30 Day Meme 1-15
I’m tired of only doing one at a time. I’m antsy. I want to answer all the questions. So here we go. The first half of a thirty-day meme in 15 minutes. Get it? It’s fifteen questions, and … aw, forget it.
1 - How did you first get into writing fanfic, and what was the first fandom you wrote for? What do you think it was about that fandom that pulled you in?
I got introduced to fanfic by aadler when I was fourteen years old. He found a short story about a janitor at Sunnydale High (I think). It was short, but did its job, and it was absolutely perfect for what it was. He’d find more stories, and sit me down in front of the computer and have me read them. One day, he sat me down at the computer, and wouldn’t let me see who’d written it, and only after I’d finished reading it did I find out that he was the author. Four years later, I started finishing fanfic.
I have to say “finishing”, because I was forever starting stories and not finishing them. Finally finished my first story when I lived with my dad for two months.
As far as my first fandom goes, I first wrote Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and I love it. A lot. The story that I probably put the most effort into before I started posting my stories was a Harry Potter story that will never, and I repeat, never see the light of day. Mary Sues all over the place, the whole lot of them.
I’ve been considering getting back into Harry Potter, though.
2 - Name the fandoms you’ve written in, and how much you’ve written in that fandom, and if you still write in it.
I’ll be honest, I don’t understand the distinction between writing Angel and writing Buffy. It’s the same universe, and since I have more fun in the universe than with the characters (see the only real Stargate story I’ve ever written, for instance), having to say which one it is when I’ve never named a single character can get confusing. Which, in this case, is a moot point, because I don’t think I’ve done that with any Buffy or Angel story.
That being said, here’s the list.
Buffy: 28
Angel: 3
Firefly: 4
Superman Returns: 5
Harry Potter: 2
Rent: 1
Crossovers:
Animorphs: 2 (crossed with BtVS)
Golden Girls: 1 (crossed with BtVS)
Firefly: 1 (surprise cross)
Lost: 1 (crossed with BtVS)
Wonderfalls: 2 (crossed with BtVS and with Angel)
MacGyver: 1 (crossed with Modesty Blaise)
Modesty Blaise: 1 (crossed with MacGyver)
Veronica Mars: 1 (surprise cross)
3 - For each of the fandoms from day two, what were your favorite characters to write?
From Buffy, I will always love Xander. Always. I do find it hard to get his voice, though. I have an easier time with Buffy and Willow. In part because, in some ways, my speech patterns were affected by BtVS. Both girls are prone to babbling, Willow especially. Buffy mis-hears things (in fact, when I made a mention to my dad about his Ptarmiiki demons, I called them “Teriyaki demons” and he called it “Pulling a Buffy”) and puts a humourous spin on it. I love Giles, and Wesley is all kinds of rich writing ground. Unfortunately, I tend to make Giles, Wesley, Ethan, and Spike all sound similar. And Drusilla, oh, golly, she is such a fascinating character to write! Unfortunately, as one person put it, I can’t write her without making her sound retarded. Though I am quite happy with my 70 Questions from her perspective. Honestly, though, I really enjoy writing my version of Cordelia, from my Queensverse. (Aadler and I co-wrote the stories, but I still consider the Queensverse mine.)
Angel, I’d have to say that my favorites are Angel himself, Cordy, Fred and Wesley. I know, I keep naming a lot of characters. I can’t help it. I’m trying to narrow it down, and another character pops in with “What about me?” Fred, particularly just-got-back-from-Pylea Fred, is a blast to write. She’s a scary-smart Texas Girl, extremely tangential, and a wonderful dash of paranoia thrown in.
Veronica Mars, no question. Veronica herself. I have a bunch of stories planned, and almost all of them center around Veronica. I do also love Weevil, though he hasn’t yet made an appearance in a finished story. His voice was surprisingly easy to capture. Keith Mars will be fun to write, but what I love about him is his relationship with Veronica, so in a sense, that’s a spinoff of the liking to write Veronica statement.
Firefly, oh, golly. I actually have a difficult time writing Firefly. The voices and flavour of the show is hard for me. That being said, my favorites are Mal and Kaylee. Oh, and Jayne, for much of the same reason I like writing Mal. I can’t quite put my finger on why I like writing them so much, but boy, do I.
Harry Potter. I had a horribly difficult time writing Bellatrix and Narcissa. Hated writing them, actually. I felt like I couldn’t get into them. Sirius was somewhat easier in that story, since canon provided more material that allowed insight to his character. (And I was writing Bellatrix before she went crazy, so there goes that canon material.) In the end, though, I am much more satisfied with the way Bella’s and Cissy’s sections turned out that Sirius’. That being said, I was pleasantly surprised to discover how much I enjoy writing Neville. I’ve liked him as a character for a long time, but I’d simply never thought to write a story about him. Then I read Grav Ity’s story and knew immediately that that was the story I wanted to remix, and fell in love with writing Neville right then and there.
There are other fandoms, but those are my biggies.
4 - Do you have a “muse” character, that speaks to you more than others, or that tries to push their way in, even when the fic isn’t about them? Who are they, and why did that character became your muse?
Huh. I’ve had characters suddenly show up when they were supposed to be dead. In “God Save the Queen”, I’d made a mention to a dead Jonathan. However, I think I need to explain something here. I wrote the first chapter to “God Save the Queen” when I was fourteen or so. Possibly fifteen, but I’m pretty sure I was fourteen. Then my dad re-wrote that first chapter. I played around with multiple variations of continuing from that first chapter (at one point, I had a story that was over 50,000 words, dealing with a psychic that looked exactly like Cordelia, and she used to be a Slayer, and oh, yeah, her personality was loosely based on mine, and does this sound like the mother of all Sues to you like it does to me?) and scrapped each one of them in turn. Then my dad wrote “Each Proud Division” when I was eighteen, and that weekend, I sat down and re-started “God Save the Queen” and had it finished within a few months.
So. Jonathan was dead. Then I get into “Queen’s Gambit”, and realize that I need Jonathan. So I resurrected the dead guy, by simply replacing the dead Jonathan with a dead someone else in the single mention.
I have muse characters in the sense that I have characters who keep showing up in stories, but that’s because the stories are about them. The reason the stories are about them is because they’re the ones that inspire the stories for me.
5 - If you have ever had a character try to push their way into a fic, whether your “muse” or not, what did you do about it?
I’ve had a few times where something clicks as soon as I realize there’s supposed to be another character. For instance, with “Queen’s Gambit”, I knew where I wanted the story to end up. I knew the closing line (or one of the closing lines) before I even started writing the story. I had a basic idea of how to get there, but trying to write was … well, simply put, excruciating. It took me two years to finish that story, and I did more writing in the last two months than in the two years previous- and it happened as soon as I realized that I needed Jonathan and Amy.
Other than that, I’m not able to immediately think of whether or not a character has pushed their way into one of my stories. If a character wants to be in a story, and I can’t think of a good reason to not have them, I generally include them. Sometimes it’s as simple as a “I need a character to fill this role, and who might be able to do that?” and a character pops into my head.
6 - When you write, do you prefer writing male or female characters?
Female. Female all the way. I have no idea how to “guy up” my writing. I can write a guy if I have to, but for the most part, I prefer writing from the point of view of a girl. I understand girls, by benefit of being one. I’ve been told that for a girl, I have very good insight into the male mind. But I’m still a girl, and there are nuances that are going to completely escape me.
7 - Have you ever had a fic change your opinion of a character?
I’ve had plenty of times where reading a story changed my opinion of a character. As far as writing them goes, I’d have to say that Cordelia was the biggest opinion changer. Really, you can thank the Queenverse for a lot of things. This is one of them.
8 - Do you write OCs? And if so, what do you do to make certain they’re not Mary Sues, and if not, explain your thoughts on OCs.
I don’t really write OC’s for fanfiction anymore. I do write OC’s for my own stories, though. I do my best to make sure that I don’t Sue anyone, whether it’s a canon character or an original. I try to continue looking at the character and make sure that they have a good balance in strengths and weaknesses. I don’t want a Perfect Sue, but I also don’t want a Useless Sue (also referred to by some people as “Anti Sues”, but I take issue with that, because if they were an Anti-Sue, they wouldn’t be a Sue). I run my characters through different versions of the Mary Sue Litmus Test. Honestly, the place where it comes into play most is in my RP’s. I had a character, Sandy, that is a karate blackbelt, a sharpshooter, a genius with languages, a math and computer geek, and has daddy issues. But when I ran her through the Litmus test, she had enough anti-Sue qualities to balance her out that in the end, for a test that scores 0-100, she scored a seventeen. Meanwhile, a character run by my ex-friend, was definitely a Wangsty Sue. I finally managed to convince her to run Molly through a Litmus test, and Molly scored an 89. Yet the friend was still telling me that I needed to get rid of Sandy’s affinity for languages and computers.
That being said, I usually try to ask the opinions of people that I trust. For instance, with Sandy, I have three people that I ask periodically whether or not Sandy is entering Sue territory. In return, I keep watch on their characters. We keep each other accountable. And we listen to each other if one of us says, “You need to back it off a bit. Nothing major, but you’re starting to head to a place you don’t want to go.” The fun part with RP is that everyone wants to be a star. So one of the things I’ve suggested, that really seems to work well on this particular site is, we have a mission profile that gives a basic rundown of plot points to hit on that mission. On that mission profile, we say who the “emotional focus” of the mission will be, and we rotate who gets to be the star and who doesn’t.
9 - Pairings - For each of the fandoms from day two, what are your three favorite pairings to write?
Buffy: Xander/Buffy, Xander/Faith, Xander/Dawn. I’ll name some that don’t include Xander, just so that it’s not all about him. I like Anya/Giles, though I think I’ve only written it once. Buffy/Giles squicks me out, because I consider my dad’s backstage series to be canon to me. If you’ve read his stories, you know what I’m referencing, and if you don’t know what I mean, you need to read his stories. Clicky on the link at the top of the page, and you’ll get to them. Anyway. Anya/Giles, Riley/Willow (I’ve started a story that had it, but never finished it), and Larry/Tara. You know, I really need to finish these stories, because the three back-up pairings I just named, only one of them appeared once in the stories that I’ve finished.
Angel: Angel/Cordy, Cordy/Gunn, Cordy/Doyle, and Wesley/Fred. Yes, it’s four. Apparently, Cordy is my Angel version of Xander. I just look at her and wonder what it would be like if things had happened with so-and-so.
Veronica Mars: And yet again, you’re going to see it dominated by one person. Veronica/Logan, Veronica/Weevil, Weevil/Meg, Weevil/Mac. I can’t decide which I like better, Weevil/Meg, or Weevil/Mac, so I listed four. Again. I like Veronica/Logan, because … well, I find their relationship fascinating. I do. She is much better for him than he is for her, though. There is no logical explanation why she even gave him the time of day. I love Veronica/Weevil. So much juicy goodness to just bite into. On Weevil’s side, you have the brownskinned guy who has to deal with his family and friends being decidedly unhappy about him bringing home a blonde haired blue eyed chica, and let’s not forget that if something happened with Veronica, he’d make sure he wasn’t anyone’s secret this time. (Yes, this is my personal canon. You can disagree with it if you want, but it’s mine.) On Veronica’s side, you have her trying to tell her dad that the kid he busted all during Weevil’s teenage years is the guy that she’s now dating. And that’s without getting into the tattoos and motorcycle. I like Weevil/Meg for a lot of the same reasons: she’s the rich blonde girl that he’s going to be beating himself up over for even entertaining the notion of getting together with. He’s the guy that she can’t bring home to her parents, because they would never understand. She’d arouse all the protective instincts he has, and when he finds out about the way the Manning parents treated the children … “scorched earth” doesn’t begin to cover it. And yet again, I like Weevil/Mac for a lot of those same reasons. Mac is extremely intelligent, but in a lot of ways, she’s still kind of naive about the way the world works, even if she is all kinds of cynical. But there’s something about Mac (and I’m pretty sure it’s the actress :D) that makes you just want to hug her. Add into it that in my world, when Weevil and Mac get together, it’s not long after they’ve graduated high school, so she’s still dealing with Beaver-issues, and it’s meaty!
Firefly: Simon/Kaylee will always have a special spot in my heart. I suppose I’ll have to go with the typical Simon/Kaylee, Jayne/River, and Mal/Inara. Zoe/Wash go without being stated, for me, because those two are amazingly perfect together.
10 - Pairings - Have you ever gone outside your comfort zone and written a pairing you liked, but found you couldn’t write, or a pairing you didn’t like, and found you could?
I’ve written Buffy/Giles before. That goes with the “Pairing I don’t like and find that I can”. I don’t do Slash. I refuse to go near that one. The closest I’ve come is Faith and Willow, but that at least has a possibility canon-wise. Faith never came right out and said that she likes girls, but the impression we were led to believe is that while she prefers guys, she’ll take a girl if they’re available and willing.
I’ll occasionally make it a goal to think of pairings and write them. So far, I haven’t found a pairing that is hard to write.
11 - Genre - do you prefer certain genres of fic when you’re writing? What kind do you tend to write most?
I’m a shipper. I’ll admit it. I have a romantic streak in me, and I like to see how things could happen. That being said, I tend to do “character insights”, rather than full out stories. I just don’t have the patience to devote large amounts of time to fanfic. I’d much rather work on original stories.
12 - Have you ever attempted an “adaptation” fic of a favorite book or movie but set in a different fandom?
Sorta. I started an adaptation fic of “Casablanca” for NaNoWriMo a few years ago. I thought of doing it with Harry Potter, but decided it would be extremely similar to one of Yahtzee’s stories, and there are some things that I don’t want to mess with. While it would be wonderful to be compared to Yahtzee in virtually any way, “Yahtzee did this better” is not one of those ways. So I then decided to do it with X-Men. Only I then decided that I really don’t want to put that much time and effort into a fanfic, and decided to do it with an original story that would bear a resemblance to an X-Men fanfic with a Casablanca type story, but not actually be either.
And if you actually understood that explanation, I’m giving you cookies.
13 - Do you prefer canon or fanon when you write? Has writing fanfic for a fandom changed the way you see some or even all of the original source material?
I always prefer canon. But there are some times when fanon has an effect on something. For instance, as I said, Aadler’s Backstage Series, while fanon, affects a lot of what I write. Mediancat’s “Death Becomes Him” has a profound impact on how I write characters from Veronica Mars.
14 - Ratings - how high are you comfortable with going? Have you ever written higher? If you’re comfortable with NC-17, have you ever been shocked by finding that the story you’re writing is G-rated instead?
If something makes me blush, I don’t post it. That’s my rule of thumb. Which means, I tend to stay solidly in PG-13 category. I’ve never been shocked by a sudden rating change, mostly because it’s never happened to me. One of my biggest struggles was how to keep Faith from dropping f-bombs all over the place in “Enemies”. I try to save some words for when they’re absolutely necessary, and Faith is one of the characters that would disagree with me on when that word is necessary.
15 - Warnings - What do you feel it most important to warn for, and what’s the strangest thing you’ve warned for in a fic?
I warn for language, and sex. Other than that, spoilers. I don’t really know what the strangest thing I’ve warned for is. Well, not on one of my stories, but I have warned someone to not attempt to have anything in their mouth for Chapter 5 of “Harry Potter and the Method of Rationality”. I only wish that one of my stories could come with that kind of warning.
***
And now I shall go to sleep.
1 - How did you first get into writing fanfic, and what was the first fandom you wrote for? What do you think it was about that fandom that pulled you in?
I got introduced to fanfic by aadler when I was fourteen years old. He found a short story about a janitor at Sunnydale High (I think). It was short, but did its job, and it was absolutely perfect for what it was. He’d find more stories, and sit me down in front of the computer and have me read them. One day, he sat me down at the computer, and wouldn’t let me see who’d written it, and only after I’d finished reading it did I find out that he was the author. Four years later, I started finishing fanfic.
I have to say “finishing”, because I was forever starting stories and not finishing them. Finally finished my first story when I lived with my dad for two months.
As far as my first fandom goes, I first wrote Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and I love it. A lot. The story that I probably put the most effort into before I started posting my stories was a Harry Potter story that will never, and I repeat, never see the light of day. Mary Sues all over the place, the whole lot of them.
I’ve been considering getting back into Harry Potter, though.
2 - Name the fandoms you’ve written in, and how much you’ve written in that fandom, and if you still write in it.
I’ll be honest, I don’t understand the distinction between writing Angel and writing Buffy. It’s the same universe, and since I have more fun in the universe than with the characters (see the only real Stargate story I’ve ever written, for instance), having to say which one it is when I’ve never named a single character can get confusing. Which, in this case, is a moot point, because I don’t think I’ve done that with any Buffy or Angel story.
That being said, here’s the list.
Buffy: 28
Angel: 3
Firefly: 4
Superman Returns: 5
Harry Potter: 2
Rent: 1
Crossovers:
Animorphs: 2 (crossed with BtVS)
Golden Girls: 1 (crossed with BtVS)
Firefly: 1 (surprise cross)
Lost: 1 (crossed with BtVS)
Wonderfalls: 2 (crossed with BtVS and with Angel)
MacGyver: 1 (crossed with Modesty Blaise)
Modesty Blaise: 1 (crossed with MacGyver)
Veronica Mars: 1 (surprise cross)
3 - For each of the fandoms from day two, what were your favorite characters to write?
From Buffy, I will always love Xander. Always. I do find it hard to get his voice, though. I have an easier time with Buffy and Willow. In part because, in some ways, my speech patterns were affected by BtVS. Both girls are prone to babbling, Willow especially. Buffy mis-hears things (in fact, when I made a mention to my dad about his Ptarmiiki demons, I called them “Teriyaki demons” and he called it “Pulling a Buffy”) and puts a humourous spin on it. I love Giles, and Wesley is all kinds of rich writing ground. Unfortunately, I tend to make Giles, Wesley, Ethan, and Spike all sound similar. And Drusilla, oh, golly, she is such a fascinating character to write! Unfortunately, as one person put it, I can’t write her without making her sound retarded. Though I am quite happy with my 70 Questions from her perspective. Honestly, though, I really enjoy writing my version of Cordelia, from my Queensverse. (Aadler and I co-wrote the stories, but I still consider the Queensverse mine.)
Angel, I’d have to say that my favorites are Angel himself, Cordy, Fred and Wesley. I know, I keep naming a lot of characters. I can’t help it. I’m trying to narrow it down, and another character pops in with “What about me?” Fred, particularly just-got-back-from-Pylea Fred, is a blast to write. She’s a scary-smart Texas Girl, extremely tangential, and a wonderful dash of paranoia thrown in.
Veronica Mars, no question. Veronica herself. I have a bunch of stories planned, and almost all of them center around Veronica. I do also love Weevil, though he hasn’t yet made an appearance in a finished story. His voice was surprisingly easy to capture. Keith Mars will be fun to write, but what I love about him is his relationship with Veronica, so in a sense, that’s a spinoff of the liking to write Veronica statement.
Firefly, oh, golly. I actually have a difficult time writing Firefly. The voices and flavour of the show is hard for me. That being said, my favorites are Mal and Kaylee. Oh, and Jayne, for much of the same reason I like writing Mal. I can’t quite put my finger on why I like writing them so much, but boy, do I.
Harry Potter. I had a horribly difficult time writing Bellatrix and Narcissa. Hated writing them, actually. I felt like I couldn’t get into them. Sirius was somewhat easier in that story, since canon provided more material that allowed insight to his character. (And I was writing Bellatrix before she went crazy, so there goes that canon material.) In the end, though, I am much more satisfied with the way Bella’s and Cissy’s sections turned out that Sirius’. That being said, I was pleasantly surprised to discover how much I enjoy writing Neville. I’ve liked him as a character for a long time, but I’d simply never thought to write a story about him. Then I read Grav Ity’s story and knew immediately that that was the story I wanted to remix, and fell in love with writing Neville right then and there.
There are other fandoms, but those are my biggies.
4 - Do you have a “muse” character, that speaks to you more than others, or that tries to push their way in, even when the fic isn’t about them? Who are they, and why did that character became your muse?
Huh. I’ve had characters suddenly show up when they were supposed to be dead. In “God Save the Queen”, I’d made a mention to a dead Jonathan. However, I think I need to explain something here. I wrote the first chapter to “God Save the Queen” when I was fourteen or so. Possibly fifteen, but I’m pretty sure I was fourteen. Then my dad re-wrote that first chapter. I played around with multiple variations of continuing from that first chapter (at one point, I had a story that was over 50,000 words, dealing with a psychic that looked exactly like Cordelia, and she used to be a Slayer, and oh, yeah, her personality was loosely based on mine, and does this sound like the mother of all Sues to you like it does to me?) and scrapped each one of them in turn. Then my dad wrote “Each Proud Division” when I was eighteen, and that weekend, I sat down and re-started “God Save the Queen” and had it finished within a few months.
So. Jonathan was dead. Then I get into “Queen’s Gambit”, and realize that I need Jonathan. So I resurrected the dead guy, by simply replacing the dead Jonathan with a dead someone else in the single mention.
I have muse characters in the sense that I have characters who keep showing up in stories, but that’s because the stories are about them. The reason the stories are about them is because they’re the ones that inspire the stories for me.
5 - If you have ever had a character try to push their way into a fic, whether your “muse” or not, what did you do about it?
I’ve had a few times where something clicks as soon as I realize there’s supposed to be another character. For instance, with “Queen’s Gambit”, I knew where I wanted the story to end up. I knew the closing line (or one of the closing lines) before I even started writing the story. I had a basic idea of how to get there, but trying to write was … well, simply put, excruciating. It took me two years to finish that story, and I did more writing in the last two months than in the two years previous- and it happened as soon as I realized that I needed Jonathan and Amy.
Other than that, I’m not able to immediately think of whether or not a character has pushed their way into one of my stories. If a character wants to be in a story, and I can’t think of a good reason to not have them, I generally include them. Sometimes it’s as simple as a “I need a character to fill this role, and who might be able to do that?” and a character pops into my head.
6 - When you write, do you prefer writing male or female characters?
Female. Female all the way. I have no idea how to “guy up” my writing. I can write a guy if I have to, but for the most part, I prefer writing from the point of view of a girl. I understand girls, by benefit of being one. I’ve been told that for a girl, I have very good insight into the male mind. But I’m still a girl, and there are nuances that are going to completely escape me.
7 - Have you ever had a fic change your opinion of a character?
I’ve had plenty of times where reading a story changed my opinion of a character. As far as writing them goes, I’d have to say that Cordelia was the biggest opinion changer. Really, you can thank the Queenverse for a lot of things. This is one of them.
8 - Do you write OCs? And if so, what do you do to make certain they’re not Mary Sues, and if not, explain your thoughts on OCs.
I don’t really write OC’s for fanfiction anymore. I do write OC’s for my own stories, though. I do my best to make sure that I don’t Sue anyone, whether it’s a canon character or an original. I try to continue looking at the character and make sure that they have a good balance in strengths and weaknesses. I don’t want a Perfect Sue, but I also don’t want a Useless Sue (also referred to by some people as “Anti Sues”, but I take issue with that, because if they were an Anti-Sue, they wouldn’t be a Sue). I run my characters through different versions of the Mary Sue Litmus Test. Honestly, the place where it comes into play most is in my RP’s. I had a character, Sandy, that is a karate blackbelt, a sharpshooter, a genius with languages, a math and computer geek, and has daddy issues. But when I ran her through the Litmus test, she had enough anti-Sue qualities to balance her out that in the end, for a test that scores 0-100, she scored a seventeen. Meanwhile, a character run by my ex-friend, was definitely a Wangsty Sue. I finally managed to convince her to run Molly through a Litmus test, and Molly scored an 89. Yet the friend was still telling me that I needed to get rid of Sandy’s affinity for languages and computers.
That being said, I usually try to ask the opinions of people that I trust. For instance, with Sandy, I have three people that I ask periodically whether or not Sandy is entering Sue territory. In return, I keep watch on their characters. We keep each other accountable. And we listen to each other if one of us says, “You need to back it off a bit. Nothing major, but you’re starting to head to a place you don’t want to go.” The fun part with RP is that everyone wants to be a star. So one of the things I’ve suggested, that really seems to work well on this particular site is, we have a mission profile that gives a basic rundown of plot points to hit on that mission. On that mission profile, we say who the “emotional focus” of the mission will be, and we rotate who gets to be the star and who doesn’t.
9 - Pairings - For each of the fandoms from day two, what are your three favorite pairings to write?
Buffy: Xander/Buffy, Xander/Faith, Xander/Dawn. I’ll name some that don’t include Xander, just so that it’s not all about him. I like Anya/Giles, though I think I’ve only written it once. Buffy/Giles squicks me out, because I consider my dad’s backstage series to be canon to me. If you’ve read his stories, you know what I’m referencing, and if you don’t know what I mean, you need to read his stories. Clicky on the link at the top of the page, and you’ll get to them. Anyway. Anya/Giles, Riley/Willow (I’ve started a story that had it, but never finished it), and Larry/Tara. You know, I really need to finish these stories, because the three back-up pairings I just named, only one of them appeared once in the stories that I’ve finished.
Angel: Angel/Cordy, Cordy/Gunn, Cordy/Doyle, and Wesley/Fred. Yes, it’s four. Apparently, Cordy is my Angel version of Xander. I just look at her and wonder what it would be like if things had happened with so-and-so.
Veronica Mars: And yet again, you’re going to see it dominated by one person. Veronica/Logan, Veronica/Weevil, Weevil/Meg, Weevil/Mac. I can’t decide which I like better, Weevil/Meg, or Weevil/Mac, so I listed four. Again. I like Veronica/Logan, because … well, I find their relationship fascinating. I do. She is much better for him than he is for her, though. There is no logical explanation why she even gave him the time of day. I love Veronica/Weevil. So much juicy goodness to just bite into. On Weevil’s side, you have the brownskinned guy who has to deal with his family and friends being decidedly unhappy about him bringing home a blonde haired blue eyed chica, and let’s not forget that if something happened with Veronica, he’d make sure he wasn’t anyone’s secret this time. (Yes, this is my personal canon. You can disagree with it if you want, but it’s mine.) On Veronica’s side, you have her trying to tell her dad that the kid he busted all during Weevil’s teenage years is the guy that she’s now dating. And that’s without getting into the tattoos and motorcycle. I like Weevil/Meg for a lot of the same reasons: she’s the rich blonde girl that he’s going to be beating himself up over for even entertaining the notion of getting together with. He’s the guy that she can’t bring home to her parents, because they would never understand. She’d arouse all the protective instincts he has, and when he finds out about the way the Manning parents treated the children … “scorched earth” doesn’t begin to cover it. And yet again, I like Weevil/Mac for a lot of those same reasons. Mac is extremely intelligent, but in a lot of ways, she’s still kind of naive about the way the world works, even if she is all kinds of cynical. But there’s something about Mac (and I’m pretty sure it’s the actress :D) that makes you just want to hug her. Add into it that in my world, when Weevil and Mac get together, it’s not long after they’ve graduated high school, so she’s still dealing with Beaver-issues, and it’s meaty!
Firefly: Simon/Kaylee will always have a special spot in my heart. I suppose I’ll have to go with the typical Simon/Kaylee, Jayne/River, and Mal/Inara. Zoe/Wash go without being stated, for me, because those two are amazingly perfect together.
10 - Pairings - Have you ever gone outside your comfort zone and written a pairing you liked, but found you couldn’t write, or a pairing you didn’t like, and found you could?
I’ve written Buffy/Giles before. That goes with the “Pairing I don’t like and find that I can”. I don’t do Slash. I refuse to go near that one. The closest I’ve come is Faith and Willow, but that at least has a possibility canon-wise. Faith never came right out and said that she likes girls, but the impression we were led to believe is that while she prefers guys, she’ll take a girl if they’re available and willing.
I’ll occasionally make it a goal to think of pairings and write them. So far, I haven’t found a pairing that is hard to write.
11 - Genre - do you prefer certain genres of fic when you’re writing? What kind do you tend to write most?
I’m a shipper. I’ll admit it. I have a romantic streak in me, and I like to see how things could happen. That being said, I tend to do “character insights”, rather than full out stories. I just don’t have the patience to devote large amounts of time to fanfic. I’d much rather work on original stories.
12 - Have you ever attempted an “adaptation” fic of a favorite book or movie but set in a different fandom?
Sorta. I started an adaptation fic of “Casablanca” for NaNoWriMo a few years ago. I thought of doing it with Harry Potter, but decided it would be extremely similar to one of Yahtzee’s stories, and there are some things that I don’t want to mess with. While it would be wonderful to be compared to Yahtzee in virtually any way, “Yahtzee did this better” is not one of those ways. So I then decided to do it with X-Men. Only I then decided that I really don’t want to put that much time and effort into a fanfic, and decided to do it with an original story that would bear a resemblance to an X-Men fanfic with a Casablanca type story, but not actually be either.
And if you actually understood that explanation, I’m giving you cookies.
13 - Do you prefer canon or fanon when you write? Has writing fanfic for a fandom changed the way you see some or even all of the original source material?
I always prefer canon. But there are some times when fanon has an effect on something. For instance, as I said, Aadler’s Backstage Series, while fanon, affects a lot of what I write. Mediancat’s “Death Becomes Him” has a profound impact on how I write characters from Veronica Mars.
14 - Ratings - how high are you comfortable with going? Have you ever written higher? If you’re comfortable with NC-17, have you ever been shocked by finding that the story you’re writing is G-rated instead?
If something makes me blush, I don’t post it. That’s my rule of thumb. Which means, I tend to stay solidly in PG-13 category. I’ve never been shocked by a sudden rating change, mostly because it’s never happened to me. One of my biggest struggles was how to keep Faith from dropping f-bombs all over the place in “Enemies”. I try to save some words for when they’re absolutely necessary, and Faith is one of the characters that would disagree with me on when that word is necessary.
15 - Warnings - What do you feel it most important to warn for, and what’s the strangest thing you’ve warned for in a fic?
I warn for language, and sex. Other than that, spoilers. I don’t really know what the strangest thing I’ve warned for is. Well, not on one of my stories, but I have warned someone to not attempt to have anything in their mouth for Chapter 5 of “Harry Potter and the Method of Rationality”. I only wish that one of my stories could come with that kind of warning.
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And now I shall go to sleep.