(no subject)

[timepiececlock]

I was reading the sequel to "That's Why They Call It The Blues" by Nataku-chan, and it got me thinking about my own long-neglected Cowboy Bebop fic.

Basically my idea was to take all the cliches of post-series fic, and run with them--in reverse. And add a dose of Faye/Spike but leave it open-ended too. In fact I planned out about 20 chapters, and I know the basic plot from end to end. I designed it more like a short novel in layout than an episode. I even planned out how I want Spike's character to develop over the course of the story and how I could incorporate changes over time that were a direct result of how the anime ended. I have Edward and Jet there as themselves and not as plot devices. And my storyline was good too-- pretty damn original, but with touches of that CB style too.

The only problem is that I can't get off my damn butt to write the first chapter. I've done the prologue, but I can't seem to go any farther than that. I know what I want, but it's like I have no confidence that I'll get Spike to talk and act like Spike acts in the show.

And to top it all off-- jaina actually gave me the dub of Cowboy Bebop, so that I could a) make vids if I wanted to, or b) refamiliarize myself with canon if I wanted to write fic, since its been like a year and half since I've actually watched the show.

And I still can't make myself even WATCH the episodes. It's like my mind is trying to out-think itself: what if I rewatch it only to realize along the way that my Great Idea for a fanfic is not even plausible after all? What then? I shall be heartbroken. But on the other hand, how can I write fic if I can't even remember details of Spike's speech pattern, how he talks? How will I write convincing dialogue or inner thoughts?

Or, to sum all the above paragraphs up in one statement: I'm a chicken. Yup. This post deserves my indecisive Wembley icon.

Comments

[rashaka.livejournal.com]

Number one because the dub is not that character. Not as it was intended, and not as it was written.

Well, in that I have to make a partially agreeing, partially disagreeing statement. No, the dub is not the original. But it is an entity unto itself, and that's the only canon I have to draw from. The dub isn't wrong so much as it is different. They had consultants from the Japanese production on board when they wrote he sript, and they watched the episodes over and over again too. They know what it was meant to be versus what they were able to or decided to make it. The dub isn't Japanese canon, but it is canon for the english version of the series.

Cowboy Bebop is the only anime that I can succesfully read fic from, and that's because I read mainly two writers.

Really? wow. Is that because you've seen limited anime series, or you've been exposed to limited amount of fic for other series? Becaus believe me, there' a lot of good fic out there you're missing. And believe me, the best writers can write the character so he or she seems to be like the one from the series, but ends up doing, perhaps, things the character would never have done if they hadn't been through the experiences suggested in the fic. SSG is the same way.

You know why ssg is so succesful at what she does? She has real characters. They are not clones of CB, but based off people she knows, off things she knows and understands. I think at the beginning of "She Wanted to Die," she tried doing what the rest of us did. She tried to stick with canon.

Yes, her Spike is quite different from the Spike on the show, as Faye, but it's taken a hell of a long time for them to get that way. In the beginning, the asshole from the series was the main character of her story. And the reason I'm so addicted to her fic (which reminds me I need to go read the new chapter...) is that we watched every step of the change. It's not dynamic characters I have a problem with or making your characters change, it's making them close enough to recognizable at the start, and to maintain a aspect of the original that eseentialy blinds the reader to realizing (or makes them not care about) all the other OOC things I've done with the character.

Ed is one of those characters that is impossible to write, because for all purposes she is what makes Bebop an anime.

Uh... I think you need to elaborate on that a little so I know exactly what you're saying.

We have taken the word canon, and basically violated it. We have changed its meaning completely.

How do you define canon? For me canon is a pretty short defintion: it means the collective series of actions and events and words that are done, expressed, experienced or said, by a character. It's like blueprints for the character.

I can say my fic is in canon and make a very convincing argument for it.

Uh....actually I think you just reversed your whole argument there. :)