With apologies to people I've already whined about my day to

[gabby_silang]

In lieu of whining about my bad day: a meme that everyone is doing.

Ask me a fandom-related question in the comments. This can be fandom specific, general, or about fandom/lj stuff/fic writing/etc. in general. Questions can be as wacky as you want. Ask me about tv shows, characters, fanfic in general, fandom issues/meta, anything about any of my

Comments

[furius]

Because I'm very nosy....

But do you plan out your fics before writing them?

Also, what is the shape of Dean's soul that Castiel sees? Is it even humanoid? Riot of colours? Flash/aura of light?

[gabby_silang]

Oh, man. It...varies from fic to fic. They come in two kinds, really: the one that I know everything about and the one I know the basic theme of. The former tend to be shorter. Things like The devil riding your back and Primitive. They're very contained ideas and I go into it knowing the totality of what I want to do with them. From there it's just a matter of expressing it correctly.

The latter, hm. I usually start with anything by knowing a either theme I want to play with, or an aspect of a character I want to really hone in on and find a total-as-possible honesty for. I sort of start there and go. To be honest, I can't sustain a story for very long without figuring out the end I'm reaching for, though, so usually quite soon after beginning, a day or two, I have a basic structure to shoot for.

SELF-INDULGENT SIDE-NOTE: Elysium was very odd for me, because I wrote it out of order and then pieced it together. It wasn't until I'd written the ending scene, a couple days before finishing, that I knew where it ended

[ferricent]

What did Sam see Dean speaking to in the boathouse that one summer when they were kids? Please don't make me aware of my teeth.

Turtles don't have any teeth.

[gabby_silang]

It was a turtle. Maybe it was a tortoise, Sam wasn't clear on the difference. Sam didn't know what sort of turtle either, it just looked like a turtle. Or a tortoise. Its shell was browns in a calico, it was smallish, maybe the size of two fists, and it was on a wooden bench. Dean must have put it up there. Dean was sitting next to it. He wasn't looking at it, he was looking out the window at the dock that crept into Sibley Lake. The turtle was too, or would be if it could see that high up. As it was, it was looking at the wall, its head and neck fully extended out of its shell, its beak shut

Re: Turtles don't have any teeth.

[ferricent]

To play some relevant filters, if I was still on the verge of checking out SPN, beckoned by some mix of canon/fandom, this, THIS:

reciting the Latin exorcism to the tune of the 50 States Song.

could entice me to stay and soak it all in forever. Standing where I am now, though, it's just wonderful.

[destro]

What do you respond to in a work that makes you want to participate in fandom, or create fannish work in? Is it to make up a lack? Expand upon? Or, you know, is that just how you interrogate your own response to the text?

Also, I'm really enjoying this beer right now. It tastes like candy.

[gabby_silang]

Tell me about your beer. What beer is it

[amonitrate]

And then we held hands and ran off into a field of daisies.

AND THEN THE DAISIES WERE FULL OF CLONES.

they bring up all your issues and force you to live with them, to confront them every day

OH GOD IS THAT WHAT'S HAPPENING? Yeah, that's what this is.

[gabby_silang]

THEY ARE ALL THE SAM DAISY. DUN DUN DUNNNN.

AAAHAHA RIGHT?? I heard that line and laughed and then thought for a bit and was like....oh. Oh, God.

[metonomia]

What grabs you more about a show when you're first introduced to it - the canon or the fandom?

Also, do you know the pizza man?

[gabby_silang]

Oh, always the canon. With things that have been around a while and I'm catching up on, I usually consume a critical mass of the canon before even seeking out fandom, for new shows/films/etc , the canon always must produce that impetus to get fannish about it. That's not to say I'm unaware of fandoms I don't know the canons for, and in fact there's a really bizarrely large amount of info I've somehow absorbed by being adjacent to them all though my flist. I've just never (yet) gone from fandom--> canon before.

...but now I'm not sure that's actually what you're asking. Do you mean...wait...I...IT'S 7AM OKAY, FORGIVE ME :\\\

We all know the pizza man. Deep down. Way down low. No, deeper. Yeah. Yeah, that's it.

[metonomia]

LOL that was what I meant!

Because like for me, with Merlin, I read fic first, I looked at fandom first, and if the fandom hadn't been around and lurking on my flist, I wouldn't have gone and watched the show.

But I think it's usually as you described, for most people. There has to be SOMETHING there to create the fandom.

[gabby_silang]

Oh, cool! The closest I've come to this was, um. I read some fic for The OC without every seeing the show. And I still haven't seen it. But some of my favorite fandom writers were writing for it and it was a long, boring summer, okay???

[murron]

If you had three wishes for the second half of SPN's season six, what would you like to see (could be plot or character related)?

Also, are you writing something at the moment :)?

[gabby_silang]

EEEP. Okay, honestly, they are this:

1) Moar Lisa
2) Moar angel politics
3) Cas having friends. Like, more of them.

I'm honestly very, very easy to please. This season seems to be catering to my deepest desires already, giving us things that I didn't even think to ask for and didn't expect the show to do or care about. That's not to say that I expected not to like it, but more I expected the season's priorities to not line up with mine (mine being, generally, TELL ME STUFF ABOUT CAS). As it is, I'm deeply, deeply content. I trust the plot to be interesting and the characters to be themselves. I just ask that they keep on doing what they've been doing.

Yes, I'm that fanI SORT OF AM?? Okay, so I'm poking at two Iron Man WiPs, and also doing prep work for something I aim to make into a DCMB. Or DCBB, depending on how it's looking by sign-up time. It's a futurefic AU, divergent from canon somewhere s5ish. Pre-story, Castiel is forced to abandon Jimmy's body and takes Claire's, then is trapped going mortal. The story itself will be

[murron]

O.O Wow that futurefic AU sounds epic!! I love the idea of Cas trying to create artifical grace! I'm also always intrigued by Cas's vessel switching genders - if Claire's the vessel, does Castiel think of himself/herself as her? Him? This notion of angels not being tied to a biological sex is blissfully gender-troubled.

Heh. @ excitement about the rest of the season, I'm with you all the way! So far I have avoided spoilers and I'm happy to be surprised. I also have a lot of faith in the actors: So far they managed to sell me on a lot of developments I would've rejected otherwise. That said: WHY DID THEY POSTPONE THE NEW EPISODE?!???

[gabby_silang]

My general rule in writing angels has been that they adopt the pronoun of the vessel they're in at the time. So, in this case, Castiel would think of "himself" in the past tense when he wore Jimmy, and "herself" in the present, in Claire. That's what makes the most sense for me, as I'm writing, but I do worry sometimes that it could get weird for the reader :\ Anyway, this all comes from the idea that gender pronouns are a thing they adopt in the same way they deign to speak English, or wear vessels-- when in Rome, you know? It's something more for the benefit of the humans they're communicating with than for any preference of their own.

I think about angel/human gender politics a lot omg.

OMG THIS WEEK IS ALREADY LIKE TORTURE. I miss their little faces on my screen SO MUCH DDDDDDD: