30 Days of Fanfic Meme: Day 3
Day 3 - For each of the fandoms from day two, what were your favorite characters to write?
The Phoenix ... Bennu, obviously. Although I'm often all about a specific relationship between the character on whom I focus and someone else ... usually his/her nemesis. In that regard, most of my stories were about the relationship between Bennu and Preminger who, despite being predator and prey, we both good men who simply viewed the world from opposite sides of the perspective coin. That's always an interesting theme to me --- two men at odds with one another when both of them, in their own way, are right and when both of them are, in their own way, good and moral men --- and it was more the draw for me than Bennu alone.
Judson Scott in general ... actually, it wasn't specific characters with Jud so much as it was the rich potential for snark by playing his characters off one another and/or the respective universes they populated. Because I was interested in both The Phoenix and V as shows themselves, I was probably more prone to writing Bennu or Lt. James than any of his other characters, but a great deal of my writing in this fandom was humor-based, and much of it was actually Judson-based, too. So if you can count Judson as a "character" (and yes, trust me, you can), then I suppose my answer would be Judson himself.
V: The Series ... Ham Tyler. Hands down. And most of my Ham Tyler work included Mike Donovan as well ... the partnership between 2 such dramatically different men being the main draw of the series for me. Although, while I don't think I ever wrote a single (non-Jud-fandom) V story that didn't include Ham as a primary focus for the story, I spent a great deal of time crossing V over with all the other shows I loved and watched. At that time, my greatest joy in writing fanfic was imagining how the characters I loved in other universes would respond if they were part of a real world that was going through the alien invasion that formed the foundation of V. I've found resistance movements and rebellions are always a source of writing inspiration for me, so the idea of introducing fish-out-of-water characters from other shows to the established resistance movement headed by Ham & Mike so I could explore what would ensue? If I had a "theme" in my V fanfic, it was that much more than Ham Tyler ... Ham Tyler simply being the star of every story by the end credits because, in case you haven't noticed, I kinda have a "type" and dangerous, misunderstood (or mis-perceived) jackasses with a mean sense of humor and an inflexible sense of honor is it.
TJ Hooker ... Jim Corrigan. I've loved Jimmy Darren since Diamondhead and often insert him into stories just for the hell of it. Crossing fanfic with TJ Hooker let me not only play with Jimmy, but also play with cop mentality, which I love. Don't think any of the TJ Hooker stories I wrote even bothered to mention Hooker, Romano or Sheridan in anything other than passing.
Alias Smith and Jones ... I loved both characters equally. Again, the partnership between seeming opposites being the draw for me. I've never written slash in any universe, probably because (beyond my that's-not-canon issues) the dynamics of male FRIENDSHIP is so fascinating to me I don't want to muddy the waters by involving sex. An overwhelming majority of fandoms I've written for feature a strong partnership between seeming polar opposites, and that relationship is what I write about. Most of the time, the partnership is between 2 men who are mirror reflections of one another, and what I'm writing about is the event horizon they share that inextricably connects them to one another. Every now and again, a universe gives me multiple relationships to explore, all of them sharing one character in common ... that's usually when I stay in the universe for a long time and write a massive amount of fic based in it. ASJ, however, only gave me one relationship, and I loved both characters equally, and always wrote about their partnership as it was perceived by and/or inteacted with the world around them who always misperceived them as other than they truly are ... another of my primary themes in all my writing, not just in my fanfic.
The Guns of Paradise ... yea, that would be Ethan Cord. Period. Ethan is the archetype of the western heroes I've always loved. I had great fun playing him off the kids, and playing him off his strong gal-friend, and playing him off his wise, NA sage/friend, but I was always writing solely about him. In the novella I wrote, my interest was in putting he and Kid Curry in the same space and watching them find a way to become allys rather than give in to the instinctive urge to destroy any threat to those they love.
Big Valley ... Nick Barkley. But Nick was never much fun without Heath, so I was more prone to writing for both of them the same way I wrote for Ham and Mike. But, like with Ham and Mike, one of them was always the focus for me, and Nick, like Ham and John, is my type.
Lonesome Dove: The Outlaw Years ... Clay Moseby. It is ALWAYS about Clay Moseby. But like Nick and Heath in Big Valley, Clay isn't really Clay unless you can bounce him off Newt. So the dangerously antagonistic relationship between Clay and Newt was virtually always my focus, but the character on which I was solely focuses was always and ever, Clay.
Voyagers! ... Phineas Bogg. I loved Jon-Erik Hexum madly, and his rare synergy of charm, masculinity and self-depreciating humor was an irresistible fanfic prompt for me, even when I was young.
Rat Patrol ... This was one where relationships didn't play for me. While I wrote the team as a whole, my sole interest was in Sam Troy, and I often split him off from the team to explore his adventures as a lone wolf behind enemy lines. On the SHOW, I loved his interactions Col. Dietrich beyond counting, but the show always handled them so perfectly I never really had any desire to fanfic them, so when I turned to fanfic, it was almost always Troy out on his own.
Man from U.N.C.L.E. ... Illya. I actually only wrote on novella in this universe, and didn't particularly care for this show. But I was always a bit fascinated by Illya, and I wanted to try a reboot of a specific episode of ISpy into another universe, so I suppose that novel was more of a writing exercise for me than any desire to fanfic MfU.
Man from Atlantis ... why, Mark Harris, of course.
The Equalizer ... Mickey Kostmeyer. I loved Mickey with all my heart. He is the reason I watched the show. I often threw Mickey into other fanfic stories without actually crossing them into Equalizer territory. But the only true Equalizer story I wrote was a novella that was solely Micky-focused, with quick flybys by Robert, Scott and Control. And a special cameo by a pre-gold-shield Lee Scanlon from Medium ... something I didn't know at the time, as Lee Scanlon didn't yet exist anywhere except in my head and David Cubitt's future. (BTW, I will eventually finish the SPN/Medium crossover novel I have 9/10ths done on my laptop. *g*)
Highlander ... Duncan McLeod, with a healthy side dish of Joe Dawson.
The Crow: Stairway to Heaven ... The relationship between Eric Draven & Det. Albrecht
SG-1 ... Daniel Jackson
Quantum Leap ... Sam
Star Trek (TOS) ... Kirk
Star Trek: The Next Generation ... Commander William T. Riker. I lived in this universe so long because I had an assload of stories to tell about Riker, and because his relationship with Picard (whom I general detest) and Troi (of whom I am also not particularly fond) always fascinated me. So I spent a great deal of time writing 3 characters who, in the show, were NOT characters I liked. But in my fanfic, those 3 BECAME characters I loved simply because I spent so much time working to figure out what a man like Will Riker would see in Picard, Troi and Crusher to make him so loyal to them. So I was always writing these 3 as I perceived them in canon, but through the filter of RIKER'S perspective on them ... something which was an interesting challenge in terms of writing, to be sure. And it always surprises me now, when I go back and watch TNG, to find I don't really care for better than half the series characters, because I love all of them in fanfic ... with the possible exception of Data (though I love Lore). In addition to all that, there's also the fact that I wrote SO much TNG fic, and there was SUCH an extreme limit on the number of OCs you could introduce as support personnel characters, that I ended up creating my own crew of OCs to become ongoing actors in all my stories. So by the time I finished with TNG, I had an entire secondary cast of my own creation, all of whom I loved madly, and many of whom my regular readers often mistook as characters created by the series when, in fact, they were my solutions to having to create a new plethora of security grunts for each new story when most of the ones I created for any given story actually managed to survive it. And I also spent so much time in that universe that I eventually wrote 2 novellas of a future verse with a combination of OCs and canon-characters ... all of those things being huge long-term fanficcing benefits for me, both as a writer and as a reader of my own stories (which yes, I do, and any fanficcer who tells you otherwise is LYING).
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine ... Sisko.
Star Trek: Voyager ... Chakotay. Always, always Chakotay. More than any character except perhaps John Winchester, I always have, and always will, love Chakotay. MY (and Beltran's) Chakotay, though, not the travesty they gutted so badly post S4 that I finally quit watching the show because watching Chak so betrayed was more than my little heart could handle. And again, I spent so much time in this universe because there were several fascinating relationships, all of them hinging on Chak, that I loved writing about. The partnership between Chak and Janeway. The brothers-in-arms dynamic between Chak and B'Ela. The antagonist relationship between Chak and Tuvok, And most especially the fantabulously rich, complex dynamic between Chak and Paris, particularly after Paris and B'Ela got together. And also, there were the themes of the Maquis and Chak's futurized NA backstory to keep me hip-deep in fanficcing the universe long after watching the show had become a chore rather than a joy.
Supernatural ... um, I don't know. Is there one character on SPN that I write about more than the others? If there is, I don't see it myself.
Were it not for John Winchester, period, I would have never stayed in SPN once Shiban and Hatem left. And I certainly would not have stayed once Kim passed on. But John Winchester, as portrayed by Jeffrey Dean Morgan --- and this is important, because virtually everything I love about John was in Jeff's play of him, not in the scripted portrayal of him --- bonded me so deeply with the futures of Sam and Dean and the construct of the SPN universe itself that I will probably never break free, even now that the show is treading on Voyager territory every other week for me. Yes, I adore Dean and Sam and Bobby. And Ellen and Pastor Jim and a few other characters. But for me, it is all about the lynchpin of John. And the reason I've stayed as long as I have --- other than JD managing to FINALLY give me the character I've been looking for all my fanfic life to write about --- is primarly the relationship between adult John and adult Dean, the relationships between weeDean and wee Sam and John, and the relationship between Bobby and John ... and the one I created between John and Jim, which was never part of the series for them, but which has always been part of the series for me.
But no matter how you slice it --- and I suspect anyone reading this already knows this --- I am of John.
Always.