I write, I draw, I'm computer friendly--and I drive a big yellow school bus for a living. Wheee=P My official nickname at work is 'Crazy'; that's even how they introduce me to the new drivers. :mockingly sad sigh:

I've got more anime DVDs than a Suncoast Video store, and I'm real fond of the little manga graphic novels--my Waldenbooks has 'em, ooooh, isn't it wunnerful! They're so much handier than regular comic books. --Which I also still collect, though the general 'quality' of the artwork lately on most of 'em...pfft! If the reader can't distinguish background from characters in a comic book, that's not 'artistic license'--it's artistic laziness! Picasso-style art is not suitable for comics, just like pure poetry isn't included in the fiction section. I do wish the comics would find a new plot-line, too...I've given up following most of the X-titles, and even Batman the last few years; I get tired of figuring out the whole story two pages in, and the multiple ressurections get a bit old after a while. The fanfiction is rather depressingly more entertaining than canon anymore. :sigh:

Some of my favorite anime and manga include: Ranma 1/2, Inu Yasha (basically anything by Rumiko Takahashi!), Fruits Basket, Bleach, Full Metal Alchemist, Ruroni Kenshin, Spiral, Samurai Deeper Kyo, Saiyuki, Blue Seed, Blue Submarine No. 6, Ah! My Goddess, DNAngel, Full Metal Panic, Rah Xephon, Twelve Kingdoms, Strawberry Eggs, Tsukikage Ran, X:1999, Yu-Yu-Hakusho, Wolf's Rain, Bleach, Flame of Recca, Naruto, Crescent Moon, Petshop of Horrors, XxX Holic, Tsubasa, Samurai 7...:pausing to take deep breath:...Mythical Detective Loki Ragnarok, Black Cat, good lord I like a lot of 'em, don't I! Heh.

I must admit, I'm tending to like some of the fanfics I've found better than the series they're written about. o.O''' That's...almost scary! Heck, about the only Sailor Moon stuff I like is fanfics, for instance. The cannon's just too--too--cutsey! Ah, well.

Then there's ElfQuest, and certain (older) runs of certain titles of the X-Men; the current run of Robin and the Teen Titans (NOT the cartoon!) though they're also starting to annoy me; FarScape; several of the Star Trek runs; early Highlander seasons; some things from Star Wars; my old fav, The A-Team... Heh. That doesn't even begin to include all the sci-fi/fantasy books I love! C.J. Cherryh, Lois McMaster Bujold, Curt Benjamin, Wen Spencer, Jane Fancher; Asimov, Anthony, Chalker, early Lackey (and only early, I'm sad to say)...ect. etc. etc...

I'm just so glad there's sites like this one! I read too bleedin' fast. Heh!

I'm currently only writing fanfics based on Fruits Basket, Ranma 1/2, the X-Men (the comics--and NOT the last few years!), or the A-Team, a couple Robin fics, with a couple crossovers with other fandoms lurking here and there. I've recently started tinkering with Harry Potter; there's fanfics I love a whole lot more than canon, and it's inspiring. I love the truly odd crossovers...I keep eyeing the A-Team and Ranma 1/2, and thinking of all the lovely property damage that could result from THAT crossover!! Not to mention Face's reaction to Ranma's curse. WEG!! To read others' fanfics, I download 'em, reformat the chapters into a single MSWord file, and synch the story to my PDA, to be read on my bus between runs. Makes it hard to review much, but my online time is limited--I have to sleep sometime! I commute an hour to the district I drive for, and the way routes run, I'm gone from home about thirteen hours a day. Luckily a bunch of that is reading time between routes!

I started writing my own fanfics for two main reasons. The first was writing practice; I want to eventually make a decent living at writing, so I have to treat it like any other profession--which means writing or dealing with writing-type stuff at least a certain part of each working day. For now, I've set myself a minimum of 2,000 words written per day--that's over and above replacing any words I 'rip out'. With fanfics, I can focus that practice more on plot and character development and such, instead of having to create whole worlds and everything about them...and I can get feedback from strangers that doesn't jeapordize my selling rights for original stuff. Once it hits the internet, first publishing rights are gone--you've given 'em away for free. :sweatdrop:

The second reason was, a certain few characters crawled into my brain-pan and flat refused to let themselves be pried out! They brought in so much angst and such, that I decided to shovel it out in the form of a fanfic. After a few years of reading others' fanfics and tinkering with my own, I decided to share one. The lovely ego-boosting reviews encouraged me to keep posting more of them--especially the reviewers who took the time to tell me why they liked, or didn't like, some part of my story. To me, those reviewers were the ones that derived the most enjoyment from the story; it got them to think about it. It doesn't matter if I agree with their opinions; it's their opinion to have, after all. :Smiles and waves happily at anybody who's ever posted a politely critical review, to any author, on any site: Now, if only I could keep these things down under fifty-gazillion words...:sweat-drop, eye-balling the too-many unfinished fanfics on my hard drive:

-CrazyDragon