Hello world!

[curuchamion]

I'm bored. I am extremely bored. I want something new to read - and by "new" I mean "not just another riff on the same old characters and situations I've read before".

So, pretty pretty please, can you rec me things, flist? Your writing or somebody else's, I don't care... but rec me a fic from a fandom I don't read! Or a new-to-me book or book series - my local library probably has it if it isn't online. Or, heck - introduce me to a whole new fandom! I don't really feel like watching movies at the moment, but if you convince me something is awesome enough I might.



General likes and dislikes:

I like friendship stories, adventure stories, mystery stories, stories written for children/teens, teamwork, WWII settings, sailing ships, heroic people, smart people, funny people, loyal people, Scottish people, and people who can act. Also anything written by someone geeking out about something they love - that's always fascinating.

I don't like RPF, slash, excessive shippiness, excessive magic, snark about religion, protagonists who are rude, stupid, evil, mean, or otherwise dislikable, or books that purport to feature knitting or home repair (I nitpick them too much).

Bored of:

* Doctor Who - I'm sorry, but I'm just really not interested right now.
* Stargate SG-1 - My mom won't let me watch it (I have this stupid knack of answering honestly and thoroughly the question "Is there anything objectionable in it?"), so I'm not reading any more till I leave home, it just makes me cranky.
* MacGyver - Frankly, the fun is in the visuals. No offence?

Know the canon but don't read the fic:

* Tolkien - I kind of wish I did, because some of the awesomest people I know are LOTR writers, but I just can't do it.
* Bonanza - I simply have no interest in reading Bonanza fic. There's enough show canon to keep me happy for my lifetime.
* Hogan's Heroes - What I've seen of the fic tends to be extremely Srs Bisness, with much whumpage. Besides, I watch HH for the acting.
* Sherlock Holmes - The thought of Holmes/Watson slash makes me unexpectedly grumpy and militant about asexuality!fail. I don't really like myself when I'm militant, so I don't care to poke through Holmes archives reading summaries.
* Discworld - Okay, I've only read the Guards series (Vimes FTW!), but I don't quite see how fanfic could measure up.
* X-Men - I think I've read basically every comic Chris Claremont has ever written with Wolverine in. Several times. And I'm too picky about characterization to wade through the fic.
* NCIS - The proportion of Duckyfic is so small, why bother?
* Agatha Christie - I'm not fond enough of the canon to want to bother with fic, for the most part.

Tried the canon, didn't like it (not sorted by whether there is fic):

* Mission: Impossible - it stresses me out for some reason.
* The Brady Bunch - just can't stand it.
* Lost in Space - same.
* DC superhero comics - tend to be stupid. I'd read the Dave Cockrum run of "Legion of Super-Heroes" if it were available, though.
* Spider-Man comics - he's a jerk. '90s!Venom is my favorite character, for cryin' out loud!
* Wild Wild West - it just didn't click with me.
* Captain America - I love the concept and some things about the character, but the way he's written is all over the map!
* Georgette Heyer - I liked "The Unknown Ajax", but most of the others I've tried bored me.

I've read all the genfic:

* Sapphire and Steel
* Man from UNCLE
* Swallows and Amazons
* Legend (MOAR PLZ!)
* Star Wars - I've read all the official fic related to the Luke trilogy up to the point where Chewbacca gets killed. After that, I don't care anymore. And I'm not really interested in non-official fic.

There isn't any fic:

* Gilligan's Island
* The Three Investigators. Well, there's official books not by the original author, but they're no good.
* Andre Norton's "Solar Queen" series
* Agatha Christie's Tommy and Tuppence stories (the exception to my cordial dislike of Agatha Christie)

Things I keep meaning to watch:

* The Lion King (everyone's always shocked that I haven't seen it)
* Star Trek: The Next Generation (the pilot has DeForest Kelley and John de Lancie in it, so it shouldn't be too hard to persuade me to give it a shot)
* Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (eponymous_rose keeps going on about it)
* Three Bites of the Apple (that's research for a fic)
* the TV episode where DMc is a confused baby Time Lord (I've forgotten the name, and it has also morphed into research for a fic)
* all the Doctor Who I haven't seen (except as previously noted I'm bored of storylines I already know about)
* The Dark Knight (I liked Batman Begins, but people tell me TDK is scarier)

I'm sure there's lots of other stuff I've forgotten or never heard of, too. Surprise me! ;-)



Or alternatively, suggest cures for writer's block. I know there are stories you guys want me to finish - the Who/X-Men piece for clocketpatch, the MFU/MacGyver piece for lolmac Beth, the Cartoon Adventures of togsos and Curuchamion... primsong wants Three!fic and eponymous_rose wants Legend!fic - and I can't seem to write ANYTHING! I have ideas, I have outlines and scene descriptions, I just can't get words!

Comments

[lolmac]

Okay, I confess, I was in a cranky mood when I wrote that. I have read some truly outstanding B7 fic, but I no longer have the energy to dig through the mountains of dreck in which the gems are buried. It's very difficult for American writers to catch the extraordinary spark of the British wit, and I've run out of room for the Fail -- especially when professional writers in the US get it wrong also. (The Avengers movie, the US pilot for Red Dwarf, the Doctor WHo movie . . . )

Also, I'm usually tolerant of slash and in some cases enjoy it as AU, but B7 slash makes me froth at the mouth. *climbs off soapbox*

And hooray!! Someone else which likes Boucher!

Re S1: when I was introduced to the series, I watched a few 'sample' episodes, then settled in to watch the first four in sequence and get the background. It's amazing just how plodding Terry Nation could be, isn't it?

[thisbluespirit]

:lol: No, don't worry. I was amused at myself, because it instantly made me want to write fic, just to be, um, awkward, or something... I haven't found an awful lot of fic yet, but I do like the b7friday because it's all fun. And for a show that never stopped being fun while yet fundamentally bleak, that's very appropriate. :-)

And, I LOVE Chris Boucher's writing! I was interested in B7 a bit, because, well, Who-fan, but after watching CB's 3 DW episodes, I decided I had to get my hands on B7, just so I could have some more Chris Boucher! :-)

I think ep 4 especially... *nods* I recommended it to someone else who gave up at that point, which is a shame, because it picks up after that! But I do like the first couple of eps, with everyone's intro and the weirdness of episode 1, and finding the Liberator, and Avon and Jenna contemplating running away together... :-D

I just like to count the Terry Nation cliches I knew so well from DW: mutations, raditaion, the pretty girl who's the traitor, the mutant who's good, the squidgy things in underground tunnels... And trying to spot the bits where Chris Boucher had to fill in the gaps a lot. :lol:

[lolmac]

Someone else which WHO likes Boucher! ack

I may have to check out the B7Friday comm. I was briefly part of a B7 Rewatch comm, but dropped out when the discussions proved to revolve around reinterpreting every single screen moment through slash goggles, or lauding Nation and dissing Boucher. I learned a lot about good and bad writing, and good and bad acting, from B7 and classic Who, and it just wasn't working for me to interact with folks who apparently couldn't tell the difference. *headwall*

By heaven, you're absolutely right about the Nation clichés . . .

Here's a fun exercise, if you haven't tried it: watch "Genesis of the Daleks", then watch the first B7 episodes. For me, there are scenes in "Genesis" that echo the kind of ideas Nation must have been working with when B7 was in development. (Not the giant killer clams, though.)

[thisbluespirit]

There's occasional slash on the comm - I don't think it's possible to find anywhere Blake/Avon free in this fandom, but it tends mainly to fun Vila-Avon fics, and Avon/Cally, and just generally ficlet-challenge nonsense, so I feel fairly at home there.

I had watched nearly all his DW eps before I ever got near B7, so it amused me to count the cliches as they went - Orac got the highest number in one episode, I seem to recall. (And the clams: squidgy things in tunnels.) Yes, people claim a lot of Genesis was down to Robert Holmes (oh, and David Maloney... B7/DW is so incestuous!), but the Terry Nation cliches are much too evident for it too have been more than tweaking. And the clams - squidgy mutated things in tunnels. See Orac. :-D Actually, to be fair, Terry Nation, can be very, very good - he just seems to stop trying at some points. And he's not Chris Boucher. (I want to find out about Star Cops one day, too. It's a crying shame that he doesn't seem to have written anything for TV since.) Also, the thing is, as editor, there's quite a lot of his snarkage and stuff in some of the Nation episodes, particularly towards the end of S1. (There's definitely one where TN's script must have fallen short, because there's suddenly a random sub-plot that is very reminiscent of one element of Image of the Fendahl. It's the one with Julian Glover, and Gan's chip going mad...)

Um... Let's hope curuchamion doesn't mind us hi-jacking the thread. :-)

[curuchamion.livejournal.com]

'Let's hope curuchamion doesn't mind us hi-jacking the thread.'

See what I said in the original post about listening to people geek out on subjects they love. It's way better than fine. ;-)

[thisbluespirit]

:loL: Oh, good, 'cos I can do that!