier for me to write him. I can't usually write a character unless I can really get inside their heads - and for a long time I wouldn't write FMA fanfic because the only person I could "get" was Edward, and I stuck to RPing. But suddenly I can get into Roy Mustang's headspace too - because his personality and attitude is the adult version of Edward.

Supernatural: Really, I don't have a favorite. I have this little secret that Dean and Sam to me are just Ed and Al in vastly different circumstances - and the few Supernatural fanfics I have written occasionally have little knowing typos if I use the wrong name. (Scarily enough, my Supernatural fanfics tend to get reviews from the non-anime watching side of fandom. I kind of want to introduce these people to FMA.)

Rurouni Kenshin: Kenshin, obviously - although it's been a long, long time since I've written a proper samurai fic (FMA AUs nonwithstanding), my Kenshins are either bootleg in nature, or part of a larger AU narrative. (See: shinigami!Kenshin in a random Bleach fic, mashup!Kenshin who exists in the SPN mashup world.)

*looks up at icon*

Mah boys.

( 30 Days of Fanfic )

Day 2: Name the fandoms you've written in, and how much you've written in that fandom, and if you still write in it today.

Well, gee. That's a, um, lot. Currently I write in Fullmetal Alchemist, Supernatural, and Rurouni Kenshin fandoms; or some bastardized mutated AU form. I have written in lots more - Batman: The Animated Series/Batman Beyond, Pokemon, Digimon, the Redwall book series, Cardcaptor Sakura, Gundam Wing, Inuyasha, Wolf's Rain and more besides.

Judging how much I've written for any fandom is just, flat-out impossible. I mean, finished-fic wise I'm kinda light; just recently been populating my AO3 with stuff I've written SINCE I got that; and I'm only (only, hah) at one-hundred something fics, mostly short fics. I've probably written the most for Pokemon, it was Pokemon and Gundam Wing that got me writing AU universes. I had a million of them for Pokemon; they were all based around the original anime, because when I was writing for it Johto was the new thing in town. I had the post-apocalyptic fic that fed off my AU kids fic called Falling Stars, where Pokemon had become freakishly rabid and attacked people and magic had come back into play. There was Starflight, which was a sci-fi AU where inside of traveling city to city prospective Pokemon trainers were gathering crew for starfighters in the form of anthropomorphized Pokemon as alien life forms... and my favorite, Contingency, which was a 'kidnapped-and-trained-as-assassins' AU.

I have this habit of creating AU universes to write fic in but never completing the core story for the universe. I think the AU creation is more fun than the core story - what's the same, what's different, what's off the wall, etc.

Some day I'll sit down and log all the fic I've got written, save to my external HD and word count them all. That will be epic and terrifying, but ... not today. (Mostly because it requires sorting my HUGE FOLDER OF FIC on my hard drive that I've written in the past year, aha.)

( 30 Days of Fanfic )

So, new 30 Day meme. Told y'all I'd do another one, and what better one to work on in November than a writing 30 Day meme.

Day 1: How did you first get into writing fanfic, and what as the first fandom you wrote for? What do you think it was about that fandom that pulled you in?

Ooh, multi-part questions that allow me to ramble at length, A+. I have been writing fanfic for as long as I can remember. Just this past summer my mother unearthed writings scrawled in the first and second grade, my epic chronicles of a Great Pony War where I wrote about my My Little Ponies and magic adventures with them. So I guess, technically then the first fandom I wrote for would be My Little Pony, hahaha.

In reality, though, I would say the first fandom I wrote fic for, specifically and understanding what fanfic was, was for Batman: The Animated Series. Way back in the day, in the late 90's I wrote an incredibly detailed universe set in the animated DCU, with lots of original characters and even fully integrated with the Batman Beyond universe. I was so, so proud of it. It was before I had a LJ, before FF.N so I had nowhere to post it. (Something I'm grateful for now.) Batman: TAS had something that drew me to anime - darker storylines, adult without being gratuitous. I was the age of the characters I wrote about, I felt a fierce sort of camaraderie with them - I never really liked the "adult" characters because as a young teenager there was a full realization of the "us versus them" that the age bracket seems firmly mired in. I wanted nothing more than to race along the rooftops with Robin and Nightwing, kicking bad guys' ass and taking names. It was an imperfect outlet, sure, and my original characters started out as Sues with some basic window dressing. Looking back at them now I can see the wish fulfillment built into the characters, but I did a lot with them that most people who write Sues don't bother with, I thought. The characters grew and changed. Some of them learned from their experiences, dropped out of the game. Others were stupid and paid the price. My favorite "Sue" was cocky and abrasive and no one liked her. She became friends with some of the other characters as she learned to dial it back and grow up.

I sought through fic the friendships I couldn't have in real life - and it became a theme in my fanfiction until I got out of the town I was born in and grew up myself.

Now, it's time to pack it in and work on that NaNo - I have a lot to get through.

Day 30: Favorite Anime Ending Theme

Just like with the openings, I'll put this behind a cut: ( Read more... )

Annnnd that does it for the 30 Days of Anime Meme! Tune in next week when I start a new 30 Days meme! What will it be? WHO KNOWS! Who is driving this thing, anyway? (WHO IS DRIVING? BEAR IS DRIVING!)

( 30 Days of Anime )