Disturbing patterns

[hmpf]

Rewriting, and in some cases also translating some of my older fics has made me aware of some... odd patterns. Most specifically,

1.) OFCs in my fics seem to end up dead a whole lot. Am I one of those rumoured misogynist fanfic writers?

And

2.) I seem to have a thing about the smell of blood.

I don't want to think too much about either of those; they're both fairly disturbing!

Comments

[beebee852001.livejournal.com]

I love it when you look back and see stuff like that! It is a bit disturbing, but there are always worse patterns, I suppose ;)

Current music! *pokes*

Worse patterns than a thing for the smell of blood?

[hmpf.livejournal.com]

I guess there are. But not many. It's especially bad since it managed to fly under my own radar, so to speak, for all these years. I only now noticed that *at least* three of my fics have references to it.

The women thing isn't quite so bad, as it's really only two and a half OFCs I killed. Only two, strictly speaking, really. Well. Sorta. Over the space of I think eleven fics, all told. So it's not that high a ratio.

But I *am* wondering if perhaps I'm trying too hard trying to convince people my OFCs aren't Mary Sues, and am therefore killing them. Hmm.

Re: Mary Sues

[beccadg.livejournal.com]

But I *am* wondering if perhaps I'm trying too hard trying to convince people my OFCs aren't Mary Sues, and am therefore killing them. Hmm.

It certainly could be a paranoia about coming across Mary Sue-ish. I abandoned any such thing a long time ago, I mean I write self inserts not just OCs, but I have studied a number of Mary Sue litmus tests and so forth. It could be trying too hard, or it could be one of the supposed signs of Mary Sue-ness. When they die are they doing something heroic, and-or mourned by any of the canon characters?

Re: Mary Sues

[hmpf.livejournal.com]

>When they die are they doing something heroic, and-or mourned by any of the canon characters?

God, no. Or, not really. One is dead when the story starts - she's a challenger who lost, in my story for the Quickening Lyric Wheel. I wanted to have a female challenger, a hunter, because I thought it was boring to always have men as challengers. The story is partly from her POV, posthumously. *g*

The other is a slave/Watcher in the Horsemen camp who, rather predictably, is killed at the end. That one was written for the Watcher Lyric Wheel, 'cause I was wondering if the Watchers at the time had ever tried Watching the Horsemen, and how they would have gone about it. A slave in the camp seemed like a reasonable guess - the only real possibility, really. And yeah, she's very beautiful, because I couldn't imagine the Horsemen keeping her around for any length of time if she wasn't. I suppose you could call her fairly heroic, too - or stupid, or suicidal, and fanatical, depending on your point of view. *g*

The sort-of-third is a political activist wife of Methos who commits suicide in the first half of the 20th century due to despair over the situation in Germany. I never really got around to writing that part of the story, though, I think.