Who wants fics for the holidays?

I DO, I DO!

So I'm starting a gift exchange! This is NOT limited to any one fandom, genre, pairing, etc. It's a free-for-all, and you get to pick the fandoms and the prompts and participate in ones YOU find interesting! It also does NOT have to be holiday-themed.

Here's how it works:

(1) Comment to this entry with anywhere between 1 - 3 fandoms starting with a particular letter of the alphabet. Include the subject line "FANDOM." Go with the most common name, the Japanese title, or the title you prefer. Only one fandom per letter! ANY FANDOM IS OKAY. Anime, manga, TV shows, movies, books, whatever!

So let's say you like the letter "F." How about "Final Fantasy VIII" then? So for the letter F, the fandom will be "Final Fantasy VIII." But that means no one can submit "Final Fantasy X," okay? Try and pick a fandom that multiple people might write for/enjoy.

(2) The fandom Master List will be posted here (see below). This is the list of participating fandoms. I think 26 is a pretty good variety, don't you?

(3) Post 3-10 prompts (don't make them fandom-specific) in the comments. A prompt can be a single word (like "Wreath") or a phrase ("12 Days of Christmas") or whatever you like (images, lyrics, etc.)! But again, don't be fandom-specific-- no pairings, characters, etc. in the prompts! Include the subject line "PROMPT."

(4) Respond to the other prompts in the comments (you can respond to your own prompts, but it's more fun if you challenge yourself!), either by including a ficlet (drabbles or longer) right there in the comment, or linking elsewhere (either on LJ or another site). The comment should include what fandom it's for, and any other relevant information.

If you'd like an extra challenge, try combining one or more of the prompts, or crossing over the fandoms! Just make sure when you comment with your fic/link, you comment to EACH prompt that you used, or you mention EACH fandom that you wrote for!

More people have added fandoms, so I added the last of my three. Feel free to submit more fandoms-- you can submit more than one, but remember-- only ONE fandom per letter! Check below for what letters are already snagged! (Also, if we don't get enough people submitting 3 fandoms each, those that have already submitted three might be able to submit more, probably up to 2 more. But hopefully you guys are spreading the word about this post so people do more than submit fandoms-- they also submit prompts and fic[let]s!)

A:
B: Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon
C:
D: Doctor Who
E:
F: Final Fantasy VII
G: Ghost Hunt
H: Harry Potter
I: Immortal Rain
J:
K: Kingdom Hearts
L:
M:
N:
O:
P:
Q:
R: Rurouni Kenshin
S: Slayers
T: Teen Titans (cartoon)
U:
V: Vision of Escaflowne
W: Where in The World is Carmen Sandiego?
X:
Y: Yu-Gi-Oh!
Z:

 Silent Night by Sarah Brightman from A Winter Symphony

Spam-posting today, sorry. Trying to force myself to study, and it's not that easy to do.

Give a gift; tell a story. - vilify's got several prompts to choose from; all you have to do is comment (you can comment anonymously, and IP logging is off-- you don't even need to be a LiveJournal user to do this!). Write at least one paragraph of non-fiction text relating to the prompt. Share your story.

(This is kind of a meme, but kind of not. It's just something that encourages participation, so if you like memes, consider yourself tagged.)

guardian_kysra, I wonder if we could do something like this for a holiday fic exchange? Obviously, in our case, it would be fandom, not non-fiction, but we wouldn't specify anything but a word or a phrase, and let anyone pick/choose from them and respond to them. We could ask people who were going to participate to give us 3-5 prompts, so that everyone would stand a chance of getting at least one story for "their" prompt.

(Obviously, the problem with this concept is that without specifying a fandom, some prompts might inspire fics for a fandom that the prompt-creator has no part in. So maybe we could have a master list of "allowed" fandoms or something, fics that everyone might enjoy?)

You Look Like an Aries

It's likely that you have a lean and strong body. Your facial features are uniquely beautiful, and you may have a scar or beauty mark. You have good posture, and you carry yourself with an air of confidence. You have a strong, steady gaze. You eyes are often issuing a challenge. Like most Aries people, you probably very energetic and enjoy it when someone challenges you. You expect the best from people, and you believe in them. You are willing to take a risk on someone.

*sings* Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Okay, maybe it's a bit premature to be celebrating, but after turning in my 6-page paper on Gay Rights (which was supposed to have more of a focus on the California Supreme Court, but the group project upon which the paper was based had so many facets and sub-topics that I may have gone "off-tangent" by covering more ground), I feel liberated! Free! GLAD!

Maybe not completely stress-free, but close to it: I have no final exams, and all I have left are some quizzes for my science classes and some feedback discussion for my recreation class. Everything else is turned in. I have high hopes for most of my classes --As or Bs, I hope-- but maybe a C for the GWS 350 class (the one that I just turned the paper in for), because I didn't turn in two other papers-- an Autoethnography and a paper on race. I also missed some class chat and discussion times. -_- Needless to say, I want to make sure that if I ever have to sign up for classes at the last minute just to get units, I'd rather pick something dirt-simple and easy than something completely out of my range, potentially challenging (to the point of bringing stress where it shouldn't), and bizarre.

And then! And then! I really, desperately want to finish WDKY26. Madly.
And then there's the revamping of the BEA Media page, the idea for a few fanlistings I've mentioned, and various other personal projects, like the overhauling of the main Seventh-Star.Net page.

Since I do have a biology quiz tomorrow morning, I really ought to get studying for that, but at some point "tonight" (that is, this morning), I'm going to play me some SNES games and go to bed with a SMILE on my face (dagnabbit)!

Not that I will, but IF I DID, any "Twilight" series fics I write would have the following plots (or answer the following questions):

* Why Bella is in love with Edward

* Bella acts more like a normal teenager: when she decides she might like Edward (note: not "irrevocably in love with" yet), she opts to try some very teenage ways of "getting his attention" as well as testing his limits around her (once she discovers the truth about him, but maybe before she confronts him about it/he tells her), including trying to seduce him.
- Does Bella even know she's doing it? Ohhh yes, especially when (by accident -er, happy chance- or some actual THOUGHT), she discovers he's stalking her in her bedroom at night.
- She also teases, which may end up answering the question "How do vampires get hard-ons?" My ideas of tease are not like fandom's, I would think, but then again, venturing too far into that fandom is like walking into the Jaws of Death, so....

* Bella had dreams of a career once... and watching [cable] TV reminds her of them. What does Bella consider being -despite being a vampire, or before, or...? (This one would obviously depend on which book/movie it took place in or between.) Bella as a CSI? A chef? A therapist? (If Carlisle can be a doctor, why couldn't Bella feasibly find a job? Or would her youthful appearance be her downfall in getting one and keeping one -at least, a live, in-person job where she DIDN'T travel, MIGHT be out in daylight, etc.?)

Fic, in this case, is not to show what wasn't seen in canon, nor does it exist to take some fascinating characters and put them in another universe (whether that's another canon or another universe altogether). It's to answer questions or explore characters in ways that SHOULD have been done in canon.

( Twilight, thematic messages, and Meyer's injections of LDS lore into the books )

You know what would be awesome? If there was a site (or if FFnet did it) where people had their fics and you could add your real-time commentary as an overlay-- a'la Nico Nico video.

Because seriously, the commentary I'd be leaving on the FFnet section of "Twilight"? So much more worth my time than an actual well-thought out REVIEW in that fandom. I'd get lambasted if I even tried to give what I consider true concrit (which, in my mind, is not a synonym for "endless praise,") and I know it's not worth the effort. But quick-play commentary with full anonymity? I'd tap that. Somebody, make it happen!
Such an idea might come back to bite me in the ass, but I think overall it would help people improve and give those readers who never review a chance to say just WHY they don't usually bother, whether or not they've got more than the usual "LOL UPDATE PLZ" one-liners.

Okay, I want to take a ruler and thwap all the people that write HSM fics. I really do. I'm too old to be doing this. I'm too old to be in this fandom. I like it, but when I try to "get into it," the badfic just makes me gag. LITERALLY.

( HOW TO WRITE A HALFWAY DECENT HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL FIC (according to Azurite) )

Unofficially tagged by a_white_rain. Sounds like an interesting meme.

Sometimes it's okay to pimp yourself out. Post a list of your top five favorite fics that you've written, regardless of fandom or the reason you love them. This isn't about the BEST things you've written, but what you LOVE most. Then tag five other people to do the same.

Like AWR, I won't tag anyone in specific, but any fic writers on this list, I TAG YOU! Just do eet. (I'd love to see the fic writers on this FL do this. It might be fun to [re-]read fics that I wouldn't expect are the author's favorites.)

Oh, and these are not in top five order, or descending order or anything like that.

( Will you LOL? )

1 - "Eagle Eye" kicks "Body of Lies" ass. Also: Billy Bob Thornton should forever be an action hero. I like him much better that way.

2 - CSI: Season 1 for $20! Target rocks! Now all I need are 7 friends to get me seasons 2-8 on DVD for X-mas/Hanukkah presents (for hopefully that same price and not the rip-off price of $46.95 like they were over at Borders). Also lovely: CSI:NY. I loves me some Mac and Stella.

3 - Heh, my new Nancy Drew game takes place in San Francisco. Half the street names are wrong, but it's funny anyway.

4 - I suck at Diner Dash. Seriously, I can't make it past Level 6 on "Flo on the Go," or Level 5 in "Diner Dash 2."

5 - Thinking about leaving DeviantART. It's seriously starting to suck.

6 - Coming someday in the not-too-distant future: "Astrology, Blood Types, and Yu-Gi-Oh! - Ryuuji Otogi." I don't have my Mystical Cards or EZ-Astrology-Report book here in SF, but I can make do without it. :P

7 - Working on WikiFic and dealing with idiots (who also happen to be minor vandals.) Teh fun!

8 - In just two days of being on the Yu-Gi-Oh! Top 50, "Blue Eyes and Apricots" has soared from #299 on the ranks to #20! WOW! Now I seriously need to update it. I've actually thought of a way to replace the Fanart section, too. What I can't do is make up my mind about the style of the new layout-- dark and autumny, or light and... colorful?

9 - After playing Nancy Drew and reading Skip Beat! #14, I got to thinking that it'd be funny if Kyoko had to do some sleuthing at LME. Moko, of course, would get dragged into it, and there'd be humor (c/o Yashiro and Lory and Kyoko's own antics), potential angst and drama (because it ain't Skip Beat! without Ren and Sho), and maybe even some Vie Ghoul smashing!

10 - I reserved "Star Ocean: First Departure" for the PSP, but since I don't want to buy an Entertainment Pack with the new PSP-3000 and a stupid game I'll never play and a Memory Card I don't need, I think I'll end up waiting until November before buying a standalone PSP-3000. It's agonizing to wait that long when I'll finally have the game in my hands come the 21st, but if I've waited this long, I can wait another month or so.

( Filktastic )

I wonder... does everyone know someone, within six "degrees" or less (e.g. friend of a friend of a... etc.) who is, in some way, involved in every fandom someone could possibly be interested in? That doesn't mean the person needs to be a participant in fandom-- maybe just a lurker who knows of a good site. That's good enough.

Because here I am, and I'm into all these anime and manga fandoms. Most of them are shoujo, some are shonen. Some I've watched and enjoyed, but never contributed anything to fandom for. Some of them I'm a former participant in, others I'm an active participant in.

"Participant" can vary from fandom to fandom, too. For some fandoms, I write fanfiction and/or submit art. For others, I just comment on forums, read fanfics, and so on. For example, I'm highly active and participatory in the anime and manga fandoms, but more of a passive participant within my favorite TV show fandoms like Star Trek, Alias, and more recently, CSI. Sure, I'll read forum postings and check out wikis and the like, but I have yet to write a fic for any of them.

A while ago, I made up my mind not to try and find good fanfic on Fanfiction.net (or its ilk) anymore, except by the following methods:

a) updates from friends or favorite authors that I'd already established on my account as "Favorite Authors"

b) recommendations from those friends toward other writers, whether directly (e.g. Mamono recommended to me via email/PM/LJ comment/whatever that I check out Atlantis2's fics!) or indirectly (Atlantis2 is listed as a Favorite Author on Mamono's profile, or one of Atlantis2's stories is listed as a Favorite Story on Mamono's profile)

So far, that's worked out pretty well for me, except when I'm getting into a new fandom. Unless I'm lucky and I already know of a friend who's in that fandom (e.g. if I ever get into Slayers, I know I can turn to dqbunny, and if I ever watch Stargate: Atlantis, I know I can pester mklutz with questions), I have to hunt down "good" sites, communities, C2s, and the like just to find people that might make good friends and therefore good connections to OTHER good people-- good writers, active participants in fandom, whatever.

So, as of right now, my favorite CSIs are in this order:
* CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
* CSI: New York
* CSI: Miami

I've been reading more CSI: NY stuff than any of the others lately, mainly because I think the characters have gripped me more than the Miami cast and because the season premiere for CSI: NY (and Miami) have aired already, while the original CSI has yet to have its Season 9 premiere. You'd think CSI's fandom would be buzzing with activity and fics, but... it doesn't seem like it. I read the winners of the CSI Fic Awards, and that was it.

I think I complained that the CSI: NY wiki sucks, and I wonder if it's because I haven't found a better Wiki for it on Wikia or somewhere else (like the CBS website). It's one of those nagging, disgusted feelings with the State of the Web that would otherwise compel me to do it myself, EVEN THOUGH I'm a n00b to the fandom and other people, more dedicated fans, have been around longer and could almost definitely do it better. It just bugs me that it apparently hasn't been done (to my satisfaction; I guess I am a picky fan) YET.

Fanfiction isn't much better. Does anyone on this FL read CSI: NY fic? I'm in desperate need for some good stuff (esp. Mac x Stella, which I refuse to call SMacKED! because that's... just kind of dumb. I've never liked portmanteau 'ship names or variations thereof), now that I've exhausted the supply of fics by the late great Christina D-- can't spell her last name-- and Banana Tooth.

I wish I could make myself unpicky, but if I read a fic where the dialogue isn't punctuated properly, where words like "your" and "a lot" are misspelled, and where Inspector Gerrard slaps Mac Taylor OPENLY in front of the whole lab, I just... I die a little inside. I have to click back before my stomach stages a revolt and takes me trachea along with it. I can't read fics where some random OC *koff* Mary-Sue! *koff* is paired off with a main character (especially in the CSI 'verses; aren't their lives complicated enough? It's like, if you introduce an OC, make her either a victim or a criminal, not a love interest and/or long-lost relative!). ( And little things can really bug me, too.... )

And though this makes me a bit of a hypocrite, there'd have to be something REALLY compelling about some part of a story for me to hate it enough to not read it all the way through, not review, but still check out the author's profile in the hopes that they wrote a better story. (I say "hypocrite" because I feel if someone read "Only 16" and thought that fic was the best I could do, I would cry bloody foul. I don't take it offline BECAUSE I've come so much farther than I was when I wrote that, and because SOMEDAY I'd like to revise it and see if I *can* make it better!)

With so many things that knock me out of a fic within the first few paragraphs, I'm really relying on the recs of other great authors (or simply well-read fans within the same fandoms as I) to find some truly good stuff.

So, if you know someone who knows someone who knows someone who writes good CSI fic that's:
* CSI: NY - Mac x Stella or Danny x Lindsay
* CSI: Nick x Sara (Snickers; the closest 'ship name to a portmanteau that I'll tolerate because it's just so durn cute) OR Grissom x Sara (aka GSR)
* CSI: Miami
or is just generally well-written and preferably complete (and it can be gen, crime/drama, but preferably not tragedy or angst) regardless of which CSI it hails from
please let me know!

LET'S SOCIAL NETWORK YAY!

So, being that sleeping is elusive and I've read every book and manga in my room backwards and forwards, I decided to opt for reading Ceres: Celestial Legend *again*, since it's good and I've been on a Yuu Watase kick lately anyway AND because before all the "mayhem" went down, I was watching the anime series, which I'd finally completed my collection of on DVD (shoulda bought the collector's edition... D'oh! There's no lyrical subtitling for the songs, the audio track is sometimes off --like, I'll hear the English voice and not the Japanese one, even though I always set it to Japanese audio w/ English subs before selecting "Play"-- and sometimes the timing is off, too).

I finished the series last night. Bawled my eyes out. Watase never fails in that respect; I don't think she's done a single series that I've read/watched (this would include the J-Drama adaptation of "Absolute Boyfriend," even though the similarities to her manga were slim) that DIDN'T make me cry. It's a good thing, though. Her stuff's very thought-provoking.

( So, with the hesitation of someone about to step in potentially icy water, I tread into fandom. )

Inspiration is a funny thing. Some people claim to have muses, others don't. Some people "believe" in writer's (or artist's, or whatever) block, other people don't.

In trying to write WDKY26 over the past almost-year (11/7/07, according to the publication date on FFnet), I've tried a number of things to get my tail on the road and writing again. Certain things have worked, other things haven't. I'm sure it's different for everyone, whether they're writing fic, painting portraits, shooting photos, or something else. What works once may not work again, and what doesn't work the first time might work the 367th time, but none of the times in between.

I've actually been managing to write more of WDKY26 in the past few days, but I'm far from satisfied with it. I definitely want some betas to look it over and help me "trim the fat," so to speak. But fat (excess, weird writing) is better than nothing, or better than simple notes from my planner file. At least there's prose, even if it's pointless, non-descriptive prose! A step in the right direction, I think. And what's gotten me here? I wonder if I could make a ranking chart of what's worked well, what's worked only a little bit, and what hasn't worked at all.

I've tried it all:
* Listening to music - works some of the time. It depends on the music. See, I've got a playlist of music for WDKY. A good chunk of it is made up of songs that have directly appeared in the fic, e.g. "Why Can't I?" by Liz Phair, "All The Things She Said" by t.A.T.u, and so on. Those are all chapters in the past, and any music I have for other chapters tends to be UPCOMING chapters-- not the one I'm working on. It's a pain in the neck to be stuck working on one particular scene, but my choice of background music has me thinking of scenes in the not-too-distant-but-still-not-part-of-this-chapter's-future. Every now and again, if I pick a particular artist or just listen to my whole library on shuffle, I'll get lucky and come up with a scene or prose for my current scene that fits with the music. It doesn't always have to be something lyrical, which is why I might try listening to instrumental stuff or other BGMs, like, oh Yu-Gi-Oh!? I mean geez, what better to listen to, really.... But like I said, it only works some of the time.

* Working on some other fic project - Rarely works. If I'm working on another YGO fic, I'll see my own author's notes about how WDKY is my major project, how I want to finish that first, etc. I'll see all the fics I've started when WDKY got stuck, and how ALL OF THEM ARE STILL STUCK. It's the same even if it's a brand-new idea that's never made it to prose form, a challenge (see guardian_kysra's super-belated birthday fic which I can't seem to finagle ANY ideas for!!! ARGH!!), or something else. The guilt will creep up on me and then attack! To be honest, I haven't tried to do much in other fandoms, mainly because my mind just sort of stares at the idea(s) and goes "No comprende." I've been in the Yu-Gi-Oh! fandom since 2003 and have found it very hard to get out of it completely. I don't think I WANT to get out of it completely until at least WDKY is done, let alone the other 2 stories in the saga which I have planners for, but nothing more.

However, it's possible that working on future chapters of the same story/saga might help. Sure, it doesn't get "what I need to get done" done, but it's something. It might help the muse (or whatever) just to get the prose out, even if I end up scrapping it all later (like I did when I was working on Prophecy Girl and TJOY, two other fics that came along the same time as WDKY). I may have mentioned in the past, I already wrote the final scene for WDKY in Ch. 36 AGES ago. Mainly because THAT ONE SCENE was stuck in my head and wouldn't get out until it's written. Lately, it hasn't been one scene, but more like "acts," or snippets of a single scene. Sometimes it's only a sentence to start off, and I have to try and go from there. I don't like writing out of order, because I feel I end up losing my focus, but maybe if I look at it like "organizing my mind," and sorting things away to where they're supposed to be, it can bring the ideas I truly want forward, so I can get working on them.

* Working on some other project - Kinda-sorta works. I recently switched a lot to working on my shrine for RPGClassics, on Star Ocean 3: Till The End of Time. I got a great high out of getting so much done for the thing, but then when I stopped (because it is tedious, is a different kind of work than web design, graphic design, and fic writing), I'd be like "Yeah, but it's still not finished, it's another huge project I've started, and I'm STILL no closer to getting any ideas for WDKY26!" So the feeling of accomplishment dwindled pretty quickly. Plus, actually playing the game might only serve to distract me temporarily, because I'd start getting ideas for that fandom, for more things to do for the shrine, etc. etc. And I'd get frustrated because I couldn't accomplish certain things in THAT game, either (e.g. getting all 100% on Sphere 211's maps, because I'm only 4% away but I can't find where else on the first 5 levels that I could have missed ARGH!!!)

* Looking at related fic ideas/planners, reading previously posted-chapters of the same fic - This seems to have worked the best. I would see something that reminded me of a fic or fic idea, and I'd want to see what I'd written for it. So I'd bring up the file, read the fic or the planner or whatever, and I'd start to think "Hey, this kind of writing style I had back then..." or something like that, and I could switch easily into WDKY26 and start working on it. I might not be satisfied with it, but it's something. But what helped best of all was reading previous chapters. For example, I needed Seto to recall something that had happened in the previous chapter. In order to do that, I needed to read the previous chapter and find an appropriate line. And THAT really helped, because I knew exactly where I was in the continuity of the story, everything that had brought the characters to the point(s) they were at, and what sort of "style" I'd been writing with in the past chapter. I might just re-read the whole fic to see where that gets me.

* Reading other fics in the same vein (e.g fandom, pairing, genre) - Works well, but not spectacularly. I re-read mmagnet_ff's "The Night Before," because apparently I missed an update to it late in August, and with a fic involving so many flashbacks, I didn't want to forget "when" I was in the story, so I re-read it from the start. It's still deliciously tantalizing, and, like any good fic, had me hypothesizing about what might happen next. Sure, my idea is crazy and bizarre, but it was fun. Dissecting my idea (whether in the context of the fic or not) was fun, and got me brainstorming about WDKY a bit. This was also true of rose_of_pollux's "Folgen Sie Ihrem Traum," one of the few mystery-genre Seto x Anzu fics in the fandom. I'm definitely coming up with hypotheses for that fic too, but because it's so different a genre and the characterization works differently than my own in WDKY, it doesn't really help me with WDKY so much to read it. But at least it keeps me "in the fandom, in the pairing," seeing how different authors interpret the same characters. It helps to be able to step back from a fic or a chapter after you've read it to "dissect it," so to speak, the way you might a piece of literature for class. I can ask myself "Why did the author choose to phrase it that way?" or "What impact has the chosen perspective and tense choice had on the story flow?" Thinking about a fic critically can help me analyze my own writing in that same manner. I tend to write as the ideas flow-- not write for my audience, not write so that people will "analyze" WDKY in a particular manner, but still-- I have a point, I have a purpose, I have a story to tell. So I tell it, as best I can, and if I re-read it (or other stories), and it leads me to think "Nah, it can be better," at least I have an idea of where to go next.

* Read other books, manga, etc. - Hardly works at all, but it's fun! I read all kinds of novels, from mystery and suspense-thriller to Victorian England romance novels straight from my Baba's "trashy" collection. *grin* Sometimes you can read a story and think "Oh, this would be perfect in a fic verse, starring Character A and Character B!" But I've learned to stop doing that, because it's rarely original. The temptation is there to more or less inject two characters from one fandom into another fandom-- you lose sight of characterization, which is the only thing that makes those characters who they are, recognizable, interesting, and fun! What's the point of putting Seto Kaiba into Anakin Skywalker's shoes and Anzu Mazaki's into Padme Amidala's when everyone KNOWS Anakin and Padme's story, and there's nothing particularly interesting about it that applies to or changes Seto and Anzu? So I wouldn't do it with the intent of getting inspired to work on WDKY or any other already-started fic. But it's a nice break from a fic that seems to bash the insides of my brain into jelly.

What do you do to try and "inspire" yourself? If you've ever been "blocked," how did you get out of it?