FMA Stuff

[evil_little_dog]

Interesting, that Arakawa has said she based the Ishbalan characters more or less on the Ainu of Japan, and their persecution. Watching the History Channel today, I heard a repetitive name come up - Ishbaal, who fought against David

Comments

[crazybeagle]

Xerxes = notorious ancient Persian king
Amestris = his evil, human-sacrificing wife.

[evil_little_dog]

Yup, which is why I thought it was interesting when I kept hearing the name 'Ishbaal' being bandied about on the history program I was listening to. :D

[crazybeagle]

You know, I think I'm now in gay love with Arakawa.
History is sexy.

[evil_little_dog]

Research is, too; I'm fascinated by some of the geeky research she throws into her work.

[crazybeagle]

This is one thing I really like about having just forked out the money for the complete manga volumes, because she points a lot of that out in there, and I had no idea when I was reading the scanlations.
<3

[evil_little_dog]

Yup. The few translated interviews I've found online (from magazines and such) go into that, as well.

[crazybeagle]

Speaking of research- I'm finally, finally getting some time to read the last chunk of "Swept Away." How much research did THAT take?
It reads a lot like the novel "Call It Courage" to me- your integration of the research and cultural information into the narrative is flawless.

[evil_little_dog]

I'm a sponge when it comes to research - I often listen to programs while I'm writing or doing things on my laptop. I can pick up stuff that way pretty easily (hence my comment on Ishbaal, I had on the History Channel; heard the name, and had to do my own research to figure out what was going on).

I actually have a fair background on indigenous peoples in general due to my interests, but for Swept Away, I also checked books out of the library and did a lot of on-line research, too.

Thank you so much for saying that; I figured I was doing info dumps at various points in the story and people would be bored with it. :D

[crazybeagle]

But the thing is, you make all of those facts character-driven. Of course, it works because you've already got the talent for writing well-rounded, incredibly likable and believable OCs, but you start with that and then you surround them with the things that establish and make up their world. It's not boring at all. It's really, really cool.

[evil_little_dog]

*blushes*

I have a lot of original characters running around in my head, though most of them are not related to fanfiction at all. :D I actually have been writing stories since I was around three or four years old; I only got into fanfic when I was in college in the '80's, but usually wrote my original characters anyway (I had an incredibly long Doctor Who series involving two OCs that were rather popular; at least that's what the person who published the zines the stories were published in said). So I came into fanfiction backward, having written my own characters forever, then I dropped out of fandom again until around '99, after writing in a shared world I'd created for some friends to play in, and I've been involved in various fandoms ever since.

Doesn't stop my love for my OCs and their stories. One of these days, I need to work more on them than on FMA. :D