Sick day memes

[lizbee]

I'm having an Arthritis Day, which means resting my hands. Which means, um, scanning sketches and doing memes, apparently.

Name a character I've written about, and I will tell you three things that I think are essential to keep in mind when writing that character.

Comments

[fly_to_dawn]

Romana II?

[lizbee]

1. She's a lot less naive and socially inexperienced than her previous incarnation.

2. For future!Romana fics, I like to remember that she's had a lot of experience between "Warrior's Gate" and now, and it's not really fair to assume that her interactions with Ten or Eleven would be "City of Death"-redux.

3. She likes hats almost as much as Eleventy does. Maybe even more.

[biichan]

3. If I didn't already ship Doctor/Romana, I would ship Romana II/Eleventy just for the hats.

[crossedwires]

Mai!

[lizbee]

- Mai's sarcasm and blunted affect are defence mechanisms, rather than her natural personality (inasmuch as a defence mechanism is unnatural, anyway). With people she trusts, like Zuko after their blow up on "The Beach", she's more relaxed and open, though still not overly demonstrative.

(This is important to me, because I recently read old meta about how Zuko/Mai doesn't work on feminist grounds, ie, she changes her personality for him. And that seems a bit backwards; it's the rest of the world for whom she performs.)

- Mai's brother is two, and she describes herself as having been an only child for 15 years, which would make her about 17, ie, a year older than Zuko. All the character bios and so forth put her as 15, but her aloofness as a child makes more sense if she's an older kid being forced to spend time with younger playmates.

This is more in the realm of fanon than anything anyone else needs to bother about, but it often informs the way I write her.

(Things no one has written: fic where Tom Tom is Mai's son, not her brother.)

- When she accuses Zuko of betraying his country in "The Boiling Rock", she means it. As far as she was concerned, following Azula and capturing the Earth Kingdom are absolutely the right thing to do. When she changes sides, her motivations are personal -- but when your nation is basically run along the lines of a personality cult built around the royal family, that's as political as anything else.

[yukinoomoni]

"(Things no one has written: fic where Tom Tom is Mai's son, not her brother.)"

*stares* Oh wow. I hope you write this. Or I will.

Everything you write here is so amazingly in line with how I write her as well. I'm so glad I'm not the only one who realises that Mai is actually 17 and not 15. It frustrates me when people try to correct me about her being a year older than Zuko, when basic math proves otherwise!

[lizbee]

"*stares* Oh wow. I hope you write this. Or I will."

The problem is that the timeline prevents it from being Zuko's spawn. And while I totally believe that Mai's parents would offer her to Ozai in exchange for favours, I don't feel like I have anything new to add to the perfectly good Mai/Ozai fics that already exist.

[yukinoomoni]

UNLESS! They had a meeting during his exile that no one knew about! Like when her family was transferring to Omashu?

[fyrdrakken]

Huh. I just had a thought about Iroh's late son having been old enough, if he was serving in the army when he died. (Though I can't remember how long ago he died -- more than three years would rule him out.) And if her parents had designs on offering her to Ozai (either for himself or for his son and heir), that gives room for all sorts of upset when they discovered she had something going on with the wrong branch of the family... ETA: Also, now I'm wondering how long Ozai has been the Fire Lord and how long ago Iroh went from being heir apparent to passed-over general. Because while Iroh was the presumed next Fire Lord, his son would have been more likely for Mai's parents to have designs on marrying Mai off to, probably from her childhood. I can't remember the timing because I've only seen the series once, I'm afraid.

[kerravonsen]

Martha

[lizbee]

- She's not remotely isolated. She has a big family, and lots of friends.

- She's not culturally isolated, either. I think her nerdishness has been overstated in fandom, but she doesn't exist in a pop cultural vacuum.

- At 24/25, she's older than a lot of companions, but also very young for her position and experience.

[selvage]

Zuko! :D

[lizbee]

- Despite the jokes at his expense, he's not actually stupid. Just not all that great at problem solving (unless the problems are someone else's), and the whole planning thing seems to be something that happens to other people. (But that's common to boys of his age. It's something Sokka had to actually learn.)

- And despite fanon, I don't think he was actually a weak or sickly child. I'd buy that he was born prematurely ("Everyone says I was lucky to be born") or in poor health, but the glimpses we see of his childhood don't suggest any ongoing weakness.

- Word of God has it that he has no tear ducts left in his bad eye. I think that his vision on that side is likely to worsen as he gets older, and I bet that scar itches like a mofo sometimes.

[selvage]

It's interesting, I don't actually read very much Avatar fic that doesn't come off your rec list (I trust your judgement, and you've not let me down yet!), so Weak!And!Sickly!Child!Zuko is not something I'd realised was a fanon trope. Huh. The more you learn. I always interpreted that "Everyone says I was lucky to be born" as implying that everything Zuko has he's worked for constantly, in comparison to Azula for whom everything seems to be a breeze.

I bet he has an amazing collection of salves and lotions and crap to try and stop the scar from being so tight and itchy. :D