Breakroom

[KarotsaMused]

Optimoose: Valid suggestion, but I have had in mind what might happen if one of the boys threatens to break character in the middle of a fiction and have only been waiting for the appropriate time to put it into action. Hakkai pleading with his inner Sue would definitely fall into that category.

However! Having a character and their Sue counterpart separate after having passed through the double doors is an interesting concept. Scenes from "Alien" pass through my mind...Hmmmm...muahaha.

Me-Nuriko: I've got a weakness for plots too!! I -never- have a plot planned out...except in the cases of "Blackjack" and "Shining Armor", but those are anomalous. I just kind of throw the characters together and see what happens as it goes. I think that's probably not the safest of practices, but I've not been lynched for it so far ;D

As for having a lot of characters, take writing as a spiderweb for a moment.
Look at one character. He has his own preferences, his likes and dislikes, his looks, his outlook on the world. Perhaps he has a favorite food or is uncomfortable in certain situations. Perhaps he has secrets or prefers to interact with a certain sort of person. Who is he as a whole?
Say we have two characters: Let's call them Sanzo and Goku. These two characters interact with one another, and the different nuances depending on mood can create a complex relationship. We have one interaction.
Add another character: Let's call him Hakkai. We now focus on how Sanzo relates to Hakkai, how Hakkai relates to Goku, and how Goku relates to Sanzo. These relationships differ by circumstance and mood, thus creating three new, complex interactions.
Add yet another character: Let's call him Gojyo. Aside from the three interactions we have, now we also must deal with how Gojyo affects Hakkai, how Gojyo affects Sanzo, and how Gojyo affects Goku. Added to this total of six complex relations, we can now begin to 'pair off' certain characters to see how they work as teams. We must deal with how Sanzo and Goku deal with Gojyo and Hakkai, how Sanzo and Gojyo deal with Goku and Hakkai, how Sanzo and Hakkai deal with Gojyo and Goku, and that's only pairs! How do Sanzo, Gojyo, and Hakkai deal with Goku? How do Gojyo, Hakkai, and Goku deal with Sanzo? How do Hakkai, Sanzo, and Goku deal with Gojyo? How do Sanzo, Gojyo, and Goku deal with Hakkai? Thus, even within the bounds of the four canon characters, we must be very aware of the different relationships between them.
Add an original character, and one must at once be aware of the character itself, keeping it true to form, and then how this character interacts with the group as singles, pairs, triples, and as a whole.
And that's not even with the adulteration of a plot, worry, lust, or any other emotional variable!

And, well, because of that, I'm kind of leery of adding in too many 'main' OC's. Man, do I ever talk a lot...

[Me-Nuriko]

We work differently then. I start with the plot, and work out the details as I write.

As for the OCs: Yeah, I'm well aware of how complicated all the relationships become the more characters you add.
But I need them. I mostly use them as villains. It gets a little boring only to let the ikkou fight Kougaiji-tachi or Homura all the time. With other villains it's easier to vary the stories. But that's my opinion.
Since I do write shounen-ai, I know I don't follow canon, but in other cases I'm more stubborn in doing so. That's why I don't write about Homura, even though I really like his character. But, he's not in the manga and therefore not canon. Before you ask, no, no one has accused me of being consistent. ;D

[KarotsaMused]

Heh (insert 'sweatdrop' smiley) I try starting out with plots, but by the end of the fiction they're so skewed from my original plan that it's pointless for me to have them. I always base stories off of an idea, and see where it goes. "Feverish" was going to just be about Gojyo in his shorts during winter, but look where that one ended up!

My 'serious' OC's were villains (although they have benign cameos in "Blackjack" now, too) so I totally understand your quest for variety in the good-guy-bad-guy relationship. But if I don't keep the parties reasonably separated, it's hard not to take the canon characters OOC to suit my needs. But I'm just weak like that

Heh, as for canon or not canon, you're definitely a lot more strict than I am! I so bad ;D

[therhoda]

Alright, Now you guys have done it! I will now leave My cheesy but pleased reviews for your edification. It is your own faults no whining at me later.

I LOVE BREAKROOM!!! As any of you could have noticed, I have left more reviews on it that I ever have anywhere.

If we continue on the dessert thing can I have Hakkai and Gojyo in Jello?.................. sorry my mind wandered where was I?

[KarotsaMused]

Glad you enjoy Breakroom, and if we've spurred you on a reviewing spree then that's pretty shibby, too. I can honestly say I get a case of the happies whenever I see a review alert in my inbox ;D

Excuse me while I have a fangirl moment: I INSPIRED (kindasorta) D-CHAN! Yay me! ;D Moment: done.

As for the boys and Jell-o, you gotta be careful with too much movement. Certainly gelatin is fun for tactile purposes, but any amount of 'swimming' turns the stuff to mush. Then again, it's certainly more humane than putting the poor boys in ice cream, and there's always the interesting translucency factor that can make for quite the show!

[therhoda]

Translucency!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Show.................. You say things like that then expect any kind of coherent thought!

But how would You do the character Mary sues. Would you differentiate it, kind of like a white spy/black spy thing in side the monologue. Oh no the mad comic Saiyuki thing, Ouch ouch!! It hurts!

[KarotsaMused]

;D Trans-luuuuuuuuuucency! Personally, I quite favor the image of the boys frolicking in a vat of Jell-o...but I know how to suppress my reactions and continue a stream of consciousness that doesn't involve a completely derailed thought choo-choo.

As for the In=Character OC's...you'll have to wait. Muahahahaha... ;D

[kanshu]

KarotsaMused: Glad to have given you an idea. I know that the guys always chew me out when I overdo it. Like, for 'Slaves', it needed a bit of persuasion. But Slaves is a story about breaking free, so, I guess it is also a story about healing.
I'm looking forward to see how you put that Mary-Sue alien thing into action.


KarotsaMused/Me-Nuriko: Plots... depends. When it's just a short one-shot, I've usually written it out in my mind by the time I actually start writing. The "Angst/Fear" series in Dragonball came into life that way. Goku's Birthday story is similar but that's still full of holes.
With longer stories, I do have a plot line, and I try to stick to it. It helps the self-disciplin in writing.
Though, I know the feeling of having thought up a plot, and suddenly being drowned in ideas, no matter how asinine. For example, I might change the complete sub-plot of 'Simply Love'... with the new input from Reload, I have to rewrite stuff anyway. And I just realised that they all might suffer a bit more fear of loss.

Just starting out with an idea and "see where it goes" can become problematic, unless you have full control over your story and all the plot threads. Usually, those type of fics fall into the cathegory "Nice start, but what on earth does it have to do with the rest of the story, and how on earth did the characters get there?"

Characters, numbers... Well, dealing with a lot of characters isn't a problem if you have enough story left. I mean, each character needs "air time", and using a character can very well make your story longer than planned. Then again, if you plan out the plot, you can assign different POVs of the plot to different characters. I like that, because it's a away to explore more characters and also keep information from the reader - since everything is limited to the experience and knowledge of one character at a time.

therhoda: Shesh... Jello. But I'm glad to hear that you're going to leave reviews more often, now.

[therhoda]

What you don't like Jello? IT is the curse of someone that can see what they read. mental images are way to easy for me. Which make me highly imaginative with a tad to much sensitivity. I can't take great globs of angst, and gore. So I find Humor the best place for me.

By the way Opti I had to figure out what You were talking about so I picked Up the first disc of gettbackers yesterday. On the whole it was a fun excursion. although by the end of the 5th episode on the disc I was sure I was missing some things from the story. But a fun romp in all. Well as I am writing this I find out that I wasn't supposed to be able to get that till the 28th. Shucks Wish i had gotten some of the other discs I am waiting for this month that easily. I am not giving it back either take that evil ADV! Of course it isn't them that I could kill as far as production schedules. That high honor goes to VIZ, never to be cursed enough. Now that I am completely off topic.

Back to the actual topic. How do you guys handle the people that get frothy at the mouth over cannon in a fic?

[kanshu]

Jello: Hehe... Seriously, I have a very vivid and naughty imagination myself. My mind's in the gutter more often then not. Just check out the Sanzo-sketch in my board section.
And angst only isn't good. You have to be able to laug in between. Which is why you'll always find homour in my angst stuff.

GetBackers: Uh... they will make much more sense if you watch, like 50 episodes. But it's true. The first few eps are a bit condensed, though the intro of Akabane & Co was done fairly okay. They never showed the scalpell that Akabane had left stuck in Ginji's chest, though.

How do you guys handle the people that get frothy at the mouth over cannon in a fic?

I'm not quite sure I get what you mean (Sorry, my English isn't that good and I don't understand many things). If you are talking about writing cannon... I have this policy: I, for myself, try to stick as closely to cannon as possible. If I write something that isn't cannon, I will mark it as AU.
It's like this: As an original author, you spent time and effort in creating characters a certain way. You establish facts and you create the plot and characters based on those facts. Hence, you create 'canon' for your series. Now, introduce the fans, and you'll find your characters turned into all kinds of things, whether you like it or not. Fans create 'fanon'.
As a fan, I'm divided. I want to use the characters as I see fit, but I also want to honour the creator of the characters. I want to show the creator of the characters that I respect her/his work and effort.
so, to me, it's not about 'froth at the mouth', but plain and simple about if I respect the author's 'canon', or if I do my own thing 'fanoning'. Again, that is for my stories only.

What other people do is their own thing, though I do get miffed when people claim 'it's cannon' when it clearly is not, and the information is easily accessible. Other than that, it's life and let die. Whatever floats other people's boats and makes them happy.
However, if I review, I will mention that a character is OOC (canon), or that A can't happen because of (canon), or that character C does have this and that background (canon).
Is that frothing for you? I know that I don't know everything about canon in all shows that I watch. Take Get Backers, for example. I know the anime, but not the manga.
If someone 'froths' about something I got wrong from the Saiyuki canon, I will try to double check the information and use it for future refernce if it is correct.

But again, that is just me, and I'm a... how do you say 'horse' for canon stuff?

It's different in a discussion amongst authors, of course, i.e. if you just get to know each other and first have to learn where the other comes from, how the other sees the 'universe' etc. But that's not 'frothing' to me, either. Just trading opinions and share different POVs on things.

Don't know if that answers your question. I'm not making sense today, methinks.

[Me-Nuriko]

Therhoda: About GetBackers.
In the Anime I think the best arc is 'The Mugenjou-arc'. If I remember correctly it's during eps 11-25. In it is revealed a lot of Ginji's background. I love both the manga and the anime. The last arc of the anime is not in tha manga, though. In that arc they present characters that also will appear in tha manga, but they present them in a totally different story. The manga also continues long after that last arc in the anime. Some really beautiful arcs are coming up. (Or rather, are up, but only in Japanese. )
As I wrote before (maybe not in this thread, can't really remember, and too lazy to check right now), the English translation of the manga is terrible, at least the first three books. There is a new translator from book 4.
The poor boys have suddenly turned into some other persons. Talk about changin canon.


Everybody : Changing canon with the translation is also what has happened in the Saiyuki anime. The English dub, makes me wonder if I'm watching the same anime.

[KarotsaMused]

YEEURGHHHH!!! Don't get me started on the terrible, terrible dub of Saiyuki.
...Or the fact that it's the only version of the series one of my friends will watch. The anime in its original form may be different from the manga, but the dub is like bad fanfic.

Plots: I think I'm a lot more slapdash than most writers, and it does cost me in the long run (gigantic hiatus on some stories, while I get my ducks in a row) but it's just how I do it. Bad Karot. *slaps self*

Oh, and Opti: I am now rushing over to your end of the mb for that Sanzo sketch. Curiosity is piqued!

[kanshu]

Me-Nuriko: Don't get me started on translations, or dubs.... They all but mistranslated Saiyuki manga 5 in German. Dubbers here aren't bad, per se. But the need to make it sound "normal" in a different language pretty much ruins the meaning and the jokes.
I'm glad that they did the subbing properly in German. They even have Hakkai use the 'formal' addressing form. I think you have that in Swedish language, too. It totally changes the air of the show when Hakkai is talking extremly politely, like he's really addressing someone ranking higher.

KarrotsaMused: If you are aiming for becoming a pro writer, you might want to change your way of writing and make it more efficient. Writing a novel is a ton of work, and editors do have dead lines.

The sketch: Oi... reminds me that I have to scan the current version of that. I also might do the jelly version with Hakkai and Gojyo, if I feel evil enough.

Wow, just noticed something... To abuse and bend a quote from "Halleluja Trail" - 'It's amazing how so few people can create so much traffic in such a short time.'

[Me-Nuriko]

Sweden doesn't have many manga translated to Swedish. I only know about 'Dragonball', 'Ranma', 'DN Angel', and 'One Piece'. So everything I have read except those are in English. (Ranma I have only read in English nevertheless.) GB and Saiyuki I have also got directly translated from Japanese, by my Japanese speaking very close friend.
Anime is even worse. Sure there are more swedish dubs, but only for children anime, like 'DB', 'Sailor Moon', and 'Beyblade'. (By the way, I like Beyblade.) When it comes to making dubs for children cartoons, they don't make a good job here. *sigh* The only exception to that rule is Disney's movies.

The picture of Sanzo in the mousse is lovely. I'd really like to see Gojyo and Hakkai in Jello, too.

Making much traffic: And unless my computer didn't decide to crash while I was writing another post it would have been more.
I do wish my computer would stop that habit of crashing at least once a day. It's been on repair, and it's better now than before. It used to crash about ten times a day. You can imagine how easy it is to write anything on a computer like that.

[therhoda]

Okay, On the whole Saiyuki dub thing, I have to admit I like Goyjo's english voice actor. Can't help myself, such a cute little accent. But I tend to watch it in both I like dvd's that have both tracks. It kills me if I can't switch it for certain parts because certain phrases do not translate. Take my favorite Japanese word Baka. with the proper inflecting it is a wonderful word and used right is great. but they translate it into so many different words with no inflection and it kills me. Also I really think ADV translated with to much American bent. I mean the references they use only make sense to that part of the english speaking world. But I digress.

I will leave with one such comment.

there is always room for Jell-o