#badger memes

[madamebadger]

"no wonder I" by lake

ah! lovely!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzvkL1MawX8

[madamebadger]

What's your favorite Pentilyet fic (By your own hand)? Which one is your fluffiest? And which one is your raunchiest?

Oh man, I’m so bad at favorites questions!  I never have favorites of anything.

For my favorite, I’m going to give a tie, because one of them is unfinished. The finished one is while spring is in the world, which I was quite pleased with because I wanted to manage a slow burn in a short number of words, and I think I did manage it, more or less; and Book of Days, which I do intend to finish in due time, because it is my second Pentilyet epic, but written out of order. (My first Pentilyet epic has been in progress for two years, and I would feel bad about that but I don’t think I could do it any faster.)

For fluffiest, holy crap they’re all fluffy. I don’t think I’ve written a Pentilyet that isn’t fluffy.  But... if I had to pick one, I’d go with and I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow, which features baths and backrubs and hugs and makeouts and very fluffy sex.  And which was also podficced, brilliantly, by @hornkerling​, here. My second choice would be in the woods which stutter and sing, which is sleepy-slow-rainy-morning fic.

Raunchiest is hard! I think of ‘raunchy’ as being not so much about sex as about a particular approach to sex, and while I have written raunchy before for sure I don’t know that I’ve written it for Pentilyet.  It’s not so much that I don’t think I could write raunchy for Pentilyet as that I just haven’t. I suppose the closest is probably Where Your Treasure Is, the bondage fic?

Or, well, I have a WIP in which Cassandra and Josephine pick a not-as-secure-as-they-had-hoped place to get it on, and Bull walks in on them. (This is a rare possibility, I think, as I don’t see either of them as having a thing for public places or for exhibitionism or for the possibility of getting caught; I think if they did get caught, it would be completely by accident.) And of course it’s Bull who accidentally catches them, because, you know, psychic payback, Bull’s own romance line. And--

“You certainly don’t waste any time,” Bull says, appreciative.

“Get. Out.” Cassandra says, and he’s impressed, he really is, by the way she manages a drill sergeant’s tone with the high color of sex and embarrassment combined in her cheeks.

Bull’s already on his way out--walking in on them was an accident, but they didn’t consent to his presence, so there’s no other right response than to leave as fast as possible. But he can’t help saying over his shoulder, “Next time might be smart to lock the door behind you, Seeker?”

His timing is excellent. He’s just got the door shut before the fire-iron she flung at him hits it.

(But I am so bad at favorites. I keep questioning myself. But might as well just go ahead and hit--post!)

[madamebadger]

11, 34, 38, 43?

11. Do you prefer ME1, 2, or 3?

ME2 is my favorite, far and away.  I know that it gets some criticism because it’s functionally a side story–you’re taken off to the Terminus Systems to do a lot of stuff that doesn’t directly have to do with any of the plot in ME1 or ME3. And of course it has a crew that’s almost entirely new, with the only significant returning characters being Tali and Garrus (and Chakwas and Joker) (and Liara, but only in the Shadow Broker DLC).

But it’s also the game that feels the most… complete, whole, unto itself of all of them. Yes, it introduces a shit-ton of brand new characters who don’t have much presence in ME3, but it both introduces them and provides substantive character arcs for them within the one game. (Er, Jacob aside.)  Yes, the story is a bit of a side-story; the Collectors are kind of a sideshow to the Reapers–but it’s a story with a coherent beginning, middle, and end.  And it has some genuinely outstanding writing.

So, yeah.  ME2 all the way.

34. Favorite weapon overall?

I am soooooo not the person to ask this of, since I played basically no multiplayer and in-game I was a Sentinel, and thus spent most of my time slinging biotic or engineer specialties and not using my guns. 

I did like the Collector Particle Beam, though.

38. A moment/action you regret in-game?

Already answered! Although I guess my Spacer Shep also regretted not calling Mom earlier. (”I was kinda busy, ma…” “Sweetheart, there’s no such thing as too busy to call your only mother and tell her that you aren’t dead.”)

43. Non-romancable characters: who would you romance?

Already answered!

[madamebadger]

36, 37, 38

36. Funniest moment in the games?

There are a lot of game moments that made me laugh, but the one that made me actually put down the controller because I was laughing so hard was Mordin singing in ME2.  And once I thought I had gotten over it, there’s that bit where he pauses at the end and gives a little cough? And I LOST IT ALL OVER AGAIN.

Second place goes to the “You humans are all racist” turian and the “Sir Isaac Newton is the deadliest son-of-a-bitch in space” guy.

37. Creepiest moment in the games?

BANSHEES.  ALL BANSHEES EVERYWHERE.  I’m sure the fact that they cleaned my clock every time I got near them doesn’t help, but the shrieking and the lovingly rendered rotting erogenous zones and and and......

38. A moment/action you regret in-game?

This is a weird one, but Catalina Shepard always, always regrets not unshackling EDI earlier. For one thing, she’s convinced that if EDI hadn’t spent most of ME2 hobbled, a lot of the tragic things that flowed from it wouldn’t have happened. For another, she just plain can’t forgive herself for her complicity in enslaving a truly sentient AI, even if for a small period of time--especially one who has since proved herself to be friendly and loyal.

[madamebadger]

43, 44, 47?

43. Non-romancable characters: who would you romance?

Oooh, interesting. On the romanceable-but-only-by-a-guy slate, I’d love a chance to romance Tali or Ashley (but especially Tali) as FemShep. This is admittedly partly because I luuuuurve them both, but I don’t much enjoy playing DudeShep.  (Mark Meer seems like a delight, it’s not that, it’s just that I almost always prefer to play the female version of a character if I have the chance.)

Romanceable-by-nobody, let’s see.  Kal is pretty hot, although I usually ship him with Tali.  Nyreen!  Nyreen Deserves Better! And maybe Kasumi, as well. Hmmm. That’s all that’s coming to mind, although I’m sure I’m forgetting someone.

44. A character you’d love to drop in a volcano and forget about?

Hah!  Uhhhh.  Not at all a dangerous question….  

I was unimpressed with Jacob, which isn’t exactly the fault of the character (er, inasmuch as a fictional character can be at fault for anything…) as much as that the writing didn’t give him anything to do. But I don’t dislike him to ‘drop in a volcano’ levels.

Oh!  Maybe Kai Leng?  Who appeared right the fuck out of nowhere with unearned badass skills, was maddeningly untouchable, was ‘Shepard’s evil alter ego’ by fiat rather than having earned it, and felt like someone’s jerkoff fantasy.  Yeah.  We can drop Kai Leng into a volcano, and hope that Mr. Illusive comes up with a more interesting minion next time.

47. Something you do in EVERY playthrough, no matter what?

Hug Tali after her dad dies.

I mean, other things too.  But that one… I don’t care how evil of an evil Shep I’m playing, I don’t care what other choices I made, if I didn’t give Tail that hug I’d be history’s greatest monster.

[madamebadger]

for the writing meme, 11, 18, 19?

11. Is writing your passion or just a fun hobby?

Both!  It’s my passion and my job, and it’s also my hobby. In fact, a lot of what I love about fanfic is that it gives me a ton of, er, I suppose Anne Shirley would call it “scope for imagination”--I don’t have to worry about being commercial or marketable, I can experiment and noodle around and play for play’s sake and write things for the sheer unfettered joy of it. I suppose you could say writing is always my passion, but sometimes I write as a career and sometimes I write as a hobby. Fanfic certainly falls into the latter category--but I’m still passionate about it.

18. Do you use any tools, like worksheets or outlines?

I suppose it depends what you mean. I don’t usually use ‘plot worksheets’ and I don’t outline in any extensive way. 

(Sometimes I’ll keep track of the beats of a story, to sort of give myself an idea of where the story is going to go, but the outlines tend to look like, “Oh no she’s cute moment, some stuff goes here, some more stuff, falling in love montage!!!, tongue-tied nervousness, someone makes them dance (should probably set this up earlier so it’s not just LOL DANCING out of nowhere...), some more stuff, would be nice to include Dorian somehow, dark moment of insecurity, ADMISSION OF LOVE, a long makeout scene we’re talking like 500 words to describe one kiss, something else? Dorian being snarky?? or Sera???, happily ever after!”  I am exaggerating the goofball sketchiness of my outline somewhat, but only somewhat.)

But i do sometimes use structures quite deliberately, and then I will outline a bit to make sure I hit the structure.  Like if I write a Five Times fic, or if I’m specifically riffing on the pattern of a Shakespearean comedy, or occasionally I just see some kind of plot breakdown (like the three-act structure or etc.) and think it would be a fun exercise to come up with a story that would fit it. But that’s almost more for inspiration--the pleasure of fitting to a specific structure, like writing a sonnet--than for, I guess, planning purposes. And in that case I have to have an idea of the plot before I start fitting it to the structure. The “Five Times Kasumi Misued Her Tactical Cloak (And One Time Shepard Did”) story fits a very specific structure and the structure makes certain requirements of it, but I had the emotional arc worked out and several scenes thought up before I started fitting it into the structure, and had it proved impossible to maintain the arc I wanted within that structure, I would have ditched the structure rather than the other way around. Inasmuch as I am able to plot, I do it intuitively, not deliberately, and trying to come up with a plot to fit the structure rather than the other way around will inevitably mess me up in a big way.

19. Stephen King once said that his muse is a man who lives in the basement. Do you have a muse?

I guess it depends on the way you mean it. I don’t have a muse that I think of as separate from myself. I do, however, talk to myself an awful lot.  (You may have seen the occasional letters I write to myself, the “Dear self / Love, me” letters. Those are usually the Sensible Adult part of me talking to the Sulky Glued To The Couch Surfing TVTropes part of me.)  So sometimes I conceptualize the different parts of my writing persona differently and like... chat with them. But it’s all me, I mean, even my sometimes baffling subconscious is still quite clearly me, I’m aware that I’m talking to myself. I don’t have the sense that some other writers describe of the muse being a separate being or of ideas coming from some external space.

But yeah, there’s the Enthusiastic Ideas Critter, which is the part of me that comes up with ideas at an astonishing rate of speed but gets bored writing them pretty quickly, and the Wordsmith, who is actually interested in implementation, and Editor Lady, who only gets to come out when a draft is done.  And also, Madame Badger is a much more playful part of my writing self than the Freelancer, who has to worry about commercial appeal and meeting certain external standards, or especially than Technical Writer Girl, who has to meet very rigid standards indeed (while still being proud of her craft). I think probably the Enthusiastic Ideas Critter is the closest thing to King’s man in the basement, although I am a very different type of writer than King, and the Critter would be deeply unhappy in a basement. It likes the sunshine.

But like I said, they’re all clearly just facets of myself, and I am consciously aware of that at basically all times. 

[madamebadger]

5, 6, 20?

5. Share one of your strengths.

Oh, hmm. I’m never quite sure whether what I think of as my strengths are actually my strengths, but I’ll take a stab at it.  I think I’m pretty good at using specific details in setting and description (what is sometimes referred to as the “telling detail”), and I try to make them multisensory (not just visuals and sounds but touch, smell, and taste). Oh! And I think in a related vein, I’m pretty decent at individual character voices (or at least I work at it–I cannot tell you how many YouTube videos of Sera banter I listened to while writing “any four walls that enclose the right person,” just to keep her voice fresh in my mind). I actually have a goal for ensemble pieces (like “turn a little faster,” or that chapter of Book of Days where everyone finds out about Cassandra and Josie) where ideally you’d be able to tell which character was talking even with all dialogue tags stripped. I don’t think I always live up to it, but it’s something I work hard at.

6. Share one of your weaknesses.

Plot (which is why ¾ of my stories could be summed up as “introspection followed by fluff and/or smut”), but I think I’m about the sixth person today to say that in answer to this question, so I’ll add one more: action sequences. I like to put some exciting adventure! in my stories sometimes, but action sequences (not just combat) always feel flat and dead on the page and I end up rewriting ten times and tearing all my hair out and still being unhappy with it.

20. Describe your perfect writing conditions.

A moderate temperature with lots of fresh air (outdoors in the shade, or in a cafe or restaurant or bar with the windows open, is ideal), with a lovely beverage (could be an iced tea or a hot tea or lemonade or a glass of wine), not too rowdy but not too quiet either, with no Internet on my tablet or laptop so I don’t get distracted and spend twenty minutes browsing Wikipedia because I stopped to look something up. Nice smells help, whether it’s flowers or the brewing coffee or baking pizza or even just my own perfume. I don’t write to music, but it helps a lot if I listen to music for 10-15 minutes before I begin writing. Something to type on–I used to write longhand a lot, but these days it hurts my wrist, sadly. And a block of uncontaminated time, when I know that I’m not going to be interrupted, and ideally somewhere physically separate from all the chores I theoretically could be doing (even if that somewhere is just my own backyard).

I can write almost anywhere and anywhen, if pressed, but that’s the ideal.

[madamebadger]

How many fic ideas are you nurturing right now? Care to share one of them?

Oh gosh. Dozens. Scores. I have always had so many more fic ideas than I had time to write, it’s ridiculous.

Current highlights:

The Pentilyet how-they-got-together slow burn epic

The one where Leliana ties Cassandra up

The one where Shepard sends Kasumi and Vega off on a mission together and they really really do not get along... until they do

The “nights, by the light of whatever would burn” prequel about how Garrus and Tali got together

The one where Cassandra is a Nevarran dragonslayer

The one where Josephine and Cassandra have a Really Big, Serious Fight

The one that’s basically an excuse for lingerie appreciation

....and many more besides. Seriously, the ideas, they breed like rabbits.