memes (20)
Aug. 17th, 2011 08:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
anghraineI've planned out the rest of Ch 10 -- if all goes well, I should be getting towards the end of the story soon. I've already written the final chapter, so yaaaaaay.
Asexuality meme
Day 20: Tell us about your partner(s). If you are not in a relationship, tell us about your best friend(s).
Newsflash: friendship is a relationship.
My best friend is brilliant, witty, loyal, kind, quirky, and generally amazing. We’ve been friends since eighth grade (that’s twelve years, ack) and, despite living in different states, remain best friends. We meet up for our birthday - birthdays, technically, as I’m eleven days older, but we usually have a communal celebration - and try to spend Christmas together. When I need something, I know I can call him and he’ll make it happen. I’d do just about anything for him, if I could.
It’s a complicated friendship, in many ways. We have a lot of shared history. We’ve dated, disastrously. Sex and romance have always been . . . present, in a weird way, so there’s been this sometimes-fun, sometimes-awful thread of tension running through everything.
I’ve never been able to make myself fall in love with him (awkward), yet he’s my “most important person” by far and I love him more than anyone else in my life (awkward). In many ways he’s been my entire world (really awkward), yet it’s become increasingly clear that my aromanticism - much more, I think, than my asexuality - ensures that I can’t, for the sake of his own sanity, be that for him. So for both of us, this has always been a very painful friendship. But I wouldn't give it up for anything.
Fanfic meme
Day 20: Do you ever get bunnied from other people's stories or art in the fandom?
All the time! Of course, it's often dissatisfaction with other people's stories -- to date, I don't think I've ever been bunnied (great verb!) by art -- but sometimes a premise just catches my imagination. For instance, I wrote Subsequent Connections largely in "reply" to Tasmin's Janet and Elisabeth, which sent my imagination into hyperdrive,
I remember thinking, "that's cool, but if I'd written it, the revelation would have come at a completely different time. And it'd be more about the whole family than the Darcy/Elizabeth romance -- and Mrs Bennet must have been batshit insane -- and wouldn't it be interesting if they weren't sisters and had to deal with the fallout from that? Ooh, and it'd be so bizarre if Darcy is the one who first realizes ... but wh...oh, Jane is his sister!!" And there were some things of a more fix-it variety; Tamsin's Lady Catherine disliked Elizabeth for no particular reason, and given that Lady Catherine seems to like her quite well enough as Miss Elizabeth Bennet, I could hardly imagine she'd be less receptive when she's got precious Fitzwilliam blood in her veins.
I tried to eradicate fanon out of my brain when I wrote it, too, to build a completely unique Fitzwilliam family and to take in a completely different direction than Janet and Elisabeth. And keep their names. Well, the first ones, anyway (Jane Darcy and Elizabeth Fitzwilliam!). But the premise itself came straight from Janet and Elisabeth. The same thing happened with jedibuttercup's A Wizard for Mary. Do I care about Percy/Mary? Not really. But the idea of P&P in the wizarding world? The Regency wizarding world? omg amazing.
She only mentioned that Darcy was a wizard and Bingley wasn't and the girls didn't go to Hogwarts, and my brain went BOOM and suddenly Darcy was Altair Lestrange, former Ravenclaw prefect and head boy, nephew-by-marriage of the Headmaster (Lucius Rosier, of Rosier Park!), and BFFs with a Muggleborn Ravenclaw in his year, and fellow prefect, Charlotte Lucas. And Elizabeth, a young, fairly sheltered witch, has no idea. And things. And of course, mine ended up different from hers, too -- mine's primarily set in the HP universe with P&P added in, while hers is more HP in the P&P universe. But it was totally inspired by that.
I could probably come up with dozens more examples. But yeah, it happens all the time, sometimes in completely positive ways like A Wizard For Mary, sometimes more ambivalent, and sometimes out of straight dislike -- though dislike is more likely to be a pattern or trend rather than a particular story. I finally broke down and started writing because saintly!Lady Anne and brooding!Daddy Darcy and their perfect fluffy happy marriage and their perfect fluffy happy childrearing made me go whaaaaaaaat? But it wasn't one story. I tend to be a bit contrary when it comes to trends -- even in little things. (*pictures Darcy as dark-haired and grey-eyed, but writes him as blond and blue-eyed just because.*)
Asexuality meme
Day 20: Tell us about your partner(s). If you are not in a relationship, tell us about your best friend(s).
Newsflash: friendship is a relationship.
My best friend is brilliant, witty, loyal, kind, quirky, and generally amazing. We’ve been friends since eighth grade (that’s twelve years, ack) and, despite living in different states, remain best friends. We meet up for our birthday - birthdays, technically, as I’m eleven days older, but we usually have a communal celebration - and try to spend Christmas together. When I need something, I know I can call him and he’ll make it happen. I’d do just about anything for him, if I could.
It’s a complicated friendship, in many ways. We have a lot of shared history. We’ve dated, disastrously. Sex and romance have always been . . . present, in a weird way, so there’s been this sometimes-fun, sometimes-awful thread of tension running through everything.
I’ve never been able to make myself fall in love with him (awkward), yet he’s my “most important person” by far and I love him more than anyone else in my life (awkward). In many ways he’s been my entire world (really awkward), yet it’s become increasingly clear that my aromanticism - much more, I think, than my asexuality - ensures that I can’t, for the sake of his own sanity, be that for him. So for both of us, this has always been a very painful friendship. But I wouldn't give it up for anything.
Fanfic meme
Day 20: Do you ever get bunnied from other people's stories or art in the fandom?
All the time! Of course, it's often dissatisfaction with other people's stories -- to date, I don't think I've ever been bunnied (great verb!) by art -- but sometimes a premise just catches my imagination. For instance, I wrote Subsequent Connections largely in "reply" to Tasmin's Janet and Elisabeth, which sent my imagination into hyperdrive,
I remember thinking, "that's cool, but if I'd written it, the revelation would have come at a completely different time. And it'd be more about the whole family than the Darcy/Elizabeth romance -- and Mrs Bennet must have been batshit insane -- and wouldn't it be interesting if they weren't sisters and had to deal with the fallout from that? Ooh, and it'd be so bizarre if Darcy is the one who first realizes ... but wh...oh, Jane is his sister!!" And there were some things of a more fix-it variety; Tamsin's Lady Catherine disliked Elizabeth for no particular reason, and given that Lady Catherine seems to like her quite well enough as Miss Elizabeth Bennet, I could hardly imagine she'd be less receptive when she's got precious Fitzwilliam blood in her veins.
I tried to eradicate fanon out of my brain when I wrote it, too, to build a completely unique Fitzwilliam family and to take in a completely different direction than Janet and Elisabeth. And keep their names. Well, the first ones, anyway (Jane Darcy and Elizabeth Fitzwilliam!). But the premise itself came straight from Janet and Elisabeth. The same thing happened with jedibuttercup's A Wizard for Mary. Do I care about Percy/Mary? Not really. But the idea of P&P in the wizarding world? The Regency wizarding world? omg amazing.
She only mentioned that Darcy was a wizard and Bingley wasn't and the girls didn't go to Hogwarts, and my brain went BOOM and suddenly Darcy was Altair Lestrange, former Ravenclaw prefect and head boy, nephew-by-marriage of the Headmaster (Lucius Rosier, of Rosier Park!), and BFFs with a Muggleborn Ravenclaw in his year, and fellow prefect, Charlotte Lucas. And Elizabeth, a young, fairly sheltered witch, has no idea. And things. And of course, mine ended up different from hers, too -- mine's primarily set in the HP universe with P&P added in, while hers is more HP in the P&P universe. But it was totally inspired by that.
I could probably come up with dozens more examples. But yeah, it happens all the time, sometimes in completely positive ways like A Wizard For Mary, sometimes more ambivalent, and sometimes out of straight dislike -- though dislike is more likely to be a pattern or trend rather than a particular story. I finally broke down and started writing because saintly!Lady Anne and brooding!Daddy Darcy and their perfect fluffy happy marriage and their perfect fluffy happy childrearing made me go whaaaaaaaat? But it wasn't one story. I tend to be a bit contrary when it comes to trends -- even in little things. (*pictures Darcy as dark-haired and grey-eyed, but writes him as blond and blue-eyed just because.*)