KJ

yohjideranged asked me about the character types I like to write.

I gravitate toward a few character types in my writing. Probably the most common, and the one that other people have commented on most often, is competent women. My favorite character list is riddled with women that fit this mold (Paine, Yuna, Fran, Aveline, Natasha Romanoff, Peggy Carter, Susan Ivanova, C.J. Cregg (whom I've never written, but someday, who knows)...) and when I have to create a one-off OC for a fic, there's a very good chance that she'll be very similar. Most of my female Wardens, too, as is my first Inquisitor, and I tend to push my female Hawkes in this direction as well (which is why I don't really play along with the dominant fandom image of Hawke as a Jo Shmo who just happens to be in the right/wrong place at the right/wrong time). I like writing about women, and I like writing about people who, for the most part, know what they're doing, so this is a natural intersection.

Another character I enjoy writing is typified by Alstair Thierin and Steve Rogers: the guy with a strong sense of right and wrong, cares about people and wants to do what he can to help, snarky sense of humor when he lets it show, a bit too earnest, a bit too naive, commits to a course of action and sees it through. I say guy, but Yuna fits this category, too, in a lot of ways. I like competence in a male character as well, although it's not a bulletproof kink in quite the same way.

I also like characters with secret pasts: Auron, Balthier, Paine again. I like digging out the details, figuring out how they might be seeing a situation based on what they know that we don't.

I feel like I ought to have more to say on this topic, but I'm blanking for now. Ask me again later, I might come up with a dozen more. :)

Sure, let's do a post about writing when I haven't written a word in three days. ;)

Anyway, wallwalker asked me to talk about my typical writing process. ( This got pretty long. )

It has been a week full of dragons. Inquisition continues, of course; today we took a break of sorts from sidequests and worked through some plot stuff. I was also really active in the Flight Rising Battle Royale, which ended last night. I'm quite proud of Wind's third-place finish, even if jumping out the gate in second and holding it for a couple of days gave me secret dreams of nudging our way back up there. (Not first place -- I think we all knew that Light was almost certainly going to win.) It was pretty fun, and our strong finish does give me hope of winning future battles. I don't know that I'd want to see Wind become a dominance powerhouse like Ice or Plague, but it's nice to feel like we have a chance again.

And now we take a fond look back to where all this dragon business began, at least for me. Today's question comes from ossobuco, who asked me to talk about my "favorite quests in Dragon Age Origins & II, why they struck you or stayed with you, and (of course) what choices [my] Wardens and Hawkes made." (See all the questions, or ask one of your own!)

My favorite of the big plot quests in DA:O is Redcliffe and the Sacred Ashes. ( Cutting for length. )

In Dragon Age 2, my favorite quest by far is Legacy. ( More. )

I did this meme in January and really liked it. It looks like folks are doing it in December this year, and that sounds good to me.

The Meme:

Pick a topic, and on some day in December I will post something about that topic. It can be fandom-related or not. Pretty much anything you've ever seen me post about unlocked, or comment on in other venues, is fair game. If a topic is uncomfortable for me (too personal or potentially identifying) or simply something I know very little about (unfamiliar canon, say), I may ask you to make a second choice. If you want to request more than one topic (say, up to three), feel free, but if I get more than 25 or so requests I may pick and choose between them.

The List:

• Photo essay with cats, requested by renay


• Final Fantasy thoughts, particularly on IV, VII, IX, and XII (will probably be broken over a couple of posts), requested by sathari


• "Favorite quests in Dragon Age Origins & II, why they struck you or stayed with you, and (of course) what choices your Wardens and Hawkes made," requested by ossobuco


• Favorite fanfics, by myself and by others, requested by halberdier


• My typical writing process (or "writing" process, depending), requested by wallwalker


• Character types I like to write, requested by yohjideranged


• Favorite foods to cook and favorite foods to go out and eat, requested by lassarina


• Books and movies I'm most looking forward to in 2015, requested by umadoshi


• Yours?