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Thursday, January 3, 2002
03:02 a.m.
I am nearly done with the toothbrush slash. I'm rather amused with the ending. It's a cop out, but it fits. ^_^ I realised that I've only a year and a half to work on fics. So I've started ficcing again. Gave myself a break for hols. But the lack of time is starting to scare me. And the CCS/AL Spawn-chan fangrrrls are starting to crawl out of the woodwork. Heh heh. And after I graduate, I just won't have time to work on stuff. And hopefully, I may have moved on to original stuff. Would be nice to publish. Although, after all the reading I've done, I doubt it. And To Say Nothing of the Dog is brilliant, aka what GOOD shameless pop culture rifling can be if done right. Some people should take notes. (That would include me, but I think I'm pretty good at keeping the pop culture references out. XD) Haven't been ficcing so much. But reading is just as important. The more you read, the better your writing becomes. Helps if read good writing, of course. Which is what I've been aiming at. I can read trash during the school year. If I have free time, I'll read good stuff, thanks. Book count. Up to 4/5? Chop chop I go. Maybe I'll get that writing site up too. XD
Thursday, December 27, 2001
01:28 a.m.
I wrote Cho fic~! ph33r me. I think I will write a Percy fic next. I like doing introspectives. Actually, I like writing anything that doesn't involve major plot. Why Jae does not do adventure anything. Rawr. Can you tell I am avoiding discussion of The Poisoned Bowl like the plague? That book b0rked my brain. And discussion will be on main blog. Cos it must be shared by all. XD
I Hate Draco Malfoy
Wednesday, December 26, 2001
09:30 p.m.
np: Nina Persson Desafinado
I really do. I've been re-reading the HP books. Although I care two figs about making my fics sound anything like Rowling's writing, I read the books rather haphazardly. Her language is anything but lyrical and I get bored easily, so I power skimmed. So this time, I forced myself to pay more attention. Chamber of Secrets was particularly important, because it has the most Ginny in it. (Which, btw, was still virtually nothing. However, the book does mention about 10 times that Ginny has brown eyes. So phooey on all of you that give her blue or green or grey eyes. XD) Lord, Draco is a PRAT. A peevish, spoiled, daddy's shadow princeling PRAT. I knew he was a snob. I knew he was racist. (A most unforgiveable sin in my book.) I can live with malicious and evil. But must he be so fucking peevish? Okay, okay, I mean he's only 12 in CoS. Prolly never had to confront something he didn't like until he came to Hogwarts. (Well, besides Lucius.) And although the Draco I will end up writing will hopefully be more mature and interesting, bejeezus, Rowling, could you be a little LESS subtle with the villans?
Of course, we know that I could care less about Draco in my slashy fic. He's just there to be the h0. Sorry, Fi. Not that you care. ^^
Saturday, December 22, 2001
01:37 p.m.
np: uhm jung hwa regret
It's been a while since I've let myself post here. The regular blog is okay, cos that is pure wasting of time/wankery. However, I post here and it means I am working on fic. Which is Very Bad during finals. (Ignoring of course the fact that I -was- writing fic. Minor details.) But so much to say. I won't bother going into the fandom/fanon discussion again. I think about it this way. My feelings towards most people ranges from indifference to hate. I used to have standards for judging people, but they've changed so much (my standards, not people XD), I've just tossed them out the bloody window. So to say that I've never expected to be satisfied with fandom is an understatement.
Ahhh, fic. I have started on Draco/Ginny fic, in spite of my requirement that I finish A Young Man's Fancy first. I'm wretched, aren't I? It's titled Of Inscrutable Conceit. I was aiming for either New Order-esque or Austen-esque. I got Maugham. Good enough. XD It's on ff.net. And I will use ff.net. I don't have my own domain. I can borrow space from my friends, but I don't want to be a bandwith hog. And who cares if all of it is crap? (The stuff on ff.net that is.) Of course it is. No one slapped a quality guarantee on it. I mean I'm sad as the next person that most of it sucks, but I don't get personally offended. Er, but back to Conceit. At the moment, Draco and Ginny don't really like each other, but they don't hate each other. There's tension. Wub the tension. In fact, the tension is the best part. I mean want them to get together, but I don't want them to end as if they were getting fucking married. They're what? 15? 16? What I want more is this opening of the minds and changing, the willingness to accept something new, growth. (Wankery, yesh? A girl can aim high. Why bother aiming low? No fun in that.)
More specfically, the plot. Ginny's furious at Harry. I have to figure out why. But he's been especially thick. She's v. angry at him. Dashes off. Runs into Draco her secret hidey hole in the library. (It's safe to assume that Hogwarts is riddled with random secret spots. I mean the place is ancient, think of all the little student created fun stuff there. Hell, the Founders may have even created these spots as a lark. They were kids once too, I'm sure they understand.) Ginny then kisses Draco. She has several reasons for doing so. First, she does it as a sort of personal revenge. As in haha, you don't own me Harry Potter, I can snog whom I please, including your worst enemy. (After Voldemort anyways. And Snape. XD) Ginny has been passive for too long in the books. I understand that crushes do stupid things to people and often suck away their ability to be proactive, but surely even Ginny will get sick of being passive for FIVE YEARS, yes? I think she also subconsciously realises this snog could become public, but Ginny doesn't consciously realise she's setting up a plan to make Harry jealous. She works more on an emotional, instictive level. She's not at good at manipulation as Slytherins are, but I'm assuming that Ginny has a good sense of how people work. Hermione is also empathetic, but it's less played up in canon. And it's much more logical and conscious. So I think it's safe to assume that Ginny will be the one with the mad people skillz.
Draco however figures out the plan. He's not stupid. He lives and breathes manipulation, yesh? And at first, it seems he's adverse to the idea of being used, but then it seems Draco doesn't mind being used. Cos there's always a price. The boy is Slytherin after all. Draco creates incentive for himself. Ron will of course come to Ginny's rescue if it comes out that Draco has ravished Ginny. And so will Harry, because Harry will of course back up Ron. And I will have budding feelings between Harry and Ginny. I mean yes, Ginny has feelings for Harry, but Harry will start having some feelings for Ginny. Sorta. Nothing too concrete. But I need it to be messy. ^_^
Draco is also intrigued by Ginny. Cos she's sassy and capable of stepping up to the table and getting her hands dirty for something she wants, i.e. Harry. And I mean the whole forbidden love aspect appeals to him. Doesn't Draco strike you as the sort of person who wants what he can't have? XD But in the beginning, it's more lust. Draco understands the difference between physical and emotional/intellectual attraction. Ginny is confused at first, because she is more naive about relationships. She thinks they must go hand in hand. However, I think it's possible that their relationship could go beyond the physical. Not that purely physical is bad. I just want there to be more. But that's what I have to think hard about. Will they realise what the other has to offer and will they have a meeting of the minds? Ahhh, that's for another entry. Happy hols, all. And write and read loads~!
Sunday, December 16, 2001
10:31 a.m.
These ladies have all said something interesting about the dilemma of writing fanfiction in English for a Japanese work. I am more inclined to agree with Kris that Japanese is distracting. And that the motive for the presence of the Japanese is particularly important. If you are trying to add Japanese flavour and have an otaku understanding of Japanese, you might want to reconisder sprinkling your fic with phrases you barely understand. (And I think I now understand why my junior high school English teachers told us never to start a sentence with 'because'. It's not so much that its use is wrong per se. The issue is thoughtless overuse.)
Sabina offers a situation where Japanese and English could very well be incorporated properly within fanfiction. But again, assuming that the writer has both a decent handle on Japanese AND English as well as good writing skills and a certain amount of thoughtfulness. Which is fine, because we are creating the ultimate fanfic writer, so to speak. But even if we could find those people, and I think it more likely to find people with a good handle on Japanese and English than it would be to find people with good writing skills and thoughtfulness XD, then it really wouldn't matter what or how that person was writing. They are making a stylistic choice in using Japanese, but they're probably good enough in writing that they could work within the constraints of one language just as well as within the constraint of two languages. The ban against fangirl Japanese is aimed at the less thoughtful types. Besides, the words that generally cannot be translated into English are rarely used in fanfic because I think contentious writers also like to add those little notes at the end explaining their Japanese words. And who wants to try to define words that don't translate very well? (And speaking of translations, then wouldn't you argue that romanisation is a sin too? I'm no hard ass canonical weenie. *points to collection of non-canonical pairings in sidebar* But I think something gets lost when you romanise. I feel more strongly about this with the case of Korean. This is also because I never learned how to romanise Korean. Hell, I know the alphabet and that's about it. Takes me ages to read things. But if it's Romanised, forget about it. Taking what was an elegant, precise alphabet and shoving it into the vagaries of English and then having to somehow meander back into Korean is just....too much for me.)
And Tin is right that language is not some neat box and there is no need to get essentialist about what language the characters should speak/think in. I speak/think mostly in English, but there is a fair amount of Korean and Spanish peppered in that process. I think again it's a question of pushing people to consider plot and charactisation and other things perhaps more central to the writing process. Using Japanese in a deficient fic will not make it less deficient. It'll make it more deficient, in my eyes at least. Most of these rules we erect, don't use Japanese in a fic, don't start a sentence with because, use commas and periods, they can all be done away with. But those who have done it understood why those rules existed, could apply those rules, and tossed them out because they stood in the way of doing something else. But not without some thinking first.
I should really re-name this thing wankery. Cos I sure do wank a lot here. ^_^
Friday, December 14, 2001
06:41 p.m.
Lalalala. Procrastination continues. For some strange reason, when finals come 'round, I feel the urge to fic. I thought about it and I figured that my brain is working so hard to learn, it's actually becomes more creative. And I get these random scenarios in my head that Must Be Written Down. It doesn't hurt that I have to sit on a subway for at least an hour or two when I go to school. So I have written snippets. Of mostly Harry Potter fic. Mostly Ginny stuff, with some housewarming ficcage too. (Who knew that brushing one's teeth could be so hott?) Writing Tomoyo's perspective isn't fun and requires too mush sussing out and back history. Thought. Plotting. Rationalizing. Sounds too much like what I ought to be doing. If I want to procastinate, it has to be fun.
So I've been sticking to scenes that requires lots of tension. Why is tension -so- much fun? ^_^ Hmm, so any ficcage topics I feel like discussing? Not so much. Why do people bother twitting about fandom? Fandom is collective, social interpretation of canon. Thusly, it should neither surprise nor shock you if "your" interpretation does not match fandom. Yeah, it's nice to have people to commisterate with, but then you're assuming that all people are thoughtful, intelligent and have the same preferences as you. 'S stretching it a bit, ne? And most of my friends don't necessarily share the same interests with me. Actually, now that I think about it, the overlap is quite small. We do tend to influence each other and convince each other to try out certain series, but our favourite characters and ships vary. I like that.
Ahh, fandom. The social phenomenon we love to hate. Even as we love. XD