July 7, 2008 - I attempt to start my profile with something meaningful, and fail. Mwaha.

Now, I want you all to know, and I know that there are a few of you out there, watching, waiting, and lurking, that I have a deep and abiding hatred for my own writing style. Nothing I can do to help that. Therefore, I hate the way I've written my current (or rather, not so current. I haven't posted anything worth mentioning for several years as of today) fics.

I hate BAD OOC characters, OCs and self-inserts. I hate stupid plots. I am guilty of these myself. I hate that. It's kept me from writing for several years, something I used to enjoy greatly. I have lost track of the true purpose of fanfiction: having fun with it.

Everyone who ever claims that fic must be in character, must be within in the confines of canon...oh, shut up. Fanfiction by nature will always deviate from characterization. Characterization is open to interpretation. Even if an author deems that a characters' personality is thus, people are going to look at that and take it however they can interpret it within the confines of their own experience. One fangirl's OOC is another's canon. And as for staying true to canon: I like it, yes, but only when done well. I equally think wandering away from the canon is equally interesting, if not more so. Some of the greatest fics I've ever read are totally AU.

I enjoy watching people define themselves by how they see a fandom, and how they write it.

Now, however, hypocritical as it is for me to say it, though I have long since driven (at least I hope so. please let me have gotten them all) all my self inserts and really terrible fiction from the internet. I could tell you terrible things about this one Lord of the Rings fic. Oh lordy, it was bad. And badly written smut on top of that. I see a lot of these people defend themselves with "But it's fanfiction! I can do whatever I want!" usually follwed by a round of "You people are mean and I hate you."

This is true, to an extent. I am mean. And yes, I know some people who make fun of bad fanfic are taking it too far. But you know? Most don't.

AU does not make it bad. Self inserts (though a lot of the time I wonder why people just don't write their own original fiction with the waysome of these things go. I think it's so they don't have to write their own backstory. I know that's the reason for most of my fanfiction) are not by nature bad. Re-used plots are not bad. OCs are not by nature bad. Mary sues are an evil, but a required one that is a stage many folks have to pass through at some point, myself included. Fanfiction means that you can tell canon to shove it, and make your own little world within a world.

You cannot, however, do whatever you want.

You have to respect your characters, respect your fandom, respect your readers, and respect your story. You have to love what you're doing.

It isn't enough to write for self-gratification. It isn't enough to write because your friends do. You need to write for the joy of it, for the joy of exploring your characters, or exploring someone else's characters. It it's bad, it's bad. But if you love it, it's not bad, even if it is. People will be able to tell that you tried, even if it makes them projectile vomit and spew horrible critism. Take it with a smile folks. For everyone that hates a fic, ten more will honestly like it. That's the beauty of fanfiction.net. There is always someone worse, and then a thousand people who love the stinkiest one.

So. Even if your house burns down from the flames you get on your story, or if you never get one word of feedback, it shouldn't matter. Because if you love it, no one else needs to.

Likewise, if you get glowing compliments on everything from your setting to the way your characters wipe their arse, it doesn't matter if you don't love your fic.

And I'm not saying that loving it makes it good. Oh, god no. My smut was horrifying, but damn if I wasn't proud as all get out about that thing. But I took critism gracefully, as you always should, and the flames as well.

If someone mocks you, don't chase them down and tell them how horrible they are, and how now you don't want to write anymore. If mocking your fic is enough to make you quit writing, you aren't writing for the right reason. You don't have to post stuff online, you know. And contrary to belief, most of the people mocking you have written stuff before. They correctly realize that they aren't serious business, or have, sometimes wisely, decided not to post. Because, you know, not everyone needs to throw their fic out for the enjoyment of the masses.

No. Ask them for advice. Follow it if they give it, or work it in. Don't ignore the stuff that's valid, please. Please improve as a writer, constantly. You aren't perfect, no one is. And if they won't be civil when you are, well, they aren't worth garbage. If you start a war, though, expect them to finish it with much more finesse than you. They are, after all, legion. And legion is always better than you, true or not.

So. I've lost track of my train of thought by this point, and everything I've said is mostly incoherent babble. So I'll get to the juicy bits.

Spot to start if the above was tl;dr, and you still care.

Fics: the most recent updates are at the top of this section

7-7-08

Right now, any fic I post is purely for the sake of writing again, and the quality is going to be...eh. Not so good. Plotwise, it'll be all the stuff that I giggle over and scribble into one of the endless number of notebooks on my person at all times.

Cold and Lonely is a hard fic to deal with. An oddly large number of people like it, even if I hate the bleeding thing. I may try to continue to a better stopping point, or at least a better cut-off than I have, but I haven't been into the Yu-Gi-Oh fandom for years. It's likely that the fic would devolve into something even more AU and more than a little mocking on the side of the serious. I really should practice what I preach (see the tl;dr section, if you will), but this once, I'll go ahead and give into the whole self gratification thing and write up the rest of what I had, and post it for you all. It's not fair of me to leave it hanging there when you honestly like it. I know I hate it when that happens to me.

You've been waiting so long already, but it won't hurt you to wait longer. It's hard to write something you have no enthusiasm for. And you know, no time. But I'm letting you know, if it's deviated from canon now, where it's going is going to leave canon in drag and singing showtunes with Dolly Parton.

Shadowed Dawn and The Games of Fate are dead. Utterly dead. They are no more. I'm not likely to ever touch either of them again, if if I could find the notes for them. The Games of Fate might be edited into the loose shape of a one shot if I'm really, really bored one of these days, but otherwise, it's as-is.

Oh look. Personal information on the interwebs. Sorta.

I'm female and an Oregonian. Note: It's pronounced Or-uh-gun. I don't care how it's spelled, that's how we say it.

I'm old enough to drink, bigger than a breadbox, and heavier than a duck.

If you need me, I'm available in a number of places, notably my main LJ account (which is under the homepage link) and my fic journals, which as of this writing are, um, empty. Though the insanejournal one is the one I'm going to use more, methinks.

http://dloki-kitsune.livejournal.com/

http://dee-loki.insanejournal.com/

Also, there is my horribly unused deviantart account. I beg you not to look at the garbage there, it's bad. Except for the hair on my one pirate. I like that bit. It's mostly to keep track of my friends.

http://coyote-raven.deviantart.com/

I'm not giving out my myspace page, even though it's easy enough to find. I don't check it, anyway. I think the last time I went there, it was to make a copy of a picture I had posted there. Or something. That was awhile ago, now.

If you play WoW on the Misha server...Well, my guildies are still there. Life is keeping me away from WoW in the meantime, but hey, lemmie know who you are and I'll toss you a line when I go back.

I live in Oregon, so if you attend Kumoricon, you are my new best friend. I will assault you with cookies and hugs if I ever meet you there.