Me myself and I

( 30 Questions )


24 – Betaing – How many betas do you like to use to make sure there aren't any major flaws in your fic? Do you have a Beta horror story or dream story?

Basically, as many as I can get to help me out. My English grammar sucks and I always like more opinions on story structure, characterisation and so on...

Don't really have a horror story, well the closest to it was when I just came online, and I'd written my first fic. I'd managed to get someone to agree to beta, sent it to them, and never heard back.

Small thing to remember, this was my first experience being online, and I was using the computer at a youth center. This matters, because I didn't have any idea how email worked, so I accidentally used the youth center's email instead.
And then I spent the next week or so wondering why I never heard back from said beta ;-)

(well the fact that the fic was about Methos meeting my Mary Sue like oc probably didn't help matters either)

( 30 Questions )

18 – Where do you get the most inspiration for your fics (aka "bunnies") from?

It depends, sometimes stories I read, the news, other fics, conversations about characters. Watching an episode and thinking about the character's emotions, how they'd react in different situations. My own kinks, other people's kinks, the kink meme... And sometimes, I have absolutely no idea how, but sometimes an idea jumps fully formed out of your head, and you just have to write it, and those are usually the best ones.


19 – When you have bunnies, do you sit down and start writing right away, or do you write down the idea for further use?

It depends, sometimes I talk about them with a friend, on others I just post it on the kink meme. Most of the time though, I just keep them in my head, if they're strong enough to survive, I'll end up writing them regardless.

20 – Do you ever get bunnied from other people's stories or art in the same fandom?

All the time, the difficult part is trying not to copy them, and if the idea is too close, to at the very least credit them for it.

( 30 Questions )

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?

Since my fics are pretty dark, my ratings can be pretty high. Admittedly, I've written fics, expecting them to be at least R, and ending up with a PG13 instead, but that usually has more to do with the lack of sex in said fics. For me, a rating depends on the story, if the story takes me to dark places, then I'll follow it, even if that means a heavy NC17 rating. But if it would feel like the sex would be crammed in for the sake of it, then I'll just as easily drop the sex, or even the romance in general, if it doesn't add anything to the story.

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?

Most important, I'd say, are things like underage, non-con, torture, gore, pedophilia, bestiality, you know the usual things that might squick the hell out of people.

I wouldn't say it's strange, but I have warned for cannibalism, and though I've not used the warnings, I do at time feel like I should warn readers of my Teen Wolf fics, that though I try anything to avoid charbashing, that I'm not, nor will I ever be Stiles-positive. And that no matter how many reviews they leave behind about it, that I won't make any fic any more Stiles-centric than I absolutely have to.

I have been using a scott-centric tag on some of my TW fics, but that's not a warning, that's just a way to tell fellow Scott fans that my fic is something they might like.

( 30 Questions )

11 – Genre – do you prefer certain genres of fic when you're writing? What kind do you tend to write most?

I tend to write darkfic, angst, hurt/comfort. I pretty much suck at writing anything fluffy and/or humorous.

My main genres seem to be slave fic, abo, and stuff close to it.

( 30 Questions )

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 used to, a lot more than I do now. Back when I first started writing fanfic, I'd write fanfics about my oc's as the main characters. And though I did try to keep them from being perfect, even the one I specifically wrote about myself, looking back, they probably were Mary Sues.

Nowadays, I do still use oc's, but I try to bring in new chars, the way the show I'm writing about would. Keeping the focus on the canon characters, and using the oc's to add to the story, instead of having them take it over.
Even with an outside pov fic, where the story, inherently is taken over by the oc, the point is not to write about this amazing oc, but to use them to give a view on the characters that the readers do already care about. And get the readers to identify with them, because of their observations on the canon characters and world, and not because they're the most amazing person to ever be amazing.
That doesn't mean the oc can't be the main character, just that you have to be careful in how to introduce them, and how they interact with the world already there.

Using my fic 'the Pet Whisperer" for example.
Despoine may be the main character and the pov character, but her point in the story is to reflect on the relationship between Cas and Dean, and the world she lives in. To explore what it's like to be a pagan god in the spn verse, without making it look better than it is. (in ergo, she does eat and/or enslave people, and the fic isn't shy about it. I don't try and make the pagan gods somethign they aren't in canon, or any less dark than they are in canon, which I think helped the fic in the long run.

Or in Tempering the Blades where half the story is told from my oc's pov, but the story is on how outsiders would see the Winchester family, rather than on CPS agent saves the day.

In both cases, the oc is a main character, but I tried to make sure that their presence, doesn't diminish the role of the canon character.

Joss Whedon once wrote an ep of btvs that showed exactly what a Mary Sue is and does, aka Superstar, and it's that that I'm trying to avoid. Whedon used Jonathan who wrote himself as the center of the narrative, taking away Buffy's role as competent leader and making her a bumbling sidekick to his own heroics. He becomes the center of their lives, their friendships, pushing away the people who actually play those roles in canon. In fact, one of the only Mary Sue tropes that Whedon didn't hit with that ep, was making Jonathan the surprise family member of someone in the cast ;-)

And by writing this ep, whedon shows us exactly what not to do when bringing an oc into a story. And what the difference is between a character who may be slightly too awesome, and a Mary Sue*g*

In short, there's nothing wrong with a well written oc's, and in a lot of ways, I actually do prefer them to seeing a canon char twisted in such a way that they're no longer recognizable. But...they need to be used with care and caution.
And for me personally, though I don't mind all 'secretly family' fics, it does tend to put up a red flag of caution. Especially when the char is written for a family where the family dynamics are a huge part of what the show's about.
Just saying, it's one thing to bring in a secret father for someone like say Xander, because his father is a minor char in btvs canon, but if you try and push a new sibling into the Winchester family, then you may well screw up the entire Winchester family dynamic that is the center of the story to begin with.
(same for giving Harry Potter a new set of parents, since so much of Harry's interactions with other chars like Sirius, Remus and Snape relies on the fact that he is James and Lilly's son.)

( 30 Questions )

3 – For each of the fandoms from day two, what were your favorite characters to write?

OC-verse: Brains, a thirteen year old girl who's mutation was that her brain wouldn't stop growing, making her go from below average intelligence to a supergenius.

Highlander: my oc's? (ducks for cover), well them, and oddly enough, the Kurgan.

BtVS and Angel, Spike, I loved Buffy, but somehow at the time, Xander and Spike were easier to write. Though admittedly, this is the fandom where I started to grow up, grew out of my focusing too much on oc's stage and realized I was starting to use Xander as a Canon Stu, which led to me losing interest in him over time.  By the time I left fandom, I was primarily a Spike-writer.

Marvel, Peter Parker, no ifs or buts, Peter just hit me in a way that none of the other characters have ever managed to do. Which is why Dan Slott's ruination of the character pretty much ruined the fandom for me as well.

Criminal Minds Grimm, the Listener, NCIS, ... no particular fave, though I did love writing for Derek Morgan. And Nick is easy to write for in Grimm fandom

Supernatural (and spn rps), as mentioned before, Dean, Dean, Dean, and Jensen, and oh yes, some more Dean*g* And Victor Henriksen who's total fun.

Teen Wolf, Scott McCall.  He's the one character I most identify with, and who feels most unique amongst the Teen Wolf cast. Liam's fun too, but Scott is just so sweet and kind in how he deals with everyone, while completely insecure about his own worth. These days, on most shows, the main characters are either cynical jerks, or the broody manchild anti-hero, which I do like when done well (see Dean), but they've just become such clichés, that it's becoming hard to relate to new versions of the trope.

I mean, I like Derek, but if it weren't for Hoechlin, his char would be nothing but cardboard. It's like the writers were ticking off a list on what a brooding manchild char is suppsed to be like and then filled every single field.

With Scott, it's so rare to see a main character who's emotionally open, who accepts his feelings and emotions and supports others. Who to use Potter terms, is a Hufflepuff rather than a Gryffindor. Whose main emotional state isn't anger, or sadness, who can admit when he makes a mistake (often toth e point of his own detriment) and whose entire heroisme isn't based on some dead female relative/love interest, but on the example of still living role models. (aka Melissa and Deaton)
We saw Scott actually grow up, yet still keeping his same core values, which is soooo incredibly important to me. He feels like a combination of a younger version of Peter Parker and Steve Rogers and I totally love him for it.