Fandom, the Universe, and Everything

I thought I'd try to post about all my fandoms at once, since I'm not very posty this month. I managed to get quite a lot of them in, though not all. Fandoms bolded for your skimming convenience.

Harry Potter: Snape is my new project. I started writing my Master and Wolf story from his POV and he fought me every step of the way. And in the end, he won, because I have a deadline. This is not acceptable. I do not like being so submissive. This must change. And it will, if I have to drabble my fingers to the bone.

I wonder why he's so hard to get down on paper? I feel like I understand what's going on in his head well enough. But characters that are closed off, both to others and themselves, are difficult for me to write convincingly because they're not as introspective and they don't keep diaries.

Stargate: I have my S5 DVDs but I can't watch them until February because I have too much writing to finish. It's killing me! At the same time, I know that soon I'll have watched all the Stargate there is and I won't have any more weekends of discovery, watching new ep after new ep. On the other hand, I'm downloading Chimera right now.

My icon (besides being a B5 reference) commemorates the S4 finale and the most terrible event in Stargate ever. I know I've gone on about this before, more than once. But, really, you do not blow up a star. You just don't. If the choice is making the star go nova or death, you die. The nova can have consequences beyond the immediate solar system. How can you live with yourself, Sam? I love you forever, but I really wish you hadn't done that.

Lord of the Rings: I haven't got too far through the Sil, mainly because I've been also re-reading the Iliad and that's more interesting. But I did read one of my favourite bits: the making of the dwarves. I find Aulë so utterly charming, the way he thinks the children of Illuvatar are so cool that he wants to play too. So he makes his own and as far as I can see, they're just like him. He's teaching them how to talk and all when Illuvatar catches them.

I like the dwarves so much, I think, because I am one. I'm obsessive and I tend to measure my worth by what I create. I'm gruff and prickly. (I don't have a beard, though.) I thought it was very fitting that even though there are so few dwarf women, some of them never marry because they're too interested in their crafts. Sometimes I think it would be nice to be a hobbit, but all in all, I'm satisfied with my dwarfhood.

Others:

* I also have the Jeremiah S1 DVDs. Same deal -- can't watch them til February. Strangely, the box set has a bonus DVD with the first three eps of Stargate S1 on it.

* Thank the Lords of Kobol, the Battlestar Galactica mini aired here at the weekend. My god, that was good. I want Starbuck for my very own. Or maybe I'd share her with Colonel Tigh occasionally. And Baltar! Mmm. I thought they did a great job of re-interpreting the ideas. I loved the way they had all that old tech -- it gives a great feel to the whole thing. And there were even a couple of thumb shots for me, though not quite as up close as I would have liked. I really hope this gets picked up as a series.

And, I suppose I should just stop hiding in the fannish closet about this one:

Gundam Wing: I confess, I am now a GW fan. When I was visiting kestrelsan in November, she showed me the first DVD of eps. I really liked it and in December, I splurged on the box set. I spent the week of New Years in a GW feeding frenzy, rushed out to pick up Endless Waltz, signed up to a host of mailing lists, and started reading all the bad fic I could get my hands on, which wasn't all that hard. This fandom has superb badfic.

This is my first anime fandom so I'm learning a lot of new terminology and stuff. What I find most interesting is the fic I want to read and write. I love the complexity of the series -- the politics and the philosophy about war. The characters are deep and interesting. But the fic -- I just want sex, sex, sex. And I have kinks in this fandom that I thought I would never have at all.

Unsurprisingly, my prime pairing is Treize/Wufei (or 13x5, I should say), which is a little harder to find than most, but I plan to write some myself, once my challenge stories are done, so that's fine.

I know I'm quite a few years behind the curve here, but that's the way it often happens with me. :) I don't imagine I'll be blathering about the show in LJ all that much, but I will be doing some writing, so that will show up here.

I'm not sure why I waited almost a month to come out about this -- I think I've already got so many fandoms I squee about, I thought people might freak on me for adding one more. Also, it seemed more daring. *g*

I suppose at some point, once I've got my bearings, I'll be ready for more anime fandoms. I'll let you know when to pimp me. :)

And that's it for today!

blahblahblah feedbackcakes

There's one thing I don't think I've seen mentioned each time the feedback discussion surfaces. (And didn't we just have it within the last six months? I thought the cycle was supposed to be annual.)

As well as all the "feedback is payment for writing" or "feedback is a thank-you for writing" or "feedback is a precious and undeserved gift", for an author, feedback is kind of like market research. It's like being a retailer and looking at your sales figures to see what's moved the best.

I don't imagine that most of us cold-bloodedly look at our stories and tabulate the feedback and then make our to-be-written lists based on that. But still, if you have more things on your to-be-written list than you can ever write and all other things are equal, you're more likely to consider the type of story you think will get a good response. After all, why share a story that most people don't want to read?

If you spend three months writing a story and it gets X feedback and you spend an hour writing a drabble and it gets X feedback or even X/2 feedback, you might think twice about spending three months on your next story. Substitute pairings or fandoms or subject matter for length there and it still holds.

So, when you send feedback, you're not just saying "I liked that story", you're saying "write more stories like that one".

That is my theory, it is mine, and belongs to me and I own it, and what it is too.