Fic Talk > General Discussion
The Writing Thread: Orlando Passaggio (aka The Writing Thread 3)
nicksgal:
--- Quote from: RokofAges75 on June 03, 2021, 10:39:07 PM ---Yes, all very true. I keep a "link graveyard" on my site, mostly just to help myself keep track of those old sites that are no longer online so I can at least access them through the Wayback Machine if I want to reminisce. There are definitely pros and cons to both, and that's why I enjoy cross-posting my stories.
I miss the community too. I enjoy our nightly conversations, but I wish it wasn't just you and me usually LOL.
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I wonder if anyone else utilizes your link graveyard. I've seen a bunch of people recommending it on the fanfic reddit lately, but I feel like it's definitely easier to try to find something that used to be on an Angelfire or Geocities site and not an archive like AO3. Speaking of archiving, if there's anyone out there that misses the 2008 version of PBox and wants to archive it for personal reasons, I still have it and can pass it along to whoever; if you want the 2006 version of the first nine chapters, I don't reliably have access to that anymore, lol.
I also enjoy our nightly conversations. I think we're too long winded for everyone else to catch up and chime in, as opposed to the old days when we were too fast, lol. It's probably a little different if not everyone is consistently writing along with us and I think Tracy works nights a lot when we're here? Did I make that up? Really I'm just able to be here because hubs is either away on work trips or busy watching twelve sporting events at once, lol. I just sit next to him and type away.
--- Quote from: RokofAges75 on June 03, 2021, 10:39:07 PM ---I'm learning so much from you!
The first published novel that came to mind when I made that comment was "The Ruins" by Scott Smith. It's a great horror/survival novel, but once it gets going, it just keeps getting darker and darker and never lightens up. Another one I thought of is Stephen King's "Cujo." That was the first book I read by him, and it's great, but much darker than the movie version. I'm sure there are plenty of other examples, but those were the two I thought of right away.
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I know a lot about a bunch of random stuff! lol Most of it is not useful in my day-to-day life, but you can't bet I am excited to mention these things when they are, lmao.
I haven't read The Ruins, but Cujo definitely fits! Stephen King writes so many dark things, it's great. I need to read some more of his more recent stuff.
--- Quote from: RokofAges75 on June 03, 2021, 10:39:07 PM ---I don't think you need to add specific warnings. Mine are usually pretty generic, just warning readers that a story is going to be depressing or an emotional rollercoaster. I hate spoilers too, so I would never warn about specific things that happen in the story. If people are that easily triggered by sad or scary things, they should probably stick to fluffy romance. But again, it's never been an issue as far as I'm aware. The "Author chose not to use warnings" tag is basically a "Read at your own risk" disclaimer anyway.
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I think I'm letting the posts in the reddit get to me and their opinion seems to be "warn about everything," haha. I figure I haven't fully tagged any of my stories anyway and probably won't do any tagging that would lead anyone genre blind to me, so... Maybe the specific "graphic depictions of violence" in addition to "chose not to warn" has tipped people off that I write dark stuff.
--- Quote from: RokofAges75 on June 03, 2021, 10:39:07 PM ---Well, I forgot to track it as I was writing, but I did go back and look at the actual times it recorded changes in the version history. I was amazingly focused today! I wrote for four hours, and the longest pause I had was 23 minutes long. Besides that one, I didn't have a pause longer than 6 minutes the whole time. And I only watched one YouTube video! I got 1,500 words written, yay! Hoping to write some more tonight, but I haven't gotten back to it yet. I did more grammar checking and editing on SAMS and finished making my minimalistic ebook covers.
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23 minutes is so short! Great job staying focused! I think a six minute pause is totally fine; sometimes you need a screen break. Yay, 1500 words! You were so productive today! I hope you can get back into it too. Glad your fanfic adjacent projects are going well. :)
--- Quote from: RokofAges75 on June 03, 2021, 10:39:07 PM ---Speaking of which, if you want a banner for PNecklace or anything else, I'd be happy to make you one. I've been in the mood the last few days and have run out of my own stories to make them for.
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Aww! I would love it if PNecklace had its own little banner. :) Thanks for the offer! As you know, digital media is not my forte, lol. Should I go on a google image hunt for you or just give an aesthetic?
--- Quote from: RokofAges75 on June 03, 2021, 10:39:07 PM ---I have faith in you that you'll be able to finish five chapters! How did the writing go today?
People come back to check in here every now and then, but I can't remember the last time anyone started writing and posting new stories after being gone as long as you were. Maybe never. It does seem like once people move on from writing fanfic, they move on forever. Sometimes to other kinds of writing, and sometimes to other hobbies and real life stuff, I guess.
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I got my 600 words in earlier, 2 one hour sessions of 300ish words. I did end up switching arcs and got about 200 more words, but I may be done for the day as I popped back over to see if you replied, lol. I think I need to spend some time mulling over my AJ situation.
I was always an AJ as far as writing goes, may as well be prodigal daughter as well, lol. (I know the allegory is not exact here.) I'd always hoped I would find something to say again at some point, so I'm glad it finally happened. :) Kind of bummed I missed the cruise years though. I guess I technically moved on, but it was more being creatively spent than just not being interested anymore. Glad some other people check in sometimes. Maybe if they see we've been busy, they'll hang out longer.
--- Quote from: RokofAges75 on June 03, 2021, 10:39:07 PM ---Aww! I hate when that happens. My R&J story is missing its epilogue, but I don't think much happened in it. Knowing me, it was probably some cheesy scene in the afterlife because I was a big fan of those as a teenybopper LOL. Mine was actually a sequel to a story in which Nick ruined his liver and needed a transplant and got Justin Timberlake's liver... yeah. And then the R&J-esque sequel was about Nick falling in love with a girl who turned out to be Justin's sister? Which I guess is where the R&J comes in, because Justin was always Nick's arch-enemy in my stories LOL. Anyway, they get into a car accident in the middle of nowhere toward the end of the story, and Nick slowly dies of liver failure after his body rejects Justin's liver because he doesn't have his anti-rejection meds with him. Then the girl remembers she has a bottle of Tylenol or something her purse, and she takes the whole bottle and kills herself out of grief. I wrote some really stupid shit back in the day LOL.
I like your battle of the bands take on it with the happy ending! And Nick climbing into her window like on Clarissa! That is so cute.
I like Baz's R&J better than Gatsby, but I didn't think Gatsby was horrible. My favorite Baz Luhrman movie is Moulin Rouge.
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I think it's an inevitable part of beginning to write fanfic in the era of floppy disks. Cloud storage is much easier for keeping track of everything.
LMAO! Of course the only semi-compatible liver they could find was Justin's and then Nick ended up dating his sister. Aww, sad his liver was what killed him; I'm surprised he forgot his meds for something like that. You know, it's good that we can look back and laugh at our early writings these days.
I feel like for feeling ho-hum about NSYNC at the time, I have written them a lot. I think I once tried to start a Sabrina-esque story where Nick and Justin were brothers, lol! Because I just didn't care for Aaron. I ended up not liking it, so it was good that I got to read Kelly's version several years later and that it didn't include Justin or Aaron, lol.
Battle of the bands felt like a reasonable BSB rivalry. Really, I'm just glad that the other band wasn't NSYNC; I dodged a cliche there for sure, lol!
Moulin Rouge is definitely his superior film! Overall, I enjoy him as a director, so I'll watch just about anything he does.
--- Quote from: RokofAges75 on June 03, 2021, 10:39:07 PM ---LOL Very true - mowing over a body would be a bad idea! Hopefully I'll never have to dispose of one...
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Or at least do the yard work body disposing during the day so you look less suspicious! Seems like that would be better, lol.
nicksgal:
--- Quote from: RokofAges75 on June 03, 2021, 11:03:01 PM ---I'm glad you were able to finish, even if it was down to the wire. Is AJ's powerup important to the rest of the plot? Does he need to have it now, or is it something you could foreshadow now and have him develop later? (Though I'm not sure when, if you only have five more chapters... maybe in the next story? LOL) You probably don't want him to come across as some kind of Chosen One who has all these extra powers no one knew about right when he needs them, so if there's not a way to foreshadow it, maybe you should try to come up with something else. Lucky AJ, staying out of the drama LOL.
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He probably doesn't need to do it now, it just sounded cool. He's done portions of it before (mostly as a joke), but I thought it could be interesting if it had a more practical application. You're right, it would need to be in the next story. The timeline to add it is just too short. Although, I suppose I technically have about twenty unposted chapters where I could go back and add it in if I really wanted it to happen here in the end.
Obviously AJ can't be the Chosen One, Nick is the Chosen One! I'm kidding, lol. Nick struggles so hard all the time, does his best, and gets excited and unfocused when things go his way. AJ is lucky! Why am I being so nice to him and so hard on everyone else? Hmmm... Your days are numbered, AJ!
--- Quote from: RokofAges75 on June 03, 2021, 11:03:01 PM ---I checked my stats on AO3 today too and noticed that, after my novels, the short story that has the most hits is the stupid sci-fi/slash/m-preg I wrote for an April Fool's challenge here. It doesn't have any comments and only kudos, but it has that damn Nick/Brian tag, so people clicked on it. So if you want to improve your stats, have Nick and Brian kiss and slap a slash tag on it LOL.
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I think that's more the slash and m-preg than the sci-fi aspect of it, lol. What was the April Fool's challenge, write a genre totally opposite of your typical work? Okay, but PBox&Co is very much Nick&Brian, not Nick/Brian, even though Brian likes to tease. I just can't lie to people like that for accolades, lol.
--- Quote from: RokofAges75 on June 03, 2021, 11:03:01 PM ---Ugh, I know. And of course they found an oil leak, so now I have to take it back next week to get that fixed. There's always something, which is why I hate taking it in. I usually go over my mileage and the recommended number of months, and nothing bad has happened... except apparently a leak? LOL But I don't know if there's any correlation there.
Adulting sucks. I did absolutely nothing productive today in the real world except dishes, and it was glorious!
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Oh no! Sorry your oil is leaking; that can get pretty scary. Glad it's good otherwise though. I drove my last car with a slowly dying transmission for about a year to a year and a half, so... I get it. It wasn't worth replacing the transmission though since it was a Saturn older than Millennium, lol.
Jealous. I went to work and did the dishes, lol.
--- Quote from: RokofAges75 on June 03, 2021, 11:03:01 PM ---I'm not sure about the popularity of e-readers. I've learned to like reading that way because it's easier to lie in bed and read in the dark than with a paper book. But I currently don't have a working Kindle, so I have to read on my phone. It's okay, but I prefer having a bigger screen. So I think there's still a place for e-readers for those who don't need a physical book.
I do think it's easier to find mistakes when I'm reading that way, maybe because fewer words fit on the screen so it's easier to focus on what's there instead of skimming? I obviously didn't catch them all that way though because Google keeps finding more LOL.
It's not hard to make the actual ebooks. I downloaded a free program called Calibre that does it. It's just a matter of converting a doc to PDF and uploading it; then Caliber can convert it into different ebook formats that work for Kindle, Nook, etc. The most time-consuming part was making a cover for each one, but like I said, I actually enjoy doing that, so it was fun.
I am way too materialistic to be minimalistic LOL. My aesthetic is more colorful and cluttered. But it's organized clutter.
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That's a good point, it's like a cross between a phone and a book, and not quite as heavy as a tablet. I just like the way real books smell... but I also haven't read anything in a while.
That makes sense that it would be easier to catch with fewer things to focus on. Sorry Google keeps finding more though.
Oh, I'm glad there's a program! I was curious how you were using your website skills and digital savvy to convert files. Does it require you to have a cover or do you just like adding one in?
Same! All of that the same for sure. Case in point, I wore lobster print shorts today, lol.
nicksgal:
--- Quote from: RokofAges75 on June 03, 2021, 11:15:51 PM ---LOL No, and all the ones she has come up with were for jokes, either joke stories or jokes here on the forum. But she does come up with some great ones!
I've seen several mentions of "Ebony Dark'ness Dementia Raven Way" on Reddit, and I thought it was just a joke, like the most Mary Sue fanficcy name ever, but apparently that is the name of the real main character from an infamous Harry Potter fic called "My Immortal." I had seen references to this story before, but never looked it up, so I finally did... OMG, it's so bad you can't tell if it's real or satire.
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I feel like it's almost harder to take a joke and run with it sometimes, so I always appreciate Mare's thought in her jokes. If anything, the backstories of these fanfictiony Mary Sues are better than their names.
Yeah, it's wild, right?! I didn't read too much into it, but it's all over TV Tropes too (and as you know, I love TV Tropes) and curiosity got the better of me a long while ago. Is it still updating or is it finally finished and/or abandoned?
--- Quote from: RokofAges75 on June 03, 2021, 11:15:51 PM ---I think Nastassia the vampire was literally from Transylvania LOL, so I wanted to give her an Eastern-European sounding name. It means "resurrection," so it worked for an undead character.
Ashalyn and Elyssa aren't too bad, but they are more teenybopperish than the typical name I would pick out. It's the Ys LOL. And the E instead of A in Elyssa. I had read another fanfic with a character who spelled it that way and thought it was cool.
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So Eastern-European, so meaningful. My other OF story I've worked on for a while, I went all in on meaningful names for the characters. The rival was definitely named Damon (for its "demon" meaning) and I had a character that came out of a coma and used light powers named "Uriel," so... I was team baby name book for a very long time, lol. Somehow, this never really translated over to my fanfic writing though. I just picked normal sounding names that I liked.
I feel like the 90's were when weird spellings of typical names started, so to me it's more just 90's aesthetic than teenybopperish . Those Ys in the 90's! lol
--- Quote from: RokofAges75 on June 03, 2021, 11:15:51 PM ---Absolutely - nothing wrong with Nikki/Nicole until she ends up in a BSB fic and falls in love with Nick LOL. Same with the other gender-swapped names. There were a lot of Briannas and variations of Alexandra/Ali back in the day too. Poor Howie and Kevin... they don't even have Mary Sues named after them!
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And Brian falls in love with her too because Brianna is uninteresting, then they have this weird love triangle only for Brian and Nick to realize that they didn't love Nikki/Nicole at all, but each other! And then Nick realizes that dating someone with the same name as him would be weird. lol!
And now I have yet another idea for my comedy story. For sure naming the girl in the romance subplot Nikki or Nicole now, lol.
I know! I tried so hard to come up with a genderswap that made sense and I just couldn't come up with anything and just added feminine suffixes, lol! It just wasn't the same when Nick was with Nikki/Nicole and Howie was with a Hailey or a Hannah just because it started with an H.
--- Quote from: RokofAges75 on June 03, 2021, 11:15:51 PM ---LOL I always loved Praline too. I'm glad it made you laugh! They were all fanfictiony in different ways - some for being overused in our fandom, others for just being weird and/or spelled weirdly.
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Ali for the AJ thing, but I don't think Taylor is that teenybopperish . I guess ladies with masculine names are more of a thing now.
RokofAges75:
--- Quote from: nicksgal on June 03, 2021, 11:28:25 PM ---I wonder if anyone else utilizes your link graveyard. I've seen a bunch of people recommending it on the fanfic reddit lately, but I feel like it's definitely easier to try to find something that used to be on an Angelfire or Geocities site and not an archive like AO3. Speaking of archiving, if there's anyone out there that misses the 2008 version of PBox and wants to archive it for personal reasons, I still have it and can pass it along to whoever; if you want the 2006 version of the first nine chapters, I don't reliably have access to that anymore, lol.
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I have no idea. Even having a links page seems obsolete at this point because there aren't many sites outside of the archive site that update anymore. But there are still plenty of preserved websites with good, albeit old stories on them. It would be hard to look for a specific story on one of the archives if you didn't know the title or author. But then, I guess that would be hard to look for anyway.
Have you ever thought about making a website for the Pbox series and your other stories? There's a fanfic project idea for you LOL. It's not necessary, but it might be fun to have a place of your own to post not only the stories, but all the behind the scenes kind of stuff you talk about in your update posts here.
--- Quote from: nicksgal on June 03, 2021, 11:28:25 PM ---I also enjoy our nightly conversations. I think we're too long winded for everyone else to catch up and chime in, as opposed to the old days when we were too fast, lol. It's probably a little different if not everyone is consistently writing along with us and I think Tracy works nights a lot when we're here? Did I make that up? Really I'm just able to be here because hubs is either away on work trips or busy watching twelve sporting events at once, lol. I just sit next to him and type away.
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Yeah, I do think we're hard to keep up with, and people that aren't writing or reading anymore probably don't care about most of what we discuss LOL. Tracy does work a lot of night shifts, but she's more active on Twitter anyway. We are way too long-winded to have discussions on Twitter! LOL
--- Quote from: nicksgal on June 03, 2021, 11:28:25 PM ---I haven't read The Ruins, but Cujo definitely fits! Stephen King writes so many dark things, it's great. I need to read some more of his more recent stuff.
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If you like survival kind of horror, definitely check out The Ruins. It's a pretty quick read because it's such a page-turner. It's about a group of college kids who go off the beaten track to visit some ancient Mayan ruins while they're on vacation in Mexico, and things go horribly wrong. I reread it last summer for inspiration while I was writing Bethlehem because I got one of my ideas from that book, but it's much darker than Bethlehem. There's also a movie version that I actually saw before I knew it was a book, and that is good too. The author of the book actually wrote the screenplay, so the basic plot is the same, but he purposely switched things up to keep you guessing.
I haven't read any of SK's super recent books, but if you haven't read 11/22/63, that is one of my favorites! I recommend it to everyone because it's not even a horror story, so I think even people who don't like King's usual books would like it. Do you have a favorite of his older books?
--- Quote from: nicksgal on June 03, 2021, 11:28:25 PM ---I think I'm letting the posts in the reddit get to me and their opinion seems to be "warn about everything," haha. I figure I haven't fully tagged any of my stories anyway and probably won't do any tagging that would lead anyone genre blind to me, so... Maybe the specific "graphic depictions of violence" in addition to "chose not to warn" has tipped people off that I write dark stuff.
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I have noticed that too. I wonder if that's a generational difference. There's so much more talk about mental health and trauma and "triggers" these days than there was when we were growing up, so teens today are probably more conscious of that stuff. I get it to some extent, but at the same time, it's just fiction. And it does take away from the experience if everything gets an advance warning. I live for those shocking moments, both as a reader experiencing them for the first time and a writer creating them. But it seems like the majority of readers these days prefer dark stuff, whether it's kink or angst or full-on horror. Like I've said, I have posted stuff that made me squirm, and my readers seemed to enjoy it. If it was ever too much for any of them, they never mentioned it.
--- Quote from: nicksgal on June 03, 2021, 11:28:25 PM ---Aww! I would love it if PNecklace had its own little banner. :) Thanks for the offer! As you know, digital media is not my forte, lol. Should I go on a google image hunt for you or just give an aesthetic?
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LOL I am much more artistic on the computer than I'm capable of being on paper, so it's a trade off. If you have something specific in mind, definitely go Google image hunt! Otherwise, a description of the aesthetic you want will work. If you have a preference of what kind of color scheme, font style, etc. you want, let me know.
--- Quote from: nicksgal on June 03, 2021, 11:28:25 PM ---Kind of bummed I missed the cruise years though. I guess I technically moved on, but it was more being creatively spent than just not being interested anymore. Glad some other people check in sometimes. Maybe if they see we've been busy, they'll hang out longer.
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I hope there will be more cruise years! I haven't been able to go on one since 2014, and I miss them.
It seems like new albums tend to re-inspire people and bring them back, so maybe the Christmas album will help.
--- Quote from: nicksgal on June 03, 2021, 11:28:25 PM ---LMAO! Of course the only semi-compatible liver they could find was Justin's and then Nick ended up dating his sister. Aww, sad his liver was what killed him; I'm surprised he forgot his meds for something like that. You know, it's good that we can look back and laugh at our early writings these days.
I feel like for feeling ho-hum about NSYNC at the time, I have written them a lot. I think I once tried to start a Sabrina-esque story where Nick and Justin were brothers, lol! Because I just didn't care for Aaron. I ended up not liking it, so it was good that I got to read Kelly's version several years later and that it didn't include Justin or Aaron, lol.
Battle of the bands felt like a reasonable BSB rivalry. Really, I'm just glad that the other band wasn't NSYNC; I dodged a cliche there for sure, lol!
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LOL What are the chances? Yeah, the whole thing was so convoluted! It only took like four days without meds for him to die, which I'm not sure is the most realistic. This was before I did any serious research; I just took whatever tidbits I did know and ran with them LOL.
I'm impressed you didn't use NSYNC for the battle of the bands! I included them in quite a few of my old stories too, always as villains or being made fun of.
RokofAges75:
--- Quote from: nicksgal on June 03, 2021, 11:51:55 PM ---I think that's more the slash and m-preg than the sci-fi aspect of it, lol. What was the April Fool's challenge, write a genre totally opposite of your typical work? Okay, but PBox&Co is very much Nick&Brian, not Nick/Brian, even though Brian likes to tease. I just can't lie to people like that for accolades, lol.
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Yeah, it was the 2008 April challenge here: http://absolutechaos.net/fictalk/index.php/topic,1036.0.html We had to write something totally different from what we would normally write under a pen name and then try to guess who wrote what. It was really fun! That is hands down the worst story I have posted on AO3 though. It is definitely the slash that gets people to click, not the sci-fi.
I'm not saying lie; I'm just saying maybe there's room for them to become more than friends in the end? I'm just kidding LOL.
--- Quote from: nicksgal on June 03, 2021, 11:51:55 PM ---Oh, I'm glad there's a program! I was curious how you were using your website skills and digital savvy to convert files. Does it require you to have a cover or do you just like adding one in?
Same! All of that the same for sure. Case in point, I wore lobster print shorts today, lol.
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Yep, it was pretty easy once I figured it out. You don't have to add a cover, but I like to because then it looks like a real book on Kindle.
Lobster shorts! Love it!
--- Quote from: nicksgal on June 04, 2021, 12:08:04 AM ---Yeah, it's wild, right?! I didn't read too much into it, but it's all over TV Tropes too (and as you know, I love TV Tropes) and curiosity got the better of me a long while ago. Is it still updating or is it finally finished and/or abandoned?
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I think it was finished, but taken down. It's been reposted by other people, which is how I found it on ff.net. There's a Wikipedia page about it if you want to read the whole history. I skimmed it earlier. It's interesting because no one knows for sure who actually wrote it and what their intent was. Some author who's writing a memoir took credit for it and said it was satire, but it's not confirmed that she was telling the truth - people have questioned some inconsistencie s.
--- Quote from: nicksgal on June 04, 2021, 12:08:04 AM ---So Eastern-European, so meaningful. My other OF story I've worked on for a while, I went all in on meaningful names for the characters. The rival was definitely named Damon (for its "demon" meaning) and I had a character that came out of a coma and used light powers named "Uriel," so... I was team baby name book for a very long time, lol. Somehow, this never really translated over to my fanfic writing though. I just picked normal sounding names that I liked.
I feel like the 90's were when weird spellings of typical names started, so to me it's more just 90's aesthetic than teenybopperish . Those Ys in the 90's! lol
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I love baby name sites too! I sometimes tried to go for meaningful names, and sometimes I just used them to find names I liked or that fit the character.
Very true about the 90s names!
--- Quote from: nicksgal on June 04, 2021, 12:08:04 AM ---And Brian falls in love with her too because Brianna is uninteresting, then they have this weird love triangle only for Brian and Nick to realize that they didn't love Nikki/Nicole at all, but each other! And then Nick realizes that dating someone with the same name as him would be weird. lol!
And now I have yet another idea for my comedy story. For sure naming the girl in the romance subplot Nikki or Nicole now, lol.
I know! I tried so hard to come up with a genderswap that made sense and I just couldn't come up with anything and just added feminine suffixes, lol! It just wasn't the same when Nick was with Nikki/Nicole and Howie was with a Hailey or a Hannah just because it started with an H.
Ali for the AJ thing, but I don't think Taylor is that teenybopperish . I guess ladies with masculine names are more of a thing now.
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LOL Yes! That is one thing I don't think I ever got far enough to include in Not Another Teenybopper Story - a slash storyline!
I think Taylor just seemed like an overused teeny name to me at the time. I guess that's when masculine names for girls were becoming really trendy.
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