Character meme

[curuchamion]

Name a character that you know I write or have written, and I’ll tell you:

a. What initially prompted me to like the character enough to write about him/her
b. One of his/her best traits
c. One of his/her worst traits
d. How easy/difficult I find it to write the character
e. The story/chapter/paragraph/phrase where I feel that I truly captured the character
f. My plans (if any) to write the character in the near future

I love babbling about writey stuff, so please comment? *puppy dog eyes*

Comments

[curuchamion.livejournal.com]

a. The awesome deadpan snark. I actually have a terrible time writing snark, but I do love trying to write characters who are good at it.

b. Just one? ;-) His offhanded bravery. He's always the person closest to the danger, and you never get the impression he's showing off about it.

c. Um... wha? lol His inability to get out of being tied up, I guess. Drives me crazy!

d. Once I have a situation to put him in, he's pretty easy for me to write - we're a lot alike in some ways, and the slightly stilted voice with occasional Briticisms is my natural writing style anyway. (I had to work hard to learn the more casual "American" voice I use in online chatter, even though I'm native-born American myself... too much British kidlit! *g*)

e. Um, either Poker Face (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5379726/1/Poker_Face) or Liaison Poetique (http://curuchamion.livejournal.com/9288.html). You can't really capture all of Illya in just one story.

f. I've got a MacGyver/MFU crossover and a Captain America/X-Men/MFU/something undecided crossover, both currently stalled without any actual words yet written. There might be some other stuff too... I've been suffering a major case of writer's block lately, and have forgotten about most of my WIPs.

[lolmac]

Okay, I'd love for you to do:

MacGyver (of course)
Sapphire
Steel

[curuchamion.livejournal.com]

I'm going to break up the answers into separate comments, and they may not all get done tonight (this has been a frightfully busy week).

MacGyver

a. He's me, basically. Or I'm him. Something like that. The inventive stuff, the adventurousness, the fear of heights, even the hair and the mannerisms... I sort of write by acting, if that makes any sense, so I couldn't not write for a role that tailor-made for me!

b. The self-deprecating humor. I can get pretty cranky at Mac when the writers take him too seriously, because it's like "ooh he has superhuman powers and thus life is easy" or something *rolls eyes*, but when he's being all goofy and tongue-in-cheek it's impossible to hate him.

Also the hands. ;-)

c. Definitely the pomposity in some of the later eps. It really, really doesn't fit him. And the "girlfriend in every port" thing can get boring.

d. Mac is really hard for me to write. I have his voice down pretty well, but getting the content to be the right blend of naive earnestness and irreverent humor is darn near impossible for me anymore.

e. Well, Velocizompire Apocalypse is the only time I've written him, isn't it? But you seem to think that worked pretty well, anyway. *shrugs*

f. I'm still planning to do that MacGyver/MFU crossover - I have most of a plot. Maybe once I move out I'll actually be able to write it!

[curuchamion.livejournal.com]

Sapphire and Steel are really tricky for me to do this meme for, because I've only written them once and can't seem to do it again... but here's my best shot.

a. They're enigmatic. When I have to keep puzzling and puzzling at someone that way, trying to figure out their motivations, it often ends up as fic. And since DMc and Joanna Lumley are both great actors, there always is a coherent motivation if only one can find it.

b. Steel: his absolute dedication to his job. He gets scared, but it doesn't slow him down. Also he has my favorite DMc hair ever. Sapphire: how many women do you know who could walk in those heels and look graceful doing it?!

c. Steel: his utter lack of tact. I like people who call an excavating implement a spade, but a small modicum of tact for use in emergencies is just practicality, and I do like my boys practical. Sapphire: the badly-straightened hair in Assignment 3 creeps me out. *g*

d. Steel's not too hard for me to write, but Sapphire is very difficult. I know I really don't understand her (if I could figure out why she flirts with both Silver and Steel the way she does, I'd be a lot closer), so I'm not comfortable trying to dictate how she would act. Which is probably the main reason, besides lack of plots, that I don't write S&S more often.

e. Well, the only place I've written S&S is my drabble Insensitive (http://curuchamion.livejournal.com/11264.html), which came out of watching Assignment 4 for the first time. But I do think I did quite well there at capturing what I was aiming for.

f. No definite plans... I keep getting odd little mental crossover snapshots, with visuals and tone, but no backstory. And I stink at creating tone without story. So - yeah, if it happens, it'll happen when it wants to. *shrugs*

I'd like to see your answers for MacGyver, please!

[primsong.livejournal.com]

Who did you expect? ;-) Do tell me, how did your muse meet Three and how well do the two of you work together?

[curuchamion.livejournal.com]

a. That was... complicated. I've mentioned the 4.3-year remodeling project that ate my life, right? Well, long story short if I can: towards the end of that whole mess, I was pretty near going completely round the bend from four years of "just one more little fix and then you can have a life. Oh wait, here's another." So Three's exile!angst really clicked with me.

He's also cuddly and adorable. And floofy! :-)

b. The whole Daisiest Daisy, "see heaven in a wild flower" attitude. Three is one of a very few characters in all of literature for whom you (and in this case I do mean you *g*) can write a thoroughly self-indulgent detailed description of a meadow after a rain or some such and have it be a perfectly in-character POV thought process. Which is awesomely awesomeful.

c. His occasional snottiness toward people who don't deserve it, such as Jo. (When they do deserve it, as for instance one-shot bureaucrats, it is splendiferous.)

d. I can't seem to write Three exile!angst anymore, which I take to be a good thing insofar as it pertains to the state of my life and brain. But I also can't write not-angsty Three, who is all cheerful and chipper and sure of himself as I am not. ...I should probably practice. It might be good for me.

e. Um, I'm really very happy with all my Three!fic (including One More Time (http://curuchamion.livejournal.com/12161.html), which is officially Thirteenth Doctor but the character in my head is played by Jon Pertwee), but if I have to pick just one it'd have to be Well, That's Just Ducky (http://curuchamion.livejournal.com/26581.html). I've never really managed to capture the bossy side of Three anywhere else. Besides, it has cuddles! ;-)

f. Um, good question. I owe ClocketPatch a story that was going to have Three in it for a while, but I wound up ditching the horrendously complicated plot in favor of something completely different. But there are some very good bits written for that, especially the beginning and ending, so those might eventually get patched together with a different plot altogether. Or no plot at all. Or something.

(And the new story idea, though deficient in Three, will hopefully have a fair amount of Brigadier anyway... if I can write him. He's even harder to handle than happy!Three. And I have no time for "research" right now, woe is me!)

Also, on one of those ill-advised fic-requesty memes I occasionally do, you once requested Three with optional schoolchildren. I sort of have an idea for that, except my brain has snagged chunks of the setup from your Three/Jo fluff piece with the honey-stealing alien goats (I can never remember the title, dang it!)... so, yeah, that needs more work.

Now I'd like to see your answers, pretty please! :-)

[primsong.livejournal.com]

a. I can’t quite pin down what the catalyst was, but I was always charmed by the Doctor in general and by the more gentlemanly and heroic variations in particular. I remember getting to (rarely) watch him growing up – it was Four’s era, but they included re-runs for Three from time to time which must have been quite confusing to anyone who was unfamiliar with his ability to change. I had a very long dry spell for writing anything at all while my children were small, but about the time the youngest went to school the LOTR films were being filmed and I my Muse abruptly popped out of the ground like those wildflowers who come up from the dust in the desert after a rain. I fell into a deep pool of poetry, then ventured into writing fics – which is where I discovered the older, marshmallow-centered curmudgeon that my Muse loves so well in the character of Bilbo, especially since he also loved books, maps and poems. About the time my tolkien-madness was running its course I fell back into watching old episodes of another early love – and Three swept to the forefront, swept my Muse off her feet with the reminder of his dashing and curmudgeonly ways… except now I knew I could write for him – Bilbo had paved the way, helping me increase my confidence and editing skills so it didn’t make me just say “Oh, that would make a nice story, I wish someone would write that” – it made me say “I can write that…!” I had outgrown my well-beloved Middle-earth because I found it was too constraining in its ‘rules’ for the society, the history, the lack of technological advancements. The medieval paths were too well worn and I lunged off into the wider world around them, aided by a love of Edwardian styling, older gentlemen with class, people who are willing to speak their minds, characters who take the high road on moral issues and sometimes see the world a bit differently than those around them do…. In short, by the early Doctors, and Three in particular.

b. Only one trait? How about his class? He is always so…classy! He even greets chickens with completely sincere courtesy and respect, and the world would be a better place if everyone would just take a good lesson in manners from Three. Yes, he can be occasionally snappish and overbearing, but at the same time he’s an impeccable diplomat. When I look about me and see slouchy, sloppy, disrespect left and right, Three is a breath of fresh air and a reminder that we don’t all have to be that way.

c. His worst trait? Well, I suppose that would be the aforementioned occasional snappiness, where he is so caught up in what he is doing that he can’t bear to be interrupted (again) by the ‘childish’ queries or protestations of those who don’t understand what he’s doing or why. A bit like a preschool teacher when they reach that tipping point and one more little kid saying “Why??” makes them snap at them and sit them in the corner. But then, I sympathize with his losing his patience… so maybe his worst trait would be occasionally allowing bad script writers to make him sound like a Buddhist, lol…

Part II

[primsong.livejournal.com]

d. I find him very easy to write most of the time, with occasional lapses where he’s going off into technology or science that I don’t understand myself and I have to go spend hours of research just to plug ahead a paragraph or two. The main difficulty I have with him is he is very much an Action Man Doctor, and action is terribly difficult for me to write. I can dialogue til the cows come home, but writing a fight scene can literally take me over a month to do.

e. Wow, hmm… perhaps Like Clockwork for the ‘exile’ side of him, and either the Custom Vehicle series or Eggs of Destruction for his action-y, gadget-y side. Both Snowbound and Sweetest have facets of his softness and generosity, disallowing the tilt to the fluff, which is personal preference rather than canon. Cake and the Rani looks at his interaction with others like him… It’s a bit like turning a multi-sided gem, I really don’t know how to sum this up.

f. Plans? Well, currently I’m plugging away at a Onefic a bit at a time – summer’s been busy and the going is slow – but I do have two more stories for Three that are partially finished waiting in the wings. I’m thinking of varying a bit with other fandoms, more as a self-pacing to make sure my own enthusiasm doesn’t burn me out than for lack of story ideas – we’ll see what happens!

Whew, that was long…! I had to split it into 2 posts!!