Nationality: Puertorican

Sex: Male

Favorite Anime/Comics/movies/Genre's:

Naruto, Nausicaa and the Valley of the Wind, Megas XLR, Batman (Beyond), Justice League, Spawn, Pirates of the Caribbean, Lord of the Rings, Mass Effect, Star Wars, Hellsing, Dragon Age, Warhammer 40,000, Gargoyles, Fate/Stay Night, A song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones.

Favorite quotes:

"A plea of Innocence is guilty of wasting my time"

"Life is but a dream...we just have to be bold and live it."

"I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ."

"Is God willing to prevent evil but not able?

Then he is not Omnipotent

Is he able but not willing?

Then he is malevolent.

Is he able and willing?

Then from whence cometh evil?

Is he neither able nor willing?

Then why call him god?"

"The definition of Philosophy, is to have questions without answers.

The definition of religion, is to have answers without question."

"War does not determine who is right, only who is left."

"We must become the change we want to see."

"Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful"

"It may be necessary temporarily to accept a lesser evil, but one must never label a necessary evil as good."

"Beat your thoughts to the mold of your will"

"Man is least himself when he speaks in his own image.

Grant him a mask and he will tell you the truth."

"Greatness is never appreciated in youth, called pride in midlife, dismissed in old age and reconsidered in death. It is because we cannot tolerate greatness in our midst we do all that we can to destroy it."

"It is only when you fall, that you learn whether or not you can fly"

-0-

The top 3 common mistakes (From least story breaking to most) we see in all Fanfiction no matter the genre:

(Since, evidently the meaning of the word Mistake is unclear to some people here's two questions and their subsequent answers.)

1) LD, have you ever done any of these things?

I do believe I have good sir.

2) Why did you do it?

Well you see, I seem to suffer from this rare condition. Unlike most people, I actually have to learn things or become aware of the mistake before I can either apply what I've learned or correct said mistake.

Entirely my fault really.

1) Character Microphone Syndrome:

This has a tendency to occur with a lot of people that start out and even a few vets who just don't realize that they're doing it because no one's called them out on it.

Namely, every character sounds exactly the same.

Why?

Because they all sound like the author who's using the characters like a microphone piece rather than trying to make the characters sound like what they are.

The most common occurrence is that the author makes them sound far too eloquent. Quite possibly because the author wants to put his best foot forward and try to make the story seem good/impressive by using fancy wording. By doing this we have characters like Ork berserkers, common idiots and children (to name a few) speaking like they've taken English majors in college or like they're rehersing for a modern play.

For example rather than a layman/impatient character saying "Yeah, that's really not my problem." He ends up saying something like "That isn't a concern or a priority right now."

This is the most common mistake that is seen *all the time* so its, by necessity the easiest one to look over

2) The character acting completely different from cannon:

Now, this we see alot in many genres, but its particularly vicious in genre's like Harry Potter and Naruto where the main character "doesn't live up to the hype"

We constantly see Harry or Naruto in some authors versions turn into someone completely different. And normally these changes can be summed up thus. "Colder, More Powerful, Aloof or Stoic."

And...not much different.

By and large I know that a good chunk, if not most of the readers and writers of FF are in their early/mid teens and this is the definition of cool at that age and Naruto jumping around with a constant smile, or Harry constantly failing at everything that doesn't involve a heavy dose of plot armor isn't exactly qualities in the vision most people that age have of the hero, but to be honest, its goddamn boring. Some people might say I don't have much of a leg to stand on here since I was guilty of this in my youth and blatantly did it with my story, Lost Soul as well while they're right on the first notion for Lost Soul, the primary difference between it and others that do it is simple:

The plot *requires* it.

There's a difference between a plot who's entire premise is based on the "what if" XYZ aspect of XYZ chracter's persona was vastly different; those differences creating the changes and events that drive the plot forward, to something like say: What if Naruto/Harry were blind at birth.

The premise is them being blind, which causes the changes in the story, not the character personality change itself. The personality change is an after-thought, not the driving point home.

"Colder, More Powerful, aloof and/or Stoic" Is the laziest type of character writing one can do. Anyone can make a character stand around and look like a brick for the better part of X amount of chapters, or have him curb stomp the competition by simply having the bigger guns. Can these characters work and do they have a solid place and necessity in stories? Absolutely, diversity is always important, but that's the key *Diversity* seeing a different cut of a peperoni pizza, means I'm *still* looking at a peperoni pizza, no matter how fancy you cut it. It will always boil down to bread, cheese and peperoni.

Sometimes, a very few times, I've noticed that this is actually necessary, as in "cannot do without" or "Must have" in order for the plot to work. And in those rare cases where the plot actually requires, or is entirely based on/dependent ofthe drastic change because its simply the lynch-pin of the whole premise/domino effect it can get a pass. But even then, I find it'll always be far more interesting, entertaining and memorable to see a story that breaks out of the tired cliches.

And this isn't limited to main characters. Often times people make supporting characters act completely off kitler to make the main character stand out more.This comes off as shoddy, lazy and just screams incompetence.

If you have to make everyone around the main character an idiot just to make the main character seem smart, here's a hint *You're doing it wrong*

Or worse, decide they're going to make a pairing and change that character top to bottom.

If you're gonna do that, just make an OC...

For example someone decides to take a younger character and set them up with an older character. Fine.

Then...they go and make the older character the same age...

Again...why not make an OC?

Seriously if you're going to go for a pairing go after the pairing, don't cherry pick "This part I like, This part I don't like This part I'll keep this I'll do away with. That's not how any relationship works, ever...anywhere.

Its the whole package or nothing. If you're going to change the person have it be because of the relationship. Say they stop smoking or drinking or do things they wouldn't normally do to please their better half and so on.

Make characters who they *are* or make your own characters, that way you can do whatever you want and no one will accuse you of making them OOC.

3) Bashing:

We all have those characters we can't stand in any show. Like Skylar White, Sasuke Uchiha, that blond kid with the wierd name from Harry Potter, or Harry's foster family.

Does that mean it makes good storytelling to turn every other paragraph into ripping them a new one and blaming every problem under the sun on their very existence?

Fuck. No.

Bashing is the one thing that can turn every story, no matter how good, into crap. It just speaks of a pettiness on the part of the author and usually goes hand in hand with the previous two errors in some shape or form.

Its shoddy, its not well thought out and ultimately turns half the story into a bitchfit from the author heaping every ounce of vitirol, blame and whatever else you can think of, from the author onto a certain character and feels more often than not like some strange form of projection that the author is unknowingly doing onto XYZ character for real life problems. Thus half the time I can't help but feel like I should be shaking my head at the annoying gnat that strangely sounds like a very whiny voice complaining about how unfair the world is whenever I try to get through a paragraph.

EXTRA:

Woe is me:

Another issue I see in alot of fics is the "woe is me" syndrome, in other words, the Protagonist's life is complete crap, blown horribly out of proportion. This, I chalk up to teenage angst.

In short, making out the protagonists' life to be complete crap isn't interesting, it isn't new or 'edgy' it just degenerates into a bitching fest on how unfair life is, or worse, a pity party.

In summation, SOME angst and 'bad patches' is ok. But constantly shoving it in the readers faces, gets old *fast*

-0-