(no subject)

[sarasa_cat]

Posted this on tumblr. Sticking it here too:

Been thinking about the kinds of characters I write in fanfic (and how they do and don't compare with the kinds of characters in my current original fic WIPs).

tl;dr:

1. I've been increasingly using fanfic to write characters who are difficult for me to write, but are needed in the kinds of stories I want to tell.
2. I tend to avoid writing fanfic featuring characters I "like" or feel an affinity towards. 
3. I no longer publish anything that is a character study intended to fuel a massive composite for an original character (my OCs tend to be composites of real people plus at least two or three fictional characters, maybe with a gender swap or aging/de-aging tossed in).

Longer ramblings beneath cut:

I've been scratching my head over why I write so little of the DA cast, especially after writing most of the FFXII cast, major and minor characters alike.

Part of it is that a lot of the DA cast probably wouldn't inspire me to write fanfic in the first place. If I hadn't played DA2, I wouldn't have done more than write one Alistair pastiche that still itches my brain, plus a bunch of Cullen-in-Ferelden fanfic, and then I would have probably moved on.

But, a big part of why my DA fanfic is far more limited in characters than my FFXII fic is because I tend to focus on characters who fit a certain "type" whom I know I need in the kinds of stories I want to tell but who challenge me whenever I try to write them. 

Pet peeve time: I deeply dislike when writers (especially script writers, but also novelists) seem to write the same tiny set of characters over and over and over again. They have a couple of variations on the same male hero who falls into one narrow characterization space, and they have two or three stock female characters who feel like cardboard (ass-kicking cardboard, ice-queen cardboard, and long-suffering cardboard). I want characters who feel like people. I dislike easily defined tropes. I tend to hate tropes played straight. I get bored really easily... >_>

And I don't want to be one of those writers.

Back in 2009 I noticed that I never wrote Franfiction, as in Fran from FFXII. Occasionally I would have her voice a line or two, usually by playing a secondary role in setting up a joke in humor fic, but I never wrote Fran as a POV character. The one Fran prompt I took remains half-written and completely unfilled to this day. When I noticed this absence in my fic, I knew why: I just wasn't interested in using fanfic to write stories from the POV of a character whom I relate to the most out of that particular cast. For instance:

In 2007 I started off writing Basch in FFXII because I was severely grumpy with how I designed and wrote male characters. Of the main cast, Basch spoke the least in FFXII, which forced me to fill in all of his silence.

In 2007, I also wrote Penelo in FFXII because her personality and her canon/fanon likes/dislikes are the furthest from mine of all the female cast.

I wrote Gabranth (Noah) for the challenge and -- omg, the enjoyment! -- of writing a complete fuckwit: a wound up ball of jealousy, entitlement, and anger.

We hardly know anything about Drace from canon so I made a point of writing her as different from me as possible. I ended up writing two Draces: an initial concept and then a completely different Drace who is a composite with another fictional character.

I eventually wrote quite a few of FFXII's cast except for Fran ... but when I decided to write Fran, I wrote 30,000 words that I kept for myself. I plan on using it for a heavily composited, expied character...

As for DA2, even I didn't plan on getting involved with another fandom, I did. Certain aspects of Kirkwall reminded me far too much of an original city I've been working on so it seemed like a good playground. ;)

DA's Cullen fascinates me not because I like him in the typical fannish sense of the word "like" but because he has this fantastic character arc that happens mostly off-screen (thus fanfic) and because he is the sort of person who would annoy me IRL (thus fanfic). So, I ended up with six different Cullens who are all very different versions of his character. The one in A History of Lies and an upcoming side project in that universe is my "canonical" Cullen -- the Cullen I believe to me most canon compatible. The rest make purposeful changes in my take on his "canonical" characterization. Eventually I'll get most of those six different Cullens finished and posted (What He Wants, A Necessary Arrangement, Varric's Greatest Lie, This Bird Has Flown, The Art of Pillow Talk contain the other five).

So why don't I bother with the rest of Kirkwall's cast?

Well, I do, vaguely, sort of, not really, but kind of. A Necessary Arrangement is mostly told by minor POV characters (Meredith, Elsa, Leandra, Aveline).

I have a Bethany story (Precious Things) that I've started but have on hold because ... well, I'll probably finish it as fanfic.

I wrote Carver/Isabela for the rare pair exchange. <3 <3 <3

I am feeling a need to write a lot of Sebastian because I think he would be a challenging character for me to write.

I often think about writing stories featuring Aveline's, Athenril's, and Merrill's POVs but then I end up feeling far more inspired to write original fiction instead.

I sometimes think about writing Fenris, Anders, or Fenders, but I have nothing I want to say as fanfic about Anders in Kirkwall, and I personally think (YMMV) that the characterization of canonical!Fenris makes no sense at all. Again, these two inspire me far more to write original fiction with character who have vague similarities -- but only vague -- than write fanfic.

Which gets back to the tl;dr way up above...