Briefly...

[selenak]

So, I hear BSG cornered some Saturn nominations, including both James' (Bamber and Callis) for best supporting actor, and Katee Sackhoff for best supporting actress. I'd show my partiality and root for Callis (and not just because I think the writing for Baltar has been better than the writing for Lee this season), except they're running against Terry Quinn as Locke in Lost, and I'm sorry, but based solely on the first season which I've seen, he totally deserves to win. It's galling enough Ron Rifkin never got nominated in all the years for the fabulous stuff he did as Sloane on Alias; very gratifying that at least his spiritual cousin over on that other J.J. show has been recognized.

Meanwhile, I've watched Where The Truth Lies, which is a well-done neo noir, with not one but two period settings; the Fifties, when the murder in question takes place, and the Seventies, when our main narrator tries to solve it. It's based on a novel which I haven't read, so I can't say how faithful an adaption it is, but Kevin Bacon and Colin Firth are great as the two comedians whose double act in the 50s ends with the discovery of a nude dead woman in their hotel suite. Their 70s incarnations as seedy self-loathing has-beens are particularly striking. Alison Lohman as former fan, reporter and mystery solver is pale in comparison, but she holds her own in the two quiet, touching scenes her character has with the dead girl's mother, which brings in an element rarely found in noirs, the grieving family of the murder victim. (Unless the family members are suspects, of course, but that isn't the case here.) If I have any complaint, then that the identity of the killer is a bit of a punchline.

And while we're talking complaints: found an excellent rant by Kita about one of my pet peeves in any fandom regarding a certain kind of feedback for fanfiction.

Comments

[watervole.livejournal.com]

For what it's worth, I suspect you could write a Connor story I really liked if they were less tightly linked into canon. One needs to know the series so well to understand them that one watching is not enough. (I don't have Angel on tape or DVD, so I'm reliant of my memory of seeing it on TV several years ago.)

I'd like to see a Connor story that was a stand-alone. It would still need to have some canonical links (otherwise you lose his connections with the world around him, and they are an important part of what he is), but I'd like to see a new story, not new insights into an old story.

(in other words, if you write a story about one of my least favourite characters that doesn't require me to know the series really really well, then I'll read it and probably enjoy it)(Of course, if it has Wesley in, then I'll be even happier, but I don't insist on him.)

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Have you read "Ouroborous" (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/1962559/1/)? It's set after the show, and a Sandman crossover. It also, which is rare for me, has plot as opposed to being just a character vignette. No Wesley, I'm afraid, but there is Lilah.

[watervole.livejournal.com]

IT's well written and poetic as your writing usually is, but it's still very series-linked. I'm missing the identity of the girl with Jasmine and Cordelia, although she has to be someone Connor has killed. I'm also missing part of Lilah's backstory, so her connection with the theme isn't working for me as well as it should.

The Sandman crossover (even though I know very little of the sandman universe) isn't the problem. The trio is a concept that's fairly universal. I think the difficulty I always have is that Connor's concepts are not universal. Or rather, that they are, in the sense that love and guilt and fate are universal, but his need to be understood in context and you always work several of them into each tale. Which is great if you know him well as each aspect of him sheds light on other aspects - which is what I suspect makes you vignettes really effective to anyone who knows the series well.

Such is life. If I ever have enough time, I'll borrow the series and watch it again and hopefully get more out of it this time. (I find that good fic often increases my interest in characters I had less interest in the first time around)

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Ah, yes, if you're missing those bits of information, I can see why it doesn't work that well.

The girl (who never has a name) appears in the episode Inside Out which is the turning point for Connor in the fourth season. It's just after Angel & Co. have discovered, somewhat belatedly, that Cordelia is possessed and have been trying to kill her. Connor (who wasn't told, which is fatal) just saw them trying to kill her, saved her and is on the run with her. Cordelia, highly pregnant, then makes her crucial pitch: she can induce labour, and get her baby born which will change everything and stop Angel & Co. wanting to kill her and their child (this actually happens to be true - one of the several great things about Jasmine as a villain in season 4 is that she usually uses the truth), if Connor brings her a human being to sacrifice. This is the fatal line to cross and the decision he makes in the course of the episode. Said episode also has Darla's ghost appearing, which is great for me because I get my two favourite characters on screen on the same time (see icon), and basically her and Cordelia both trying to convince Connor to listen to them, and ultimately, he breaks down and does drag that girl to her death. (Cordelia is the one who actually wields the axe, but Connor is as culpable.) Then Angel, who has been trying to find them, shows up, but it's too late, the ritual works, Jasmine gets born, and de-possessed Cordelia sinks into her coma. The episode ends with both Angel and Connor kneeling in front of Jasmine.

[watervole.livejournal.com]

Ah, I remember the sacrifice now you describe it. It was indeed where Conner crossed the line.

[wychwood]

...your mood icon is showing me a Photobucket error message...

[artaxastra.livejournal.com]

Yes!

I never know what to do with feedback that says "I don't like the time period you've chosen to write in" or "I hate your main character but...." It's not like I can change time periods! And you know, I probably think my main character is interesting, and that's not one of the things that's going to change.

The other thing that drives me mad is people who say they hate the canon. Because that's sort of what I'm stuck with, right?

[likeadeuce.livejournal.com]

and why READ it if you hate the canon? fandom's a big tent, move on.

ITA with Kita's posts and the comments here -- I haven't run into this THAT much, b/c I tend to focus on a character that OMG EVERYBODY LOVES!!! But there's this other character (call her Mary Sue, most of the fandom does) who I happen to like a lot, and always write sympathetically. Whenever I write fic featuring Mary Sue, inlovewithnight and I try to predict the most outrageous ways in which she will be blamed for everything that goes wrong in the story and/or canon (even if said canon-gripes have precious little to do with the story that I wrote). Somebody almost always comes up with an even weirder interpretation that casts Mary Sue's actions in an even worse light than we predicted.

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Not surprised to hear it, and that's when hatred for poor M.S. has abated somewhat (I thought?).

But yeah, otherwise writing for an audience favourite would make you safe in this regard. I'm trying to think whether I ever wrote in a fandom where I centered on a character everyone loves, and the only thing I can come up with is HL and Methos, because most of my HL fanfics have him in them, but then again, he's never the pov, and in several of them, the focus is more on Cassandra, who was hated like you wouldn't believe (it really rivals anything in the Jossverse) for daring to hate Methos because he raped, brainwashed and enslaved her and murdered her entire tribe back in the day.

[watervole.livejournal.com]

The only sin more unforgivable than writing sympathetically about a character who hates the reader's object of lust (like Cassandra) is to write a female character who is loved *by* the object of lust. I find slash fans can be incredibly hateful to any character who has a canonical attraction to a popular male lead.

Shippers and slashers...

I think I'm one of the rare people who will read/write both ship, slash and gen for charcters I like.

Carter in Stargate gets some really nasty flack from the Jack/Daniel fans. AS Jack loves her canonically, the first thing they have to do is to 'prove' why she is evil/nasty/going to betray him/he only pretends. (Not all of them, I hasten to add, but it certainly happens far too often)

[selenak.livejournal.com]

The only sin more unforgivable than writing sympathetically about a character who hates the reader's object of lust (like Cassandra) is to write a female character who is loved *by* the object of lust. I find slash fans can be incredibly hateful to any character who has a canonical attraction to a popular male lead.

A good thing, too, that neither Avon nor Blake had an ongoing het love interest in the show. (I wonder whether Anna Grant would have fared fare differently in fanfic if she had been around longer...) However, more recently I've been revising my opinion as to whether this is a slash-related phenomenon, because of the explosion of Harry/Hermione-'shippers related fury after the publication of HBP...

[watervole.livejournal.com]

Well, Jenna usually just gets ignored by most Avon/Blake fans, though I did write her deliberately into a couple of stories. If I seriously get into a fandom, I always try and do some good parts for the ignored/overlooked characters. If I was in Classic Trek, I'd probably be writing for Uhura.

I think shippers can hate slashers just as much, (but the virulance isn't usually as strong as the canon tends to back the shippers), but as for the poor copyright holder who dares to write the story she always intended to write...

(I always thought there were hints about Ron and Hermoine going way back, but that's just me.)

[selenak.livejournal.com]

You and me and many other readers, but judging by the uproar, not a loud part of the fandom. Mind, there are also H/Hr 'shippers who did not go the "How dare JKR" route, but as with all quiet people, they sadly weren't heard from nearly as often.

I tend to go for fannish underdogs (i.e. those not beloved by the majority of fandom), hence Connor, Darla and Buffy herself in the Jossverse, as opposed to Wesley, Giles, or Spike, and as for Star Trek in its many incarnations - well, looking at my Trek stories, they mostly feature Quark and Kai Winn, though I also wrote about audience favourites Garak and Bashir...

[likeadeuce.livejournal.com]

I have only peeked at the very edge of HP-fandom (I'm a book fan from way back and at the time I read the first books there basically WAS no fandom -- so I was bewildered to stumble online after reading OotP and discover what had happened, and ran away to hide) -- anyway, I do wonder how many of the H/Hr militants are movie-first fans? Or at least read the books in fairly close proximity to seeing the films.

As for the poor copyright holder, I just ran across some wank in which people were complaining about JKR daring to speak out about her authorial intent, and how this made her an arrogant bully. Hrrrm -- ok?

[likeadeuce.livejournal.com]

when hatred for poor M.S. has abated somewhat (I thought?).

yes and no -- she's attracted more fans, so the negative comments are in the minority, but they negative views are still very vocal (of course, I tried putting her in a triangle with two other characters everybody loves -- emulating canon of course, where she was in the way of AT LEAST three popular 'ships that I can think of off the top of my head).

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Right. Unless you want to write the kind of AU which starts with a long introductory note that says "In my world, Boromir never dies because THAT IS SO SAD, and also, those gross orcs aren't around, plus the Fellowship always stays together, and Gimli is also an elf, and everyone is in High School and Aragorn and Eowyn are dating SO THERE!"

[likeadeuce.livejournal.com]

OMG XANDER NEVER DATED ANYA BECAUSE HE WAS TOTALLY INTO SPIKE THE WHOLE TIME !1!!!!1!! (AND THEY BOTH HATE BUFFY!)

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Exactly.*g*

[ladyaeryn.livejournal.com]

Yes, that sort of feedback drives me batshit. I got a review like that on an Anakin fic I did a while back - all the reviewer said was that he hadn't read my story, because he thought Anakin was a pure asshat, then went on to rant about why Anakin was an asshat and I should have written him that way. Then there was a reader that said a HP ship-centric fic I wrote was squicky because they pictured the movie actors doing what I wrote - which didn't even go beyond cutesy banter. And I just think... I have control over that, how? I've don't have control over what preconceptions you have. I didn't make you hate Anakin or picture Dan and Emma, and I certainly didn't mind-trick you into clicking on my story.

I mean... what on earth are you supposed to do with feedback like that? Well, mock it, I suppose. ;) Which makes me wonder... is there an LJ comm out there where people post stupid feedback they've received? Or is that fanficrants territory?

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Community: I wouldn't know. And Anakin fic seems to invite this kind of feedback - I think I got it for each of my SW stories. (But thankfully also other feedback.) It's maddening. As Kita said, I don't mind so much when it's phrased "X is usually not my cup of tea, but you've made me think", but if it's "I hate..."

*sighs*

[yahtzee63.livejournal.com]

ITA. Anybody who says, "I don't usually get the appeal of Jack/Nadia, but I gave this a chance and enjoyed it" is a delight. OTOH, I've also gotten feedback that said, "OK, Male Character X/Female Character Y makes me want to vomit. But I could read this." Hey, don't knock yourself out to hit "send" on that one, you know?

The "vomit" line is verbatim.

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Okay, that's the worst specimen of this kind of feedback I've heard of. Did you ignore it, or did you reply?

[molly_may]

I read the book Where The Truth Lies a couple of years ago, and enjoyed it quite a lot. I haven't seen the movie yet, but I thought the casting of Bacon and Firth - two actors that I very much like - was interesting because neither of them fit my image of the characters from the book at all.

[selenak.livejournal.com]

That's interesting. They're both unlike the movie personas usually associated with them, and like I said, very good. I didn't even recognize Keven Bacon - though it vaguely occured to me I knew the actor - until the the movie was over! And I have just seen him last year in Mystic River.