Becca Stareyes

I miss writing drabbles.

The Great A-Z Multifandom Drabbling Meme!
This is how it works:

1. Pick a letter.
   
2. Pick a prompt that starts with that letter (ex. K is for Keyhole).
   
3. Pick a fandom / comic / webcomic (if you're not sure of a fandom I might know just ask away - I can also write personal characters if I know of them) and a character/pairing. Yes, I can do more than one drabble on a particular character/pairing, just not more than one letter prompt.

( My List )

If that doesn't interest you, another meme. This one's a guessing game:

1. Post a list of up to 20 books/movies/anime/TV shows/video games/bands etc. that you've had an obsessive fannish love or interest in at some time in your life.
   
   
2. Have your f-list guess your favorite character/member from each item.
   
   
3. When someone guesses correctly, strikethrough the item and put the name of your favorite character next to it.

( Series List -- this can also be reference to the drabble meme. )

SF Big Bang: Winry Rockbell, Martian Space Pilot!

6066 / 25000 words. 24% done!

Trying for at least 500 words per day as NaNo warmup. Currently I have two chapters of fic, and a prologue and author's note. I'm supposed to have a rough draft by the end of October, and spend November revising. I'm hoping to get something workable by the end of October, so I can do NaNo.

(Also, I think I need a beta, still.)

I just finsihed a Slayers fanfic about Xellos -- pick your poison, Insanejournal or Dreamwidth. (Also, FF.net, Mediaminer, Ficwad and Skyehawke, and a link in TheSlayers@LJ -- I crosspost like a crossposting thing.)

"The Weight of Secrets", my Zelda fanfic for areyougame, is done and at the beta *waves to yuuo*. Also, I just realized I forgot to name some minor characters. Oops.

As for my SciFiBigBang@LJ project, it's barely out of the prologue, but I have a Plan. Like many plans, it may change as I write. But, here. Have a graphic.



For the more artistically inclined, I have some exchange art that I finished:



Just realized that TRALLT's Harper (left) looks a lot like how I draw my character, Zack Marshall. Aside from both being blond Americans born in the latter half of the 20th century and being somewhat athletic, they don't have that much in common. Oh, and maybe having an embarrassing first name -- Harper is an Ashley, and 'Zack' is technically a middle name legally changed at 18. (Zack's full name is Francis Zackary Peter Marshall.)

Comment "WORDS" to this entry and I will comment back with five words I associate with you. Then you post this in your journal elaborating.

Here's what padparadscha gave me

( Five Words... )

So, someone on the various 'traditional'* Slayers communities picked out a quote from Crispin Freeman about him wanting to see a season where Lina & Gourry (and Zel & Amelia) were couples and still having adventures. Someone posted the counter-example of the X-Files, where pairing Mulder and Scully in canon really disrupted the show's chemistry.

Currently all the examples I can think of either start the characters in the relationship (Wash and Zoe from Firefly), introduce the characters and have them hook up early on (John and Jane from Old Man's War) or introduce a love interest for a main character as a love interest (Miles and Ekaterin from The Vorkosigan Saga).

I suppose Tom and B'Elanna from Voyager, and the Deep Space Nine couples count as characters that hook up mid-series without the creator's intention, except by the end of the DS9 finale, most of those couples are split up. (Bashir and Ezri were kind of starting something, but that was near the end. Jadzia and Worf were split by her dying, Odo and Kira were split by him going home. I could count Sisko and Kassidy, except she was created as a Love Interest character, was a minor character, and he ended up with the wormhole aliens. As far as minor characters went, Rom and Leeta were together at the end.)

Can anyone else think of examples in long-running series?

* For those of you who are outside of the Slayers fandom, the 'traditional' pairings are Lina/Gourry and Zel/Amelia, and usually minor canon couples are thrown in there. So named, because L/G is at the point where I'd call them having canon affection for one another**, and Zel and Amelia are usually put together in the series whenever they split into two groups (okay, except TRY, but both times the cast wasn't making the groups)***.

** They kiss in NEXT, but neither says they remember it. And Lina insists on trying to figure out a way to free Gourry when a fish-woman (under the influence of some funny tides) claims he's the father of her children, and Gourry decides to help the family out. So, I'd say they lack a canon (romantic) relationship, but not canon affection for one another.

*** It also can easily be argued that Amelia had a crush on Zel in NEXT and TRY. Zel's a tough guy to read, though, and their relationship seems to have changed into more of a strong friendship/partnership in the new series. As a shipper, I'd say you can do it either way.

Noticed that the mod of scifibigbang is updating the banner as people sign up. At least I presume so, since the only anime fandom on the banner is Fullmetal Alchemist, which is the fandom I'm writing for. Since the comm was mostly advertised in Western fandom communities -- there's some Final Fantasy Seven folks, but that's about it -- not terribly surprising. I did poke the mod to advertise in some anime communities I was a member of, and mentioned it in the FMA digest.

(Wonder what would have happened if I had picked something really odd, like that Escaflowne/Charles's Stross Bob Howard: Laundry series I keep wanting to write.)

Oh, speaking of... I made a fanfic to-do list. It includes both my WIPs and bunnies. Also updated my personal website and continue to debate if I should just turn it over to art storage and exchange stuff. Or, for that matter, just not review it next time that comes up and use a combination of journal services and image-hosting sites to create a creative content storage site.

I'm also debating on whether I want to finish the Slayers Albatross* for NaNo. One of the downsides to having a friend in Ithaca doing it is that I don't feel like admitting I'm writing fanfiction for it -- I already glossed over that fact with my (non-participating) officemates and the Ithaca NaNo crew. Ryan might not do it again this year, though.

November is a while off, though.

* My affectionate nickname for the fic I've been writing for longer than I've been in graduate school that is currently 73,000 words in two parts. Two-thirds of those -- the entire second part -- were gotten in a NaNoWriMo push in '07.

A discussion over on Marie Brennan's blog on fanfiction/vidding as a form of critique

( Read more... )

Debating on taking one of my longer fic ideas and joining scifibigbang -- basically four months to write a 25,000 word story in a SF or fantasy fandom. (And it ends right before NaNoWriMo)

It's not like I have a shortage of longer fic ideas to write about. Granted, the last time I tried a fic marathon, I pooped out after 1,000 words. My own fault for deciding I would do it in iambic pentameter blank verse.

(As far as long fics go, I have Part 3/3 of the Slayers Albatross*, the Dresden Files 'Mermaids in Lake Michigan fic', and a Firefly fic about the female characters that probably means I need a rewatch. Or coming up with a plot for a continuation of "Sticks and Stones", my Escaflowne/Laundry crossover. Oh, and "In the Shadows of the Flames", an Escaflowne story that could probably beat the Slayers Albatross out for 'hanging around my neck the longest', and a FMA/Vorkosigan Saga fusion that exists mostly because othercat suggested having Miles and Ed in the same room, I started to brainstorm how to make turn-of-the-century-weird-science-pulp and star-spanning-space-opera work together**. Or a Kin of the Stars/Firefly crossover or the FMA planetary romance AU. Or the Slayers prompt inspired by someone on ameliazellove about chimera!Amelia and human!Zel.)

* Not the actual title -- I call it an albatross because it has been hanging around my neck since '05 demanding that I finish it, to the point where part 2 was done for 07 NaNo and it now needs to be edited for REvo compliance. I don't want to edit or post until all of the rough drafts are done, since I know there's a rough spot between Parts 1 and 2, and I want it to be polished.

** Also, the idea of Riza Hawkeye scaring Ivan amuses me. And Ivan and Havoc commiserating about how they never get the girl. And the parallels between Mark's Thing about Miles and anime!Envy's Thing about Ed.

That's a lot of fic ideas. (Nine? Nine. And I left off any WiPs/Ideas that I figured would definitely be short stories, and the unfinished thing I mentioned above) I feel like I should try to make some progress on this.

Surprising how many are crossovers, AUs or fusions. I used to write a lot of crossovers as a young fan. Strange to see myself coming back into them.

Post one sentence a short passage from your current Works-in-Progress.

( Lots of stuff, hence a cut )

Not even counting Arts and Crafts...

Insomnia appears mostly cured, though I ended up taking a 'boredom-nap'* today. On the plus side, the program appears to actually do what it's supposed to do now -- it still gives me the wrong answer, but it tells me why. (Basically, it gives me a wrong answer that is just as good as the right answer.)

* Basically, I spent the day programming so ended up lying down to recover mental fatigue. Because I find programming to be very frustrating.

Here, have some space porn Cassini Pictures.

In non-work news, I have a crossover story between Vision of Escaflowne and Charles Stross's Laundry book series, which is a pair of novels that are one part spy fiction, one part occult Lovecraftian horror, and one part computer-geekfest. If I ever get free time again, my fanfiction's premise might be expanded to feature how Hitomi Kanzaki, intelligence-service intern, saves Japan from the Destiny Machine Mark 2.

No one will ever read this*, but it makes me very happy.

* Going to try to write it for Escaflowne fen who have never read Stross's books, in the bare hopes someone will take a risk.

There are spoilers for Episode 13 of Evolution-R. Also thoughts on Mazoku.

( Spoiler Warning here. )

Fen have their own sort of culture, with their own sort of norms. One of the big ones seems to be to be circumspect about fanworks around The Powers That Be. Sure, giving a drawing to an author is fine, or showing off your plushie or cosplay. But fic is considered a no-no, thanks to the near-legend about The Person Who Sued Misty Lackey about a Fanfic Idea and Caused her to Flip Out. There's a grain of truth to the idea of stories leeching themselves into your original writing -- Helen Keller found that out the hard way -- and having stories pre-packaged to include your characters probably makes it a bit harder.

The other big one is to avoid profit-seeking, with publishing fic being the big thing. Probably because you can get a wide distribution via POD self-publishing or vanity-publishing, while things like selling fanart prints at cons and zines that may be charging more than paper and postage costs are pretty small-scale in comparison.

Which means when someone comes online and tries to publish and charge for fanfic, I assume that they haven't been in fandom long, or if they are part of some isolated tribe of fen that has never had contact with the outside fannish world. (I mean, there do seem to be fen that would never have become fen if it wasn't for that special show/book/etc., and probably won't stick around after they get bored of the book. Harry Potter seemed to be like that, and so does Twilight. )

And possibly despair at the sheer lack of knowledge of copyright law. (Sure, I break copyright law with far worse things than fanfic, but I know I'm doing it.)

Anyway, our current case involves someone writing a 'tribute novel' to Twilight, one that I'd call 'an AU Bella/Jacob fic'. She also has a bad misinterpretation of copyright law in that she read an article comparing graphical characters to literary characters -- namely that it's easier to enforce copyright on a drawing than a character description -- and now apparently thinks that you cannot copyright literary characters at all.

Sadly, the author of the 'tribute novel' doesn't seem to get the message that this can only end in tears and cease and desists, because she fails at copyright laws.

(It's worth noting that I'm all for loosening copyright law, since I think it goes far too far towards creators and not enough to encourage other people to build on ideas. I mean, stuff hasn't passed into the public domain in decades. I also don't think non-profit fanworks hurt creators (much the opposite -- I think having an active fanbase promotes the author's work, and fanworks is part of that). On the other hand, I can see the line being drawn at marketing unauthorized derivative novels when the author might still want to write her own sequels/prequels/etc. -- a time limit might be good here. On the other hand, that might foster people doing crappy work just to keep a series under their control.

As a comparison, if you work at NASA and take some data using the Hubble Space Telescope, you have a year where the data is yours alone. After that, NASA makes it public. The same stuff goes for Cassini (my project) -- team members get a year where the data can only be used by team members (and their students). The idea being that if you are putting in effort to coordinate a spacecraft or apply for time on an orbiting telescope, you should be able to process your data without worrying that someone will scoop you, so you get a head start and access to any low-hanging fruit. On the other hand, all of this stuff is paid for by NASA, a tax-funded organization, so the data shouldn't stay private.

It's not quite an exact analogy, but I'm fond of the system.)

It's weird how Slayers fandom divides into camps. And, for all that I ship in the Slayers fandom, I sometimes wonder if I'm more in the 'mostly gen that loves the story and characters' aspect.

I look around at all the 'next gen' fic and 'L&G (or Z&A) fic that involves the story of how they stopped being traveling adventurers and started being Responsible Adults with Families' and I think to myself that I don't care about those stories. Some of it is because I still see the cast as being young people and not ready for settling down. I mean, geez, I'm not settled and I'm at least 4-5 years older than Lina is.

Some of it is that I don't think that the cast will ever truly settle down -- that Lina and Gourry and Amelia and Zel are characters who are most happy being active hero-types. For some reason, I see Amelia as the type of ruler who would be very hands-on, just as her father was/is, especially if she has a second parent around to make sure someone stays with the kids. And... well, part of me would be amused if Lina decided that her idea of stability would be ' traveling trader in magical goods and general-purpose investigator of weird stuff' rather than 'adventuring bandit-stomper and general-purpose investigator of weird stuff' -- it's slightly more stable in that she would be less likely to pick fights, and we know that she's a fairly good business-person. Zel... I can't picture much for him, since he can't picture much for himself, besides 'wandering mercenary, working for information to fix himself'. I know that won't last, or he's going to join Severus Snape in my head as 'characters who need to get over their past before they end up taking out grudges on unrelated people'. (All right, technically canon-Snape passed that point in Book 1 of Harry Potter.)

Gourry is perhaps the only character that I see willing to settle down, and then only because I see him as much more person-oriented than the rest. Lina loves her friends, but she loves novelty just as much. Amelia seems caught between her duties as a government official and her goals of being a Champion of Justice -- I can't see her giving up either. Zel is... Zel and completely putting the rest of his life on hold for his cure.

I guess because my favorite examples of couples in fiction are people like Hawk and Fisher or Wash and Zoe*, who are married and still lead interesting lives. If one could pull it off, I still like couples like Cordelia and Aral, or Dag and Fawn, or Izumi and Seig who end up more settled (and with kids or attempts at kids**, for that matter, unlike the previous two), but still have stories to tell, other than 'the time Miles or Nattie did something cute'. Or.. and I'm looking at my bookshelf now, Fee Carmichael or Tom Paris and B'Elanna Torres or John Perry and Jane Sagan, or Sir Gerard and Lady Eleanor, or Miles and Ekaterin or...

* Okay, perhaps too interesting, in the case of Wash and Zoe. Curse you, Joss Whedon, and your desire to do nasty things to any established relationship you write.

** Okay, I'd argue that the Elric boys are Izumi's kids in all but biology, and that she's kind of shown as a teacher-figure to the town's kids.

... cutting myself off here. And I seem to have gotten onto a tangent expressing my love for 'married couples' and 'couples with kids that still have interesting adventures'. (There's an observation by Ekaterin in A Civil Campaign about how all fairy tales end with the princess happily married and that the only role for married women in these stories is dead mother or evil stepmother.)

On a tangent, can someone help me find more series/books with 'partner' characters adventuring that doesn't immediately let the UST take over. Another thing I like about Slayers is that nine times out of ten, it doesn't go into 'will they or won't they'? Most of the stories are about Lina and Gourry having adventures and being partners and not as much about hitting the reader over the head with possible romance -- it just lets the relationship develop. I don't care if it's gen stuff or shippy, I just want a story about two fantasy characters adventuring that doesn't involve the characters asking like high schoolers with crushes every other page.

(At this rate, I might have to dig out my Vows and Honor duology and see if I can still handle Mercedes Lackey's prose enough to read about Tarma and Kethry.)

( Slayers Spoilers. Seriously. If you want to be surprised by Episode 10 of Evolution-R, do NOT click this link. )

I've written a grand total of 14 fics for exchanges and contests where there was an actual deadline. Ignoring all the drabbles I do, I mean. I did Souvenir, Movie Night, and Ace of Serpents for Yuletide, A Break in the Cycle, Masking the Symptoms, Ripples of Change, The Changing of the Guard, Stars, Sky, Night, Borrowing Music and Takes a Jhereg for fandom specific challenges, The Properties of the Elements for a remix challenge, and Rain and Mist, Shadow and Storm and Until the Last Petal Falls for general contests. (And Trust for a rare-fandom ficathon, nearly forgot)

( I muse about which ones worked. )

I'm a bit annoyed with Ravelry, which is a social networking site for knitters and crocheters. Most of the pages cannot be seen except if you are logged in, so if you found out someone has made, say, Wobbuffett mittens, you can't share it with a person who is not a member.

Also annoyed with the Slayers fandom, mostly because as soon as the raws go up, discussion of the new episodes starts. I don't generally watch raws because... well, I won't follow the plot, since my Japanese knowledge is limited to greetings and asking where the train station is, plus a lot of stuff you pick up from fandom*. And Slayers isn't quite as out there for me to be able to not care what the plot is.

* There is something wrong with the universe when I can say 'Stop! My butt hurts!', but can't ask where the bathroom is. Oh, fandom. Why must you be... well... fandom.

I'm worried that as soon as there's an actual translation, people will be moving on. (I don't know what the fansub status is, since fannish etiquette demands that since the anime is licensed and the licensing company has asked subbers to stop distribution, that fansubbing stop. The odds that this actually happens is slim to nil, given the 'Need it now!' attitude of most fans**.)

** Not gonna lie -- including me. I know this is an entitlement issue, and that I'm lucky that the things I like will be translated and licensed at all, and that I don't have to hunt down bootleg VHSs at cons, or ask for copies from the Creepy Guy at my high school. But... well, other people will be talking about it without me.

When Season 2 of Avatar was coming out, I found out that the original voice actor for Uncle Iroh had passed away. People linked his obituary, and I learned something about filming.

Mako Iwamatsu voiced Uncle Iroh, but that was just one role of many. He arrived in the USA post World War II and had his first role in acting in 1959. Back then, the roles for Asian actors were pretty limited (much moreso than now) and pretty heavily stereotyped. Mako was one of the people who both was able to do amazing things with what he had and to organize other Asian-American actors to promote better parts than 'stereotypical Chinese lackey' and 'enemy WWII soldier'. Later in his life, he did voice acting, including the role of Uncle Iroh. It was very interesting to find out this bit of movie history, just because it happened that he had done a role in something I had watched.

(For that matter, Iroh was the first character to catch my eye in Avatar, followed by Sokka. Zuko was all 'I am either going to hate you or love you', Aang took a bit to warm up to, and I kept watching Katara for signs she'd turn into The Chick (tvtropes link). Had I known that the second season was actually going to give us more than one major female character, I might have been less suspicious.)

One of the other things I enjoyed about Avatar was the fact it was a non-Western fantasy world, and the cultural aspects actually were more than skin deep. Normally, it seems like I have to go to anime (where you get romantic versions of medieval Japan or China as much as you get Fantasyland) for this.

Anyway, the reason I mention this is because casting was leaked for the live-action version of Avatar. I had a pretty low bar set: try to get people of Asian descent for Aang, Zuko and Iroh, and get dark-skinned actors for Sokka and Katara. (Goodness knows that Hollywood seems to have an issue with "all people who aren't African, Caucasian, or East Asian are Interchangeable 'Ethnic' People". ) It is good to see that Hollywood is quite capable of smacking their heads into the bar, no matter how low I set it.

Half of fandom already has a problem with the fact Sokka and Katara have darker skin -- seriously, fanartists. We don't need to know that the pros are doing it too.

So, I said on Fanficrants that I tended to think of Happy Potter Houses by 'what they want and how they prefer to get it', and was asked for details... so, here goes.

( Cut for people who are sick of Harry Potter )

So, I have two finished exchange pieces and the hat I promised to make for Live Long and Marry, a fandom-related fundraising event to fight California's Proposition 8. (Something to make same-sex marriage illegal, and to annul all the existing same-sex marriages). The exchange pictures were just my normal exchange things.

( Here's the hat! )

( Exchange picture 1! )

( Exchange picture 2! )

So, I found a bunch of old series posts that I'll be refurbishing for fandom_of_one. I'll post links if I write anything -- check it out for rare fandom goodness, or just books to read.

Criminy, I just realized I was planning on being away for the Bujold fic festival. And I still need to finish both fics I signed up for. And the mrcaex picture I'm months behind. And I have a hat to make, and two outstanding applications for digital_dive/. (That and needing to fend off a third character -- no, I am not allowed to play anyone from the DC universe when all I've read is Birds of Prey and comics blogs. And, no, I am not allowed to buy the DVD for the TV series of that show. At least, not until I finish Babylon 5 and PlanetES. Not to mention Twelve Kingdoms -- which I wanted anyway, but bought partially for CJAS viewing.)