jebbypal

Yay! I finished all 30 of the meme!!

29 – What is your current project or projects?

You mean beyond going back to figure out how to finish my languishing WIPs? I have fic prompts a few people have given me that I need to get back to based on teen wolf, supernatural, and Killjoys. Which probably means I need to watch a few episodes of each since I only read Teen Wolf fanfic because Jeff Davis got too crazy and ruined the show by and large in recent seasons, IMO. (haven’t watched since nogitsune season). And Supernatural I quit around the Eve season … which makes me sad since I really thought it was a show I’d watch in its entirety. But yeah, no. And Killjoys I haven’t done multiple rewatches on so really need to refresh myself on it if I’m going to write anything with dialog.

30 – Do you have a favorite fic you've written? What makes it your favorite? And don't forget to give us a link.

Just 1 fic? Wow, that's kind of cruel. So since it's my responses to the meme, I'm going to go ahead and say favorite per fandom ;) LOL.

But if I had to choose 1 overall favorite, I think it would be the Grandparent Series for Supernatural. This basically explores the What If surrounding how Dean and Sam might have grown up since it's unlikely that anyone, even John Winchester, would leave a 4 yo and an infant in a hotel room alone, and I doubt Bobby or Pastor Jim would have been up to having the kids dumped on them, even if John knew them then. Obviously, a lot of this got Jossed in later seasons, but it's still my head canon because the Men of Letters story line is like the worst kind of retcon I've ever heard of. Heaven forbid anyone in the Winchester family be a simple normal person. This was also by and large the first time I actually wrote "kids" so it was a stretch for me. This was also around the time I started hating AO3 kudos with a fiery passion but that's a rant for a different post

A few other favorites
I still haven't managed a proper lengthy story for Burn Notice, which is one of my regrets. But I did multiple one shot short fics when trying to keep the burn notice prompt community I started going. Messy Relations was one that employed the conceits of Burn Notice -- voice over quotes, and an awkward situation for Michael, while giving us a peak at his history.

Firefly gets really hard to pick just one thanks to the fact that it was my one prolific fandom. Still, for one of the Sweet Charity Auctions I wrote Blind Trust in response to a prompt. (which I just fixed the formatting in which might account for it's incredibly low read rate). Basically, I think in a writing technique sense, this is one of the best fics I've written. My beta really pushed me to do a good job.

25 – Music – Do you listen to music while you write? Do you make playlists to get into a certain "mood" to write your fic? Do you need noise in general? Or do you need it completely quiet?

Again, depends on the era. When I started out, I absolutely had music going and would have playlists. Nowadays, music can be distracting.

26 – What is the oddest (or funniest) thing you've had to research for a fic?

I honestly can’t remember…The amount of time I spent trying to determine the Firefly galaxy system in the days before actual show bibles were published were kind of crazy.

27 – Where is your favorite place to write, and do you write by hand or on the computer?

No true favorite place to write. The last few years have proven that a laptop is better than being chained to a desk in a specific room. Always always computer. Writing by hand makes my hand hurt and I can’t write fast enough to keep up with my brain. The only time I’ve written stories by hand was when I went to a few science conferences, ODed on science and subsequently had bunnies attack me while at sessions.

28 – Have you ever collaborated with anyone else, whether writing together, or having an artist work on a piece about your fic?

Flight of the Poisontaster started as a collaboration with Poisontaster that subsequently we pulled in a few other writers we had in our circles at the time. Did we ever get this accumulated in one place PT? We should for our own amusement if nothing else.

Then, my long languishing work in progress Twin Regrets, a few different artists made me art work for it. And Cassiee has made me artwork to serve as bunnies/encouragement for various stories. That’s about it.

23 – When you post, where do you post to? Just your journal? Just an archive? Your own personal site?

It depends on the era…..Nowadays, my rule of thumb is WIP are posted to my fanfic journal. Completed fics get posted to AO3. And as much as I love the Blue Sun Room and Cortex for having started off there, it’s too much of a pain in the ass to code for all the other sites.

24 – Betaing – How many betas do you like to use to make sure there aren't any major flaws in your fic? Do you have a Beta horror story or dream story?

At least 1…I’m usually too impatient for more than that. (I wanna post when I finish for instant gratification). All of my betas have been absolutely lovely. Me being a beta? Whoo boy, I have a few there. Pro tip: if you actually get a beta, this does not mean they will turn your stream of consciousness writing into grammatically correct, legible prose. Please at least use period punctuation, or run it through grammar check first if you are that grammar illiterate. Otherwise baby fic bunnies die….

21 – Sequels – Have you ever written a sequel to a fic you wrote, and if so, why, and if not, how do you feel about sequels?

Have I planned sequels? Absolutely. I don’t know that I’ve always actually followed through. I usually get the sequel bunny midway through lengthy stories and then I have to be careful that the muse doesn’t get too enamored with the sequel to get bored of writing the actual original story. As to sequels in general, omg, yes, I love them. If I enjoyed a book/fic/movie enough to finish it, the best thing ever is for the universe to continue and continue. You know, as long as you aren’t George Lucas screwing up your own trilogy

22 – Have you ever participated in a fest or a Big Bang? If so, write about your favorite experience in relation to one. If not, are there any you've thought about doing? And if not, why not?

I’ve participated in several fic-athons or exchanges, and even completed a few. Never fully tried on a big bang. Favorite experience? Hmm. That’s a hard one. I guess as far as writing, it would have to be the Supernatural genfic-athon I did a while back where I wrote a SPN/CSI crossover in response to someone’s prompt. Which required watching CSI and brushing up on Vodun.

19 – When you have bunnies, do you sit down and start writing right away, or do you write down the idea for further use?

Again, this depends on when you met me. When I first started, I’d sit down and start writing right away….but that resulted in a lot of lost sleep and procrastination. *ahh, grad school. When I could do what I wanted, when I wanted, and still get paid…that was about the only thing good about that 7 years of depression and misery*

Now, I’ll try to sketch down what the idea is and any key lines or anything that is occurring to me. Basically, I decided that if an idea was truly good, it would stick around. If it wasn’t, well, I can’t go chasing after every single bunny if I want to pay my real life bills.

20 – Do you ever get bunnied from other people's stories or art in the same fandom?

Yes, sometimes. And sometimes, I’ll tell someone a bit about a bunny, and then they’ll produce art to egg me on. *looks at cassiee*

17 – Titles – Are they the bane of your existence, or the easiest part of the fic? Also, if you do chaptered fic, do you give each chapter a title, or not?

The bane of my existence. Sometimes, they just show up. Other times, I’ll have something written (though maybe not complete) and will be itching to post it, but won’t have anything decent to name it. Chaptered fic….it depends. For certain fics, yes, but sometimes no.

18 – Where do you get the most inspiration for your fics (aka "bunnies") from?

Now or in the past? In the bad old days of 2000-2007 when I still just watched TV over an antennae and got Netflix by a DVD? Back then, I didn’t have a DVR so I was judicious about what I recorded on VCR during the season run. And so there was always commercials. As annoying as they are to me (and oh the fights I have with my parents when I mute commercials when I visit them), those 30-90 second intervals always give me time to daydream. What was Mal thinking in the scene that just cut off? Why did Mozzie lie to Neal about that?

And then there was always the attack plot bunnies that would appear just as I was closing my eyes for sleep. *glares at River*

Now? Every once in a while one will just occur to me, usually as I’m in an airport or something. But again, my frog muse has been in hibernation for years, so I’ve also been asking people to throw bunnies to try to get him to wake up.

15 – Warnings – What do you feel it most important to warn for, and what's the strangest thing you've warned for in a fic?

Anything consent related should be warned for definitely. Being older now, issues such as suicide and grief should also warned of so people can judge adequately if they are in the place to handle it.

The strangest thing I’ve warned for in a fic? Given that I’ve spent over 20 years reading fanfic, yeah, I don’t even think anything I’ve ever written or warned for could even be judged as weird.....Errr...Okay, warnings of extreme meta and crack from when when we did the round robin of Flight of the Poisontaster with <user name=poisontaster>

16 – Summaries – Do you like them or hate them? How do you come up with them, if you use them?

See now, is this in general, or just the writing of them? Because honestly, it’s cheesy to say it, but your summary is the most important part of a fic when you post it. Granted, I know some archives have word/character limits on them, but I swear, a baby plot bunny dies every time someone writes a summary saying “X and Y are in love by X doesn’t know about Y’s history with Z. When Y disappears, will X learn the truth in time?” *bangs head*

If you can’t come up with a good summary to describe the overall plot, then just pick 1-2 good lines from your fic and post them. Something funny, or provocative. Something that if it was a gif or a quick scene from a commercial would have you wanting to see that episode. But please, not a bad 2 sentence description that would appear in a TV guide synopsis of a Big Valley episode.

How do I come up with them? Fortunately I didn’t stick around posting in any archives that had that level of character limits, and already knew I hated that type of summary by the time I started writing. So either my summary is in essence whatever popped into my head as the plot bunny, or it really is the catchiest bit of the chapter I just wrote. It’s not like we are advertising our fics to the unconverted and need to convince them to come into the fandom. We’re writing to fans who have probably seen at least 50% of the show we are writing about before looking for fanfic, and so they don’t need to be sold hard to.

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

I’m presuming crossover doesn’t count here, but rather a true fusion verse fic? Not really…probably the closest I’ve come is my one Jingle Bells Burn Notice song fic but I really don’t think that’s what you are going for.

13 – Do you prefer canon or fanon when you write?

It depends on the fandom. Fanon, in and of itself, is problematic because you have to identify it and not all the fandom will know or buy it. And is different than writing a true AU of a character or what have you. But then again, we also have source materials that are deliberately obtuse about telling us certain things for ages and ages *side eyes Supernatural, Teen Wolf* resulting in you having to start making up your own stories about certain characters like Mary Winchester’s family or what the hell is Sheriff Stilinski’s first name. And some of those become widely enough used that there are certain levels of fanon about them *Tom Stilinski* while others no one ever completely agrees upon and the show eventually catches up and Josses your universe *Mary Campbell from the Campbell hunting family*

Other times we get left enough vagueness that everyone comes up with their own theory, and the different settings/tropes themselves are fanon but everyone handles them differently – Shepherd Book as an Operative for example.

So yeah, it depends. I like to be able to use canon for the timeline or different things, but unless all you write is episodes, missing moment fics, or introspective pieces, at some point you have to pull away from canon to say X was off doing Y here.

Has writing fanfic for a fandom changed the way you see some or even all of the original source material?

I don’t know about changed my opinion of the source the material. Writing from different characters POV has changed my opinion of different characters to an extent. But not really the source material

11 – Genre – do you prefer certain genres of fic when you're writing? What kind do you tend to write most?

Well, if you’ve read much, then you know yes, there are certain genres I prefer with 2 standouts.

Crossover. *grabbie hands* I think finding crossovers was one of the things that completely sold fanfiction to me when I first found it online at 16. As long as the hook for it is vaguely plausible, I’m in for reading them. For writing, I’ve found I really need a good backstory or way to interweave the universes, but my muse has gotten better and better about that as evidenced by the Burn Notice/Firefly bunny I have languishing in WIP purgatory.
Drama/action. It’s my bread and butter. And if I look too hard, I’d say I write the “X goes missing, everyone else has to save them” trope waaaay too often. But hey, I enjoy telling myself the story enough to write it down and I usually get at least a few comments.

10 – Pairings – Have you ever gone outside your comfort zone and written a pairing you liked, but found you couldn't write, or a pairing you didn't like, and found you could?

So again, in my MIA rewrite of the Serenity pilot that I did for a gift exchange, not only did I have to write Jayne, but it was also Jayne/Kaylee. So yes, I wrote a pairing I wasn’t crazy about, and found I could. Well, at least the head space….not sure I’m any good at writing it.

10 – Pairings – Have you ever gone outside your comfort zone and written a pairing you liked, but found you couldn't write, or a pairing you didn't like, and found you could?

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

Umm, first I don’t really like writing pairings. So we'll do my OTPs instead

Firefly - Zoe/Wash. If we're in crossover land, Jayne/Fi

Burn Notice - Mike/Fi is kind of inherent to the show. But I actually love Fi/Jesse

Supernatural - Dean/Metallicar

The Unit - Jonas/Molly is about the only pairing that didn't always make me actively angry.

Terminator: SCC - Sarah/Charley Dixon

Justified - Boyd/Ava

White Collar - Peter Elizabeth

CSI original flavor - none

Torchwood - Jack/Ianto

Farscape - John/Chiana

Leverage - Hardison/Eliot/Parker

Lost - Charlie/Claire. Anyone/Richard Alpert :)

Author notes: I was intrigued by this prompt from wehappyfew: “early seasons SPN/Teen Wolf crossover where Dean and Sam are cousins of Allison that Chris calls in for help finding the alpha”. However, it’s also been a crossover idea that I haven’t necessarily been bit by in the past because the canons of the 2 shows are so different in respect to werewolves. But you know what? This is for More Joy Day, and in order to bring joy to both wehappyfew and myself, I’m going to take a page from Jeff Davis and say “canon? Who needs canon!” So some central facts to both shows will remain the same but you can put this story firmly off into the category of AU fusion. Purists for either show probably want to leave now.

Timeline: We’re going to move S1 SPN into the same “year” as Teen Wolf, but leave month dates the same. So in this AU 2011, we are pre-Skin in S1 SPN, but post Phantom Traveler. And for obvious reasons, we are going to say that Victoria Argent was once Victoria Campbell. Though of course the boys don’t know anything about Mary Campbell’s past

Slapping at the bedside table, Dean finally grabbed his ringing cell phone. Briefly fighting with sleep numbed fingers, he finally answered. “Hello?”

“Dean Winchester?” a feminine voice answers. ( Read more... )

7 – Have you ever had a fic change your opinion of a character?
Oh, definitely. Especially since the way this question is worded it doesn’t even need to be a fic I’ve written. So yes – other writers have definitely changed my opinion on certain characters. In fact I’d say it was some of those fics that probably influence my opinions on Jayne. At the same time, I like to push myself to reexamine the characters in a different light too as an exercise. Which is where the WIP Camouflage came from. I may have pushed a little too hard there, but still

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.
Yes, I write OCs. Depending on the universe, you almost need to at some point. Not every fic can be a “episode in a bottle” and for some of our short lived gems, it’s not like we have a huge universe of characters to borrow from.

And Mary Sues…yeah, that’s a fraught question right? I mean, I imagine every teen gets it beaten into their head that Mary Sues are bad. And then we get into fandom discourse and realize that, really, what story ever written didn’t likely have a Mary Sue in it? (And if so, which character in King Lear was Shakespeare? Ha! If you are going down the rabbit hole, go all the way down, I say).
So tru fax time? In my head, like most of us, I’ve done self insert stories since I was probably 6. I always had rules on how much older I could make myself etc, but that was what I would do to put myself to sleep, pass road trips, and for when school was extra boring. And I still do it.

Now for a fanfic, what differentiates a Mary Sue from a full fledged OC? Simple – have you built out the OC character into a full character rather than just importing your OWN background onto it. I told someone once that the way I knew if it was too much a Mary Sue is that at some point the Mary Sue is in every single scene and the scenes don’t work without them. Because really, when we do self insert fic we want ourselves to be involved in the plot and we want to interact with all the important characters and the bad guys will know who we are.

But at the same time, I’ve take a lot of what were self insert scenarios and built from them decent (IMO) stories that are now OCs. (and wow, now that I go looking, I realize there’s a lot of fics from the Blue Sun Room I didn’t import over to AO3). One of my first stories, and a relatively decent one that I wrote started this way – various scenes in Preacher’s Prayer came from a “Mary Sue” start, but gradually I feel I fleshed things out into more of an OC.

So yeah, if you want to write a Mary Sue, IMO, go ahead. If you write well enough, and do your world building right, no one will care in the end. It’s the quality of the writing and story telling we all want to see.

5 –If you have ever had a character try to push their way into a fic, whether your "muse" or not, what did you do about it?
Reevaluate the story? No, I usually just go with the flow. My process really doesn’t involve outlines, for better or worse. I get the idea, I write the scene, and I start daydreaming about what’s next. And when scenes don’t connect, I try to figure out why – what or who’s missing. No, more often, I just want to know where my amphibian muse got the bright idea for Jayne and Inara cooperating on anything and why I have to write the man ape again.

6 – When you write, do you prefer writing male or female characters?
Men. Which being a cis-het woman seems all kinds of wrong. Probably partially because I grew up in the culture of late 70s and 80s where the leading character was almost always a man outside of Jane Austen and certain other classic novels. Also, growing up in the South with the stereotypes of what girls and women should be, I never felt I understood my own gender. Okay, so Jane wants kids? But why? Why does she have to have them instead of adopting them? Why does she want an alien growing in her? Why on earth would Bella feel like she’s going to die if Tom doesn’t like her? I don’t get it?

Or well, I didn’t get it by and large. Age and experience and the travails of baby making on the part of various friends have enlightened me somewhat. So yeah, comfort zone starting out was definitely guys.

They just go together, am I write?
In that vain, I've been poking around some journals of all the new folks in my circle *waves*, and realized that at least by my tagging (which I'm poor at. Oh so bad at), I have done a meme in like 5 years.

So I saw this one on

lyr's journal and figured this is great! It was also introduce me (or reintroduce me to those who are surprised at how much I'm posting in 2017).

And well, procrastination. :) It's a character trait. I'd say flaw, but you know what, sometimes it ends up being a positive thing. :)

( fanfic meme questions )

So question 1:
How did you first get into writing fanfic, and what was the first fandom you wrote for? What do you think it was about that fandom that pulled you in?

Well, I've been reading fanfic since I first got access to the internet in 1994 at the age of 16. Roll forward many years to college internship and I tried to write my first fic while recovering from mono one summer in The Sentinel fandom. Actually got a couple of chapters betaed by some poor soul, but I put my Mary Sue fic to bed and didn't think of it again.

I wrote and finished my first vignette - a Buffy piece post Glory - one summer waiting for grad school to start in Philly. But I didn't really post it and continued to lurk on archives.

Then Firefly aired. and I couldn't find any good fanfic archives. and I kept rewatching it. and finally found the Blue Sun Room. And started writing. A rather lot. Because it was more fun than grad school. :)

I'm rather ignoring the "what pulled you in?" part, aren't I? Let's see. The Sentinel -- well, the pretty. And the bonds of friendship. But also, well, frankly sympathy. I have always been bothered by being too sensitive to certain noises, getting migraines from certain fragrances, and allergic to dyes/fragrances/fabrics on my skin. (no, i'm not on the spectrum. I had undiagnosed food allergies that made me have low level headaches my entire life). So the concept of enhanced senses? wow, spoke to me. Now if someone could invent dials for me? that would be heaven.

The Buffy story -- this won't make sense out of context of the actual story I wrote, which was an examination of Ben's knowledge of his duality and own sense of self and how that might fit into the context of religion and followers. Also, a friend had once told me her belief that maybe we all don't really exist unless someone else in the world is thinking about us, and it all got wrapped up into this bunny that wouldn't stop.

Firefly. Family, betrayal, sense of not fitting in. Westerns (which I grew up on), Sci Fi (which I grew up on), and angst. Yeah. Pretty much in my 20s, Firefly was very much the show of my soul.

Okay, okay. Time to focus the frog back on writing.

Title: Pushing the Waters Back
Fandom: Push (the movie) and the Avengers movie-verse
author: jebbypal
rating: Teen
summary: Cassie gets annoyed when she discovers Nick has a never-before mentioned twin. Or clone (Division, enough said). Or doppleganger. Either way, this is going to take a lot of alcohol.
warnings:
1) WIP and I'm dusting off my writing muscles
2) You know me, so you know to expect angst
3) Mentions of underage drinking, because it's a integral part of the Push mythos.
4) Unbeta-ed because of #1.
author note: So I've been trying to write Push fic for fleshlycherry for ages now. And earlier this year, when I finally saw Captain America 2, I told her I had a Push crossover bunny. Which I've started from several angles but haven't been happy with. But a new one was just birthed that I think is going to stick. So I'm starting out the new year by posting the start of it in hopes of fulfilling my often resolved New Year's resolution of writing more fic. You guys get to come along for the ride.

( Cassie falls out of bed and it's always Nick's fault )

Well, halcyon_shift managed to fling a bunny that actually stuck with the muse!! I'm sure the very deep angst in Burn Notice season premiere + my horrible horrible procrastination that is currently ongoing helped it grow.

Not exactly what I started typing out yesterday messily on my ipad, and probably not exactly what LD had in mind, but I think it turned out pretty well.

Title: Postcards From My Wasteland
author: jebbypal
Summary: Michael almost reached out to his friends during the 9 months between the end of season 6 and beginning of season 7.
Word count: 526

The amount I'm procrastinating on cleaning all the things is reaching record setting proportions. Still, will have to be done this week or next weekend since the week after that will begin the packing and travel saga of 2012.

But at least instead of my normal fanfic binge and tv watching, I also included some actual fic writing. It's been a loooong while, but this bunny has persisted for MONTHS (and cherry is sitting there glaring at me because I've been teasing her with it all along), and the perfect intro setting finally occurred to me last week. Perfect in that it remained interesting to me after playing it around in my head a few times. And I'm beyond amused with my working title "Get Out and Push". Probably has exactly nothing to do with the story, but still, when your crossover is Firefly with Push, it just begs for that kind of title, no?

But wow, I forgot how long it takes to actually write out. Several hours to get around 3500 words.

I do have to say, having the firefly companions helps out a lot, especially since the sites that used to all have the show transcripts aren't always 100% reliable nowadays. A bit of a different experience to write fanfic with physical references to look at instead of google :)

Oh, also, Grey - the Liam Neeson movie - is like the most depressing movie ever. I think the Road might have had more light hearted scenes in it. A good movie, but wow, depressing. And I spent a good part of it playing games on the iphone during the really tense parts. (If you've seen it, or know what it's about, you can guess which ones that is).

Courtesy of fleshly cherry (prompt 1 of 2):

( Who wears the high heels in the relationship between Cassie Holmes (1) and Zoe Washburne (8) )

Next, someone needs to make more prompts!

Bright Spots

Fanfic meme #29 and 30

fanfic meme #25-28

fanfic meme #23 and 24

Fic meme #21 and 22

fanfic meme #19 and 20

fanfic meme #17 and 18

fanfic meme #15 adn 16

fanfic meme #12 and 13

Fanfic meme #11

fanfic meme #10

fanfic meme #10

Fanfic meme #9

More Joy Day -- Prologue of untilted Super Hunter fic

Fanfic meme #7 and #8

Fanfic meme #5 and 6

writing and procrastination is like chocolate and caramel

Pushing the Waters Back - Push/Avengers crossover

Burn Notice - Postcards From My Wasteland

A different procrastination at least....

15 characters, take 3

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