Ficauthormeme!
Author meme tagged by the goodly obabscribbler. Finally something that isn't Baccano!, huh? *grins at the Final Fantasy portion of the flist*
How about a brief introduction for yourself?
Uh, hi? I dwell around as karanguni, I come from a tiny island, I think I've been writing for fandom for a good little while, other than that, I'm just your average average-type. xD
Fabulous! And what got you into fanfiction to begin with?
Uh, this goes back seven years and into scary, painfully young territory. *laughs* If I remember correctly, I fell in love with a Playstation game called Tenchu, and it had this amazing lead female (Ayame) who, for all her badassery, never got enough screentime. Fanfiction was a good way of supplementing it - and now I still wince thinking of what I wrote back then. If we're talking major fandom, it was probably Lord of the Rings, and a few other things here and there until I got onto the anime and videogame bandwagon.
I see, so what kind of fanfiction do you like to write?
Mostly filler fic, really - backstory, canon explanations, character studies, gen, gen, gen, more gen, incredible amounts of gen and, when you're not looking, probably even more gen. Pairings come and pairings go, and I like seeing two characters I like a lot in the same place, but no matter how hard I try I guess I'm not really equipped to be a pairing writer: my stuff tends to worldbuild. xD
Do you find writing easy? Hard? What are the most difficult aspects of writing you struggle with?
It's not one or the other; when inspiration socks me in the jaw the words come easy - firing off a fic a day becomes no real problem, then - but when I'm high and dry I get frustrated easily. Depends on what I'm trying to do! Character studies are introspective and give lots of room to wander; plot and development takes a lot more. I guess I struggle a lot with dialogue and action - it always feels kind of stilted and not-quite-complete, and I envy writers like astolat who manage all sorts of genres and modes with what seems like very little effort indeed.
Write a few sentences or so of your favorite pairing or character.
I ship, but I ship subtly, so here we go: Final Fantasy VII wise, give me Rufus and Tseng in the same room and I don't care what they end up doing. Tear each other's clothes off, fight like rabid dogs, have conversations about taking over the world, contemplate morality or contemporary ecology -- those two press so many corporate and personal buttons with me that all is really pretty much gold.
Baccano!, the new fandom, has me ding-donging off the walls for Gandor-fic: Luck and Keith and Berga and Claire and, to some extent, Firo make for a very diverse and interesting family dynamic. Plus they're all at least a little bit amoral/immoral/off centre, which helps.
Are there any fanfiction clichés or trends you’re sick of or just can’t stand?
From what I've seen in fandom, a good writer can take any cliche and stick it onto its head, so there's really nothing I can say here. xD Hate is the only thing I'm not up for - don't like it, move on and don't bitch!
Are you guilty of any fanfiction clichés you hate? Or any other ones?
Probably, probably. *chuckles* I don't know, though - I think I try to avoid them, but how successful I am, I'll never know. I know I kind of fail at expanding my character's vocabularies?
What was the first fandom you wrote for, and do you still like/participate in it?
Seriously wrote for, and not one-off wrote for? Lord of the Rings. I'm a bit older now, and though I love the fandom and the literature to bits, I've moved farther from that and more into the Silmarillion; even then, it's only by-the-by, a sort of coming-home present for myself. Fandom's moved on too, I think.
Name your OTPs or most frequently written pairings/characters and explain what it is about them that you love to write.
Mostly look above, but if we're talking about people I like to write:
Final Fantasy VII: Tseng - his character leaps moral precipices from one part of the FFVII Compilation to the next, and I pretty much like every single one of them: the blushing virgin act, the confused but increasingly jaded act, the cynical and upset act, the detached and devilish period, the abrupt moral reawakening...
Baccano!: Luck - Luck's a lot like Tseng; a magnificent bastard, but not really. He's set in realworld New York, which I've always had a soft spot for, and the rest of it is really pretty much history. The novels for this canon haven't been translated yet, so I'm taking my time jaunting through fandom, wrecking pillars as I go. xD
What would you call your writing "style"?
Introspective, fluid, and very rarely directly involved in the action. Unless I'm RPing or forcing the first person present tense, my third person writing goes all bird's eye on me.
Do you read other people’s fanfic? If so, what do you find yourself reading the most?
Oh, god yes. There's not enough time for me to read most published novels these days - not unless I know I'll do a cover-to-cover read like with Neil Gaiman and TP - so fanfic tends to take the edge off the boredom and intellectual starvation. xD Plus there are authors out there who've written fics that I go back to time and time and time again:
I think I've mentioned this before, but astolat is just so incredible and intelligent and broad and intense and immediate with her work: she's smart and her fics let it show. She can do everything from cop!porn to Stargate!math to Master and Commander period pieces and wrangling through Smallville's friend-enemy Lex/Clark dynamics -- everytime I write, I try to write to her standards. I know I still fail every time. xD
Other than astolat, I probably stalked ponderosa121 and blue_soaring's works on LJ before the entire Strikethrough madness and the Amazing Leap over to IJ. Porn and plot and no real divisor in between! What could be tastier? They moved on to the SPN fandom, though, and thence into that road trip I cannot follow.
I still follow sister_coyote and sheffiesharp and laylah's works - asjfaljf I think it was probably from Fullmetal Alchemist onwards? And then Final Fantasy VII, and then Final Fantasy XII, but nghghnghhgngh they make me want to bury my head in the sand and whimper with self-hate everytime they post something new. But in a good way. *laughs*
Speaking of FMA, I remember reading and re-reading Sleeps With Coyotes with intense, intense glee. Branchfic was also a commonly-stalked writer. I don't read either of them much anymore, but they're still amazingly talented people.
Aaaand now I should stop blabbering. 8D
Name one thing you'd LOVE to write, but have been too afraid or shy to do.
Good, (semi)plotless porn. All these ideas, but my fingers just don't want to cooperate when I tell them! Good Omens and Ocean's aren't far off that list, either. Damned untouchable genius characters.
Do you have trouble taking criticism? Or worse yet, do you have the dreaded bloated ego?
I would like more, in fact! *laughs* The best thing that happened to me was probably getting flamed out of my childish little mind back on FF.net, way, way back when. LJ is a very friendly place to be for a writer, though - everyone here is so awesome that criticism doesn't really come very often. But I'd love to hear more!
When you write, is there anything that helps? Music? Quiet room?
Depends on the mood of the fic - music really helps a lot of the time. When I'm writing FF fic, I pretty much drive myself forward using the nitty-gritty-Midgar-bitty tracks by Uematsu; the Last Order theme in particular makes me want to bleed Turkfic all over the floor. Baccano!'s OST is in itself an inspiration. Emo music helps emo scenes. So on and so forth.
I like having my laptop to write drafts on, as a off-the-wall sidenote. It's got keys I can stab at quicklyquickly. xD
What inspires you?
Prompts from other people, pieces of music, cunningly drawn fanart, plot holes in the original canon, the characters themselves, my inner demons - who knows? *laughs*
Lastly, how would you sum up your fanfiction experiences and yourself as a writer?
I'd like to think I'm better now than I was half a decade ago. xD And I'd like to think I'm a lot worse now than I'll be in a few years. I'm pretty happy knowing that there's lots of room to improve; and as much as the hobby may be lambasted by the "real world", writing fic's helped me explore a lot of areas and ideas that've made RL a lot more understandable. It makes me feel comfortable with myself; like the philosopher Martha Naussbaum (sp?) said, we have never lived enough.
More than just writing, though, fic's helped me bump into a lot of really awesome people on top of a lot of awesome writers. I've only really moved into this journal for a very short while, but already there are great, great people on my flist who're willing to read through my drivel and cackle alongside with me - obabscribbler, aikonamika, white_jenna, knightlineninja, logistika_nyx, darkeyedwolf, the list goes on. I don't know you guys half as well as I'd like, but that doesn't stop me from thinking that you all are really cool people. xD
Tag six friends because they’ll hate you for it.
Hey, no pressure - take it if you want to!
And a small RP pimp: go take a look at this_program; it's not started yet, so apps are open, and I know a good number of solid players who are joining up!
How about a brief introduction for yourself?
Uh, hi? I dwell around as karanguni, I come from a tiny island, I think I've been writing for fandom for a good little while, other than that, I'm just your average average-type. xD
Fabulous! And what got you into fanfiction to begin with?
Uh, this goes back seven years and into scary, painfully young territory. *laughs* If I remember correctly, I fell in love with a Playstation game called Tenchu, and it had this amazing lead female (Ayame) who, for all her badassery, never got enough screentime. Fanfiction was a good way of supplementing it - and now I still wince thinking of what I wrote back then. If we're talking major fandom, it was probably Lord of the Rings, and a few other things here and there until I got onto the anime and videogame bandwagon.
I see, so what kind of fanfiction do you like to write?
Mostly filler fic, really - backstory, canon explanations, character studies, gen, gen, gen, more gen, incredible amounts of gen and, when you're not looking, probably even more gen. Pairings come and pairings go, and I like seeing two characters I like a lot in the same place, but no matter how hard I try I guess I'm not really equipped to be a pairing writer: my stuff tends to worldbuild. xD
Do you find writing easy? Hard? What are the most difficult aspects of writing you struggle with?
It's not one or the other; when inspiration socks me in the jaw the words come easy - firing off a fic a day becomes no real problem, then - but when I'm high and dry I get frustrated easily. Depends on what I'm trying to do! Character studies are introspective and give lots of room to wander; plot and development takes a lot more. I guess I struggle a lot with dialogue and action - it always feels kind of stilted and not-quite-complete, and I envy writers like astolat who manage all sorts of genres and modes with what seems like very little effort indeed.
Write a few sentences or so of your favorite pairing or character.
I ship, but I ship subtly, so here we go: Final Fantasy VII wise, give me Rufus and Tseng in the same room and I don't care what they end up doing. Tear each other's clothes off, fight like rabid dogs, have conversations about taking over the world, contemplate morality or contemporary ecology -- those two press so many corporate and personal buttons with me that all is really pretty much gold.
Baccano!, the new fandom, has me ding-donging off the walls for Gandor-fic: Luck and Keith and Berga and Claire and, to some extent, Firo make for a very diverse and interesting family dynamic. Plus they're all at least a little bit amoral/immoral/off centre, which helps.
Are there any fanfiction clichés or trends you’re sick of or just can’t stand?
From what I've seen in fandom, a good writer can take any cliche and stick it onto its head, so there's really nothing I can say here. xD Hate is the only thing I'm not up for - don't like it, move on and don't bitch!
Are you guilty of any fanfiction clichés you hate? Or any other ones?
Probably, probably. *chuckles* I don't know, though - I think I try to avoid them, but how successful I am, I'll never know. I know I kind of fail at expanding my character's vocabularies?
What was the first fandom you wrote for, and do you still like/participate in it?
Seriously wrote for, and not one-off wrote for? Lord of the Rings. I'm a bit older now, and though I love the fandom and the literature to bits, I've moved farther from that and more into the Silmarillion; even then, it's only by-the-by, a sort of coming-home present for myself. Fandom's moved on too, I think.
Name your OTPs or most frequently written pairings/characters and explain what it is about them that you love to write.
Mostly look above, but if we're talking about people I like to write:
Final Fantasy VII: Tseng - his character leaps moral precipices from one part of the FFVII Compilation to the next, and I pretty much like every single one of them: the blushing virgin act, the confused but increasingly jaded act, the cynical and upset act, the detached and devilish period, the abrupt moral reawakening...
Baccano!: Luck - Luck's a lot like Tseng; a magnificent bastard, but not really. He's set in realworld New York, which I've always had a soft spot for, and the rest of it is really pretty much history. The novels for this canon haven't been translated yet, so I'm taking my time jaunting through fandom, wrecking pillars as I go. xD
What would you call your writing "style"?
Introspective, fluid, and very rarely directly involved in the action. Unless I'm RPing or forcing the first person present tense, my third person writing goes all bird's eye on me.
Do you read other people’s fanfic? If so, what do you find yourself reading the most?
Oh, god yes. There's not enough time for me to read most published novels these days - not unless I know I'll do a cover-to-cover read like with Neil Gaiman and TP - so fanfic tends to take the edge off the boredom and intellectual starvation. xD Plus there are authors out there who've written fics that I go back to time and time and time again:
I think I've mentioned this before, but astolat is just so incredible and intelligent and broad and intense and immediate with her work: she's smart and her fics let it show. She can do everything from cop!porn to Stargate!math to Master and Commander period pieces and wrangling through Smallville's friend-enemy Lex/Clark dynamics -- everytime I write, I try to write to her standards. I know I still fail every time. xD
Other than astolat, I probably stalked ponderosa121 and blue_soaring's works on LJ before the entire Strikethrough madness and the Amazing Leap over to IJ. Porn and plot and no real divisor in between! What could be tastier? They moved on to the SPN fandom, though, and thence into that road trip I cannot follow.
I still follow sister_coyote and sheffiesharp and laylah's works - asjfaljf I think it was probably from Fullmetal Alchemist onwards? And then Final Fantasy VII, and then Final Fantasy XII, but nghghnghhgngh they make me want to bury my head in the sand and whimper with self-hate everytime they post something new. But in a good way. *laughs*
Speaking of FMA, I remember reading and re-reading Sleeps With Coyotes with intense, intense glee. Branchfic was also a commonly-stalked writer. I don't read either of them much anymore, but they're still amazingly talented people.
Aaaand now I should stop blabbering. 8D
Name one thing you'd LOVE to write, but have been too afraid or shy to do.
Good, (semi)plotless porn. All these ideas, but my fingers just don't want to cooperate when I tell them! Good Omens and Ocean's aren't far off that list, either. Damned untouchable genius characters.
Do you have trouble taking criticism? Or worse yet, do you have the dreaded bloated ego?
I would like more, in fact! *laughs* The best thing that happened to me was probably getting flamed out of my childish little mind back on FF.net, way, way back when. LJ is a very friendly place to be for a writer, though - everyone here is so awesome that criticism doesn't really come very often. But I'd love to hear more!
When you write, is there anything that helps? Music? Quiet room?
Depends on the mood of the fic - music really helps a lot of the time. When I'm writing FF fic, I pretty much drive myself forward using the nitty-gritty-Midgar-bitty tracks by Uematsu; the Last Order theme in particular makes me want to bleed Turkfic all over the floor. Baccano!'s OST is in itself an inspiration. Emo music helps emo scenes. So on and so forth.
I like having my laptop to write drafts on, as a off-the-wall sidenote. It's got keys I can stab at quicklyquickly. xD
What inspires you?
Prompts from other people, pieces of music, cunningly drawn fanart, plot holes in the original canon, the characters themselves, my inner demons - who knows? *laughs*
Lastly, how would you sum up your fanfiction experiences and yourself as a writer?
I'd like to think I'm better now than I was half a decade ago. xD And I'd like to think I'm a lot worse now than I'll be in a few years. I'm pretty happy knowing that there's lots of room to improve; and as much as the hobby may be lambasted by the "real world", writing fic's helped me explore a lot of areas and ideas that've made RL a lot more understandable. It makes me feel comfortable with myself; like the philosopher Martha Naussbaum (sp?) said, we have never lived enough.
More than just writing, though, fic's helped me bump into a lot of really awesome people on top of a lot of awesome writers. I've only really moved into this journal for a very short while, but already there are great, great people on my flist who're willing to read through my drivel and cackle alongside with me - obabscribbler, aikonamika, white_jenna, knightlineninja, logistika_nyx, darkeyedwolf, the list goes on. I don't know you guys half as well as I'd like, but that doesn't stop me from thinking that you all are really cool people. xD
Tag six friends because they’ll hate you for it.
Hey, no pressure - take it if you want to!
And a small RP pimp: go take a look at this_program; it's not started yet, so apps are open, and I know a good number of solid players who are joining up!