HI GUYS.

[eppy]

This is possibly the most pointless entry ever BUT AW HERE IT GOES.

I'm spreading myself between a load of fic challenges this summer. Well, Eppy, you may be asking, what the fricking frack does that have to do with us? My gentle readers, this means I am just going to be a little slower tagging everyone back than usual because I will be cranking out FULLY FINISHED MASTERPIECES I wish sob every night in addition to tagging.

All I really want is that if I forget to tag anything I should, please send me a message and go "EPPY WE NEED YOU IN HERE" and I will jump on that the second I wrestle myself away from 20k big bangs and kink bingos and REEL fics.

It's not a real hiatus or...anything so I posted it here. I JUST WANTED YOU GUYS TO KNOW WHY I'M BEING SLOW AND FULL OF FAIL LATELY.

Here. Enjoy some Buzz Lightyear.

Comments

[deadthenred]

I'm jealous of this 20k fic ability you have :|

[eppy]

This is the first time I've ever tried to write something that long. I am not even going to lie, it is the hardest time I've ever had writing something in my entire life.

[deadthenred]

I can barely write 3,000 word fics, so. I've written things that are that long, but never prose. Prose is hard. I had a real hard time learning how to tag, period, tbh.

[eppy]

I think the longest thing I wrote up until now was my lgbtfest fic and even that...was not as long as I wanted it to be. I think it was 2.5k, if that. My style is really very sparse and I like churning out really short, polished bits of work. But sob, I wanted to at least try stretching myself and writing something hideously long. Famous last words gah.

fffffffff tagging, I will never know how I taught myself to do it. It's something I must have picked up without realizing it.

[deadthenred]

No, stretching yourself is good. I'm really...going to try that one of these days. And I know what you mean about having an economic style. I wouldn't say that mine is, that, because I'm highly redundant. But I have a hard time getting past, like 2000 words, basically.

Doing first person tagging was always easy to me, third person is what I struggled with.

[eppy]

I have been telling myself I would do a big bang since I figured out what they were. This summer was just like, the perfect moment--or so I thought akfjlasdfa.

See, I used to pride myself on getting in and out of a story in less than 2k, even 1k if I could manage it. It actually makes writing thesis and essays for school tricky because I feel like I ramble on and on when writing longer things. I like really shorts works of prose.

But you know, big sprawling plots are hard to encompass in that, and I know I bullshit plot all the time.

I used to tag almost exclusively first person, and then I wound up in a game where I tagged exclusively third person for a while, which was kind of easy because you know, I just wrote like they were tiny little snippets of prose. And then...Cape and Cowl came along and ruined me for everything ever.

[deadthenred]

Yeah, I think pacing a plot is a really hard thing to do. And warrants practice. Obviously, word count depends on the story and...economy is a good thing. I do think most fanfic tends to be too long at least, imho. But a large portion of it doesn't have a ton of plot. Which isn't a criticism, I really like short character-introspective pieces. Where nothing much happens.

It's hard for me because I want to play Older!Bucky somewhere but like...he needs third person to survive. He's quite talkative, but only in his own inner monologue :|

[eppy]

It's really rare that I find someone who can pace a plot evenly and make it work for them. I can only think of about one person off the top of my head who did it and did it well. I'm the type of writer who cares more about examining the characters than what's going on with the plot--literally, most of the time my plot is just a sneaky way to enable myself into writing character introspection. It's not something I want to break myself of necessarily, I just want to get better at the balance.

God, I sympathize. Bucky's one of those characters who genuinely does have so much going on beneath the surface, and only rarely does that get verbalized. I wish I knew of a good place to recommend for that, but nothing comes to mind specifically. D:

[deadthenred]

No, I understand. But trying new things is how you get better, even if you wind up not liking what you try.

[I do jokes in brackets sometimes.] Kitty is trying to get me to app him @ posthumans though.

[eppy]

That is what this big bang is turning into. I write 3k, then scream, then rewrite it. It's one step forward, three steps back constantly.

[I like when you do that. It usually makes me cackle.] Oh my god you should. It would be glorious. Although I am biased, I just want to see you play him somewhere.

[deadthenred]

You could always just type "pika pika pika" a few times to make word count. My brother did that on a term paper once. He got full marks. Yep.

He's tricky. I never think I play him all that well, and I am pretty confident with most of my other characters. You played that Natasha I tagged with once, right?

[eppy]

Snrk. Pokemon solves all problems. I used to go through and make the punctuation one font size bigger to get the right amount of pages, not that it helps me in this sitaution.

I think you do a very good job with him, for whatever my opinion's worth. And I'm responsible for her, yes, and the Clint that's been floating around these past few days.

[deadthenred]

I never tried that, that is a pretty brilliant trick.

Thanks. And I knew the Clint was you, gimme some credit. (Lmao, I was going to throw my Natasha at him for that meme but opted instead for hideous :|) I liked tagging with her, I never get a Natasha to play with.

[eppy]

It is the sneakiest thing, and has never once failed me.

ALTHOUGH APPARENTLY I AM NOT AS SNEAKY AS I THOUGHT sob. (Good lol the hideous was way more entertaining.) I understand her way better now than I did then. I literally cringe thinking of how I played her before. I was still wiggling my way into the headspace ffffff.

And she's...a lot rarer than I realized she was when I first discovered her which baffles me because of how fascinating she is. I mean, the most messed up origins ever, but for the most part, I figured there would be people RPing a kickass lady like her everywhere.

[deadthenred]

(They...I mean really. Really. It's almost canon.)

And well, people have trouble RPing ladies in general. Most of the LJ comicfandom is about other parts of Marvel (YA, Runaways, Steve/Tony, X-men) and not...everything else. There's also, I think, some kind of big wank about another Natasha RPer that I totally don't know the story behind but know happened that I wonder...if it had anything to do with less people playing her.

Her origin's not that bad for comics. Though sometimes I'm in favor of her not having a set origin at all, instead having it be a ~mystery~ idk, I go back and fourth. But I'd love to see her on open rps or whatever because. I'm. Biased. She could yell at Bucky's clothes.

[eppy]

(Oh bb, you don't have to tell me these things. I've seen those panels. It might as well be canon.)

I've always been of the opinion that the Captain America series is incredibly underrated. I never understand why people don't pay more attention that, and not just Steve as an Avenger. I have also not heard of this wank, but then, I never do hear of these things until like, months and months later.

The only thing about her origin that is a pain in the ass is trying to write it down for an app, because then..what the hell do you even do.

MADAM ARE YOU ENABLING ME because it's working sob.

[deadthenred]

(Clint is like that with everyone...)

I have mixed opinions on the whole run, by which I mean...all 500 issues or whatever, but my sensibilities are very Silver Age, so. And I like espionage comics more than straight-up superhero comics, so of course I prefer Steranko interpretations to the Gruenwald stuff. (Not that some of Gruenwald isn't good, Streets of Poison is pretty hilarious. But, for instance, I like Sharon more than Diamondback.) I gather that opinion is like, the opposite of most sections of LJfandom. I'm mostly cool with it because canon is reflecting my views more than theirs right now. Bwahahaha. Then Steve/Tony fans stopped reading the book after Steve died and just...kind of made up their own universe, as far as I can tell. That was all Civil War hurt/comfort fic. And hurt/comfort isn't my thing— but really, a lot of the Avengers-related fandom I see around seems more Marvel Adventures based than 616 based.

WOW TL;DR

It's only her childhood that gets really messed up, so just say she doesn't remember much about it and start with Alexei, I guess. But mysterious origins are generally not the easiest for RP, they work better for fic and stuff. I apped her here before Deadly Origin came out and I refuse to go back :| :|

Enabling? Maybe a little bit.

OH AND RE: WANK- I have no idea what happened or who it involved, I just know...there were roleplaysecrets about it. YEAHHH.

[eppy]

(He's just friendly...personal space what personal space.)

I don't mind a good superhero comic, but I always tend to gravitate towards the characters who are just...somewhat ordinary. Not that Steve and Bucky are exactly ordinary, but they aren't lighting themselves on fire or sprouting wings or claws or eye lasers. Nick Fury was and is, hands down, one of my absolute favorite characters because all he's got is the serum and his mind and he cleans up. (I've always been iffy on the thing with Diamondback, but I'm very notoriously picky about who I ship Steve with, so I tend to not get into it.)

I am not speaking with the Steve/Tony fandom. Ever again. I wrote my share of Civil War esque stuff--a whole three stories, I believe?--then I got bored of it, because really, how many times can you go over what happened okafjsdafa get over it.

Deadly Origin aklfdas I don't blame you, I would never involve myself with that nonsense.

Hideous. And effective. /touches old account

FFFFFFFF that just sounds like something I wouldn't want to touch with a ten foot pole.

[deadthenred]

I like Diamondback better when she's not with Steve. She got...really self-doubting because of her relationship with him and that isn't how I like my shipping. I like equality. I'll be pleased if she turns up in Hawkeye and Mockingbird like they're hinting, though. And yep, I like the low-powered characters. My favorite franchise is Daredevil, so. But I also like Thor.

What they do isn't really...bad persay, b/c people should write what they want, but it's a pretty specific section of a vast canon they're drawing from. And yeah I got tired of arguing Civil War a long time ago.

I got into an argument with one of the guys who writes the official handbooks over that series.

Exceelllent /steeples fingers

AND NO, I'm glad to remain ignorant I just noticed because...well, when characters you play get posted to RPS it is time to act paranoid.

[eppy]

I actually really liked her during the Seige! I had no idea there were hints about her showing up in Hawkeye and Mockingbird, but that would be such a pleasant surprise if she did.

I don't argue Civil War anymore. It always, always ends badly, I don't even. It's not bad, I just cannot take reading the same story over and over again. It makes my head hurt, and I just think there's so much else to write about. Ugh.

Did you win?

My great plan is to play characters no one knows about so no one will notice me but...Clint is going to screw all that up.

[deadthenred]

Either Constrictor or Diamondback will be in a future issue. The letters column to #2 confirmed.

I'm not sure either of us won. It was a case of two people being very stubborn over petty details. Which...probably means everyone is a loser.

Haven't you played Steve??

[eppy]

I should start reading those akldjfa I always skip them.

I wanted to make an Office reference here, but I can't rememeber the specifics and it's probably only funny to me anyways alkfasf

SHHH YES BUT NO ONE KNEW IT WAS ME. Or no one particularly cared about me doing it, so it was fine and I didn't panic too hard at the time. In retrospect, I don't know how I wasn't scared to death.

[deadthenred]

There are some sketchy things going on in letters columns sometimes ngl. I am in the middle of a wtf type moment over at the big message board I posted at.

And yeah, I know the feeling. With nervousness. I was so freaked out about applying here.