Fandom Snowflake Challenge, Day 11

[aadler]

 
Continuing the meme/challenge begun and tracked here.

Fandom Snowflake Challenge, Day 11
 
In your own space, make a list of at least three things that you like about yourself. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

So far this has all been about fanfic, or at least fandom-and-my-thoughts-thereof. I think I’ll keep it within that venue. So, with those stated limitations, three things I like about myself, or that I see as virtues in fanfic writing:

I try not to repeat myself. Certain themes may reappear now and then, but from the very beginning I set myself to not keep turning out the same type of story over and over. I’ve rearranged the order in which I want certain stories to be read — or, in some cases, the order in which I choose to write them — to keep mixing things up. I’ve checked out instances where I seemed to be going back too often to the same elements, and made a decision to do no more of that. (Example: the different ways a vampire can wind up with a soul, or at least significantly different from other vampires. Example: an alternative reality which is brought to an end — and things returned to ‘normal’ — by the actions of my characters, as was done in “the Wish”.) I don’t even like to spend too much time dealing with the same people, unless others get their turn here and there. (I did more than a few Joyce fics at the beginning. Later, I went on a Cordelia kick. I put some effort into spreading those out among other stories.) This has always been a part of me; even before I was doing fanfic, back when I was trying to work up the concept of a series of scifi books, I put considerable thought into how to vary things. For me, it’s just all part of the fun.

I’m good at action. I mean, really good. The funny thing is, I’m doing rather fewer action sequences these days than in the past, as the types of stories I choose to write seem to call for less of that. I do still occasionally turn out a bang-up fight scene, though. And — see above — I try to make them enough different from one another that it’s always a new experience. More than that, I’ve given some care and attention to the setting of my grand battles, because I find novelty to be stimulating. Over the course of various Buffyverse stories, I’ve had fights/showdowns in:

• the SHS library (in two stories; hey, it’s traditional)
• the maintenance corridors under the Sunnydale skating rink
• Joyce Summers’ living room
• an empty factory yard
• the top of a water tower
• an estate garden (in two stories)
• the bay of an automobile repair shop/chop shop
• an abandoned warehouse (also traditional)
• a parking garage (in two stories)
• a cruise ship
• a subterranean demon warren
• a derelict apartment building
• the front yard of an empty house
• Willy’s bar
• a restaurant dining area
• an alley in a German city (probably Frankfurt)
• an unused auction barn
• the halls of Sunnydale High (semi-traditional)
• the Crawford Street mansion, followed by the factory, with retrospective narrative in the Library (TRADITION!)
• a playground jungle gym
• the Hyperion Hotel (T!)
• a demon bar, and the streets outside
• a demon dimension
• a roadside diner
• a meadow near Stone Mountain outside Atlanta
• Mixtec ruins in Mexico
• an otherplanetary someplace, big ol’ temple complex, whatever
• the street next to a crashed van in Los Angeles
• a Secret Evil Lair
• an empty theater
• one of the upper floors of an office building
• the back yard of the Summers home

Which is to say, I’ve really had fun with this.

I like the characters. I’ve never bashed anybody (though I may have come close, with Willow, but even that was from another character’s POV and he admitted to certain prejudices of his own). I’m far more likely to write justification-fic for unpopular or fanon-vilified characters — Quentin Travers, Hank Summers, Tara’s father come to mind — than to go out of my way to show someone in an outstandingly unfavorable light. Heck, I’ve written a segment that shows a less brash side to Kennedy, and she was all but designed by Team Whedon to be disliked. (My few highlights of Warren Mears, however, have not attempted any justification. I don’t see him as the living avatar of murderous misogyny, but I have no desire to show a more flattering or more sympathetic side to him.) If I have ever spoken disparagingly — in fic — of Spike or Lindsay, well, that was no more than other characters said about them at the time. This is the world as we were shown it, and I like that world; I can enjoy and celebrate that world without needing to paint anyone black, so I’m more concerned with scoping out interesting elements than incriminating ones.

I also like interacting with people who share my Buffyverse love. I’m not especially good at it, but I do what I can when I can.

Comments

[snogged.livejournal.com]

These were quite insightful. Thanks for sharing.

[aadler]

De nada.