Andraste

I promised myself that December was going to be the month where I suspended work on original projects and actually posted some fanfiction. Only none of my half-finished drafts are remotely appealing, and all of the Yuletide prompts I like would require source review and I just want to write something goddammit.

(If anyone wants to remind me of that thing I said I would write them in 2012, or has requests and/or plot bunnies they want to throw into the endless void, feel free to comment. I make no promises about anything.)

Nice things to find on the internet when you're up at an ungodly hour because of your parents' cat: this ficathon. IT IS AS IF THEY MADE IT JUST FOR ME.

Well, me and Selena. And all the other Londo and G'Kar et.al. lovers, naturally, and of course everyone who likes their Charles and Erik and Mystique Old School, the Javert and Valjean fans from Les Mis fandom, the people who adore the SpyRents generation from Alias, everyone who loves Jean-Luc Picard and Kai Winn Adami and Giles and Laura Roslin and Walter Bishop, not to mention the Doctor and Sarah Jane Smith, and hey, Evelyn Smythe is totally on topic for this ... aaaaaand now I am going to stop this sentence before it gets any more ridiculous.

And they let people submit up to fifty prompts. I don't think I'd have any trouble getting to fifty characters, the only question is whether I could get to fifty different fandoms while I was at it. Possibly not, as otherwise I'd have to prompt Zhaan, Scorpius, Crais and Rygel all in the same prompt. Which would surely make for an interesting story, but would a pretty tall order.

So, what I am saying is: let us all go and prompt things about people over forty.

(Footnote: I think the cat is unhappy because my mother isn't here. Why this makes a difference to her at four in the goddamn morning when she sleeps in a different part of the house entirely, I have no idea. At least dad is deaf in one ear and doesn't hear so well with the other, so he's slept through the whole thing even though the cat is half-Siamese.)

So, given that I am writing pretty consistently of late, I decided it would be a good idea to go get some prompts! Trope Bingo are currently handing out cards.

( My card and my rambly thoughts about its contents await you below here. )

I have actually been writing quite a lot lately, but I can't seem to focus long enough to actually finish anything, which is frustrating. Possibly it's been so long that my brain has forgotten how to finish stories. So: drabble prompts?

( Suggested fandoms. )

And, as you all know, I love crossovers.

12 – Have you ever attempted an "adaptation" fic of a favorite book or movie but set in a different fandom?

No, I have not.

... well, that wasn't a very interesting answer *g*. So, I suppose I should add that there's one I'd like to write one day: the Transformes version of Casablanca.

Well, sort of. The plot isn't quite the same, since is post-war. Ultra Magnus got disillusioned with the Autobot cause after the Great War ended and Optimus Prime was killed (again) and is now running a bar on an out-of-the-way asteroid. One day, Cyclonus walks into it. (You get three guesses about whether Galvatron is really dead or not. The first two don't count.)

( The rest of the questions ... )

As of this moment, Charm Offensive has seven hundred hits on the AO3. And forty-five of those people definitely liked it since they left positive comments/kudos. Not to mention the feedback I've had here and over on the livejournal comm I posted it to. (And in RL! Thank you again to my pre-readers of Friday night.) This is the advantage of writing in a fandom that's in the middle of a popularity explosion.

The last time a story of mine was this popular was Ten Thousand Candles. It amuses me that the two stories have the same basic plot line - 'Charles Xavier gets on with his life after having a Very Bad Day' - but it plays out in two very different ways *g*.

I know it's been a long time since I posted much of anything, and this was a real confidence boost. There is a reason why Charles is my One True Character. (Even though, for a change, Charm Offensive wasn't from his POV.)

Now I need to get on with my other, less cracktastic First Class bunnies and my X-Men ficathon story. I'm hoping whoever got my prompts is half as happy with them as I am with mine - I've got a choice of three I could write easily enough. The one that attracts me most would require an actual Plot, but I think I might actually be able to manage it anyway.

Tired and about twelve hours behind on my usual meme-posting schedule, but it's still technically Saturday here, so ...

9 – Pairings – For each of the fandoms from day two, what are your three favorite pairings to write?

I haven't written three different pairings in most of my fandoms! In many of the smaller ones, I haven't even written one, since I write a lot of gen. It's quite rare for me to write any pairing more than once or twice. (I think people familiar with my work can guess what the two big exceptions to that rule are.)

X-Men: Xavier/Magneto is one of my top two all-time OTPs. In any version of their universe, they intrigue me. I've also written Charles with Amelia Voght on more than one occasion, as she's my favourite of his canon love interests. (Not that I don't love Lilandra! I'm surprised and kind of disappointed to find that I've never actually written any Charles/Lil. I think it's because the pairing was well and truly off the boil in canon by the time I started reading. I didn't go back and read the older stuff with them until later, and by then any fic ideas seemed redundant. And, wow, that was a long digression.) I have also enjoyed writing individual stories that were Charles/Hank, Charles/Rogue (it was intentionally creepy!), and most recently Charles/The Entire Brotherhood of Mutants. Charles/Everyone really is my OTP to end all OTPs.

Farscape: I like both Scorpius/Sikozu and Scorpius/Braca in this fandom. Some day, I will write that Scorpius/Braca/Sikozu threesome story ... I've also got a soft spot for Crais/Aeryn, although it was only while I was watching Season Four that I actually thought she'd be better off with him than John. (Luckily The Peace Keeper Wars got Aeryn back into character.)

Babylon 5: Londo/G'Kar is my other all-time OTP winner! I've also written Kosh/Lyta and Londo/Urza in this fandom, but those were isolated cases among a pile of stories about Londo and G'Kar. (Several of which are gen.)

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Giles/Ethan is the only pairing I have ever actually written in this fandom, although I also 'ship Andrew/Warren in a 'this is actually a Very Bad Idea' sort of way. Of course, Giles/Ethan is also a Very Bad Idea for various reasons. It's that sort of show!

Doctor Who: I am very fond of both Doctor/Master and Doctor/Romana, in no particular order, and have written both. I also like Doctor/River and (of course!) Doctor/TARDIS, but I have never written about either of those.

due South: I'm not sure that Vecchio/Fraser/Kowalski counts as a 'pairing', exactly, but it is my favourite. I've written several Vecchio/Fraser stories set before Kowalski showed up, and one Fraser/Kowalski drabble, but the OT3 is my happy place for these guys.

Alias: Another fandom where I'm all about the OT3, although I never actually finished that Sloane/Jack/Irina story. I like Sloane/Jack and Irina/Jack individually, too, and Sloane/Emily as well. (Although, um, there's another story I never finished.) I also have a twisted thing for Sloane/Sydney. (That one is actually a vid that is not finished. Or, indeed, started.)

The Authority: The only pairing I ever wrote in the fandom was Apollo/Midnighter, and that was because somebody requested it. I always had weird thing for the Doctor/the Engineer (by which I mean Jeroen and Angie) but never got around to writing any.

Transformers: Starscream/Megatron was probably my first ever OTP! My ambition in this fandom is to write more of Starscream/Everyone, though. (No, brain, the logically conclusion of this train of thought is not that you should write Charles Xavier/Starscream.) I keep telling my friends about the 'Starscream and Octane Make A Porno' story and never writing it.

Blake's 7: It came as a surprise to nobody that I fell hard for Blake/Avon when I watched this show, and I've written a couple of stories. I don't feel the need to write more than that, though, because there's so much about them already.

( The rest of the 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.

Sometimes I write OCs. Since none of them have had super powers, violet eyes or romances with the canon characters I don't really lie awake at night worrying that they're Mary Sues. Most of the time my OCs have been purely functional inventions - I needed Larrell to have a new captain after Crais left, so I made one up. More rarely, I've written stories where the original character was the star. I wrote an Astro City story like that years ago, and one X-Men common people story. (There was a whole tradition in the Old Skool X-Men fandom that centered around OTL and CFAN of writing stories about mutants who were ordinary people rather than superheroes.)

I've also written a couple of stories about characters we know exist in canon but have never seen - one about Crais's mother and one about Vir meeting Londo's first wife. They're not technically inventions of mine since Crais must logically have a mother and we know Londo had a wife before the three we encounter in canon, but their characterization is all me.

My main feeling on OCs is that they should serve the story being told. I read fanfiction because I want to hear more about the canon characters and the world they live in, and if introducing an original character advances that goal then I'm all in favour of them. My main problem with Mary Sue in fanfiction isn't actually the super powers, the violet eyes and the romances, it's that she tends to take attention away from the elements that I find interesting.

( The rest of the questions ... )

6 – When you write, do you prefer writing male or female characters?

For fanfiction? Predominantly male characters. There are lots of reasons for that, but what it boils down to is that the fictional archetypes I love rarely show up in female form. If I want to write about middle-aged women arguing about politics and then trying to kill each other, well, there aren't many source texts that are going to provide me with the basic material. I've written more female characters in my recent fandoms (notably Doctor Who) because more of them appeal to me.

I used to feel bad about mostly writing men, until I started writing more original fiction. Not that I've ever finished any of it, but almost all my protagonists in those stories are female. When I make them up, the female characters can be the types of people that appeal to me most as a writer. Almost all the original characters I've ever written fanfiction about have been female, as well. (Not that there are a lot of them, but there was that story about Crais's mother and also the female Peace Keeper captain who shows up in that story about Larrell and a few others here and there. I'm also generally more likely to write about minor female characters than the major ones.

( The rest of the questions ... )

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?

Oh, boy, yes. *points wordlessly at icon*

As for how Charles Xavier became my One True (Fictional) Love, that's a bit of a long story.

I started watching X-Men: The Animated Series around 1993, and the first episode I saw was Deadly Reunions. I can actually tell you that my first thoughts on my future beloved were "who's that guy telepathically tormenting the hottie in the red and purple outfit? And why is he wearing that awful green suit?" So, you know, not exactly love at first sight *g*.

If you'd asked me who my favourite mutant was in those early days, I'd have told you it was Magneto, and it would have been true. He won me over in minutes with his sexy voice acting and his tortured past. But Charles had my interest, too, and by the time they were running around the Savage Land fighting dinosaurs together, I'd started to wonder about what made him tick. (This was also around the time I invented slash fiction all by myself.) The Dark Phoenix Saga made me even more interested.

A few years passed, and I had a geeky friend who was able to lend me some comic books - including a reprint of Uncanny X-Men #12, which is Charles' origin story. And I think by then I was already hooked. When I went on a work experience trip to Melbourne in 1996, I went to Minotaur and bought everything in the back issue bin or on the racks that had Charles Xavier on the cover, and then I knew it was love. (This was around the time of Onslaught, so at least he was on the covers sometimes. Even if the story as a whole wasn't very good, it had plenty of interesting stuff in it for a budding Xavier fangirl.) By them time I actually discovered the internet in 1997, I was disappointed to find out that there was almost no fanfiction about him. (Thank goodness for Alara Rogers, or I might have wandered off into some other fandom, feeling sad.)

I think that covers the how, but it doesn't cover the why. As for that, well, there are a lot of reasons. Like all kinds of love, it accumulates over time. Because he genuinely wants to make the world a better place. Because he's Lawful Good for values of 'lawful' and 'good' that other people find extremely confusing. Because he'll forgive his enemies and open his door to anyone. (Because he's genuinely that compassionate, and also because turning away a potentially useful tool would be unwise.) Because he always has at least three reasons for doing anything. Because he wants to be a teacher, not a general, no matter how much he keeps screwing that up. Because he believes killing people never fixed anything. Because of the time he gave Wolverine demerits. And more recently: because Patrick Stewart. (And James McAvoy, who does not have the voice but has the right colour eyes. So I can find it in my heart to love that version, too.)

For the past month, I've been back writing bits and pieces of X-Men stories. It's like he's never been out of my head.

( The rest of the questions ... )