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Post by T. Costa on Dec 20, 2008 9:14:35 GMT
WOW OLD THREAD. O.o
And I think Cid Highwind is probably the hardest character for me to write - which is saying something, because he's my favorite character. I just don't do him justice. ;_;
I do write Yuffie and Vincent pretty darn well, if I do say so myself, though. Although Pen and La both have me beat.
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Post by La Editor on Dec 20, 2008 10:00:06 GMT
^ LIES. *...checks* correction: LIE.
Hmm... I had a terrible time getting a grasp on Cloud when I had to write about 15k words from his perspective. I barely got it around 11k, so by then I was pretty much done. >.> (The cycle has repeated for both Barret and Tifa. Urk.) Barret was easier in comparison because he's very biased and opinionated... Tifa was a lot harder, and I believe I went crying about it in the NaNo thread until Mengde helped me out. Tifa is one of the harder characters because she's very normal, very generic; you really, really have to delve into her personality to get to a unique voice that will stand out.
I'm guessing that Cid or Reeve is probably going to be hardest for me. I think the problem with characters you can't write is that you just don't really know them well enough - like, you may 'know' them one person to another, but you can't really get to them and find their voice unless you actually bodily shove them out of their shoes and take 'em for, like, a marathon. Or three.
(Oh, gawd, watch, I'll probably come in here within the next month crying about Aeris or something and how she's harder than Cloud. Actually, that sounds about right. Yuffie and Aerith are pretty opposite in nature. (Haha, I just noticed that's my avatar vs. signature. Lulz.))
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Post by Pen Against Sword on Dec 20, 2008 16:21:57 GMT
WOW OLD THREAD. O.o And I think Cid Highwind is probably the hardest character for me to write - which is saying something, because he's my favorite character. I just don't do him justice. ;_; I do write Yuffie and Vincent pretty darn well, if I do say so myself, though. Although Pen and La both have me beat. Nyarf, thanks Tasha! I'd say I probably have the most trouble with Tifa or Cloud. It's like La said -- they're generic (not to offend any lovers of them out there, I'm not saying it's a bad thing), and yet they're not. It's like, their personalities are a lot more subtle, in a way, and the quirks that make them CLOUD and TIFA are buried deeper, have to be looked for. Yuffie is the easiest character for me to write, after years of practice. I've recently been trying my hand at first person humor POV, and oh, man it's a blast. With Yuffie, it's like...you have to reach inside you, to that part of you that makes jokes that other people never hear because they are just sheer randomness and sometimes completely inappropriate and insensitive. And then you have to start feeling like, really, you're the best person in the entire world, and you can't reveal that that is partly just to hide your insecurities at being a skinny, boyish, failure of a ruler who has a strange obsession with materia and cares about her friends way more than she would ever like to admit. That's Yuffie. Vincent, well, I don't know how well I write him, but I find it easy to write him the way I do. It's very easy to slip into his pointy brass shoes for me (not as easy as Yuffie, but still easy). I always figured he would be extremely calculating, stoic, with a quick temper that was even more quickly covered up each time he lost it. He's very complex, I think, and sometimes I don't feel like I'm even scratching the surface with him, but it's interesting to try. Plus, he makes SUCH a great unfortunate bystander in Yuffie's antics.
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Post by Moira Rose on Dec 20, 2008 16:27:31 GMT
Thanks Pen!
I've been tryingtryingtrying so very hard to relate to Yuffie since I don't really cast her a glance in the game most of the time (don'tkillme!).
That Yuffentine WILL come out. It will! (lemme go talk to my beta about that)
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Post by VulcanElf on Dec 20, 2008 23:29:44 GMT
Plus, he makes SUCH a great unfortunate bystander in Yuffie's antics. This, right here, is the reason I found myself starting to enjoy Yuffentine when in the beginning I was definitely not a fan of the pairing. And, frankly, Pen was one of the authors who changed my mind. Of course, my own issues writing Yuffie/Vincent interaction are the exact opposite of most people's -- I am very comfortable writing Vincent, but I don't have a handle on Yuffie. I have a really hard time getting inside the heads of people like her.
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Post by La Editor on Dec 21, 2008 0:16:51 GMT
Yuffie is very hard to slip into, but once you get going... man, it's like it just clicks. I'll admit right now I had to read every FFVII story guardian1 wrote to even be able to try. I seriously had to base it off until I could get going on my own.
Vincent isn't very difficult. I always thought he would be hard, but I spent enough time as Yuffie picking away at Vincent that I could slip and turn the tables.
Cloud is portrayed differently by different people, I think. That makes him a little harder for me. I had to figure out how I wanted him to sound by myself, I didn't have anything to really go off of.
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Post by T. Costa on Dec 24, 2008 3:55:43 GMT
I'm having a hard time writing Reeve in my Tifa/Reeve. I want to do some stuff from his perspective but I find it's difficult to slip into his voice; Tifa, while interesting, is easier to get the hang of, perhaps because she's just so generic.
Gnyarrrrr.
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Post by VulcanElf on Dec 24, 2008 4:06:03 GMT
I, on the other hand, think Tifa is hard preciself because she's so generic. The voice I give her isn't necessarily the voice the game-makers had in mind, but it's so hard to tell what the hell they meant for her.
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Post by MysticSpiritus on Dec 24, 2008 4:12:43 GMT
Not Reeve, oh no! Hm, I like to think of our fav commissioner as a gentle smart*ss. He worked for Shinra for quite awhile, so he's got to have some snark to him. He's not super-duper professional like Tseng or arrogant like Rufus, but he's not all "quit talkin' you're making me sober" like Reno. Honestly, I lack a correct adjective for Reno. But yeah, Reeve is somewhat in the middle. Hopefully, that helps some? Cid has been really difficult for me. I can't seem to get his gruff yet kindhearted personality going. I've been desperate to write a Cid/Shera, but Mr. Highwind is leaving me all high and dry with a mental block. Tasha? I may need your help with him!
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Post by Jeanneandheralters on Dec 24, 2008 15:00:35 GMT
The only adjective for Reno is Reno. In my opinion of course.
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Post by T. Costa on Dec 24, 2008 16:46:12 GMT
I know how I view Reeve, it's just so hard to think of what he'd do in certain situations, precisely because you come into contact with him for a grand total of like one or two hours throughout all of canon. You can't infer much from Cait Sith because he has a distinctly separate personality. It's really annoying.
I really do have a hard time with Cid, although I can generally give him some pretty good one-liners. Best one-liner I ever read for Cid was in "Guilt by Association" by Pen. Pen knows what I'm talkin' about, I bet. XD
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Post by Pen Against Sword on Dec 24, 2008 19:32:10 GMT
I really do have a hard time with Cid, although I can generally give him some pretty good one-liners. Best one-liner I ever read for Cid was in "Guilt by Association" by Pen. Pen knows what I'm talkin' about, I bet. XD Would it be this one? “I didn’t come all the way up here to see you in a threesome with the brat and some random-*ss hobo, Vince. That’s some gay sh*t, and I—” “Cid. Please.” Have I mentioned how much I love to write Cid? He goes through life like a verbal and emotional bull in a china shop.
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Post by La Editor on Dec 24, 2008 22:43:05 GMT
Man, Pen, that line had me in pieces. I was howling the first time I read it!
I'll admit, one of my favorite fanfic Cid lines (from Nagia) has to be:
"That's m' girl, thief 'n a liar!" - Cid, on Yuffie
I just love it because she uses it throughout many of her stories. That line has made me laugh myself dead and cry myself out.
@vulcan: exact same problem. The section of my novelization with Tifa was terrible because I didn't want her to sound boring, but not amazingly strong and awesome and beyond everything etc. I'm still too much of a chicken to go back and see what I wrote during November.
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Post by T. Costa on Dec 25, 2008 0:18:19 GMT
Yes, Pen, that is exactly the one. I love it!
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Post by VulcanElf on Dec 25, 2008 2:40:21 GMT
Writing Cid is awesome. He just says and does what he feels without all the hangups that most people have to worry about. And he absolutely has the potential for the best dialogue ever.
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