A Misanthrope's Throne

I'm sure a gazillion people will tell me YOU'RE DOING THIS MEME WRONG IT'S A DAILY THING but I answered the questions and I enjoyed answering them and you probably enjoyed reading them so it's all good.

And now, the meme. For annoyance's sake I shan't be putting the text under a cut.

28. Have you ever written a character with physical or mental disabilities? Describe them, and if there's nothing major to speak of, tell us a few smaller ones.

If you count impending heart failure a disability-no? I recall I once had a mute character, but I don't think surgical removal is considered a disability...do you people consider folk who've gone mad under intense mental pressure and then regressed to a childlike state a mental disability? I...GUESS it's a small one....so like there's a hell demon named Sariel who was actually a surgeon in his human life but a series of botched operations took a toll on his mind and he went mad and ran out in front of a passing carriage and died. Heaven wouldn't take a sinner so Belial made him Sariel, demon of the eclipse (he was born during one). However Sariel as-is barely knows how to string words and is just left to be in an attic in the darkness where they'll put out food for him and all. Good thing the demoness Enon takes good care of him otherwise we might find out if demons can die from neglect. Then there's a blue dragon whose arm was bitten by a demon (demons in Dragonverse devoured dragons in prehistorical times) and he couldn't use that arm very well anymore...is that a disability?

Oh, there was this one human in my SFverse that the Supercomputer Daath created that it considered its finest creation: It was deaf, blind, crippled, and mentally handicapped BUT it had the highest sensitivity to machines several light years away and could control all these machines with its mind alone. You could say it was the grand orchestrator of all the events in that universe but that's also debating whether the chicken or the egg came first. You can tell I'm an extreme person, can't you?


29. How often do you think about writing? Ever come across something IRL that reminds you of your story/characters?

Thinking about writing is a very easy thing. I wake up and I think, "I gotta write down the vivid dream I had last night!". At work I think, "I wish I could hid somewhere and write my story". At night I think, "I should get started on writing!"

Have a cookie if you figured out how often I write.

Thinking about writing is a very useless endeavour - too much time spent thinking is time wasted not doing. It's not like I can up and start writing immediately (often caused by a lack of paper, stationery, electronics, or all three) and by the time I do the moment is gone and my mind is a concrete block again. The lesson here is to say you don't spend any time thinking about writing because you're writing all the time.

A lot of things IRL reminds me of Neji - reading the newspaper, playing games, going to work and meeting all sorts of people (some would dearly benefit from a good strangle), coming home and experiencing sorts of strange incidents. In that sense everything reminds me of Neji. The rest it doesn't matter if something IRL reminds me of them because they're meant to be stories of a different era, which skims fantasy and nosedives into escapism. Stories are my refuge from reality; the Nejiverse reminds me reality is still worth returning to.

When there are no more Neji stories...I shall be very sad indeed.


30. Final question! Tag someone! And tell us what you like about that person as a writer and/or about one of his/her characters!

I'm not going to tag anyone because 5 people started on this meme when I did so as long as ONE of them finishes all 30 questions it's good. So now I have five writers, but two don't post completed work (or ideas) anywhere, one I've only read their fanfiction (but I don't share their fandom), one writes what I call pseudofiction (it's fiction but no but yeah but no but-), and one has been telling me the same stories for so long I feel awful I can't keep track of the THREE characters they have...

I'd say I like the fact they still think of stories.

We all have story ideas that ten years later when we write them down in a meme we'll realise just how STUPID the ideas were and we'll be so ashamed we even thought of such a thing. The difference between...them...us...whoever...and the rest of the world is that they didn't just stop at that one idea. They kept on thinking and dreaming and creating, whether it was trying to make better stories or redoing the same one until they were satisfied. It wasn't a stagnant one-off idea left to be a childhood remnant meant to be laughed over in their twilight years, or that writing stories was a phase they outgrew - they kept on thinking and growing and writing instead of supposedly growing up and thinking of realistic things. You know what they say about overrealistic people being terribly dull? Yeah these guys don't have the best personalities (or storytelling skills) ever, but they've shared some interesting ideas and that takes up more courage than we'd ever care to admit.


AND DONE! I go pat myself on the back now! 8D


****

1. Tell us about your favorite writing project/universe that you've worked with and why.
2. How many characters do you have? Do you prefer males or females?
3. How do you come up with names, for characters (and for places if you're writing about fictional places)?
4. Tell us about one of your first stories/characters!
5. By age, who is your youngest character? Oldest? How about “youngest” and “oldest” in terms of when you created them?
6. Where are you most comfortable writing? At what time of day? Computer or good ol' pen and paper?
7. Do you listen to music while you write? What kind? Are there any songs you like to relate/apply to your characters?
8. What's your favorite genre to write? To read?
9. How do you get ideas for your characters? Describe the process of creating them.
10. What are some really weird situations your characters have been in? Everything from serious canon scenes to meme questions counts!
11. Who is your favorite character to write? Least favorite?
12. In what story did you feel you did the best job of worldbuilding? Any side-notes on it you'd like to share?
13. What's your favorite culture to write, fictional or not?
14. How do you map out locations, if needed? Do you have any to show us?
15. Midway question! Tell us about a writer you admire, whether professional or not!
16. Do you write romantic relationships? How do you do with those, and how “far” are you willing to go in your writing? ;)
17. Favorite protagonist and why!
18. Favorite antagonist and why!
19. Favorite minor that decided to shove himself into the spotlight and why!
20. What are your favorite character interactions to write?
21. Do any of your characters have children? How well do you write them?
22. Tell us about one scene between your characters that you've never written or told anyone about before! Serious or not.
23. How long does it usually take you to complete an entire story—from planning to writing to posting (if you post your work)?
24. How willing are you to kill your characters if the plot so demands it? What's the most interesting way you've killed someone?
25. Do any of your characters have pets? Tell us about them.
26. Let's talk art! Do you draw your characters? Do others draw them? Pick one of your OCs and post your favorite picture of him!
27. Along similar lines, do appearances play a big role in your stories? Tell us about them, or if not, how you go about designing your characters.
28. Have you ever written a character with physical or mental disabilities? Describe them, and if there's nothing major to speak of, tell us a few smaller ones.
29. How often do you think about writing? Ever come across something IRL that reminds you of your story/characters?
30. Final question! Tag someone! And tell us what you like about that person as a writer and/or about one of his/her characters!

It's a very low point in my year, and this is the only way I'm getting my kicks. Bear with me.


20. What are your favorite character interactions to write?

Guest star hiimdaisy will summarize my answer with an illustration!



It's no surprise 80% of my characters talk like that.


21. Do any of your characters have children? How well do you write them?

Erinyes (Dragonverse) has 108 children who some get locked in a civil war for the throne he left behind, so that counts. How well though, I'll get back to you when I write it out.

I'm not sure if Neji's father counts because Neji's father is a character and Neji is his child, so...


22. Tell us about one scene between your characters that you've never written or told anyone about before! Serious or not.

The major problem with the Dragonverse is that a huge chunk of the characters have no names, but here goes nothing:

Among the children of Erinyes is a female Red Dragon (fRD) and a male White Dragon (mWD). fRD is one of the major players for the throne and puts up the 4 year old kid mentioned several posts back for empress and becomes the child's guardian and regent, putting her safely in line for the throne after that. mWD is the commander of the strongest airship fleet the empire has, and between the two of them, he supports everything she does because he's got this raging infatuation for her (they're dragons, what do they care about incest) and he just LETS her do any damn thing she wants while he just protects her from the rest of their siblings. Then when the toddler dies and she's Empress the last thing that prevents her from being popular is now the mWD who's done pissed everybody off for HER sake so what does she do? Send soldiers to EXECUTE him and being his head back to her. Him? He's just happy SHE'S happy. So the squad captain brings mWD's head wrapped in a velvet cloth to her on a silver tray and she graciously receives the head and kisses it, finally reciprocating his feelings while being supreme Empress of all (until something happens). I really should try writing out the last sentence - it sounds so damn cool in my head.

23. How long does it usually take you to complete an entire story—from planning to writing to posting (if you post your work)?

Planning - Days
Writing - Years
Posting - Seconds
Completing a story - Anywhere from a few hours to never.

( Meme list )

This more interesting than NaNo, I tell you!

( Benson & Hedges of text + meme list )

Actually I have to sleep early, so one question today only!

9. How do you get ideas for your characters? Describe the process of creating them.

Today I am going to show you two approaches from two different ideas - Nejiverse and Dragonverse.

Nejiverse:

I was walking in Kino, because Kinokuniya is totally the best place to run through ideas. So I'm at the old Japanese section and they have these really big bookshelves arranged so that if one fell you could imagine the rest toppling over like domino blocks. I think, "that would be a good idea in a story" and then I try to imagine stuff in my head. Maybe a guy crouching at the bookshelf and when he got startled he pushed the bookshelf over and the domino effect happened. So what kind of guy is this? I like the antichrist...antichristantichristantichristantichristantichrist ok he could be an antichrist! But what's the twist about him? Ohh he doesn't have magic! All these chosen people always have magic *picks up random manga ooo this is a nice pic* so he's gotta look normal *picks up another manga* like this one! Except maybe his hair could be brown to show NORMALNESS. So what happens after the bookshelf falls? Maybe a bunch of people freak out and SHOOT HIM! How about NINJA THROWING BOOKJACKETS! But he's normal, so who's going to throw the bookjackets? Wait, how will we introduce him to the world as the antichrist? So we'll start out with him walking a bookstore, and who is the enemy anyway? *Pick up another manga* TERRORISTS! That's what they'll be! The Leader'll be...Leader! Cuz he's the LEADER and all! I R SMRT.

The end.


Dragonverse

The idea for a story first started when I wanted to write a story about political intrigue, but wanted some kind of fantasy trapping. I like dragons, but I don't like JUST dragons, so I first sort out what sort of dragons are there, distinguishing each type of dragon with a physical trait and placing them on a hierarchy. How could I tie in different species of dragons with their eventual evolution to more humanlike physiques? Then I start thinking about the main chara - how about a guy who's a lazy apathetic bum? You don't see that often in stories, so how is he going to get things done? Maybe he could be a token of such importance that everyone's bending over to manipulate HIM. Is he aware of this? Can he be bothered? Since he's a lazy arse he probably would notice but go whatever and let everyone do as they like. Is he rich? If he's related to the royal family, in what way? Could he get away with being lazy in his position? I WANT to let him be in the royal family now, so I start shifting bits around to accomodate his royalness.

Then I start wondering how the royal family came to be, and I create another idea that takes the timeline several centuries back. Remember how I said I like history books? I like to see how would things go until that fateful day of a lazy shiftless king-to-be, so I am now absolutely distracted by another shiny new story. What about humans? Would there be notable human characters in certain eras? What if White Dragons weren't the dominant race at first? How would they have come up to power? Who would be the dominant race first? Would any of these dragons get on well with humans? OK let's go further and further back in time. Who would be a noteworthy character of that era? *Goes play some FFT* Where would a white mage who gets faint at the sight of blood fit into this epic Dragon-filled world? What about crossbreeding?

And on it goes. It's a matter of either thinking really long how the world should be and what would make sense, but it involves a lot of asing questions and doing the difficult job of discarding the idea if it doesn't work. Sometimes like Neji it's a lot easier letting my head go nuts; Aleister Hargreaves was born from a chapter about making homunculi I got from a witchcraft book in BORDERS, Singapore.

It's all about the catalyst.

( Meme List )

Since I am working tomorrow night I shan't be around to do this meme, so tonight you get some extra reading! Aren't you excited!

( Hedges of text + Meme list under the cut )

3. How do you come up with names, for characters (and for places if you're writing about fictional places)?

For comparison let's take the characters from Nejiverse and the characters from Finneganverse.

A lot of the characters from Nejiverse had their names pop up randomly - Neji was from Yuki Kaori's story Neji, the French terrorist Trebuchet got his name from a MS Word font that I later found out suited his nature; most of the names in Nejiverse don't have any significant meaning save for Yeshua (whose personality quirk came from the name). Majority of the charas don't have surnames either, but that makes them racially ambiguous. Hitsuki? Avicenna? They could be pen names for all it's worth, but as long as people remember which goes where, it's all good.

Contrasting with Finneganverse, Finnegan was the only character who had a name for the longest time. Allegra was named after allergy medicine, and while I tried to give other characters medication-related names it wasn't easy to make coherent-sounding names which was a factor to dropping the storyline. For Finnegan's case I've been trying to name his fellow party members since forever (Sedna's *name* came about over a year after Finnegan) and the placeholder names I gave them aren't that great. I figure it'll come eventually, but how long eventually is anyone's guess. The irony is Neji characters have no set design (I only finalized the terrorists' uniforms last year) but had names in minutes - Finnegan charas are the exact opposite.

Places? I just string syllables together and hope for the best.

( Meme list )

Considering the timing of this meme, it's definitely doing to clash with NaNo, but I like the questions!

Ganked from asliceoflove who ganked from discardtheold

( Tell us about your favorite writing project/universe that you've worked with and why. )