Fanfiction Lounge

How often do people use either Latias or Latios used in fics?
Well, I've never actually used them. I like them well enough; I just never particularly felt the need to write about them.

Also, I was wondering if anyone would feel bad if I had fake evos of them in at least two of my fics.

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As others have said, the idea of a legendary evolving is really kind of wrong. In fact, how in the world would that work? Beings that are higher than Arceus and transcend reality... are evolved from beings that don't? Are you implying that just recently, Latios and Latias just stood up and evolved, barged in on Arceus and said, "We're better than you now, so step aside!" I mean, I don't mind made-up über-legendaries that nobody knows about - I'd be a horrible hypocrite if I did - but why must they be evolutions of other legendaries? It would perhaps make more sense if, rather than evolving from Latios and Latias, they were related to them in another sense - maybe a similar relationship as Manaphy to Phione. The fifth movie showed multiple Latios and Latias - maybe they are all descendants of these higher beings? (Although I really don't think their typing makes any sense for something in any way related to Latios and Latias, I'm sorry to say.)

If you could have a soundtrack for your fan fic(s), what would be on it?
I find this question so very, very irritating. Am I really the only person who really cannot take music and tie it to something that it is very clearly not actually about? If it's not a song that was written about my fic or my character, I am completely incapable of associating it with them. I could start listing off music I like that has a vaguely similar mood to some chapter of something I've written or that I was listening to while I wrote some portion, but that really does not mean it would belong on a soundtrack for it. If my fanfics had a soundtrack, it would be composed of original music, written by somebody who had actually read them and be inspired by the actual moments they'd be playing for.

What are your characters favorite food(s)?
What are your characters' LEAST favorite foods?
Mark, like any sensible twelve-year-old, likes pizza and hamburgers, and hates stuff that's good for him. May likes lasagna, because that's one of these little pieces of me that are still in her, and hates fish. Alan enjoys a good steak but doesn't dislike any particular food. I'm not going to even try to figure it out for the entire twenty-something-person cast of Morphic.

What would your characters wish for if they found a genie?
Mark would probably wish for his quest to succeed so that he can go home and become an artist or something. May would probably wish for money. Alan would probably wish his father wasn't so famous. Chaletwo would wish that Mew could just love him and appreciate him because he has daddy issues. Creator issues. Whatever.

Oh, what the hell. I'll do it for the morphs.

Jean - becoming a rich and famous movie star!
Will - that people wouldn't think he was a freak.
Peter - that the other morphs had as relatively easy a time of it as he does.
Katherine - that she didn't have those blasted rose-hands. Then she would reconsider it and think that it would be too selfish of her to wish that, and she would wish for something good and noble like world peace. Or, if the genie wouldn't grant that, just that the religious nutjobs after them would not shoot anybody else.
Mia - would look at the genie blankly and then maybe wish for something silly and ridiculously short-term, like some raw meat.
Lucy - a new bike, or that cute fluffy bunny she saw at the supermarket the other day, or that everybody in the world would be nice to each other. Something cute and kidlike.
Jack - that Gabriel wouldn't have to go through all this crap and were just a normal human boy who still had a father.
Gabriel - that Dave had been killed that night instead of Brian. Or well, that's what he would be thinking, but he'd actually just wish Brian had not been shot. I mean, he doesn't want anybody to die, per se, but deep down he kind of wishes that it were not possible for that wish to be granted without somebody else dying in Brian's place.

...this question was a lot more fun to answer than I thought it would be.

Do you think much about giving your characters starsigns? If so, which ones are they born under?
Oh, God, no. Not an astrology person. I've given some of my characters birthdays, but they, like most everything else about them, are just whatever first popped into my head; I wouldn't dream of looking up personalities associated with star signs to pick birthdays.

How much of your own characteristics and habits do you put in your characters, most importantly the protagonist(s)? How so?
May has them piled on, thanks to the whole self-insert thing, although now that I think about it she displays them in different contexts than I do. I fidget all the time, for instance, out of a need to be doing something with my hands all the time (place anything remotely fidgetable on my desk, and I will be messing with it until you put it out of my reach); she does it when she's nervous. She also likes to pick at her fingernails to avoid the eyes of people when they're saying something that makes her feel attacked, while I also do it just when I'm bored and need something to turn my attention to for a moment. She's very insensitive, which I am to (I'd like to think) a rather lesser degree, and she's very competitive, which I also am, even if I would not be so competitive with Pokémon training in particular.

Mark has some little... references to me, shall we say. His trainer ID number is my ID numbers from Gold and Yellow stuck together, for instance. He has some experience with getting constructive criticism, being initially hurt and then realizing that the critic was right. He doodles on his school papers and doesn't feel like he fits in at school. He played football at school not so much because he liked football but just because his primary friend had left and he didn't have much else to do. But these all have rather little to do with him as a character and are more just little bits of his background that happen to have been inspired by stuff in my own life.

Then we have Cheryl in Morphic - one of the parents, a minor character - who happens to like Scyther and Misdreavus and, ten years before the actual storyline, had a similar relationship with her to-be-husband as I have with my boyfriend. And the brief description of her appearance could be me. It was a kind of an in-joke. I'd decided who was going to take in which morphs and it just sort of emerged from there, to my amusement. Otherwise she isn't much like me.

My other characters are really nothing like me as far as I know. :/ I certainly don't deliberately base them on aspects of myself as I know some people do, and I haven't really noticed any particular emergent similarities to myself.

Do you think much about giving your characters starsigns? If so, which ones are they born under?
Lisa's birthdate is May 15, 1991, which I suppose corresponds to one of the signs. Honestly, I'm not sure. Neither of us buy into that kind of stuff.

How much of your own characteristics and habits do you put in your characters, most importantly the protagonist(s)? How so?
Lisa shares many of my interests but her personality differs from my own. Both of us are fans of major hotel chains, older large American luxury cars (Buick and otherwise), mathematics, college residence life, and greasy fried food. We also have similar tastes in music. However, Lisa is bright and bubbly, whereas I am significantly less so. She's intelligent but nice, whereas I am a very cold, calculating, but still intelligent, person. I also have a sick, sadistic sense of humor that isn't shared with Lisa XD

And now everyone's scared to death of me 0_O

How much of your own characteristics and habits do you put in your characters, most importantly the protagonist(s)? How so?

All of my characters, including my antagonists, have at least one of my traits. The character that most closely resembles me is probably Ren, but Darkrai is next in line.

Dragonfree said:

I find this question so very, very irritating. Am I really the only person who really cannot take music and tie it to something that it is very clearly not actually about?

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Neither are songs on actual soundtracks (when it comes to American film, at least). *shrug* I mean, for instance, the hit by Chad Kroeger way back when that was constantly used for the Spiderman trailers? As far as I know, that wasn't written for the movie. And then, of course, you've got "Iron Man" by Black Sabbath. Used for the Iron Man movie, but of course, I can almost guarantee that be not a hero it's talking about there.

Point is, really, a soundtrack doesn't necessarily have to be made for the media it's associated with (unless, of course, it's the instrumentals actually composed for the movie, but that's not often what's put on CD and sold in stores). With fanfiction, it's really just a combination of what inspires you to write certain scenes and something you do just for fun. For example, my soundtracks are really mostly just the songs that inspire me for certain scenes. In a sense, they serve as reminders for what I want to write, particularly with the AEM list, because they evoke certain mental images that I eventually associate with the songs on the list as soon as I hear them. (Yes, I also mention openings and closings, but really, that's completely just for fun. And to throw in songs that I think are cool and want to write to.)

So, really, that's great that you want to just use original music, and I'll respect your opinion. Still, please keep in mind that it's really just something for fun and something to help the writers, not a serious drive to make the fic more like a movie.

If you could have a soundtrack for your fan fic(s), what would be on it?
Like Xathine, the soundtrack is just more which songs I use to write when doing the story to be inspired and not really what songs I want to put if it's in a soundtrack. In any case, some songs are from composers like Hans Zimmer, Harry Gregson-Williams, Howard Shore, and John Williams.

How much of your own characteristics and habits do you put in your characters, most importantly the protagonist(s)? How so?
Well, I put my irritation on immature people and interests in history and myths onto Bunny. However, I would joke a lot with my friends, so I put that onto Jenny.

Xanthine said:

Neither are songs on actual soundtracks (when it comes to American film, at least). *shrug* I mean, for instance, the hit by Chad Kroeger way back when that was constantly used for the Spiderman trailers? As far as I know, that wasn't written for the movie. And then, of course, you've got "Iron Man" by Black Sabbath. Used for the Iron Man movie, but of course, I can almost guarantee that be not a hero it's talking about there.

Point is, really, a soundtrack doesn't necessarily have to be made for the media it's associated with (unless, of course, it's the instrumentals actually composed for the movie, but that's not often what's put on CD and sold in stores). With fanfiction, it's really just a combination of what inspires you to write certain scenes and something you do just for fun. For example, my soundtracks are really mostly just the songs that inspire me for certain scenes. In a sense, they serve as reminders for what I want to write, particularly with the AEM list, because they evoke certain mental images that I eventually associate with the songs on the list as soon as I hear them. (Yes, I also mention openings and closings, but really, that's completely just for fun. And to throw in songs that I think are cool and want to write to.)

So, really, that's great that you want to just use original music, and I'll respect your opinion. Still, please keep in mind that it's really just something for fun and something to help the writers, not a serious drive to make the fic more like a movie.

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Oh, I never said people don't do it all the time! I'm just saying that I really, really can't think of music that way. Even if I'm listening to it while I write, even if the mood of it fits perfectly, the music always has self-contained meaning in my head that makes it impossible for me to associate it with events in my writing.

I did not mean my response to the question as any sort of attack on those who can do that; it was just letting out some of my frustration at how, of all possible discussion relating to writing, the one that comes up by far the most often is one that I am mentally incapable of participating in. D:

Dragonfree said:

I did not mean my response to the question as any sort of attack on those who can do that; it was just letting out some of my frustration at how, of all possible discussion relating to writing, the one that comes up by far the most often is one that I am mentally incapable of participating in. D:

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No problem. Sorry I sounded confrontational.

Anyway, guys, I've got a bit of a problem that (*gasp!*) I need advice with. See, I got a review on FFNet recently that pointed out a chronic problem that I know for a fact that I have but always unintentionally continue to do. Basically, the problem is I go into a lot of description to the point where I sometimes describe more than is necessary. I realize this slows down a scene (even kills it sometimes), but I often don't see it because I never can figure out where to draw the line. (As in, I'm always afraid that taking out description will lead to confusion.) That and it's pointed out by only a handful of people (my betas not included) who don't really go into description as to how to fix this.

So, what I'd like to do is give you a list of things that should happen in a scene. (As in, it's never actually going to happen ever in one of my fanfics.) Your job is to write the scene exactly as you would as if it was your own fanfic. As in, take your time and put as much detail into it as you would for something you'd actually write. And, of course, no cheating! It's not fair to look at someone else's sample and decide to do something similar. The point is to get a scene with as much description as you think is necessary for the understanding of what's going on. Afterwards, if you have anything else to say concerning description in fic, by all means, go for it. I could use the advice.

Got all that? Great. Here's the outline:

Bobby and Jane are battling in a forest with tall (up to their knees) grass. Bobby has a female Dragonite, and Jane has a male Ninetales. Bobby's next move is a Hyper Beam; Jane's, a Flamethrower. There should be conversation, with Bobby acting confident and Jane being snarky.

End when you want to, so long as the above is included. Feel free to decide what Bobby and Jane look like.

Where does this scene fall in terms of the story? Have we met these characters before or scene the environment before, or is this just the beginning of a story or a switch to a locale we've not encountered before? The problem with description is that it's relative to a lot of things: how much we already know about the scene, what, exactly, in the scene we're supposed to be focusing on, what sort of tone is to be achieved, and things like that. That's why it's hard to judge the "description" of a scene in isolation, because it's hard to tell how all these things come together in a short passage cut out of a larger work, unless it's, y'know, ridiculously bad or something.

Or are we supposed to just take this as a kind of one-shot thing, rather than assume it's a scene from a larger work?

Sorry about that. It's meant to be taken as a one-shot scene.

So we're all going to write our personal version of a one-shot using the same outline? This could be awesome. I'll try it out.

I need info on cannon Rayearth characters and how to keep Rayearth characters in characters, like give me tips for some of the ICs

Heh...forgot about this place.

*looks up*

I'm gonna play it safe here and just answer the topic, then be on my merry way again.

How much of your own characteristics and habits do you put in your characters, most importantly the protagonist(s)? How so?

John's akward habits and faults are generally mine. Well actually, not all of them. His immaturity links back to when I was a freshman in high school, his hastiness is an attribute I regrettably have today. The fact that he speaks before he thinks is completely linked to me.

Anything else is bits and pieces of others, friend and foe and family alike, that I decided would make an intresting character.

I got a question!

In general, how long (in chapters and pages) are your fan fictions?

To answer it:

About 7-9 pages per chapter. Don't really no how many chapters considering I have not finished it yet.

I'm definitely going to write my version of that thing of Xanthine's, but before I do, I want to know how long it should be. Do you want just a short scene or something a bit longer? What shall it be? And would you like fries with that?

In general, how long (in chapters and pages) are your fan fictions?

I don't really know because I write in WordPad. WordPad is awesome, it doesn't have any unnecessary features, it doesn't go nuts and it's nice and small. Anyway, I don't have page separators in it, so I don't know how long my chapters are. Not that long, though, generally.

As for the amount of chapters, my first fic was 17 chapters, Mama's Boy will be 13 chapters if I remember right, Secret People will be longer because it has a complicated plot and World Saviour Sora-chan will be about ten chapters or so. I'm not that much into writing very long, complicated fics with a lot of characters. That's probably mostly because I fall in love with the main cast and don't want to write about anything else ^-^ I'm a bit stupid, yeah, but that's my style.

Konekodemon said:

I need info on cannon Rayearth characters and how to keep Rayearth characters in characters, like give me tips for some of the ICs

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Excuse me, but if you're going to write a fic of some fandom, you should really know it before you write anything. You can't just decide on writing a fic about, say, Bleach and then go around asking what the characters are like and how does the Shinigami thing work. If you need more information about the canon, you can always go and google around. Or maybe try to find some specific wiki and then see if it has the answers you're looking for. You should, however, know the characters well enough to be able to stay in character. You can't get a picture of who the character is if you listen to explanations like "she's very gentle and intelligent, but can be shy sometimes". You have to watch the show or read the manga or book and see for yourself.

If your problem wasn't that but instead you don't know how to stay in character, it might be a bit more complicated. You should try to form a clear image of the characters in you head. By image, I don't only mean the visual appearance but also personality. If you have that clear image, you can always go back to look at it for reference. You can also try to write a sort of character sheet for them if you find their personalities hard to remember. Then, after writing a chapter, read it and see if the characters behave like they should. Do they? If they don't, fix it. If they do, well, you've stayed in character.

At least, that's what works for me. *shrugs*

Wow... I was gone for quite a while, as I have been terribly sick for a couple of weeks, and of course the first thing to do upon return is to check The Lounge! :classic:

Damn it, Chloe! Debrief me!

If you could have a soundtrack for your fan fic(s), what would be on it?

I'd go original for a start, something orchestral with a soft pace, or something in disco or jazz mood and instrumentation, but with a composition and pace that goes kinda an anthem. Nothing vocal.

Then I would add some particular musical pieces of my liking. There are specific tracks of specific soundtracks that always get me inspired when I write, and sometimes I end up writing for them, so they would be most likely included. In particular, specific compositions from Bruce broughton, Sean Callery and John Williams always ring the bell of my creative side.

What are your characters favorite food(s)?
What are your characters' LEAST favorite foods?

Food? Come to think of it, one aspect of my characters I have not even slightly taken for consideration. Thanks! ♣♣goes to work♣♣

Do you think much about giving your characters starsigns? If so, which ones are they born under?
Oh wait... did I ever think about that???? Mmmm....

What would your characters wish for if they found a genie?
Again... how can I FAIL like this???? Where's my brain been the last two weeks????
Umm....

How much of your own characteristics and habits do you put in your characters, most importantly the protagonist(s)? How so?
As far as personal characteristics, well, n the beginning there was the blatant self-insert. You know, the one that scored only medium at the Mary Sue Test, but all the positive answers where the ones about how the character looked ("just like you") or what were his beliefs ("just like yours").

But that kinda evolved, I essentially rewrote him (and still am), and although he still is a "willing" expresion of myself in that world, now he believes and behaves quite differently. He is now like an example of me, instea of an instance or a projection of me.

Except for that, there's always the character who happens t have one of my quirks or shares some of my expresions, but that is an addition to thei already existing personalities, which are based of a single-word or single-sentence "template" from people I know.. For example, Tobias (the char I'm playing at a RP here) who simply can't understand that normal people may need maps to get across a forest maze (and voices his opinion on that matter). Or Darius (the current-hero in "Elusive Goals") who calls his Rapidash "Lovely" or "Lovely Girl", which is what I usually call my cat when she jumps to my lap in the table and asks for attention...

Wait, I have other term for human females that do that, too...

Canon or original: which kind of character do you like to write most about? How about read? Okay, then why for each?
I write mostly original characters. And I greatly enjoy it. I essentially write dwn all thos eghostly characters that are roaming my head, asking to become an idea, and then make them settle down with appearance and personality, and then inject them in an universe I'm writin about.

But I also write what I call "canon hiddens", who seem to be created, with a high level of detail and solid backstory, to have very spontaneous, sporadic, interesting, and important (plot‑wise) appearances. Essentially, characters that come once in a very long while to "turn the tide", disappear again, and one is left wondering, "Wow... what has that guy/girl been doing for so long?" or "What is their normal life like?". Like, well, Shadow in Final Fantasy VI: my first published fic, "Scalar" is a work I'm doing because I liked the character's backstory so much.

Other characters filling those roles that I greatly like (even adore) and thus I "more than ocassionaly" write about are Cid Kramer in Final Fantasy VIII, the Great Prince in Bambi, Blue in Wolf's Rain, Corg and Sera in Robotech, etc. But they are more for my idle writing, the one that won't get published for now.

n general, how long (in chapters and pages) are your fan fictions?

Oooohhhh... I write long. Really long. Lets just say I've never tried a one-shot.

My first fic was about one thousand words, in Spanish, for a contest. The next one, 2K words in Spanish too. From there on, switched to English and five-digit numbers. Elusive Goals is planned to be 20 chapters long, each chapter taking from 4.5K to 6K words (10 pages in my OpenOffice). I can only guess how much has Censored (my BR) suffered so far.... he's just finished Ch.2, and he knows it!

Somehow I actually like to make fun of myself that I seem to unnecesarily torture people because I write so long...

My other projects are shorter, lke, eight to twelve chapters, but still, about 5K words each. I simply don't feel comfortable with shorter chapters.

And then there's the two projects I'm planning on, a Pokémon one and a TV‑Xovers one, and once I begin actually writing them (I'm in the research phase), it's fairly sure each one will take at least 350,000 words and one year or so to complete writing.

(by Xanthine) — So, what I'd like to do is give you a list of things that should happen in a scene. (As in, it's never actually going to happen ever in one of my fanfics.) Your job is to write the scene exactly as you would as if it was your own fanfic. As in, take your time and put as much detail into it as you would for something you'd actually write.

Sounds interesting. It may help me get awake again. Count me in! Just a couple of questions:

1. Are we free to create some dialogue (to show the character's expressions)?
2. How is that battle going so far (ie.: who is winning)?
3. Can I get a cookie? With chips?

(by Xanthine) — So, what I'd like to do is give you a list of things that should happen in a scene. (As in, it's never actually going to happen ever in one of my fanfics.) Your job is to write the scene exactly as you would as if it was your own fanfic. As in, take your time and put as much detail into it as you would for something you'd actually write.

So where's the list?

The Ebon Blade said:

(by Xanthine) — So, what I'd like to do is give you a list of things that should happen in a scene. (As in, it's never actually going to happen ever in one of my fanfics.) Your job is to write the scene exactly as you would as if it was your own fanfic. As in, take your time and put as much detail into it as you would for something you'd actually write.

So where's the list?

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It's in her post...

Got all that? Great. Here's the outline:

Bobby and Jane are battling in a forest with tall (up to their knees) grass. Bobby has a female Dragonite, and Jane has a male Ninetales. Bobby's next move is a Hyper Beam; Jane's, a Flamethrower. There should be conversation, with Bobby acting confident and Jane being snarky.

End when you want to, so long as the above is included. Feel free to decide what Bobby and Jane look like.

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There you go. :P

In general, how long (in chapters and pages) are your fan fictions?

Mine are inconsistant in length. >_< Usually though may main fic (which is chapter and has a long way yet - into chapter 13 atm)'s chapter's length in pages are in the teens. Doesn't meant that they are angsty though. I'd say that's the average for me, really.

How much of your own characteristics and habits do you put in your characters, most importantly the protagonist(s)? How so?
Well, Neo is most of me, except losing that annoying trait, but he has nearly the same skills as me in real life. Sarina is part of another kid in school, but I changed the name and a few other bits.
Other than that, the two protagonists are known to talk occasionally without the reader knowing due to use of a foreign language, and there's barely anyone who knows how to speak that language.

If you could have a soundtrack for your fan fic(s), what would be on it?
Easy question. I'd use VS. Tabuu when Neo goes evil and makes his pokemon use attacks, rarely on trainers. VS. Parasite Queen when you read about Neo in a flashback and VS. Champion Gary ~FireRed edition~ when him and a Gym Leader have a battle.

How often do people use either Latias or Latios used in fics?
Never, but they do appear as a Dimensional Scream.

Do you think much about giving your characters starsigns? If so, which ones are they born under?
Not sure about the starsigns, but Neo is born on October 2nd, 1994 for a good reason (someone else's birthday) and Sarina's birthdate is September 23rd, 1995. Yeah, it is a year difference.

In general, how long (in chapters and pages) are your fan fictions?
Don't really care. Good enough for an A in school already and only one, maybe 2 chapters done!