A Simple Guide To Fanfiction Research (or How To Write About A Country That Isn’t Your Own)

Oh what trials and treacherous waters we fanfiction readers must endure. Bad plots. Out of characterization. Poor spelling and grammar. Ship-to-ship combat. So many of these are so easily fixable. Engaging plots and sensible character arcs come with practice. To improve spelling and grammar, you read more books, and pay more attention in school. Ship-to-ship combat is not fixable, sadly, and will endure until the apocalypse, along with Nokia phones, Brussels sprouts and the burning hatred everyone feels towards call centres.

Lack of research, however, is something that can be fixed with ease, and yet so very often is not. A lot of fanfiction authors genuinely seem to believe that researching for something that ‘just’ gets posted online is beneath them. I admit, I am not a huge advocate for entire books of research – plotting the evolutional path of your aliens, or the ancestry of your characters right back to the 10^th century seems a little extreme unless it’s relevant to the plot. There is a line where research takes over the story, and that is where you need to reign yourself back in. However, there is nothing wrong with a simple bit of fact checking, even if it is ‘just’ the internet.

Have you ever had one of those moments when you’re reading a very enjoyable fanfiction, and suddenly a fact just jumps out and bites you? That’s wrong you think to yourself. That’s not how you hack a computer/that’s not how you treat a gunshot wound/that’s not how Japanese high schools work. Valiantly you try to shake the fact off, but it digs its teeth in to your suspension of disbelief and you can’t really get into the story any more.

Maybe I’m just very picky. Maybe I just like researching this kind of stuff. Or maybe I just feel the brunt of it, after ten years of screaming at Harry Potter fanfictions, because British schools like Hogwarts don’t have lockers or prom, and our first year of school isn’t called Kindergarten. But I fail to see why it is so difficult to pop onto Wikipedia (or TVTropes, if you want to make the experience a little more amusing) and just quickly check whether this is true or not. You wouldn’t get away with this in a published novel, so why should your fanfiction suffer through it? Do you not put just as much creativity and love into your fanfiction as you do your original work? Does it not deserve the same respect? At the very least you should consider it practise for when you write an actual novel.

A colleague of mine gave me this wise advice recently. “Never assume – it makes an ass of you and me”. I’ve been on fanfiction for ten years now, and I’ve found that assumptions are the biggest cause of incorrect facts – specifically, since the tendency is for fanfiction writers to write what they know, they assume that other countries and cultures are exactly like theirs at a fundamental level. Some things are obvious – Yu-Gi-Oh writers are usually perfectly aware that the odds of rain in Egypt are practically nonexistent, for example. But some things are less obvious – like why it is sometimes impossible to buy alcohol in modern Egypt, and why in ancient Egypt, the beer was treated more like soup than a beverage.

To that end, I invite my readers to borrow some of my top tips to remember when writing about countries that you have never visited before. It doesn’t take long to find most of these out, thanks to the mighty powers of Google, and you never know – you may learn something interesting in the process.

1. Location, location, location

Nothing, and I mean NOTHING, irritates me more than opening a Yu-Gi-Oh/Harry Potter crossover, and reading the following words or a variation thereof. "It was sweltering hot in the London International Airport as travellers hurried their way from flight to flight."

I can tolerate a lot of problems in fanfiction – typos, poorly written sex, abandoning your stories – but this has got to be one of my biggest pet peeves. Gods help you if you then have your characters walk from the airport to the Leaky Cauldron because ‘it only takes ten minutes’ – I am liable to start foaming at the mouth.

Let me explain my problem. There is no such thing as London International Airport. London has six airports (in order of largest to smallest: London Heathrow, London Gatwick, London Stansted, London Luton, London City and London Southend). Are your characters flying into Heathrow from Japan? Great – hope they can handle the London Underground through all the jetlag! Are they flying into Gatwick? Excellent! Let’s hope the Gatwick Express is on time, or they won’t get into the centre of London until gone dark! Are they flying into Stansted, Luton, LC or Southend? No they’re not, because those airports are domestic and European flights only, and you’re flying in direct from Japan since we all know that having to change planes is a bitch.

And NONE of these airports are a ten minutes walk away from the Leaky Cauldron – none of these airports are a ten minute train ride away from the Leaky Cauldron! I know that London looks small on a map, especially if you come from the United States, but there is a reason that we have that extensive and well maintained underground system – for the record, it takes about forty five minutes to get from Heathrow to central London by the underground (unless, like my last journey, you get stuck outside South Ealing for thirty three minutes due to a signal failure).

The point I am trying laboriously to get to, is that if you’re going to have your characters visit these places, you need to know a little bit about the lay of the land before you start. Taking your characters to Egypt? Get yourself onto Google maps, pick up the little yellow Street View man, and plonk yourself down into the middle of modern day Cairo. Is it towering skyscrapers or dusty, mud-brick houses? (hint: it’s neither) Sending your characters home to Japan? Google maps has a destination planner – pop the airport and your final destination in, choose your mode of transport, and get an accurate estimated time of journey – you never know, the villain might decide to drop in on them in the middle of their journey. Need a forest in the UK? Switch to the satellite view on Google maps, and look around for a big patch of green (the New Forest is a good one).

Things like this are tiny, but they have the capability to break the reader’s immersion, and they take relatively little time to actually find out. And they mean the world to the readers. There’s nothing like that little warm glow you feel when you read a story, and realise that the author has taken their time to research somewhere that you know so well.

2. Cultural values

Variety is the spice of life. And humans have it in abundance. But from the consumption of most fanfiction set in schools, you could be forgiven for thinking that we all live in America. This of course, isn’t limited to America, and other countries are guilty too – I still have a British brand of aspirin based painkiller being used in the second chapter of my Yu-Gi-Oh!/Harry Potter crossover, even though that scene is set in Japan (oops!).

If you are planning on writing a story based in another country, you need to give yourself a crash course of the everyday lives of people who live there. I did this for many of my duellists in my crossover, even though their appearances were limited. Standard of living. Education levels. Religion. Languages spoken in the area. All of these are important. Are the cast of Yu-Gi-Oh driving cars in your story? No they’re not – because they’re still sixteen/seventeen when the series is going on, and you can’t drive until you’re eighteen in Japan. Have your American characters been arrested in the UK? No, you can’t plead the fifth – you’re not in America any more. Sixteen year old British character with a full time job? No they didn’t drop out – mandatory schooling finishes at sixteen in the UK. Your character from the UAE and your character from Egypt both speak Arabic, so they should be able to understand each other, right? So very wrong!

The one that frustrates me the most is Yu-Gi-Oh slash fics that send their recently married gay couples on honeymoons to Egypt – SUCH A BAD IDEA!

And while I’m on the subject, and it’s fresh in my mind: “What do you mean you’re at work today? It’s Thanksgiving”. RAGE!

This isn’t just anal-ness for the sake of story immersion. At best, a native reading your story may simply shake their heads and move on – at worst, you could grossly offend them. Remember, this is another person’s culture – their life – that you’re describing here. To assume that their way of life is identical to your own, does not convey the respect that they deserve, both as a reader and a representative of their country.

This is one of my favourite aspects of research, because other cultures are fascinating. Don’t skimp on it. You are depriving yourself of an opportunity to learn some wonderful things. Don’t believe me? Pick a country, hop onto Wikipedia, and research some of their cuisine. You learn the most about a culture from their food. If your fanfic is set in Japan, don’t just stop at sushi. Go look up soba, udon, okonomiyaki, miso, tempura, sashimi, katsu, sukiyaki, mochi and doroyaki. Go on. I’ll still be here when you come back.

3. Terminology

As some of you may have grasped by now, I’m British. I speak British English, in a mixed accent, and I am not afraid to shout ‘bollocks!’ if something goes wrong.

But a lot of my characters are not British. They don’t speak British English. They have all sorts of accents. And some of them have some pretty creative curses from their home country that don’t involve male genitalia.

I’ve heard a lot of authors on fanfiction explain over the years that they have Harry Potter characters saying pants or freeway because they, the author, are American and that is how they speak. And I understand that – I really do. Every Japanese character in my crossover speaks British English, in spite of the fact that logically they would have been more likely to learn American English in schools (although since they are using Language Patches created and distributed in the UK, I suppose I can get away with this). But this really shouldn’t be an excuse. If it’s not in a character’s nature to swear during stressful moments, then it shouldn’t be acceptable for them to start using an entirely different form of the language.

This might seem like a silly thing to fuss over, but terminology goes beyond simply remembering to say ‘mobile phone’ instead of ‘cell phone’. This ties into the character’s style of speech, and using the wrong words can heavily impact how the character comes about. Changing a single word can alter tone, meaning and politeness. Japanese is an excellent example of this, where a character’s way of speaking, how they address other people and what kind of respect they afford them, is an intricate part of who they are as a character. Simply using an incorrect suffix or even the wrong tone can instantly change an honest statement to an insult. It is the same when writing all characters.

Terminology might seem unimportant when you’ve got a story to tell, but the way it changes meaning should not be underestimated. It’s the simple act of saying the sentence “can I bum a fag?” to an American and a British person (the former will probably be shocked and appalled, where as the latter is more likely to say “Sorry mate – I don’t smoke”). Familiarise yourself with a few common terms and local language courtesies, for everyone’s sake.

4. Current events

The relevance of this tip depends on whether your fandom is one based off the real world, or an entirely fictional world/planet (e.g. is your fandom Glee, or Game of Thrones?). It does sort of hold true for fictional worlds, but for the purpose of explanation, I’ll be using it to describe stories set in the real world.

To use a topical example, if your characters visit Sierra Leone during 2012, great. If they visit during 2014, not great (if you haven’t heard of Ebola by now, there’s this programme you should start watching – it’s called the News).

It might not seem relevant to your story, but it is important to know what the current events are in the country you’re about to plonk your characters into. Just because a place seems idyllic, doesn’t mean it is – that delightful safari you could be about to send your characters off for, might be in the middle of a war zone for all you know.

This doesn’t just apply to modern settings either. I’ve lost count of the number of Yu-Gi-Oh fics I have read, set in ancient Egypt, which refer to Cairo and Luxor, which isn’t correct at all. These are the modern names for the cities that stand on or near the location of the ancient capitals today, and nobody from ancient Egypt would use them. The correct names are Memphis and Thebes respectively, but which one Atem ruled from depends on whether you’re following manga or dubbed anime, as 3,000 years ago would put him in Thebes, and 5,000 years Memphis.

Dates, advancements, events – all of these are important in building your world. Don’t let them slip by. And you never know – some of these events might provide an interesting backdrop for your story.

Top 10 Fanfiction Authors

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Doing my best not to set the kitchen on fire...

I cannot claim to be talented at everything - quite the opposite. But I was informed a little while ago by the boyfriend that my level of cooking ability left a lot to be desired, and that British food in general was lacking to the pallet of the average American.

I naturally took offence to this - my country may not be France or Japan, but this is not the post-war years, and we do not boil everything any longer. I have never tried kidney or liver before - though I have been told that they are rather tasty when prepared well - and while I do drink tea, 95% of the time, it is herbal. I have my favourite restaurant chains (Nandos and Wagamamas) and I love good pub grub too.

Naturally Craig did not starve while on his visits to the UK - indeed, he discovered a love of Guernsey fudge, and of the toffee éclairs from one of the pastry shops in Winchester - but the offence remained, and I opted to do something about this. So for the last few months, I've been trying my hand at cooking - mostly Japanese food so far, but I may aim to branch out. Either way, I'm cooking, and doing my best to improve. We shall see how much proof I shall be able to churn out in order to prove the boyfriend wrong - that or we shall see how many blog posts it takes before I set the kitchen on fire. One or the other.

Yakitori 

Tonkatsu pork 

Miso baked cod

Cosplay Spotlight: Moltres (Pokemon)

Costume: My fifth cosplay and probably the one I am most proud of. Mearle, Tai and I tossed around the idea of going as Pokemon and eventually settled on the three legendary birds. As phoenixes are my thing, I went with Moltres.

This was my first personal foray into dress patterns. Mearle, Tai and I mashed together two dress patterns (one for the basic shape of the dress, and another for the godets) to achieve the desired effect. We debated the merits of colour, since we wanted to capture the birds without outright copying them. Eventually we decided on golden yellow. The fabric is duchess satin, which was purchased from ebay, and it is by far the most beautiful thing I have ever worked with.

The biggest tasks for this dress was the godets. Once all the pattern pieces were cut out, I bought myself lengths of organza in red, orange and yellow, and cut strips of them out. I then chopped at the edge to give them an uneven look, ruffled them, and stitched them to the dress in alternating patterns to create the effect of flames. This took a week of solid sewing, and strained my shoulder something fierce.

After sewing all the pieces together, Mearle assisted in fitting the dress properly to my body shape, and as we were running out of time, offered to do the bias tape herself. Good thing too, as she did it spectacularly.

As the skirt is heavy, and I usually end up dancing in this outfit, there are no tights under the dress. The shoes are flat red slip ons.

Tai and I have tossed around the idea of making wings (either as actual pieces or just arm accessories). Whether something comes of this remains to be seen.

Make up: Make up usually consists of gold eye shadow, and bronze colours everywhere else, except for red on my lips. Once all three of us have our costumes, we intend to do a shoot with some very dramatic make up indeed. In our first year, Tai had fun painting up and down our arms.

Hair: As Moltres has a fiery crest, I usually tie my hair up in a high ponytail and string red and orange ribbons around it. I may make a hair accessory in the future.

Being Promiscuous in the Oceans of Shipping

So in between seeing my therapist and failing to write more of my crossover, I’m part of a group on facebook for fanfiction writers. As you might imagine, this is a lively group, and interesting topics of discussion frequently pop up. One such topic, was this one which popped up yesterday:

“What do you guys feel about homosexual/yaoi fanfictions? I know its extremely popular to ship two men (even if they are not gay) together, but what do you think?”

Comments and opinions abound, and I was planning on adding my own to the comments section, but I was planning on doing a blog post on my opinions of yaoi, and on my opinions of shipping in general anyway, so this seems like a good prompt with which to start it.

I have an interesting relationship with ships, which, if we’re sticking with the nautical theme here, can be best compared to that of a pirate with a very odd sense of loyalty. While in the seas of Doctor Who for instance, I am in the employ of several ships – the HMS 11/River, the SS Martha/Mickey, The Good Ship Jack/Jenny (the Doctor’s daughter) and the Queen Vastra/Jenny (Flint – there are too many Jenny’s in this fandom!). None of these ships happen to overlap or have a rivalry with one another, so I am able to move between their services, and be paid for both of them.

But then there is the great ocean of Yu-Gi-Oh! and this is where my loyalty vanishes, and I shamelessly play the field like a pirate prostitute. I sleep on the Tendership one day, and the next day, I’ve hopped ship to the Thiefship, or the Angstship. I jump between Peachshipping and Puzzleshippingf freely. I squee when I see Blueshipping on the horizon, but at the sight of some good dirty Puppyshipping will make me drool equally as much – and indeed, if half way through this I spot the flags of Polarshipping in the distance, I’ll dive off the ship and swim for it like the kraken is on my tail. The fact that some of these characters are involved in more than one ship does not deter me. Or to bring this metaphor down to a more understandable conclusion – I have no One True Pairing when it comes to Yu-Gi-Oh!

No One True Pairing?! I hear you cry. Surely this is impossible! You must have one ship involving Bakura that you love above all else? How dare you be promiscuous with these characters?! Well I dare. And I do. Because honestly, if you asked me which I love more (Tendershipping, Angstshipping, Thiefshipping or Bronzeshipping), I really wouldn’t be able to tell you. Each appeals to me for a different reason. It depends largely on how the characters are written in the fanfiction, and how the author makes them develop, which brings me nicely onto the subject of my crossover, where pairings have been raising some questions.

Let’s get one thing straight right off the bat – there are no canon pairings in Yu-Gi-Oh!. I’m sorry, but there aren’t. I laugh in the face of anyone who suggests that they dislike my story because I’m not following canon, because there is no canon. A canon relationship, to me, is a relationship who’s existence is confirmed beyond denial in the work of fiction, or by word of God. And by confirmed beyond denial, I mean either direct physical confirmation or direct verbal confirmation. I’m not talking about significant looks across the room, clutching someone’s hand during a tense moment, or one character heeding a request to show some compassion (yes Silentshippers, I’m looking at you!). I’m talking two characters kissing in a way that leaves no room for doubt. I’m talking a character saying quite definitely to another character “yes, they are a thing now”. Whether that thing is a potential marriage situation or just a fuck-buddy situation doesn’t matter. As long as it’s beyond the point of friendship, and there is definite evidence for it, it’s canon. Otherwise, you’re just speculating.

So when it came to my crossover, I felt that I had a lot of freedom with the shipping. The characters had done a lot of developing in Witches Wizards Shadows and Souls, and I felt that I now had pairings in mind, which would make sense for my characters, given how they had developed over the course of my own writing. So while in Yu-Gi-Oh! canon there’s no hints of any relationship of any sort between Ryou and Malik for instance, I felt that over the course of Witches Wizards Shadows and Souls, that they had grown close enough as friends for them to possibly take the next step into a relationship.

I shall now take cover as my fangirls shriek in joy at this first official confirmation after twenty chapters of solid hint dropping.

But here’s the point guys – I didn’t go into writing Witches Wizards Shadows and Souls with the express intention of making those two characters gay. I went into it intending that they would be friends, because it made sense to me. They were both lonely characters, who’s alter egos had been far from pleasant roommates, and both of whom probably felt that they were the ‘outsiders’ when put next to the Inner Circle of Yugi, Joey, Tristan and Tea. It was natural for me they would band together in the face of what my plot had to throw at them. The fact that they got closer than I anticipated was a surprise to me as well – characters do that. I know I’m writing it, but they genuinely do have wills of their own – just ask Kisara.

Some people might say that there’s no evidence that Ryou and Malik are gay in the canon. And that’s true – there isn’t any evidence to suggest that they are gay. But equally, there’s no evidence to suggest that they are straight. Human beings don’t have a ‘default setting’ when it comes to sexuality. That might sound like a sweeping statement, but I have an upper second class bachelors degree in Media Studies, and I feel that I am qualified to talk about the nature of sexuality in fictional characters because of it. So to that end, on goes my academic cap, as I introduce you to the noted sexologist Alfred Kinsey.

In 1948 and 1953, Kinsey and several other researchers published a series of reports, titled Sexual Behaviour in the Human Male and Sexual Behaviour in the Human Female. These reports introduced the idea of a scale of sexual orientation, known as the Kinsey Scale. This scale ranges from 0 to 6, with 0 being individuals who identify as exclusively heterosexual, and 6 being individuals who identify as exclusively homosexual, with all the grey area in between. The scale is a fluid one, with the reports also stating that an individual may be assigned a different position on the scale at different stages of their life – in other words, a person’s sexuality can change over time. This is not to say that it has to change over time, but that the option is certainly there.

There are some arguments against these reports, and obviously Kinsey was writing about real people, and not fictional characters, but I feel that these are a good basis with which to understand sexuality – three quarters of a million copies would suggest that there is something in it.

So, to go back to the original question on the forum, specifically to the point about shipping two men, even if they are not gay, I do not see this as an issue. Because as Kinsey suggests, there is nothing to say that someone who identifies as straight cannot change their mind if the right person comes along, or vice versa. I feel that as long as there is a reasonable arc of character development that supports the creation of this relationship, that there is no harm in a fanfiction author pairing up two characters who have previous shown no homosexual (or heterosexual) inclinations. Sexuality is not a simple matter, and neither are human beings. And nor, by that extension, are the great oceans of shipping. We should feel free to jump from ship to ship, secure in the knowledge that all of your pairings are One True Pairings, and equally as possible as the next.

And now if you will all excuse me, I just saw the SS Adlock sail this way, and I must don the appropriate battle dress before I board. Avert your eyes, ye of a squeamish disposition!

Cosplay Spotlight: TARDIS (Doctor Who)

Costume: My fourth cosplay, though it was not really a cosplay initially, just a costume that I was making for the Student Nationals. Our chosen theme was Doctor Who, and I instantly pounced on the idea of being a TARDIS. I thought about making a box initially, but then I realised that would be hell to design and transport (planes being the awkward beasts that they are), and on reflection I thought a dress would be better.

Since I’d never made a dress before in my life, I went simple. The skirt is a circle skirt and I cannot begin to describe just how long it took to sew all that ribbon on. Each ‘side’ of the TARDIS is marked by thick ribbon, and the individual panels are made out of slightly smaller ribbon. The sign is white cotton with black fabric paint. The top bit of the dress and the straps are just more cotton in basic shapes – I went for an empire waist because that meant that a) I did not have to fiddle around with a complicated bodice and most of the outfit could be skirt, and b) it fit the shape of the TARDIS with the skirt being the ‘box’ of the TARDIS and the top being the ‘roof’. The black “Police Box” sign is black ribbon with white fabric paint, tied as a sash.

I usually wear black tights and black flats with this outfit. I discovered while at the Nationals that the bras I had brought with me came up over the top of the dress, necessitating the addition of two safety pins.

Make up: I normally keep my skin fair with little colour, but I try to play up my eyes with dark blues and silver.

Hair: A blue hairband completes the cute factor of this outfit, until I can make myself a fascinator with a light on it (I’m sure it must be doable!)

(Nationals 2011) Group Doctor Who shot! 

(Nationals 2011) Parking!

(Nationals 2011) TARDIS down for maintenance.

A Public Service Announcement from Mei

So, as most authors know, the most terrifying thing that you can experience is losing your work. Most things can be replaced or repeated when they're lost, which is why nobody can really appreciate the devastation you experience when you lose your writing, apart from other writers. Rewriting might sound like a simple enough thing to a non-writer, until you consider that those files were a culmination of years of work, lovingly crafted and sculpted with as much attention as any master stonemason. And that's before you factor in the simple truth that it is impossible to write the same thing twice - no that's not exaggeration. It is literally impossible to write the same thing twice. You can write the same events, but they will never come out the same way and with the same flow that they did the first time, and you will always unfairly judge them against the first long lost draft.

I did this recently with a scene from chapter twenty five of Magic Monsters Dominions and Destiny. It was a lovely scene, that I spent the better part of a day working on, getting the interactions between the two characters just right (not easy when they're both ancient Egyptian spirits having a deep discussion about their place in the world next to noisy London roadworks). And then through the deviance of the copy/paste feature (yes, all right, and my own stupidity) it was gone - vanished in a puff of binary, lost to the forest of cyberspace.

I was distraught, and immediately started redoing it, in the hopes that some of the lingering inspiration would help me reclaim what I had lost. But as the words were pounded into the Word Document, I could feel the smooth syrupy flow becoming sticky, and that magnificent inspiration evaporated. I stared at my new scene, a shadow of something beautiful and great, and I wept.

Dramatic, I know, but surely understandable to a degree? You wouldn't ask a painter to redo a piece of their artwork exactly the same as before if someone knocked their jam jar of water onto it, would you? Because it would never be exactly the same as the last piece - it would have a completely different kind of energy and feeling to it. It is the same for writing. Each piece of creativity that we authors undertake is unique, and cannot be replaced or replicated to the same standard that it was before. And certainly, when most of us have several hundred thousand words under our belts, it would be downright cruel to make us try.

So I was understandably horrified today at lunchtime when I plugged in my memory stick to do a little bit of editing over my sandwich, and found that the computer refused to recognise my USB device, telling me that it would run faster on another USB port. Sensing something amiss with this, I tried the second USB port, which yielded the far more alarming message that my USB device had malfunctioned and could not be fixed. Doing my very best not to panic, I put the memory stick away and went back to my sandwich, hoping that my laptop would be able to assist me when I got home.

I feel it necessary to clarify at this moment, that this wasn't one or two current projects that I was fussing over. Oh no. This memory stick is the primary location for all of my stories written in the last six years. And I mean all of them. It contains research, character sheets, plot summaries and timelines, and so many notes, in addition to proper grown up stuff, like the most up to date version of my CV. Now this may sound like a stupid idea, to keep all of my important things in one easily breakable location, but it's simply the most practical option for me. I write everywhere. I write at home. I write in Costa on Saturdays. I do editing at lunchtimes at my desk. I write in airports while I'm waiting for planes. I write on my laptop, a desktop computer and my netbook. It is simply not convenient for me to keep my writing on one computer.

I make regular back ups of my files to my laptop, netbook, spare memory stick, and even email important chapters to myself, just in case. But suddenly all these seemed insufficient in the face of losing my memory stick. I couldn't remember the last time I'd done a back up - it certainly hadn't been since last weekend when I made that all important progress on chapter twenty one, and I was pretty sure it hadn't been before I'd done that all important connecting scene in draft two of my novel. The prospect of having to start all those wonderful scenes all over again, never quite reaching the same quality as before, sent me into a state of near hysteria. And sure enough, plugging the memory stick into my laptop earlier this evening yielded the same messages. Malfunctioned. Not recognised. Nice job breaking it, dumbass.

I entered full on panic mode as I ripped the memory stick out of the second USB port and plugged it into number three of four. This time, I was rewarded. Access! To my precious precious files! How could I have been so callous as to not back them up sooner? I immediately copy/pasted everything to my laptop, holding my breath as the little green bar crawled slowly across the page, the estimated timer getting higher and higher until I was sure that at least one of my files must be corrupted. Then finally, peace. My heart resumed normal beating pace. Which was just as well, since my hand then accidentally brushed the memory stick as I sank gratefully onto my bed, and the computer suddenly realised what it had done, rejecting the device so hard you'd have thought it were carrying the computer equivalent of the Ebola virus. But it didn't matter - the files were safe on my laptop. I promptly backed everything up again onto my spare memory stick, and emailed the most important documents to myself. Crisis temporarily averted.

If you take anything away from my outpouring of concentrated relief, let it be this. Back ups are your friends. Your very best friends. And you cannot have enough of them. Buy memory sticks. Make sure that they are good quality. And back up everything. Even stuff that you don't think you will use. During NaNoWriMo, you are advised to back up your novel once a week. I'm starting to think that this isn't overcautious at all. In fact, why don't you go do it now. I'm ending this blog post anyway. So off you go. Back it up, and thank me later.

Fanfiction scenario generator: Yu-Gi-Oh!

Stole this off someone's fanfiction profile page. Mostly for the lols, but also to prove that I'm not dead, in spite of rumours.

Name 12 characters from any fandom and answer the following questions.

1. Ryou Bakura
2. Marik Ishtar
3. Yugi Mutou
4. Yami Bakura
5. Yami Marik
6. Yami Yugi
7. Seto Kaiba
8. Joey Wheeler
9. Kisara
10. Mai Valentine
11. Tea Gardner
12. Tristan Taylor

Have you ever read a Six/Eleven fic? Do you want to?
(Yami Yugi/Tea Gardner) Yes I have – it wasn’t a bad fic. I prefer Peachshipping though.

Do you think four is hot? How hot?
(Yami Bakura) Heck yes!

What would happen if Twelve got Eight pregnant?
(Tristan got Joey pregnant) I think Joey would utterly freak out – he’s not mature enough yet to be a father, let alone give birth! Tristan would probably freak out too, but he’d calm down quicker, and start trying to think of a solution.

Can you recall any fics about Nine?
(Kisara) YES! Most of them involve Seto Kaiba or his Egyptian counterpart, but I have read a very good fic involving her and Thief King Bakura – it was rather hot.

Would Two and Six make a good couple?
(Marik Ishtar and Yami Yugi) Hmm...enemies turned friends they may be, but I don’t think they’d make a good couple. Yami would try to be the dominant one in the relationship, and I have a feeling that Marik would not stand for that.

Five/Nine or Five/Ten? Why?
(Yami Marik/Kisara or Yami Marik/Mai Valentine) Both options are equally horrifying, though if forced I’d take the first one, simply because Kisara is the Blue Eyes White Dragon, and I don't think she'd take any shit from Yami Marik, where as Mai has genuine psychological scarring courtesy of him.

What would happen if Seven walked in on Two and Twelve having sex?
(if Seto Kaiba walked in on Marik Ishtar and Tristan Taylor) Pffff! The only reason I can think that Seto Kaiba would walk in on ANYONE having sex is if they were having sex in his office on a dare, so he’d probably yell at them to get the hell out of his office...ooh that sounds like a hilarious idea for a fic!

Make up a summary for a Three/Ten fic.
(Yugi Mutou/Mai Valentine) "He had been ready to hold back. Been afraid to give the duel his all. But she had told him to look in the mirror and face his fears. She had been a true duellist today. He owed her an explanation. And a thank you." ....>.< I'm shit at summaries!

Is there any such thing as One/Eight fluff?
(Ryou Bakura/Joey Wheeler) Probably. I haven’t read any though.

Suggest a title for a Seven/Twelve hurt/comfort fic.
(Seto Kaiba/Tristan Taylor) o.O Seriously? Probably something along the lines of ‘Cheerleader’.

What kind of plot would you use of you wanted Four to deflower One?
(Yami Bakura to deflower Ryou Bakura) Who needs plot when the smut is this hot?!

Does anyone on your friends list read Three het?
(Yugi Mutou) Yup! I do too! Mostly involving him and Tea. They are so cute I should have cavities!

Does anyone on your friends list write or draw Eleven?
(Tea Gardner) A few people write her, but not many. There’s a very unfortunate culture of Tea-bashers out there in the world, which makes me sad.

Would anyone on your friends list write Two/Four/Five?
(Marik Ishtar/Yami Bakura/Yami Marik) None of my friends would I don’t think – I totally would if I could think of a plot.

What might Ten scream at a moment of great passion?
(Mai Valentine) Joey!

If you wrote a songfic about Eight, what song would you choose?
(Joey Wheeler) Really struggled with this. In my head, it's Joey and Mai post Orichalcos, and the song is 'Forgiven' by Within Temptation.

If you wrote a One/Six/Twelve fic, what would the warning be?
(Ryou Bakura/Yami Yugi/Tristan Taylor) Erm...warning for dangerous hair?

What might be a good pick up line for Ten to use on Two?
(Mai Valentine/Marik Ishtar) "Are you tanned everywhere?" I was informed by the boyfriend that "Is that a Millennium Rod in your pocket, or are you just pleased to see me?" was far too obvious.

When was the last time you read a fic about Five?
(Yami Marik) As the protagonist? Not for a very long time – it was a het smut, I remember that. BUT he is a bad guy in my crossover, and I'm LOVING writing him.

What is Six's super secret kink?
(Yami Yugi) I think leather is more Yugi’s kink. For some reason I can see our favourite Pharaoh being partial to a bit of skinnydipping (if someone writes this, I will love them forever).

Would Eleven shag Nine? Drunk or sober?
(Tea Gardner and Kisara) Erm...possibly. More likely with alcohol though.

If Three and Seven get together, who tops?
(Yugi Mutou and Seto Kaiba) Kaiba. Though since he’s all limbs, maybe Yugi should be on top for safety's sake...

(1) and (7) are in a happy relationship until (9) runs off with (4). (1), brokenhearted, has a hot one-night stand with (11) and a brief unhappy affair with (12), then follows the wise advice of (5) and finds true love with (3).

(Ryou Bakura) and (Seto Kaiba) are in a happy relationship until (Kisara) runs off with (Yami Bakura). (Ryou Bakura) brokenhearted, has a hot one-night stand with (Tea Gardner) and a brief unhappy affair with (Tristan Taylor), then follows the wise advice of (Yami Marik) and finds true love with (Yugi Mutou).

The first sentence actually makes a weird kind of sense, if you're a Tendershipper and a Blueshipper, but I think the thing that scares me most in this scenario is the concept of Yami Marik giving wise advice. o.O

Fifty Shades of Grey Theatrical Trailer – First Impressions

I feel like there should be an air raid siren sounding ominously somewhere in the distance. People scurrying for the bunkers as the first phallic shaped planes fly overhead, dropping leather bombs and heat-seeking sex toy missiles, while a parade of inner goddesses sing like a choir of inappropriately dressed angels in the background.

Or maybe that’s just the sound of a thousand critics simultaneously giving up on the human race and committing seppuku.

I made no secret of my opinions of Fifty Shades of Grey when I first read it. I read fanfiction every day – it’s been a part of my life for ten years, and I thought that I’d been exposed to the worst that writing had to offer me, until I read this book. I only read the first one, because I decided that subjecting myself to anymore of such epically bad writing would be tantamount to self flagellation. I had no problems with the content, like some people did – I seem to recall describing the sex scenes and cliché and trite. I had no qualms about the book’s humble origins as Twilight fanfiction, like some people did – as I have indicated, I’ve been on fanfiction for years. I embrace the adopting of it into mainstream media (though I seem to recall lamenting that this book would be the introduction of so many people to such a wonderful and unique community).

No my issues began with the characters, the primary of which was that Ana is such a fucking boring protagonist. If story characters are meant to grow like a tree sprouting out of the ground, then Ana grows like a carrot – backwards into the earth. By the end of the story, she’s learned no lesson from her mishaps, and she’s just as naive, frustrating and unlikable as she was at the start – possibly more so, because you’ve wasted hours of your life reading the book and you resent her for it. But even if she’d been the most engaging character on the planet, it wouldn’t have mattered, because it’s been a while since I read such epically dire writing. I speak no hyperbole when I say that I have read fanfictions by fourteen year olds which had a better grasp of sentence structure. And for the love of God, someone buy the author a thesaurus before she has the chance to write anything else!

It’s important for me to reiterate my opinions of the book here, in order to lend some context to my thoughts going into the trailer. Like most of the literary minded community, I’d been silently weeping since they announced that they were making a movie out of the book, and so the presence of the trailer sent an immediate shudder of disgust through me, before I’d even clicked on the link. I did try to view it as an entirely separate being, and make myself forget that the book ever existed in order to judge the trailer on it’s own merits. But that’s impossible – the stain of the book is just too large to ignore on the underpants of this movie, so I’m just going to review it with the knowledge, and see how I feel at the end.

First impressions are slick and shiny (rather how I imagine the actors will look at the end of every sex scene). A lot of effort seems to have been made to make this movie full of visual impact, which would make sense given the nature of this story. The locations are crisp and modern, with deep colours or flawless chromes. And while we’re on the subject of things we can absorb with our eyes, okay guys, we get the picture – scene one and you’ve dressed Ana in something visually reminiscent of a schoolgirl, holding a year four exercise book to depict her innocence at the beginning of the story. Aren’t you clever?

Any hopes I might have had that Ana might find some pools of depth for this movie are being swiftly dashed. She seems as bland and unlikeable as she is in the books. Actually Christian is drawing my eye more, and I think that’s because he’s provoking the correct reaction from me – to lamp him one in the face. He appears, for all intents and purposes in this trailer, to be a smarmy prick, which is exactly what he was in the books, so full marks for casting there. None the less, it seems that any chemistry there might be one sided. They can give each other those intense stares all the way through the trailer, but the actress playing Ana is still going to have to work really hard to convince me that she’s actually into this.

The actual sex looks as though it might possibly have been done with some taste, which is surprising since the book had none. In keeping with the visually slick style, everything looks clean and tidy and not in the least bit dirty. I don’t know if this is just Hollywood trying not to turn us all off with realism, or if it’s just them trying to stick to their visual style consistently. The trailer actually makes an effort to convince us that there is plot in this story, and not just an endless string of sex scenes, and I have to give it it’s due – if I hadn’t read the books, I’d actually think that this might be going somewhere.

Never mind the details though. Let’s just get to the ultimate question.

Did the trailer make me want to see the movie?

Well yes, and not just because I wanted to since I first heard about it. Morbid fascination is a factor here, but I am genuinely interested to see what they can do with such a terrible story. I don’t like being disappointed by movies, contrary to what some people might believe. And I must give things a chance to surprise me. That’s not to say that I won’t be taking this movie with a pinch of salt – more a mountain of the stuff.

I have to admit, that for all the praise and abuse that got heaped at the book, the people who’ve made the movie seem to have tried really really hard to treat it as a serious film. In fact if you don’t think about the book for a moment, the film almost seems respectable in a strange way – a genuine effort to make something engaging with a proper plot and characters that you might actually grow to care about. But at the end of the day, the cynic in me sees this movie for what it really is – an effort to cash in on a book that has no right to be as popular as it is.

Actually, taking the trailer as read, it seems as though more of the focus has been dedicated to the relationship between the characters, rather than the sexual nature (although that doesn’t seem to have been skimped on either). But what good is that going to be, when Ana is about as engaging as a ham and cheese sandwich? If this is the case, and they have tried to sell this more as a romance than a fuck fest, then I will at least be able to give them props for trying to improve the source material. But then again, this is a trailer, and if history has taught us anything it’s that trailers lie to us more than a cheating spouse. So I will take my mountain of salt with me to the cinema, and I will take everything that this movie gives me with a spoonful of it.

If I don’t come out at the end, someone ring an ambulance?

Have you ever told me that I’m not allowed to have an opinion on your country because I don’t live there and it doesn’t affect me? Well today is your lucky day. For five minutes I will do just that!

“It’s not your country, so you don’t have the right to get upset or have an opinion about this. It’s not going to affect you.”

This was what I was told the other day when I brought up the subject of the US Supreme Court’s decision to allow companies to refuse to pay for employee’s medicine based on their religious beliefs. At the time I took it to be an inefficient and laughable attempt to close this debate because the person was unable to come up with a counter argument for my point. In the end, we agreed to disagree, and left it at that.

But thinking back on it two days later, I realise the unfortunate implications of this statement, and I’m appalled by them. Well, nobody said I was quick at picking up on this sort of thing, but better late than never I guess.

Thinking about it, this is an argument that I’ve been on the receiving end of a lot. When a good fifty percent of my friends are not resident in the UK (and most of them are indeed, American), it’s inevitable that the subject of our country’s policies comes up eventually. And I like a good debate. I like watching two sides duke it out, either butting heads like furious rhinos, or one side crumbling like a soggy biscuit. But I also like being a part of them. I like getting passionate about my own opinion, and yes, I like the sound of my own voice.

I’ve never liked the “you don’t live here, so therefore you can’t have an opinion” argument, mostly because I always think that if that’s your only defence left to you, then you’ve pretty much lost the fight – it’s like invoking Godwin’s law only with less Nazis. I can see the basis for this argument. It’s very difficult to have a clear view of a country and its make-up when you’re an outsider looking in – heck, being an insider looking in often isn’t enough given how diverse the average culture is and how many levels make up society. There are so many sides to a story that it is impossible to generalise them all into a blueprint of the entire patch of land. I might get very upset as an outsider that American women are having more and more obstacles thrown up in the way of their sexual freedom and health all in the name of religion and freedom to express your belief, but maybe there’s a side to this argument that I’m just not seeing from my privileged position as a judging foreigner.

So let’s pretend that everyone who’s ever said to me that I’m not allowed an opinion on a country that I don’t live in, is correct. For the next five minutes, if it doesn’t affect me or my country, then I’m not allowed to care or have an opinion about it.

I’m not allowed to care that over seven hundred people are dying in West Africa from the worst Ebola outbreak ever recorded. When I think of how many families that are being torn apart as their loved ones are put into a unit of isolation where only ten percent of infected will survive, I’m not allowed to feel sad for the woman crying over her children, or the little boy weeping for his father as he coughs and vomits up blood.

I’m not allowed to care that there are still about two hundred girls between the ages of sixteen and eighteen missing in Nigeria, kidnapped from their school by terrorists while they sat their exams, being sold off at this very moment as wives or sex slaves. I’m not allowed to care about how scared they must all be feeling, and how much despair they must be experiencing as each day goes by with no sight of rescue.

I’m not allowed to care that in a few months a woman will inevitably be beaten to death outside a sexual health clinic in Massachusetts by a petitioner who’s being there was sanctioned in the name of freedom of speech. Why would I? I don’t live there.

I’m not allowed to care that in five countries in the world men can still be put to death for being gay. I’m not allowed to care that, until last year, domestic violence against women and children was perfectly legal in Saudi Arabia. I’m not allowed to care that in the last few weeks the news has been peppered with reports of teenage boys being murdered in the Middle East.

It’s not my country.

...

Look me in the eye and tell me that you did not hate the person I was just pretending to be.

So don’t anyone ever tell me again that I’m not allowed to care or have an opinion about something, just because it’s happening in a country that isn’t mine.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have belly dancing to prepare for. Good evening.

Pincushion Power!

Just a little update on what happened to my pincushions! Enjoy!

Burlesque Night

Buttercup Field 

Ocean's Bounty 

Burlesque Day 

Military Chic 

Sunshine Lollipop

Candy Heart 

The Camp fire is dying down: The Unknown Dangers of Chick Lit

It's getting to the end of another Camp Nanowrimo, and as I limp the last few thousand words to the finish line, I'm struck by how hard it's been this time around. Oh sure, it's had the usual hiccups of Nano - procrastination, things cropping up, my own stupidity of running two big projects side by side - but there's something that has been nagging at me for a while, and only now have I fully realised what it is.

When I was planning out the first five months of the year, and setting myself lots of lovely deadlines to teach myself discipline, I was very careful about Camp Nano. I normally have dilemmas on what to write, normally winding up with two ideas and being unable to pick between them. In this case, I was torn between two of my really old pieces of work, that in the last few years have been pulled out, dusted off and begged to be properly revamped: Shadow Summoners, an Ancient Egypt based Yu-Gi-Oh! fanfic that had a pretty solid plot behind it but suffered from terrible writing when I first came up with the idea seven years ago. And So This Is, my first foray into chick lit, which ended up staggering to a halt on fictionpress once I reached university. In this case, the characters were pretty well formed, but the plotline was lacking something.

I started prodding at Shadow Summoners back in 2012 during Nano, and I ended up running both projects side by side. So This Is, ended up being my Camp Nano in July 2013, so in both cases, I would be adding to the word count, rather than starting straight from the beginning. I had plenty of inspiration for both of them, and I was sure that they would both be able to carry me through April with no difficulties. But which to choose?

I looked at all my projects from January to March and realised that, while I loved them all, most of what I was writing was dramatic and full of death. This isn't terribly surprising for me. Anyone who's read my stories is well aware that I have a proclivity for murdering the human race, and even on occasions when I've withheld that particular urge, death is still a constant companion of my stories. Anyone can die and often they do. Even my fanfiction crossover series, which has one of the lowest death counts in my history of writing, features a particular nasty death at the end which reduced me to a steady stream of tears as I typed it out.

So I took all of this in, and realised that it would probably be better for my mental well-being (on tenderhooks these days thanks to my stupid thyroid) if I wrote something a bit more cheerful, and so I naturally pounced on So This Is. It's chick lit, I thought. Plenty of happy teenage problems to blow out of proportion, and fluff so sweet that you develop cavities. Sure, there will probably be a few emotional moments, but most of them will be positive, because that's the kind of genre it is. What's not to be happy about?

I am the world's stupidest author.

Chick lit is a million times more emotionally gruelling than the most nightmarish apocalypse. And I think it's to do with the reality of the chick lit genre. It's knowing as you write that somewhere in real life, someone is being verbally cut down to size by the school's queen bitch until she breaks down into a paranoid, anxiety fuelled mess. Somewhere out there, someone's grandfather is being diagnosed with dementia, and she's miserably wondering if she should have cared enough to notice sooner. Someone's ten year old brother is dying of leukaemia. Someone's mother is contemplating risky behaviour just because she doesn't want to have another baby. This isn't just something happening in a story. These are real problems, that everyone can go through.

It's miserable.

I haven't cried this much over a story since Magic Monsters Dominions and Destiny. And the ten year old brother hasn't even died yet, which I know is going to be the most difficult scene of the lot. Nothing prepares you for the gut wrenching moment when you have to pull these character's lives apart. Every character needs to be pulled apart and built back up in a story - that's how they grow. But there's something about doing it in chick lit, and knowing the reality of these kinds of situations, and the normalcy of the characters that just hurts you a little bit more. Or maybe it's simply that in chick lit the death is more personal because you have to become so intimate with these characters in a different way than you perhaps would in another type of genre. Chick lit has a more personal emotional heart to it, and maybe that's why it hurts more.

All I can say is, once So This Is is over, I will not be writing chick lit again for a while. It takes a stronger author than me to properly do justice to this sort of writing, and I need a proper break from so much death and misery.

Now if you'll all excuse me, I'm going to get on with my magical girl cosplay. At least that's light hearted and cheerful.