Thanks & Author's Notes
[Master Post]
Thanks and Author's Notes
Thanks
There are so many people I need to thank for this fic, I scarcely know where to start. So, in no particular order of importance, here we go:
folkin_up_again: My artist, who put up with my being extraordinarily late with the 'final' rough draft of this story because I was beating my head against it like a metaphorical brick wall. She is an absolute doll and took my harassing emails and nit-picking comments with good grace, and worked extremely hard on all the graphics that you can find on her post. I am so incredibly impressed with the quality of some of the manips she did for this story, especially considering this was her first time doing it. If you haven't gone over to look at her art and leave feedback, I suggest you do so now. Go ahead, I'll wait. ;)
peppervl: My beta, who is an absolute rockstar. She encouraged me to write, commiserated when Jared and Jensen just would not have sex already, gave me pats when I remembered I was writing RPS and started flipping out, and delivered ass-kickings when necessary. She then turned around on a dime (because, again, I was stupidly late finishing the first draft) and delivered one of the most devastating critiques of a story I have ever received. You would not believe the amount of extraneous crap she pruned out of this story. There's an entire prologue that's no longer there, and you can thank her for sparing you the boredom. Of course, I poked at the story a lot after she gave it back to me, so all remaining errors are very much my own fault.
roque_clasique: This fic is actually all her fault. She posted it as an idea in her LJ last year, and it just stuck with me. For reference, this is the post.
pkwench: As usual, she was a relentless cheerleader throughout this whole ordeal. She listened very patiently to me whine, waffle and complain about this story, offered ideas and support even when she was snowed under with work and school and other commitments.
And a big thank you to my flist, because you all are awesome too. It would take far too much space and time to thank everyone individually, but you know who you are! Thank you for your support and your patience and your good humour with me throughout this process. :)
Author's Notes
WARNING: Notes will contain fic spoilers.
So first off, oh my God, this story. It came close to ruining my life, I swear. Avatar is a huge, sweeping movie, and it's no secret that the main attraction there are the visuals. I wanted to do justice to the visuals, and maybe try to take the plot a couple of steps further than in the movie. I am not really sure I succeeded, to be quite honest. Overall, I think the story turned out well. It stands on its own, there are no huge inconsistencies, I got all the characters where I wanted them to be.
That being said, I think this story could probably use another few months' work. I had a few problems with certain aspects of the movie, which I attempted to change in the story, and I'm not sure how well I succeeded in that respect. The first thing I wanted to change was the depiction of the Na'vi as noble savages who don't even have a word for 'lie,' because I felt it was a gross oversimplification of what could be a fascinating alien species. This is where I think I really didn't go as far as I could or should have. I managed to hint at the culture, to drop a few bits here and there, but I ended up not digging as deeply into that aspect of the story. The lesson I learned because of this is that I am not C. J. Cherryh, and more's the pity.
I am a little unhappy that I didn't get to spend more time with the secondary characters. I kept the OC names and personalities from the movie and tried to flesh them out a little bit more, especially Norm's character, who in the movie goes from hostile to friendly with very little explanation (I think the extended version/cut scenes explain this better). I also wanted to do a little more digging with regards to Grace, and never ended up having the time. As a result, I'm pretty sure her brief relationship with Jensen feels a little out of place in the story, and I do regret that. Grace is probably my favourite character in the whole of Avatar, and I wanted to play with her some more. I also wanted to look closer into the minds of the other avatar drivers, and ended up having to cut the very few lines I had about that.
Another huge problem I had with the story was the idea of a human coming in and proving himself to be a "better" native than the ones already in place. The idea that Jensen's character would prove himself by riding the great Leonopteryx and suddenly all the tribes would follow him and respect him because he was some sort of figure out of prophecy was highly problematic as far as I was concerned. It also would have made the story entirely about Jensen, when what I really wanted was a story about both boys. So I decided to make Jared the object of the prophecy, and make his own future a little uncertain by playing a bit with gender roles in the Na'vi culture. If his right to succeed his mother was in question, then that would make his success all the more significant. This story is supposed to be as much Jared's coming-of-age story than it is about Jensen finding himself and discovering what's truly important to him after a lifetime of trying to please everyone around him.
Did I mention I'm not C.J. Cherryh? Because I'm not, and this makes me unutterably sad. I wanted to play a lot more with themes of communication breakdown, especially the difficulties of communicating from one alien species to another. C.J. Cherryh is the queen of this, and I tried really hard to follow her example in showing just how alien minds don't work alike, and it really, but really didn't work for me. I don't think it came through at all except once or twice, alas. Also, the Na'vi language is a bitch. I never did learn it to my own satisfaction, and I have no doubt that discerning readers who are familiar with Na'vi will be able to pick out all the mistakes I made. I did, however, work very hard to ensure that all the Na'vi I incorporated into the text was either understandable through context, or that it wasn't important to understand it in order to know what was happening in the scene.
In short, while I am quite pleased with how the story turned out, I wish I had another six months to add maybe 50k to it, explore the Na'vi and the other characters, to go and play in this huge and fantastic world.
Thanks and Author's Notes
Thanks
There are so many people I need to thank for this fic, I scarcely know where to start. So, in no particular order of importance, here we go:
folkin_up_again: My artist, who put up with my being extraordinarily late with the 'final' rough draft of this story because I was beating my head against it like a metaphorical brick wall. She is an absolute doll and took my harassing emails and nit-picking comments with good grace, and worked extremely hard on all the graphics that you can find on her post. I am so incredibly impressed with the quality of some of the manips she did for this story, especially considering this was her first time doing it. If you haven't gone over to look at her art and leave feedback, I suggest you do so now. Go ahead, I'll wait. ;)
peppervl: My beta, who is an absolute rockstar. She encouraged me to write, commiserated when Jared and Jensen just would not have sex already, gave me pats when I remembered I was writing RPS and started flipping out, and delivered ass-kickings when necessary. She then turned around on a dime (because, again, I was stupidly late finishing the first draft) and delivered one of the most devastating critiques of a story I have ever received. You would not believe the amount of extraneous crap she pruned out of this story. There's an entire prologue that's no longer there, and you can thank her for sparing you the boredom. Of course, I poked at the story a lot after she gave it back to me, so all remaining errors are very much my own fault.
roque_clasique: This fic is actually all her fault. She posted it as an idea in her LJ last year, and it just stuck with me. For reference, this is the post.
pkwench: As usual, she was a relentless cheerleader throughout this whole ordeal. She listened very patiently to me whine, waffle and complain about this story, offered ideas and support even when she was snowed under with work and school and other commitments.
And a big thank you to my flist, because you all are awesome too. It would take far too much space and time to thank everyone individually, but you know who you are! Thank you for your support and your patience and your good humour with me throughout this process. :)
Author's Notes
WARNING: Notes will contain fic spoilers.
So first off, oh my God, this story. It came close to ruining my life, I swear. Avatar is a huge, sweeping movie, and it's no secret that the main attraction there are the visuals. I wanted to do justice to the visuals, and maybe try to take the plot a couple of steps further than in the movie. I am not really sure I succeeded, to be quite honest. Overall, I think the story turned out well. It stands on its own, there are no huge inconsistencies, I got all the characters where I wanted them to be.
That being said, I think this story could probably use another few months' work. I had a few problems with certain aspects of the movie, which I attempted to change in the story, and I'm not sure how well I succeeded in that respect. The first thing I wanted to change was the depiction of the Na'vi as noble savages who don't even have a word for 'lie,' because I felt it was a gross oversimplification of what could be a fascinating alien species. This is where I think I really didn't go as far as I could or should have. I managed to hint at the culture, to drop a few bits here and there, but I ended up not digging as deeply into that aspect of the story. The lesson I learned because of this is that I am not C. J. Cherryh, and more's the pity.
I am a little unhappy that I didn't get to spend more time with the secondary characters. I kept the OC names and personalities from the movie and tried to flesh them out a little bit more, especially Norm's character, who in the movie goes from hostile to friendly with very little explanation (I think the extended version/cut scenes explain this better). I also wanted to do a little more digging with regards to Grace, and never ended up having the time. As a result, I'm pretty sure her brief relationship with Jensen feels a little out of place in the story, and I do regret that. Grace is probably my favourite character in the whole of Avatar, and I wanted to play with her some more. I also wanted to look closer into the minds of the other avatar drivers, and ended up having to cut the very few lines I had about that.
Another huge problem I had with the story was the idea of a human coming in and proving himself to be a "better" native than the ones already in place. The idea that Jensen's character would prove himself by riding the great Leonopteryx and suddenly all the tribes would follow him and respect him because he was some sort of figure out of prophecy was highly problematic as far as I was concerned. It also would have made the story entirely about Jensen, when what I really wanted was a story about both boys. So I decided to make Jared the object of the prophecy, and make his own future a little uncertain by playing a bit with gender roles in the Na'vi culture. If his right to succeed his mother was in question, then that would make his success all the more significant. This story is supposed to be as much Jared's coming-of-age story than it is about Jensen finding himself and discovering what's truly important to him after a lifetime of trying to please everyone around him.
Did I mention I'm not C.J. Cherryh? Because I'm not, and this makes me unutterably sad. I wanted to play a lot more with themes of communication breakdown, especially the difficulties of communicating from one alien species to another. C.J. Cherryh is the queen of this, and I tried really hard to follow her example in showing just how alien minds don't work alike, and it really, but really didn't work for me. I don't think it came through at all except once or twice, alas. Also, the Na'vi language is a bitch. I never did learn it to my own satisfaction, and I have no doubt that discerning readers who are familiar with Na'vi will be able to pick out all the mistakes I made. I did, however, work very hard to ensure that all the Na'vi I incorporated into the text was either understandable through context, or that it wasn't important to understand it in order to know what was happening in the scene.
In short, while I am quite pleased with how the story turned out, I wish I had another six months to add maybe 50k to it, explore the Na'vi and the other characters, to go and play in this huge and fantastic world.