Fanfic asks
A meme I stole from tumblr. And since I seem to be really curious about this type of thing at the moment, I decided to post it. And I know I don't have a huge amount of LJ friends, but I'm leaving the post open so feel free to direct people here because, like I said, curious.
PS, You don't have to answer all questions if you don't want to.( Read more... )
13. Has a fic ever made you cry? A: Definitely! “Full Circle” like whoa…I couldn’t even get through it a second time…
14. What tropes/elements/scenarios get you the worst? A: Death, probably (though I tend to avoid fics that involve that, at least with regards to characters I care about). Or at least someone losing (or appearing to lose) someone important to them in some way. Or even just happy scenes that are really poignant and sweet.
15. Do you mind when characters cry? A: Not if it makes sense. It can be hard to write though-you don’t reach somebody just by saying “so and so starts to cry.” You have to be more subtle about it than you do with some other expressions of emotion.
16. How do you feel about character death in fic? A: Not good-lol. In general I avoid it, though really I can live with it as long as it’s not the people I care most about (the main pairing, and any other particular favorites) who die.
17. Any characters who you can’t stand to see in pain? A: Kame. ;) Really, I think he’s kind of the only one, even among my other fandoms. Not that I can’t see/write him in emotional pain, but seeing him seriously or permanently physically hurt makes me *really* sad. If the pain is purely emotional, I tend to enjoy it…as long as it’s leading to a point where everything’s okay again.
18. Favorite angst fic? A: Hmm…”Same Deep Water”? I don’t know. I’m not sure what really qualifies as an angst fic. I think of angst as a part of most fics that have a dramatic/serious side, not so much as a genre unto itself.
Porn:
19. Do you read porn or does it make you uncomfortable? A: Yes I read it, and depends on the porn, really. ;)
20. Do you like PWPs? A: Sure, sometimes, if they’re good. I’m more interested in things that have at least a little bit of plot though.
21. How and when did you get introduced to smut fic? Any horror stories? A: Around the same time I got introduced to fanfiction, I think-lol. I remember sifting through old Ranma ½ fanfic websites about ten years ago and seeing various fics marked as “lemons,” and going “what the hell is a ‘lemon’?” ;) I can’t remember what the first one I read was though. I’ve certainly come across a few bad ones (and a few whoa-okay-creepy-close-the-window bad ones) over the years, but it’s all just part of figuring out where the lines are. Actually, when I first started reading Haikuesque’s “9 ½ Weeks,” I was anticipating getting creeped out and running for the hills as soon as the actual sex started, but…well, I think you can guess how that turned out… ;)
22. Biggest turn-ons in fic? A: Kame. ;)
23. Biggest turn-offs in fic? A: People in genuine danger.
24. Do you have any dirty kinks that you’re ashamed of? A: No? I mean, I guess everybody has their own lines when it comes to what’s a kink and what isn’t, but I don’t think I’m ashamed of anything that I like.
27. Rough sex or gentle sex? A: Docchi de mo ii. ;) No, really, it all depends on the situation-but I’m sort of a sucker for romance stories, so probably the latter more than the former.
28. How do you feel about masturbation in fic? A: Fine?
29. How do you feel about non-con and dub-con? A: Ehhh…not great. I won’t say I never read them, but my feeling is usually, “Let’s get past this part to the part where everything turns out to be okay somehow.”
30. Favorite porn fic? A: Come on, say it with me this time…The Same Deep Water As You. ;)
[TBC...]
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AU:
31. Do you read AUs? A: Absolutely! If anything I probably prefer them, though I suppose that depends on the fandom. In RuroKen I usually preferred canon fics. In IY, AUs probably made up the bulk of the fandom… ;)
32. Favorite AU tropes? A: There was a pirate fic fad in IY, years ago-that was quite fun. Though looking back the best one was one that sort of gave the idea a twist by setting it in modern day. And it never got finished. I also enjoy a good Cinderella story (i.e. one character is wealthy and the other one isn’t), though I guess I’m mainly thinking of “Dead Famous” when I say that. And Deep Water, come to think of it…lol.
33. Least favorite AU tropes? A: High school fics. (Another thing that was especially common in IY, moving all the characters from the Sengoku Jidai to a modern day high school. Some of them were okay, but a lot of them were really terrible.)
34. Do you like UAs (universe-alterations, when the main universe and characters are the same but one plot point/decision/outcome is altered)? A: Yes. Although I suppose it depends on what gets changed. There was a large sub-fandom in the IY fandom in which people would use devices like this to pair Kagome with Inuyasha’s brother instead of Inuyasha. I did *not* like that. ;)
35. Do you like high school and college AUs? A: Well, we’ve already established I’m not wild about HS fics-but I like the college setting. I don’t feel like I’ve read very many of those.
36. Do you like crossovers? If so, favorite crossover? A: Only if I know both fandoms being crossed, and if they’re done well-and I can’t think of any that meet that qualification off the top of my head. A lot of crossovers seem to spend too much time on the characters explaining their own canon universes to each other, which gets boring very quickly…
37. How do you feel about parent!fics/lovechildren? How about mpreg? A: If “parent!fics” just means fics in which the characters have children, then fine. If it means fics about characters getting pregnant and having/raising children then…it depends. I’ve read some good ones (Ooh, “The Lucky Ones”! I forgot…another IY classic…), but a lot of them are kind of obnoxious. And I’m not so interested in children as a topic, so unless the fic is mostly focused on the adults in the room and the realities of what having children means, I probably won’t care for it. As for mpreg-well, never say never…but I can’t really imagine myself reading and enjoying an mpreg story that wasn’t just massive crack… ;)
38. How do you feel about genderbending? De-aging? Animalizing? A: Neutral, I guess. It would depend on what the rest of the story was about.
39. Favorite AU fic? A: I think you can probably guess what I’m going to say… ;) (Although in addition to Same Deep Water, I would also list Dead Famous from IY-that one held my all-time-favorite-fanfic crown for nearly a decade until Same Deep Water came along…)
Fluff:
40. Do you like fluff? A: YES! I adore fluff. But, you know…good fluff. Not cotton candy material…
41. Favorite fluffy tropes? A: …all of them? I have no idea. ;)
42. Least favorite fluffy tropes? A: Nothing comes to mind. Really, I think good fluff is more about how it’s done than what is done.
43. Do you like fluff on its own or in conjunction with other elements (angst, sex, etc.)? A: Yes. ;)
44. How fluffy is too fluffy? A: No such thing. If it’s good fluff, you can’t have too much of it. And what makes it good is all about the writing. Basically, I find you can get away with pretty much anything as long as you have a good grip on who the characters are and how they respond to things, and you find ways to be clever and undercut the more ridiculous bits with sarcasm and self-deprecation. As long as you don’t take anything too seriously, you can’t go overboard on the fluff.
45. Favorite fluff fic? A: I’m not even going to answer this one. If you don’t know by now, you haven’t been paying attention…
(Whew! Alright, that was fun...hope I didn't crash your LJ with all the rambling... ;)
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I'm really interested in all things fic at the moment. Reading and writing. I love talking (or writing I guess) about it or just reading what others say and discus. (you can even ask Haikuesque - I ended up asking them a whole heap of questions not so long ago XD) And sometimes I just look at a fic and go 'how did you do that?', 'how did you come up with that?', 'how did you make me feel like this?' And then I just sit and weep in awe.
This list was stolen but I was thinking about writing my own set of questions. More based on the writing process and the whys of things. I really like hearing what others like/dislike, their thoughts on different topics, how they work, etc. For example, today and yesterday I was writing on till receipt and napkins. It's literally been years since I've written anything with paper and pen. I started wondering if people did drafts/notes/etc on paper then typed things up. Which led to how many people draft? And so on and so on. But I never did it because I end up with a whole bunch more questions when I hear people answers to the original questions and I'd end up being incredibly annoying. So basically, that was my long winded way of saying it's not possible to write too much here :)
Honestly, JE is my first and only fandom so I'm not familiar with the ones you mentioned. I've never read manga (except some FruitsBaskets years ago). I have seen the Rurouni Kenshin film with Sato Takeru but I'm sure that hardly counts. And then of course there's Akame. I have a little experience with that ;)
I've never read the JE fleet series but might give it a go one day.
It's impressive that SDW was your second Akame fic considering how long it is and that you were probably new to the fandom then? I recently started reading it too. I'm only up to chapter 11. Its taking me ages to get through because when I read fic (especially those I'm anticipating/know will be good) I like to make sure I have the time to read the whole thing/chapter without any interruptions/distractions. (Which is also why I haven't gotten back to reading+commenting on Trying New Things yet). I'm really liking SDW so far. There's just so much to love about it.
I understand the feeling in regards to WIP. Fortunately, though I've read some fics that never got finished, I've never been that attached to them. I did tend to read more multichapters these days then I did before. I always tell myself I won't post anything until it's finished and then I do anyway because I'd hate for a fic to go unfinished.
What is the blanket scenario? I have no idea.
you don’t reach somebody just by saying “so and so starts to cry.” You have to be more subtle about it than you do with some other expressions of emotion.
And now I'm full of questions about how do you convey that emotion? What do you think would make it work well? Some techniques that have made you cry (used in Full circle maybe) How do you reach people? Cause seriously, I have no idea.
I'm not sure if I should ask what 'lemons' means or not :/ I've never read 9 1/2 weeks. SDW is the first and only fic of theirs I've read. Which seems a little weird :/ but I'll probably go back for more once I've worked through SDW.
Biggest turn-ons in fic? A: Kame. ;) Nice answer
I never realised it before, but it seems a lot of people don't like High School fics. I've never read one, but I can see why college fics would have more appeal than High School.
I'm suddenly realising my fic reading must be quiet limited. I've never read an m-preg (and doubt I ever will), crossover, parent!fic (though, in a similar way to you, I'm not completely opposed to it, just haven't happened to read one), genderbending, de-ageing or animalizing fic.
In your opinion, what would count as cotton candy material? (see how answers to the questions lead to more questions?)
Favorite fluff fic? A: I’m not even going to answer this one. If you don’t know by now, you haven’t been paying attention… I...feel like the answer here is SDW. But, but, that's not fluff! At least, not the bits I've read. So, Dead Famous??
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Well, in that case… ;)
Just FYI, you could never annoy me with questions about writing. Or if you managed it, you would be the first. I’m pretty sure it’s humanly impossible. I love talking/thinking/writing about writing. Hence the following… ;)
“For example, today and yesterday I was writing on till receipt and napkins. It's literally been years since I've written anything with paper and pen. I started wondering if people did drafts/notes/etc on paper then typed things up. Which led to how many people draft?”
Lol-I know what you mean about not writing anything with pen and paper. It scares me how quickly my hand cramps up when I try to write more than a paragraph or two by hand these days. Even my grocery lists are usually on the computer, just because my keyboard is almost always closer at hand than a pen and paper (and I can just email stuff to my phone with a couple of mouseclicks, after all…). When I first started writing back in high school I did a lot of it by hand (partly because I really couldn’t type-I learned to type out of sheer repetition as I started to do more and more fiction writing). I have fond memories of writing my very first fanfic sitting in bed in the evenings with a spiral-bound notebook and a mechanical pencil, feeling scandalous and secret. The fic itself was hideous (it’s still posted on my ff.net profile-I didn’t have the heart to take it down, but I can’t stand to read further than the first paragraph of it these days…), but it was the start of several steep learning curves (typing, writing, using the internet) that have taken me a long way since then. I continued to write notes and scraps of scenes in spiral notebooks for a few years after that, while I was still in school (sometimes in a dedicated notebook, sometimes just in whatever class notebook was handy)-but these days pretty much everything is on the computer. The notes themselves haven’t really changed much-miscellaneous ideas, titles, scraps of scenes-but they’re all in Word docs that get dumped into project folders for later use instead of on random pages of a notebook. I do still keep a notebook by my bed though, just so I can write down any midnight inspirations without actually getting out of bed. I started doing that a couple of years ago, and it’s been a huge help-no lost ideas, and no lying awake wondering if a certain idea is worth getting up to notate it somewhere. I just turn on the light, write it down, and forget about it until morning.
When I get to the actual first-draft stage (turning random notes into scenes and chapters and full-length stories), that’s its own process. Usually involving a master Word doc (and Word’s nifty navigation pane/heading features to make chapter markers) and a few random side docs where some scenes get written/cobbled together. And if it’s a long or particularly complicated story, often a detailed outline. Which changes as I go along, but at least it gives me some idea of where I’m headed.
“I have seen the Rurouni Kenshin film with Sato Takeru but I'm sure that hardly counts.”
Actually, the RuroKen film with Takeru Sato was how I crossed over from anime/manga fandoms into dramas (and eventually KAT-TUN). As a fan of the original manga, I thought it was excellent-though I’m looking forward even more to the two-part sequel coming out next summer, because that’s where the plot really gets going. (And I’m still desperately crossing my fingers that they’ll make at least one movie after that-because the third and final arc of the series is easily the best, and I’m dying to see Takeru Sato play it out… ;) So, yeah-it’s not identical to the manga, of course, but it’s a pretty darn good adaptation. And it led me to dramas, which lead me to Kame, which lead me to Akame-so I shall be forever indebted to it for reasons that really have nothing to do with Kenshin… ;)
[TBC...]
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You should-it’s great fun. Crack-ish, but also sweet, and really cleverly written (Notaverse’s stuff is full of inside-JE-fandom-jokes-half of which I don’t get until I run across the references somewhere else, and then I go, “Oh, that’s what that was about…”). I also had a major Star Trek phase when I was a teenager, so I enjoy it for the Trek-spoofing too… ;)
“It's impressive that SDW was your second Akame fic considering how long it is and that you were probably new to the fandom then?”
I was very new to the fandom then-9 ½ Weeks was my first Akame fic, and like I say, when I started reading that I really thought the slash would freak me out (not to mention the real-people-fic thing, which I had always thought was a squick for me. Apparently I was wrong… ;). As it turned out, it took a little getting used to-but the story itself was so interesting that it just sort of slipped past “weird” and into “good” before I’d even realized it. As much as I enjoyed 9 ½ Weeks, I still thought it would be a one-time thing-but then I read some comment somewhere that made SDW sound tempting too, and since I trusted Haikuesque’s writing by then I figured maybe I’d try just one more. Best. Decision. Ever. ;)
SDW was the story that made me fall in love with Akame. If you’re only on chapter 11, you haven’t really gotten to the good stuff yet. (Not that there isn’t good stuff in the early chapters too, but it’s…different. You’ll see what I mean.) I actually struggled a bit with some of the early material, and there were a couple of places (which you probably also haven’t reached yet…) where I might have given up if it had been my first Akame fic instead of my second-but I’m really glad I didn’t. It starts to get really good about a third of the way through. When you finish it, let me know-we can flail together. I’ll probably be reading it a third or fourth time by then anyway… ;)
(Speaking of being longwinded, that’s how I first got in touch with Solo and Jo-I sent them a massively long and gushing email right after I finished SDW, telling them how much I loved it and blaming them for addicting me to a new fandom…lol… ;)
“I always tell myself I won't post anything until it's finished and then I do anyway because I'd hate for a fic to go unfinished.”
Lol-yeah, I have that habit too. ;) I’ve only managed to actually finish multichapters before I start posting a couple of times (including the Akame story I’m posting right now). My previous pattern has been sort of post-three-chapters, year-of-silence, post-three-more. (Actually, I still have a half-finished RuroKen fic languishing on my ff.net account, which I started in the spring…before I met Akame. I’ll finish it someday… ;) I do generally finish everything eventually though. Just sometimes takes me a few years.
“What is the blanket scenario? I have no idea.”
The blanket scenario is this sort of general plot idea in which two characters find themselves trapped in a cabin in the woods in bad weather with only one blanket to share between them. People take it various directions from there, though probably the most common progression is the obvious: Someone is sick/injured, they both take off their wet clothes and huddle for warmth, and they end up having sex. I think it started as some kind of writing challenge or prompt (in the RuroKen fandom, I think), but it eventually became sort of a running joke and/or element included in other contests or larger fics. If it really hasn’t made it to the Akame fandom, I might just have to play Typhoid Mary and introduce it…hmmm… ;)
[TBC...]
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Lol-it’s a good question. ;) And there are probably a lot of different ways to go about it, many of which I haven’t figured out myself yet-but I think in general my theory is to focus less on the fact that character X is crying, and more on why that person is crying. Because there has to be something to trigger it, and it’s the trigger that’s going to affect the audience (assuming they care about and empathize with character X, which is something that you build in over the course of the story), not the actual tears of the character. Also, I tend to fall back on some of the things I learned when I was studying acting. For instance, generally when a person cries, they’re not trying to cry-they’re trying not to cry. Crying is an emotional response to a stressful situation, but it’s not generally conducive to actually resolving the situation-if anything it’s a hindrance. And a character wallowing in tears is much less interesting than one who is trying to hide them, or hold them back, or swipe them away and keep trying to accomplish what they’re actually trying to accomplish.
One of the most effective scenes in Full Circle is the opening scene, in which the female of the series OTP is (apparently) dying in the arms of the man she loves, and he’s furiously trying to save her even though it’s clearly impossible. He cries (and that’s poignant in itself, because he’s not a character who cries easily at all), but he doesn’t wallow-he keeps fighting, raging against the dying of the light. The futility of his determination (especially since he’s a character who has a history of just bashing away at things relentlessly until he finally succeeds) is heartbreaking. It’s totally in character, and that’s what makes it hit home.
“I'm not sure if I should ask what 'lemons' means or not :/”
Lol-is “lemon” an anime/manga-fandom-only thing too? I never realized that. A lemon just means a sex scene. I have no idea where the term originally came from, but at some point it also evolved the corollary terms “lime” (a milder sex-ish scene) and “citrus” (an umbrella term for all things involving sex to a greater or lesser degree)…
“I've never read 9 1/2 weeks. SDW is the first and only fic of theirs I've read. Which seems a little weird :/ but I'll probably go back for more once I've worked through SDW.”
Oh, you should-great fic. Different from SDW (although it does have some things in common with the first third of that story. Sort of. And sort of not…), but still definitely one of my favorites. And it’s shorter, so, you know, not quite as much of a hike… ;)
“…it seems a lot of people don't like High School fics. I've never read one…”
Yeah, I haven’t come across many (if any) of what I would call high school fics in the JE fandom yet. I think they tend to be most common in fandoms populated by a high ratio of actual high schoolers. At least the really horrible ones are. So far I get the feeling that the average age in this fandom is a good ten years higher than the average age in the IY fandom was. (But then, I may partly be extrapolating from the fact that I’m ten years older now than I was when I started reading/writing Inuyasha… ;)
[TBC...holy crap, I'm getting more longwinded...]
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“In your opinion, what would count as cotton candy material?”
Hmm, cotton candy material…well, I guess the answer is just that the characters would be acting silly and sweet in a manner that wasn’t justified by their personalities or tempered by any sense of reality. For example, if Jin brushes Kame’s hair back from his face and says, “Kame, you’re the most beautiful man I’ve ever known,” and Kame says, dead serious, “No, Jin-I’m nowhere near as beautiful as you”-that’s worthy of an eyeroll. But if Jin brushes at his hair and says, “Kame, you’re the most beautiful man I’ve ever known,” and Kame punches him in the shoulder and says, with a grin, “Stop distracting me while I’m driving or I won’t put out tonight”-that’s cute. It’s not necessarily the things they say-people can be mushy and ridiculous sometimes, and they can mean it. But when people do say things that are mushy and ridiculous, unless there’s a really good reason for them to be 100% serious (in which situations I tend to lean toward more straightforward delivery), either they or the people they’re talking to are going to get embarrassed and sarcastic and silly and find ways to soften the mush. Or at least that’s how I usually handle it in my writing. It’s similar to the crying thing-mushy is vulnerable, and the notion that anyone could feel truly vulnerable without also feeling that fight-or-flight instinct to hide or deflect or apologize even a little bit is unrealistic. That flutter of unease in the face of vulnerability is what tells you it actually means something.
Now, that said, sometimes there really are places where you need characters to be sincere and really say things that are hard to say without making jokes-and that’s when fluff gets difficult. It can be really tough to walk that line in a way that feels honest and genuine without being maudlin. When I’m confronted with that, I usually end up overwriting it on the first pass and then sort of stripping it back to what feels right in editing. It’s easier to detect the maudlin and the out of character on a re-read than on a first pass, when you’re caught up in everything. And I freely admit that I don’t always succeed at avoiding the cotton candy trap, especially in more serious scenes.
“ Favorite fluff fic? A: I’m not even going to answer this one. If you don’t know by now, you haven’t been paying attention… I...feel like the answer here is SDW. But, but, that's not fluff! At least, not the bits I've read. So, Dead Famous??”
Lol. Just keep reading. You have so much awesomeness to look forward to… ;)
(P.S. If you want to continue the conversation, but you'd rather do it without me drowning your LJ in massive chain comments, you can email me directly instead if you like. My email address is on my LJ profile... ;)
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