lavanya_six | On "Taking Sights"

"Taking Sight" is my biggest fanfic project. As of this posting it totals over 114,000 words in 11 chapters (out of 39 chapters total). But how did it come to be? And why did I make my first fanfic project so fucking long?

Let's rewind to Winter/Spring 2008. I was wasting time on the TV Tropes wiki -- which is what wikis are built for -- when I decided to check out the section on fanfiction. Now I wasn't a big fanfic reader at the time. I used to be, back in the late 90s/early 00s, primarily of Evangelion, Sailor Moon, BGC, and Ranma 1/2... basically, old-school anime stuff. Then my interests changed and I drifted away from fandom, especially after the Evangelion Fanfiction Mailing List (of which I was an occasional contributer under an old handle) went belly up in... 2002? 2003?

I did write some fanfic back then, but it was all short-length, emo (back before people even used the word), and SUPER crappy. What can I say, I was a teenager.

But getting back on track... I was on the TV Tropes wiki when I came across an entry called "Peggy Sue". All me to post a quoted section from that wiki entry.

QUOTE:

Not to be confused with Mary Sue, a Peggy Sue fic gives a character, usually at the end of a story or series, the chance to go back and relive his life with the knowledge he gained from living through his story the first time. This sometimes uses a Death Fic-type setup as a starting point, where one of the things the character intends to do with his knowledge is prevent the death of a loved one.

:UNQUOTE

And under the listing for Evangelion fanfiction was an entry for Crazy-88's "Once More With Feeling". Now I'm not usually a fan of fics that shove a spine into Shinji Ikari, but this one... it has class. It's just good ol' fanfic. And it got me thinking about older fanfics, such as "Higher Learning". All of this together got me thinking about Evangelion and fanfic again... and an idea sparked in my brain:

Everyone writes about the HERO (usually Shinji) going back in time, but what if it was the VILLAIN was the one who traveled back in time? What if Gendo Ikari got Peggy Sued?

I banged out the first chapter to "Taking Sights" that night, as well as a quarter of chapter two. I also wrote snip-its of later chapters, as well as a general outline to the whole story. At the time I didn't know if I'd really be able to continue it, if I'd be able to finish it at all. Now, 100140 words into it, I'm sure I will be able to.

And then? Once the initial excitement/inspiration wore off? I had to get into the hard business of putting ass to chair and typing.

On "Taking Sights" - Part 1/2