So, Anything You'd Like to Know?

[kriadydragon]

Ask me anything you want about any one of my stories that you've read. For example: What posessed me to put a tape-worm like creature into Sheppard's back? Why am I always making it so poor Shep loses weight? Why did I have Character A react as he/she did when character B did this? And so on.

I'm not quite sure why I'm doing this. Curiosity? Bordeom? Maybe both, I don't know. It seemed like a fun idea and I wanted to see if it was. Feel free to snurch if you want. There's a good chance something similar has been done already, but I don't recall (or just plain don't know about it.)

Comments

[kriadydragon.livejournal.com]

To start off, I'm not of the fanon cliche club of "Sheppard doesn't eat enough!" because he does eat enough. If he loses weight, it's always for a reason (too much stress, sickness, torture leaving him mentally vulnerable, and so on.) But I always try to acknowledge that he is normally a very healthy individual.

I love underdog heroes and angst. Causing Shep to lose weight - either to emaciation or simply an extra wiriness - is a way to achieve both. When skinny, he's easily underestimated. But I'm a firm believer that size doesn't matter, and that Sheppard can take down the bad guy - either with quick moves or using his brains - without having to be fit.

Also, I feel Sheppard's greatest drive is protecting others. When so sick and/or injured to the point that he's physically weak, it slowly kills him inside, especially if something is happening to his team. Having him lose weight is a way to achieve that frustration as well as prolong it. It's also something for him to over come.

For example, in my story Wayfarers, I'd put the whole team through the wringer. Sheppard, of course, came out the worst. He was forced into slave labor, then when he became too weak to keep working, he was dumped onto a charnal heap. The story begins with the team finding him, and throughout most of the story, he's so weak that he's the one needing protecting. When he's strong enough to move on his own, his emaciation causes him no end of worry because it means that he can't protect his team. However, toward the end of the story, his team is captured and it's up to him to save them, so he fights against his weakness, uses his brains instead of brawns, and saves them.

However, with some stories (like Parasite and Heartbeat) losing weight is simply inevitable. I am, however, trying to cut back on making him emaciated.

Shep whump is kind of an acquired taste (like having a preference for ship or slash), but I feel that it does have a purpose beyond merely being someone's fetish (see above reply). For me, in my stories, the whump has to have a purpose. It either reveals something about the character, or simply makes him more human and easier to relate to. "How" I whump Shep, however, is the fetish part. Weight-loss will always be my favorite, along with broken ribs and illness.

[sholio]

I had kinda wondered about the anorexia thing, because anorexic-Sheppard is such a common thing in fic, not just yours. I suppose I'd always chalked it up to "other people's kinks, not mine" and never thought too much about it, beyond wondering if it had something to do with Flanigan being a trim guy to begin with. Interesting explanation. The way you describe it, it sounds like the reasoning is similar to why my plots often involving doing something to his legs, thus making it difficult for him to spoil my carefully crafted plot by charging to the rescue and shooting the bad guys. *g*

[kriadydragon.livejournal.com]

I am trying to move a little away from using starving/super-slender Shep as a way to achieve under-dogedness (which, I know, isn't a word) as I do use it so much and not everyone likes it. The thing is, especially lately, the stories I keep coming up with all involve Sheppard having to lose weight because it's inevitable (sick Sheppard has been slowly devouring my brain.) Not a big old heap of weight, but there's still weight loss involved (I am staying completely away from emaciated Shep).

Though I do have a soft-spot for Carson getting after his weight in some people's fic, I don't buy into the anorexia thing. Sheppard is slender because he's healthy, and he eats like a normal, healthy male. If Sheppard's to lose weight and have eating problems in my stories, there has to be a concrete, believable reason.

[kristen999.livejournal.com]

I can see where you're coming from but there's so many ways to make John the underdog without resorting to him loosing weight. I guess it wouldn't be such an issue but you do admittedly do it to him a lot...almost all your short stories even have some degree of weight loss and it can be distracting sometimes. I've seen you move away from it a little....and its nice to read new ways of achieving the same goal.

Headaches, concussions, broken bones, wounds and surgery can gain that exact type of weakness. After surgery most people can't walk for a week without being in pain or being very sore no matter how 'strong willed' you are.

We all have our ways and means of doing stuff and its cool you're so open about discussing things. I understand your reasoning totally,and its what drives you...so its all good.

I've always enjoyed your creative twists on things...when or where do you get most of your ideas? As in I tend to get plot ideas when I drive or riding in a car for some reason....or when I'm about to go to sleep.

I think its because I'm not thinking about anything and my brain is in roam mode.

What about you...when do those little creative plots hit you?

[kriadydragon.livejournal.com]

I am trying to write less stories that involve weight loss, but for the most part, I'm also trying to tone the weightloss itself down (i.e. cutting back on emaciating him, but mostly because I feel bad for doing it). The thing is, I can't make any promises. Weight-loss is my all-time favorite whump next to broken ribs and a shot to the shoulder. Plus many of my story ideas make weight loss (whether major or minor) kind of inevitable (illness, capture and mistreatment, and so on). Using other methods... I don't know, they just don't cut it for me. Weight-loss, coupled with an injury or illness, I think - for me, of course - has an added oomph of humiliation, depending on the situation and how bad off he is.

So there will still be stories where he loses weight, just not as many if it can be helped. I do want people to enjoy my stories. At the same time, I have to be careful that I don't reach that point of stressing over whether people will like a story or not. Sometimes I have to write a story for myself - for cathartic purposes - which means there's a good chance weight loss will be involved.

After surgery most people can't walk for a week without being in pain or being very sore no matter how 'strong willed' you are.

No, muses, no! Stay away from that idea!

[kristen999.livejournal.com]

At the same time, I have to be careful that I don't reach that point of stressing over whether people will like a story or not. Sometimes I have to write a story for myself - for cathartic purposes

Thats what is the most important thing!!

After surgery most people can't walk for a week without being in pain or being very sore no matter how 'strong willed' you are.

Hehe yeah I'm exploring that in my current long fic....

Eric's recent surgery has really given me some ideas for some stuff...I won't tell him that our recent experience has gone down in the 'research' category.

lol

[kriadydragon.livejournal.com]

Okay, now on to the answer.

Oy, that's a toughy. For starters, I could probably make a career out of daydreaming (oh, wait, I am!) I'm always thinking up stories. Now that I'm into fanfiction, between thinking up original stuff, when in need of something to think of, I turn to fanfic plots.

My "good" ideas, however - and I define good ideas by how much I enjoyed writing the story and how easy it was to plot and write - usually have a source. Hound of Hell You Cry, for example, was inspired by a computer game - Clive Barker's Undying, which is the creepiest Game I've ever played. My current story, Castles in the Sky, was born from a desire to write a slave fic. Most slave fics tend to be slash, and I wanted to do a gen one. But I didn't want to do a typical slave fic. In the end, it became more of a character study than slave story (the healing part is longer than the slave part.)

There also has to be a concept involved. For example, Wrong End of a Leash, my first SGA story, started as a concept - a human made into an alien's pet. The thing is, that story easily could have ended up in the Battle Star Galactica or Andromeda fandom. I needed a sci-fi fandom for the idea, but had only just started watching Atlantis. So I thought "what the heck" and used the idea for an SGA fic. So it's because of a story idea that I'm now a rabid SGA/Joe F fan ;).

A lot of my ideas also come from things I do in my original works, or concepts I can't make or fit into an original work, so use it in fandom instead in order to get the idea to stop bugging me.

So, for me, ideas can come from anywhere at any time (I once got an idea for a scene in an original story just from walking into a hardware store). What it all comes down to is whether or not the idea grabs me and hangs on. I've come up with ideas that I'll toy around with for a while, only to have them drift away when I lose interest (or the idea makes me uncomfortable in some way). Other ideas will have me salivating to write it, but the very next day, the frenzy wears off, taking the desire to write it with it.

Anyways... yeah, that's it in a rather long-winded and large nutshell. Aplogies for the rambling.