question-a-meme

[salinea]

Since I've been friending many new people recently, it might be a good idea to do this meme :

Ask me one fandom-related question in the comments. This can be fandom-specific, general, or about fandom/lj stuff/fic writing/etc. in general. Question can be as wacky as you want. Ask me about characters, fanfic in general, fandom issues/meta, anything about any of my stories specifically. Whatever you want.

Comments

[carlanime.livejournal.com]

I'll ask the obvious: what are your current favourite fandoms, and why?

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

That one's more difficult to answer right now than you think ^^ I'm a bit between fandoms right now.

I mean, ten minutes ago I was reading an Ethan/Giles fics, and yesterday I was reading Star Wars fics (which is kinda nuts when you know I rather dislike the source material)

Of course there's a new show I love, Avatar, but the fandom is (understandably) pretty juvenile and wanky as a result, even if I've started to find good writers and interesting people in it... that does putt off a bit my enjoyment of that fandom as fandom.

I'm no longer inspired by Harry Potter, but I still think the fandom is groovy. It's big enough to have evrything for any taste, it's well organized, and still pretty active. But right now I'm not reading HP fic because I'm really burned out, so it doesn't serve me much XD

Then there's my small fandoms. In some ways, those fandoms are my favourite right now. They're perky, fun, full of interesting and intelligent people with minimum wank. ASOIAF fandom especially (although it's kinda divided into a wanky-discussion based old school fandom, and the smallish fanfic based newschool fandom and the two sides hate each others XD except for me who's involved in both of them), Utena and also the Coldfire fandom (although they're tiny tiny and not very much active).

If I look in the past, I think Buffy was my favourite fandom though. In terms of dynamics, it was one of the most constantly well behaved (in the places I hanged out, it did have epic wanks as well of course), intelligent and fun. It's the fandoms which I had the more fun analysing canon as well reading fanfics for (and I do feel much more comfortable analysing canon than writing fics). Of course it's been a long, long time since I've considered it one of my current fandoms.

Currently? Since I'm so dispersed... the meta side of fandom's my favourite I'm afraid XD

[carlanime.livejournal.com]

I love ASOIAF--I've started rereading, only it's going very slowly because my time seems to be being eaten up by other things--but have no real experience of the fandom. I mean, I've literally never read an ASOIAF fanfic, which is odd.

I agree about meta. I'm feeling a bit "between fandoms" myself, but I still enjoy the meta aspect.

[rosehiptea.livejournal.com]

How did you end up getting into Avatar fandom?

your icon scares me

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

I'd seen it pop up now and there on my flist, very early on from catiechu, and later on from amewarashi and laurus_nobilis, however I admit I had a prejudice. It was an American cartoon. How could it be as good as their fondness for it implied? However in the last six months, I've been hanging on TV Tropes wiki a lot where it's a massive reference quoted everywhere, which is what finally convinced me to try it. Had a lot of free time recently, so the latest time laurus mentionned avatar on her journal, I asked her where I could download it, and watched it in... oh, 3 days' time? Got completely hooked and hit the fandom.
That was less than a month ago.

Re: your icon scares me

[rosehiptea.livejournal.com]

That's almost exactly what happened with me, including the time frame. Except I didn't read TV Tropes (though lately I've become addicted to it.)

(I had to look to see what icon I'd used, I was afraid it was accidentally something from one of my horror fandoms!)

Re: your icon scares me

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

hahaha, really? Everyone seems to get hooked at it lately. Great kind of synchronicity.

(oh dear. Hellsing wouldn't scare me. I have weirs standards of scariness.)

Re: your icon scares me

[rosehiptea.livejournal.com]

I have worse fandoms than Hellsing. But the icons themselves aren't so bad.

(But actually I think Hama the bloodbender scares me at least as much as Hellsing.)

Re: your icon scares me

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

*Looks up your icon* Alright. I admit it. The Eliot netspeak one is kinda terrifying.

(OMG left hand of darkness icon *swoons*)

(I love Hama. She's awesome. Not very efficient, but awesome. And terribly sad. Which is the most scary part.)

GIP!

[solesakuma]

Cyaaaaan! He almost made cry in the train scene. Not that it made me use him, of course.

[solesakuma]

Hmmmm... which was your first fandom?

Re: GIP!

[rosehiptea.livejournal.com]

I did cry a little in the train scene, which was kind of embarrassing because I was playing it on my DS in the mall.

(I used him constantly. That meant he was leveled up well, and I gave him all the cool items he could use to make that actually work out decently. But I knew I was being very, very silly to do that. I finished the game though, so all's well that ends well I guess.)

Re: GIP!

[rosehiptea.livejournal.com]

Though this icon is what's really embarrasssing...

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

That depends how one defines fandom.

The first fictionnal work I obsessed over enough to make Mary Sue scenario in my head, and look it up on the web was Zelazny's Book of Amber.

The first fictionnal world I got to chat obsessively about online, write fanmade stuff, and poetry and little stories about, and eventually write canonical stuff for was Agone, a French tabletopRPG

The first fictionnal work I got to chat about obsessively about online, and started writing fanfics for was A Song of Ice and Fire.
Any of those could count as a first fandom ^^

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

ASOIAF is awesome. Such great books. I do find the fandom awesome as well, but it was my first fandom in many ways, so it's an old flame.
The ficdom for it is rather good actually, more snapshot focussed than plot focussed of course, which makes sense because one can't really compete with Martin's plotting. But good characterization. If you ever want a tour of the fandom via link, as away ^^

meta is ♥

Re: GIP!

[solesakuma]

(We all have unexplained loves. I'm the one who made Locke a magic user.)

[rebbe]

Uhh, what's your #1 favourite GGK book?

Re: GIP!

[shiinabambi.livejournal.com]

I made every one of them magic users. And taught them all spells so esoteric they'd never use them. I mean, really, once you have Ultima all the other stuff seems kinda superfluous. I beat Kefka just by Ultimaing him to infinity.

But....I have a thing for an unstoppable team of mages. If I could have taught the yeti to cast, I would have.

Re: GIP!

[solesakuma]

I didn't have Ultima, actually. Chose the sword, if I'm remembering correctly and didn't feel like taking Terra up to LV 99.
But I did use it on Kefka because that's what happens when you Sketch him. Poor clown, killed by a ten years-old.
And my Dream Party usually is 'A thief (with magic!), two mages (with swords!), Esoteric Class (with magic and swords!)'.

Re: GIP!

[shiinabambi.livejournal.com]

I have a fondness for status magic loopholes. And casting Stop on those squirrels with Seizure, they nevah saw it coming. And the Vanish glitch is my favorite cheat. I couldn't get the Relm sketch glitch to work, but I did make psycho!Cyan once. It was awesome.

But seriously, Merton? You have to like align yourself to fire and wind or some shit to get it to heal you, and it still heals some enemies.

I chose the stone because I was impatient for MOAR MAJIKZ, but I ended up uncursing the cursed shield anyway, so I would have gotten Ultima eventually.

I never got anyone to level 99. I mean, I wanted to have a little fun wiping the floor with Kefka.

Re: GIP!

[solesakuma]

Oh, I had so much fun with the Vanish glitch. XP
With Relm, I actually had the bad one (in the Veldt, I lost like ten Rages because I always forget to save) and swore off Sketch for the rest of the game. Till I saw what it did to Kefka.

I wasn't so crazy as to attempt the whole uncursing thing... but I'd probably ended up doing it anyway. And LV +70 Celes with the Two Big Swords did a 9999x2 damage so...
Oh, God. Now I want to use my penultimate save (before entering Kekfa's Tower) to uncurse the damn thing. *facepalms*

I only got Celes to LV 99 because I adore her, Locke and Terra to like 81 and the rest at 50. But that's because I, hm, actually enjoy leveling up. *blushes* Yeah, I know I'm weird, I just love how utterly repetitive it is.

[imadra-blue.livejournal.com]

I like this meme. Hmmm. What sort of traits do you like to see in characters and relationships?

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

Lions of Al Rassan. Pretty close to Tigana, but Lions has a greater reasonance to me, the cultural conflict is pretty relevant to my cultural heritage. Also, it's a pretty good story and I think Kay was on his apex with it (I was a bit disapointed with the Sarantine Mosaic and with Last Light of the Sun especially), even though it also got flaws.

(btw I think I forgot to answer you on a previous meme o_O sorry. i thought i needed to look up names because I didn't remembered them and then I forgot to get back at you)

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

hahahah, that's a broad question. I could write several essays in answer :D

In characters
Well, I'm attracted to specific (arche)types of characters definitly, but there's several of them.
I tend to like anti-heros, in the broadest meaning, characters who deconstruct notions of morality. I tend to be pretty fond of some manipulative characters, especially if they're not Evil Overlord types, especially when they appear much more stupid, weaker or cheerful than they truely are. I do love Magnificent Bastards, and Anti-Villains. Highly socialite types are often liked for this reason.

I like badasses characters, especialy roguish badasses, and female ones. Especialy when they're realisticaly fucked up in being so. Although they're not the characters I'm most likely to write about in fanfics (with an exception for the vilain female badasses I guess ^^)

I love smart characters, and nerd-ish characters, and any kind of character that makes you think 'oooh that is so clever!' even when they're vilains (see Littlefinger).

I love righteous characters, when their sense of morality isn't something basic and unthought. When you get a sense of the real stakes that trying to be righteous is, and of wisdom about. I'm especially fond of empathetic and compassionate characters. This often makes me like the token female chicks which is uber-compassionate, the one that most people bash (see Sansa, and a bunch of others). I also love bravery, again, when we get a sense that there's a real sense of price to pay for that courage. (I do have some Gryffindor traits, after all ^^) I love characters who spit up in the face of adversity telling it to bring it on.

I love characters with control issues. Who cannot bear to express themselves, or who are desperate to hide their emotion, regardless of how good they are at it (see Remus and Snape. Oh, and Percy in a different way). I love characters who are intense but in an understated way.

I love characters who have a sense of humour, especially if they're snarky or quirky. I do adore sarcasm.

I love characters who know how to enjoy life, who know how to take the most of the moment, the good with the bad, the joy with the pain. I often like hedonistic characters and kinda over the top flamboyant characters.

I like crazy characters. I will occasionnaly totally love a character who is both very cruel and crazy, like Bellatrix.

I tend to like characters who deflect expectations, subvert types.

Sometimes I like a character, and dislike him for something at the same time. That usually results in me mocking the character systematically. That's usually characters who are sexist jerks with some redeeming feature, but occasionnaly would be characters who do some other kind of idiotic thing (see Zuko).

In general I do have a thing for characters who are underestimated for whatever reason, but do show a great kind of inner strength, and subtle power.

I also love characters who are utterly broken and very angsty and still. go. on. by sheer stubborness.

I love flawed characters.

Oh, and I'm shallow, and I like pretty characters too ^_^

I think that mostly covers it.

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

In relationships
That's easier to answer. I'm an antagonistic pairing fan. Give me hate/love, redemptive love, corruptive love, friends who betray each others, ennemies forced to work together, rivals, people who fuck with each others' mind, people who snark at each others, people who belong to different sides, hatesex... all go.
I also love relationship where power and control is an issue. Whether that mean dubcon, BDSM, mindfucks.

I also love obsession, especially in one-sided ships.

I love deconstructions of the concept of love. Love as a continuum that ties up to everything. Love as something that's neither good nor bad, that just is.

When I like incestuous pairing - which is rare - it's always in fucked up family where power is an issue and there's good reason for rivalry between siblings.

Occasionnaly I like non antagonistic pairings which are cute or sweet. They're usually fucked up for other reasons, though ^^

I might as well just link up to my kinks / squicks / meh

[imadra-blue.livejournal.com]

I totally get the antagonistic thing--it happens to be an element in almost all my pairings too, at least to some degree, as well obsession and deconstruction of love, etc. I think we match up a bit on that.

[imadra-blue.livejournal.com]

That's very interesting, and it was a really braod question, as I have a long list like that, too, but I really like yours and definitely share a few.

♥