Boy, this entry is goddamn long.
Aug. 13th, 2006 04:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elsajeniWARNING: dorky and slightly embarrassing content follows.
Anyone (of those of you who write or have written fanfic, anyway) remember what the first fanfic you ever wrote was?![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
amanuensis1 seems to have started this, and now I'm intrigued. I remember mine -- or, rather, I remember the first two pieces of fanfic I wrote, and I'm honestly not sure which came first.
One of them -- actually, the more I think about it, the more it becomes obvious to me that this was the first one, because I remember writing it in WordPerfect and the other one in Word, and also because I thought of it as incredibly long at the time I wrote it, but the other one was much, much longer. Anyway: I read The Lord of the Rings when I was nine, is possibly the first thing you ought to know about this. I was young and easily led; therefore this may not have been my fault.
When I finished The Lord of the Rings, I found the ending to be fundamentally unsatisfying*. I wanted to know, but then what happened? The obvious solution quickly presented itself. So I wrote some fanfic.
It primarily involved Sam Gamgee's eldest daughter, Elanor, and Gandalf. (Yes, Gandalf sailed into the West at the same time as Frodo, at which time Elanor was an infant. No, I did not in any way explain in the story what the hell he was doing back in Middle-Earth.) Amazingly, I still remember in great detail the plot of this fic, which I felt at the time was unbelievably long (five or six printed pages, as I recall, and definitely the longest thing I had written at that time). The main idea was that, because of something in some way related to Sam's travels, Elanor had magical powers**. These powers began to manifest when she was an adolescent, and because she was, frankly, freaking people out, her parents packed her off to go on some sort of Quest Of Understanding with Gandalf. So she went on a Quest Of Understanding, and ended up understanding and learning to control her powers, and went home. Oh, and she saw the elanor flowers that she was named after for the first time, I remember writing that bit as well.
Yes, in five pages. What?
I was ten and a half when the Special Edition versions were released; I had never previously seen or even heard of Star Wars*** and found it to be, frankly, the greatest thing in the entire goddamn world. Nothing had ever reached into the deepest part of my overactive pre-adolescent imagination and snapped it to attention and stood the hairs on the back of my neck on end the way Star Wars did. Nothing has done so since. Nothing has even come close. I had read Lord of the Rings the year before, and boy, had it ever lit my imagination on fire, but it was nothing compared to the way I felt after seeing Star Wars.
I am offering this as, in a certain kind of way, an excuse.
It was about three seconds before I was collaborating with my best friend on what turned out to be an abso-fucking-lutely epic fanfic. The main character of this fanfic, at least from my perspective (the friend had other intentions, which is largely why we never finished the thing), was of course Luke Skywalker's long-lost sister.
... No, his other long-lost sister.
Yes, she looked suspiciously like me.
Yes, she was eleven.
Yes, she had a lightsaber.
Yes, the lightsaber in question had a blade that was more than one color AT THE SAME TIME.
... Look, let's not talk about this anymore.
I wish I could find brief excerpts of these fanfics for you. Unfortunately, since they were written on the computer, I no longer have hard copies of them; they were saved to the hard drives of computers that are now, of course, both obsolete and broken, and although I did back up at least one of them to disk, the disk in question is long since defunct (there was an incident with the Blue Screen of Death some years ago).
* DON'T FORGET TO PUT THE FOOTNOTE HERE IN A MINUTE.
** This was not quite as crackheaded an idea as it sounds. There is a strong suggestion in the end of Return of the King that parts of the Shire, and children born in the Shire after the return of the Fellowship, are not quite the same as they were beforehand, and that this is in some way connected to the soil and seeds given to Sam by Galadriel; describing this effect as fey or elf-touched would not be entirely off target.
*** This is not strictly true; I do remember, as a small child, seeing about two minutes of what I later realized must have been Return of the Jedi on TV. I can't prove that this happened, but at least according to my memory, it was the tail end of the speederbike chase through the forest on Endor, and the first appearance of an Ewok.
Anyone (of those of you who write or have written fanfic, anyway) remember what the first fanfic you ever wrote was?
amanuensis1 seems to have started this, and now I'm intrigued. I remember mine -- or, rather, I remember the first two pieces of fanfic I wrote, and I'm honestly not sure which came first.One of them -- actually, the more I think about it, the more it becomes obvious to me that this was the first one, because I remember writing it in WordPerfect and the other one in Word, and also because I thought of it as incredibly long at the time I wrote it, but the other one was much, much longer. Anyway: I read The Lord of the Rings when I was nine, is possibly the first thing you ought to know about this. I was young and easily led; therefore this may not have been my fault.
When I finished The Lord of the Rings, I found the ending to be fundamentally unsatisfying*. I wanted to know, but then what happened? The obvious solution quickly presented itself. So I wrote some fanfic.
It primarily involved Sam Gamgee's eldest daughter, Elanor, and Gandalf. (Yes, Gandalf sailed into the West at the same time as Frodo, at which time Elanor was an infant. No, I did not in any way explain in the story what the hell he was doing back in Middle-Earth.) Amazingly, I still remember in great detail the plot of this fic, which I felt at the time was unbelievably long (five or six printed pages, as I recall, and definitely the longest thing I had written at that time). The main idea was that, because of something in some way related to Sam's travels, Elanor had magical powers**. These powers began to manifest when she was an adolescent, and because she was, frankly, freaking people out, her parents packed her off to go on some sort of Quest Of Understanding with Gandalf. So she went on a Quest Of Understanding, and ended up understanding and learning to control her powers, and went home. Oh, and she saw the elanor flowers that she was named after for the first time, I remember writing that bit as well.
Yes, in five pages. What?
I was ten and a half when the Special Edition versions were released; I had never previously seen or even heard of Star Wars*** and found it to be, frankly, the greatest thing in the entire goddamn world. Nothing had ever reached into the deepest part of my overactive pre-adolescent imagination and snapped it to attention and stood the hairs on the back of my neck on end the way Star Wars did. Nothing has done so since. Nothing has even come close. I had read Lord of the Rings the year before, and boy, had it ever lit my imagination on fire, but it was nothing compared to the way I felt after seeing Star Wars.
I am offering this as, in a certain kind of way, an excuse.
It was about three seconds before I was collaborating with my best friend on what turned out to be an abso-fucking-lutely epic fanfic. The main character of this fanfic, at least from my perspective (the friend had other intentions, which is largely why we never finished the thing), was of course Luke Skywalker's long-lost sister.
... No, his other long-lost sister.
Yes, she looked suspiciously like me.
Yes, she was eleven.
Yes, she had a lightsaber.
Yes, the lightsaber in question had a blade that was more than one color AT THE SAME TIME.
... Look, let's not talk about this anymore.
I wish I could find brief excerpts of these fanfics for you. Unfortunately, since they were written on the computer, I no longer have hard copies of them; they were saved to the hard drives of computers that are now, of course, both obsolete and broken, and although I did back up at least one of them to disk, the disk in question is long since defunct (there was an incident with the Blue Screen of Death some years ago).
* DON'T FORGET TO PUT THE FOOTNOTE HERE IN A MINUTE.
** This was not quite as crackheaded an idea as it sounds. There is a strong suggestion in the end of Return of the King that parts of the Shire, and children born in the Shire after the return of the Fellowship, are not quite the same as they were beforehand, and that this is in some way connected to the soil and seeds given to Sam by Galadriel; describing this effect as fey or elf-touched would not be entirely off target.
*** This is not strictly true; I do remember, as a small child, seeing about two minutes of what I later realized must have been Return of the Jedi on TV. I can't prove that this happened, but at least according to my memory, it was the tail end of the speederbike chase through the forest on Endor, and the first appearance of an Ewok.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2006-08-14 06:16 pm (UTC)The setting: Final Fantasy VII
The plot: Cloud, while surfing the internet, comes across rumors that one can revive Aeris by doing a bunch of absolutely ridiculous and roundabout things. You know, just like the actual internet rumors at the time the game was popular. In any case, he sets out to accomplish a series of side-quests in order to get Aeris back.
The meat of the story is the side-quests, each of which is like a separate episode of something completely crack-addled. Think Excel Saga. In chapter one, he reads the rumors on the internet and decides to set out with Yuffie (his mistress--he's unhappily married to Tifa) to revive Aeris. He tells Yuffie he's just after some great materia so she won't get suspicious. Chapter two is a boring excavation in Bone Village. In chapter three, Cloud has to use a bunch of complicated and random steps to breed a polkadot Chocobo. In chapter four, Cloud and Yuffie try to get a Cursed Ring from Ultima Weapon, but they find that he already lost it. So, they go to the Gold Saucer and win it in a poker game against the Turks and Bad Leroy Brown (from the song). Chapter five is where their Mystery Van breaks down outside Cosmo Canyon, and they join up with Red XIII (who eats so much of his new favorite dessert delicacy, Ruby Snacks, that he can't speak clearly anymore and ends up starting most of his words with an 'r' sound) and Velma (that Velma) to investigate a ghost, who turns out to be Old Man Bugenhagen. He would have gotten away with it, too, if it weren't for those meddling kids and their stupid dog. Oh, and during the part where they split up to investigate, Cloud makes out with Velma.
In chapter six, Cloud and Yuffie have to collect those 1/35 soldiers you find in the game. First, they have a protracted argument about whether or not the toy soldiers are dolls or action figures, and then they give up searching and buy them on eBay.
In chapter seven, comic relief ensues when Cloud takes a break from side-questing to make a date with his wife, only to find himself going on with Yuffie on the same night. Good thing he learned how to handle delicate social situations from a little show called Three's Company.
Chapter eight is the first of a two-part Star Wars/Star Trek parody. Cid Highwind joins the group as a thinly veiled pastiche of Zapp Brannigan, and the team heads off into spaaaaaaace to look for some McGuffin there. When they find their planet, they form their away team: "You betcha, it will be dangerous," said Cid. "In fact, one or more of us may fail to come back alive. That’s why I’ve gathered the best crew in the known galaxy to man the U.S.S. Jazzercize. Our team will consist of myself, Lieutenant Shera, copilot and first mate Red XIII, ex-SOLDIER Cloud Strife, tactical weapons and stealth expert Yuffie Kisaragi, and Ensign Ricky. Everyone, into your uniforms. Ricky, you get the red one."
"I've got a bad feeling about this," Ricky said.
A space battle ensues, and then everyone starts debating whether blowing up the second Death Star would have killed all the Ewoks (and all other life on the Endor moon).
Yuffie doesn't get along with Cid. "Your lack of ethics disturbs me, Captain," she tells him.
All this, and nuclear wessels.
Chapter nine is the second part of the spaaaaaace adventure, but it turns out not to be sci-fi at all. No, it's a parody of The Glass Menagerie. Seriously.
Chapter ten is the finale, and chapter eleven consists of some alternate endings.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-08-15 02:32 am (UTC)Sweet.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-08-19 03:28 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-08-20 07:03 pm (UTC)It's about as convoluted as any collection of short stories would be, but noting that is less fun than anonymously flaming someone.