No matter what I say

I just finished reading sosoru's John/Dean fic, Black, and, in reading one of her responses to a review, she said something that really resonates with me:

'Original characters would be easier I think, because basically I could have them think anything I wanted, but these characters already have a shape and a form inside other people's heads and it worries me that I couldn't live up to that.'

That is so very true, for me. Granted, it's only half the reason why I love creating and writing original characters (the other half being the vast amount of possibilities). In writing original characters, you don't have to worry about whether your character voice is close enough to pass muster; you don't have to worry about whether or not your interpretation of the character's personality, motivations, emotions, and reactions work with what the creator has set forth in canon because you are the creator, no one knows that character better than you do.

That's why I'm not terribly confident in my writing, except when it's centered on my own characters: I'm so worried that my character voices are off, that people will disagree with how I've interpreted the character. It doesn't stop me from writing the characters, but I'm not as comfortable writing canon characters as I am writing original characters. Example: Wayward Son.

The hardest scene for me to write was Don observing Todd and coming to terms with his own reaction to the evidence set before him about Todd's motivations for murder. I knew Todd's motivations from the start, but Don didn't and my responsibility as a writer was bringing Don around to Todd's point of view and making it believable that he would leave things alone and leave Todd to his happiness. If you ask me now, why Don lets Todd go free, I can tell you right off the bat that part of it is a gesture of forgiveness to Todd, another is a request for forgiveness from Todd, and yet another is wanting to keep his family together and happy. But it took me a while to come to that conclusion and to realize that it was still true to Don as a character.

But with Todd as new OC, I could play around with things, I could make something true to him as a character without worrying about whether it clashes with the creator's vision of him, because it's my vision. Part of the draw of Todd (and really all of my Numb3rs OCs, for that matter), for me, is that he's completely opposite Don and Charlie. In comparison to Don's somewhat rigid morals, Todd seems like he has practically none. In comparison to Charlie's math and analytical mind, Todd focuses on the liberal arts and follows his intuition, but he understands each of them better than they understand each other because he does actually share qualities with them. Despite evidence to the contrary, Todd committed the murders because he has morals, he has a protective instinct towards future victims. His rationalization for killing them is the same as why Don would pursue them until he has all the evidence he needs to lock them away. With Charlie, he understands his need to retreat to something safe, something predictable; granted, for many years, his escape wasn't safe, but it was predictable in spite of the threat to his virtue and sanity. That's why he was so deliriously happy to go to school in Chicago and to find a dojo where he didn't have to worry about being molested or raped, it gave him the sense of security that he needed. I'm sure, if Todd had stayed in LA for college and stayed at the dojo, he would've been dead by the end of the school year. Hell, I'm amazed Todd lasted the five years that he did. Why would he have died then? Because the guys who hurt him would no longer be interested, part of their interest was the illicit thrill of having someone the law said they shouldn't touch, so they would have backed off and taken away the attention Todd so desperately craved and his sanity would have gone along with that attention.

But see, my point is, this is stuff that I can dictate. People could borrow my original characters and play with them, but it would be like playing with Don, Charlie, Alan, Colby, etc. They'd have to follow the 'blueprints' for the characters that I've set down in my stories in order to have the characters they enjoy reading about. Granted, they'd have the added benefit of coming to me and asking my opinion on what the characters' reactions would be in certain situations, but as a fanfic author, I don't have that luxury. I can't email Cheryl Heuton or Eric Kripke and ask how Charlie or Dean would react in a certain situation. I have to take my knowledge of the characters from having watched every single episode of both shows (seriously, I have) and make a guess as to what they would do.

Another example: if Charlie had been in Todd's situation, he probably would have reacted the same way up until the original ped dragged him into the alleyway. In my opinion, Charlie would have accepted the man's demands and left it alone. Dean, on the other hand, in my mind, probably would have reacted similarly to Todd, but, the morals John instilled in him on killing other humans would have prevented him from killing, though I doubt he would've let the man's threats stop him from revealing the truth, because Dean really doesn't care what people outside John and Sam think of him. That's not to say Alan didn't teach Todd killing is wrong, but the man was invading Todd's sense of security, which had been his saving grace in college and during his first year back in LA. That's what tipped him over the edge (although, the guy laughing about liking little boys that fought back didn't help matters). And again, I've strayed from my point. In the scenarios with Charlie and Dean in Todd's place, I can only guess what they would do, but with Todd, there's no guesswork because only I decide what Todd's like.

And this totally ended up longer than I originally intended. I've been sitting here for forty minutes just rambling. But anyway, just thought I'd give you guys some insight into why I love my OCs so much. : ) Night all!