Fannish Things & Thoughts

[vanillalime]

Just an update on where my head is at these days.

1. Oz

Yeah, my love for this show isn’t going away any time soon. I envision myself participating in Oz Magi 2032, even if I have to fulfill my own wish. Heh.

The current Oz drabble tree reminded me that the very first Oz fic I wrote was for a drabble tree, back in February 2013. So this month is my 5-year anniversary of writing Oz fic! In some ways, it’s hard to believe that I’ve been writing in the fandom for that long. But on the other hand, when I go back and look at all the things I’ve written, there’s actually quite a lot there. Which leads me to…

What I really want to do this year is stretch myself and try writing a long fic. (Although I said the same thing last year, too, and the farthest I got was opening a document and giving it a title, LOL.) I’m too chicken to sign up for a big bang, but I’ve been poking around the 1_million_words comm that cmk418 has mentioned, and it might help by giving me the push I need. For a while now, I’ve had three different ideas for a long Oz story, and I’ve pretty much settled on which one I want to write. I have no idea how long it actually might be, but I always seriously underestimate my stories’ lengths (generally, they turn out twice as long as I think they’ll be when I start). So if I’m thinking the story is going to be long (over 10k? 15k maybe?), chances are it’ll be long.

Unfortunately, though, I’m a slooooow writer, and I constantly edit and re-edit (which is absolutely necessary because I’m not good enough to get anything right the first time, or even the first dozen times). In addition, I find it difficult and counter-productive to work on more than one story at a time, and I won’t do WIPs, either. So if I do this, it would likely be the only thing I write this year, and I’m not thrilled about the idea of that, especially if it turns out to be a big fail and I never even finish it.

Wow, it kind of sounds like I’m trying to talk myself out of the whole thing, doesn’t it? :|

Also, oz_daily. *sigh* I don’t want the comm to die, but after nearly 3 years, my LJ scrapbook is at 90% capacity, and I’ve sort of lost my enthusiasm for doing it. The thing that really set me off was Apple’s latest iOS update, which now prohibits me from taking screencaps from HBO (or Amazon or Netflix or whatever), which pisses me off to no end. If I want to take a screencap now, I have to use my old original iPad which is still on an earlier iOS. But that thing is agonizingly slow and doesn’t create very good quality caps. In addition, the traffic here at LJ isn’t what it used to be either, obviously, and at this point I don’t know how many peeps were even seeing the pics I was posting. If I bring it back, I think it’ll just be on a weekly basis, or maybe just do occasional themes, because those were always fun.


2. Homicide: Life on the Street

I got the DVDs for Christmas, and I just finished Season 1. (Yes, I’m the slowest binge-watcher in the world. Actually, I'm not even "binging," I'm just "watching.")

The show’s really good! I particularly love Melissa Leo’s character and, in a surprise, Daniel Baldwin’s. And Ned Beatty, as always, is just a delight. (I’m still not good with the character names.) The highlight was probably the classic "Three Men and Adena" episode, for which Tom Fontana won his third writing Emmy.

I get a little thrill whenever an Ozzie makes an appearance on the show. Lee appeared in five S1 episodes (albeit briefly, in some cases). He seemed so sweet and wholesome and YOUNG (I guess he would’ve been about 27?). I can see why all those casting agents back then wanted to cast him in boy-next-door roles, because he certainly fit the bill:


(credit: leetergesen.com)

Lee was incredibly moving in his scenes after his character has been shot. Edie Falco was in a few eps as his wife, as well as Sean Whitesell (Donald Groves), who played a doctor. (I think there was even a scene with the three of them together.) Luis Guzman also guest-starred in one ep, and Zeljko Ivanek has a recurring role as a prosecutor.

In summary, S1 Ozzie count: 5

Interestingly, the bi-annual New York PaleyFest, which hosted the Oz reunion last fall, just announced last week that they they are holding a Homicide reunion in May. I guess Fontana enjoyed himself so much at the Oz reunion, he wanted to do something again. ;)

Now, onto Season 2! It’s a truncated season of only 4 episodes, so I should be able to get through them a little quicker. :D


3. Stranger Things

I watched Season 1 in the fall and finished Season 2 a few weeks ago. I really liked Season 1 and LOVED Season 2.

I’ve always been a sucker for coming-of-age mystery stories (supernatural or not), especially if they’re set during an earlier time period—Stand By Me, IT (the 90s miniseries, anyway, I still haven't see last summer’s movie), Super 8, even Now and Then (a not-so-good, all-female Stand By Me rip-off).

Heck, when I think about it, To Kill a Mockingbird fits the category, too.

Anyway, I loved this show so much, I was actually feeling *fannish* about it, a feeling I haven't experienced since watching Oz. I’m not interested at all in shipping anyone from it, but I love so many of the general/platonic relationships within the show. I was seriously impressed by the acting abilities of all the kids, but my favorite character by far was Dustin. The actor has such great comedic timing. I also floved the whole redemption arc of the teenaged Steve character that began at the end of S1 and continued through S2. So then, imagine my excitement when the show developed a Dustin-Steve subplot in S2 that had this delightful "little brother-big brother" dynamic to it.

I was actually thinking of writing fic for the show, and I had an idea for a nice, short (HA!) Dustin-Steve missing scene story that would’ve been easy to write, something that I thought would be a good way to get my feet wet in a new fandom. Then I checked AO3, and I saw that there were already three versions of my missing scene fic written by three other people! Within the last month! Heh. That’s when I realized how big the fandom was and how many people were writing fic for the show. Some of which was very good, but much of it… not. There also seems to be a lot of fanfic with all kinds of weird out-of-character and/or underage pairings (a by-product of having such a large/young cast, I guess). Anyway, at that point, I got scared away and scurried back to the safe confines of Oz. Maybe I’ll try again later, but I’m not sure big fandoms are for me. LOL

Comments

[mazephoenix.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry bout the Oz Daily comm, but if your heart isn't in it, you may as well make it an irregular thing if it all.
Hope you write that longfic.
Glad you're liking Homicide..I was surprised at how much I liked Daniel Baldwin too. Ah Melissa Leo is the best. I will forever ship Bayliss and Pembleton-my tragic Homicide OTP. More Ozzies to come.
Munch is such a sour delight too. Love him.

Too bad about Stranger things. It can be intimdating with larger fandoms, I know. But with all the badfic it might need some good fic, i.e yours. I feel the same about Hannibal fandom at times, but then an idea strikes and off I go. And maybe someone wil really dig your missing scene fic.

[cmk418]

I say, go for it with the long fic. Are you thinking of a one-shot or breaking it up into chapters with semi-frequent installments?

Sorry to hear about Oz Daily. I enjoyed looking at the pictures, but can fully understand your reasons for pulling back a bit.

I'm still working on S1 of "The Wire" which I got for Christmas. I get distracted with so many other things that I just haven't sat down to watch it in a while. I'll need to get back soon before I forget who everyone is. Except Omar, of course.

[trillingstar]

So this month is my 5-year anniversary of writing Oz fic!

WOO HOOO! :) *fistbump*

Mr Star & I finished watching Justified recently and we both keep saying "we need another show" and then settle in for another re-run of Chopped Canada. (I ship unrequited pining!Brad/Eden, of course.)

I wish I had better words for oz-daily. There are people who can cleanly leave a fandom and move on, and in a way I admire that. It's probably less heartache and you can remember the 'good' times instead of the arid dry desert times. If something's feeling like a drag/pain/obligation -- and that ridonk update, ew! -- then there's the risk of burning out on/by doing something that you (used to) really like. Rambly rambly, but, I get it. I have a tough time letting things go, especially if it's anything that has potential for archiving or is a part of Oz's fanthropology.

There's a great, helpful, supportive writing comm on DW called ushobwri aka you should be writing. It was modeled after wrisomifu aka write something you miserable fuck, but they've def pulled away and made it their own. I would love to see a longfic from you (or three!). I'd also be down with setting up a permanent/weekly/varying time on Discord for cheerleading/questions/general whinging about writing. Blah, I miss my peeps and detest how spread out everything has become. Imzy had potential but closed their doors suddenly? and now there's Pillowfort but it's still in serious beta and looks to have a LOT of kinks to work out. Hehehe, kinks.

[the-emu.livejournal.com]

Wait, what? You've only been around for five years? I thought you'd been in Oz forever! I got in for the 2012 magi, so we came in around the same time. Though your love is clearly much steadier than mine. I have a couple of Oz half-stories I really, really wish I could finish, but I'm not sure I've got anything left in me.

But you know what would really help... Someone else's awesome long Oz fic...

You can do it! I used to be a short writer! I was always so jealous of the people who could churn out epic relationship stories with plots, but I got there eventually, and now I have three over 120 000 words, and one of those is the stupidly absurd 250 000. (There is now a disturbing pattern where long stories burn me out of fandoms, but I'm sure that's just me.) I'm slow and I'm definitely a re-editor, but that's good. I embrace that. It makes me feel better about shitty drafts. It doesn't matter if I just wrote a chunk of dialogue that was cheesy and OOC, because I'm going to come back and fix it anyway, getting the bones of the conversation down is harder than fixing it.

I'm sorry about oz_daily. It has made me very happy. (Muppets is still my favourite theme.) But if it's a chore, let it go. There are too many chores in life already. Use that time for writing something long and pornographic. You can go back to it whenever you want.

I highly, highly recommend the 'finish the draft, post in chapters on a schedule' method. That's the only way I got my longest stories out. I also need to be able to go back and fill out the early parts. I've done one classic-style WIP ever, and only could do it because it was a re-write of 'Are you there, God? It's me, Margaret,' so I was following Blume's plot. Even then, once, thank you, never again. (Also, I accidentally changed the gender of a character halfway through and never noticed.) But this method, the plot's all there so you can't lose your way, but you've got a little time pressure to drive you to finish the sketchy bits, and to prevent you from wallowing in perfectionism. AND you have reader feedback to help you massage things if readers are not reading how you want them to.

And also just to succour your soul. I'm not the least bit ashamed to say that for all my hours and hours of writing, I want to be fed with specific comments, people who'll give me emotional reactions along the way or flag scraps of dialogue they liked. You guys and the sense of community you gave and the soul succouring were what made the detailed effort worth it in a way that kudos button clicks or even singular, 'I read your story and generally liked the whole thing,' comments never could. (Though I also appreciate the latter.)

So yes! Do it!

[leeleelee.livejournal.com]

I completely forgot Homicide had such a short S2. Wow. It's a great show. Wait until you see the Subway. WOW! That's my favorite. Robin Williams' episode was also damn powerful.

Agree with everything you said about Stranger Things. Such a compelling show.

Re: Oz, definitely go for the longer fic if the muses are telling you to. I'd be happy to proofread if you want.

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

the traffic here at LJ isn’t what it used to be either, obviously, and at this point I don’t know how many peeps were even seeing the pics I was posting. If I bring it back, I think it’ll just be on a weekly basis, or maybe just do occasional themes, because those were always fun

I do enjoy Oz Daily and appreciate the work you put into it, but I can definitely understand it feeling a bit overwhelming, especially when there isn’t always much feedback. I think switching to a weekly basis would be a good compromise :) Tbh I don’t really visit LJ every day any more, so it has become more of a weekly thing to check my flist, which you can probably tell by this late comment!