dragonbat2006

I can sort of see where the inspiration is coming from. I have a number of OCs who sort of invade every fandom I've loved since I was about 10. And with every fandom, they've grown and changed and fleshed out and become less Sue-ish. Or, at least, I've become aware of when they're upstaging the characters too much. They were Dryads and Naiads when I was into CoN and the D&D cartoon. I played them in AD&D and GURPS and they grew more 3D. I tried writing about them in my teens and there are probably a bunch of old handwritten drafts of various incarnations and settings (present-day, SF, Fantasy... I may have tried some sort of frontier/Little House thing too, but I don't honestly recall and that one was short-lived). Madeleine L'Engle's time quartet helped me name Brandon and Bronwen. Jill Percival/Perkal was a homage to CoN's Jill Pole (although the character certainly changed. I invented her when I was 12!)

They made it into the first fanfic I posted at ff.net and its unfinished sequel. And then I stopped. I didn't need to tell their stories in the Bat-verse. I had Bat characters to work with! Some scenes I'd pictured happening between Bruce and Callie or Callie and Bron ended up playing out just as well between Bruce and Leslie or Bruce and Alfred.

The thing is, I've been playing in a new fandom. And I've been sort of smiling and nodding knowingly as Natalie reaches out to Matt Murdock and starts rhapsodizing over the joy of leaping from building to building when the real me gets nervous about eight feet up. It's fun to let my OCs explore, even if I'm not ready to unleash them.

But something's different this time.

I think it started when I had Matt bring Foggy over to their HQ and one of the team's support personnel casually heads into the gym and starts working out. She's not a costumed hero. Has no intention of becoming one. BUT she is damned if she's going to willingly slip into the 'frequent hostage role'. And while Daredevil and Psion Force go out on patrol, the "backstage crew" spend their time researching leads, inventorying medical supplies, and yes, training. Because the heroes have enough to worry about without having their friends and families targeted.

And that's it. Write a novel that isn't about the costumed hero. Because we've seen and read it all a million times. There ARE fresh approaches to be found but all of mine start with "and their parents got killed and they had supermetamutant powers yadda yadda yadda..." So I guess at this point, it's not in me to write a fresh new superhero that will truly stand out from the others. But is is in me to write about the Foggy Nelsons and the Leslie Thompkinses and the Jim Gordons. Not the sidekicks. The normal, non-costumed people, make that ONE normal non-costumed fifteen-year-old girl named Kerry who is so bloody sick of getting kidnapped, helping her (perhaps not-so) heroic best friend cram for tests while doing group projects herself because the [PNS]HBF was too busy saving the universe to get her part done in time, getting kidnapped again, lying to cover for her [PNS]HBF, getting kidnapped again(!), etc etc. Until she finds out that there is a place where she can go to learn how to fight back and not be a victim, how to be a friend without being an enabler. And if my OCs show up as the "older" generation, the [PNS]HBF's parents and some of the instructors at this "Hogwarts for Muggle friends of Wizards," well... stranger things have happened.

I'm going to post stuff as I write it, but this is still pretty rough. Some of my lj-friends found me through add_a_writer. Here's where I can use some gentle concrit. Eventually, I may post to some non-fanfic comms, but not yet. Still too rough.

I'm not giving up fanfic either. I can't. I'm still in the middle of an epic AU and I don't want to leave Batman hanging! But I'm going to see where this goes too.