Other fandom content, as well as ruthless, pointless, frequently inflamatory content-if'n the impulse siezes, of course. Also...
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Friday, January 24, 2003
Today's fetish
Reading is a purely viceral experience for me. When it's good it's better than skydiving. When it's bad it's a little like a flu bug. Fortunately the cure is as easy as closing a book.
So, more from Ally's finiky files. Of course, as with all things, there are exceptions, although normally it's upward not upwards, forward not forwards, backward not backwards. Dunno why writers feel the need to pluralize these adverbs and those talented Betas keep lettin'em slide by, but we've seen it so much that a single occurrence is nearly enough to ruin an entire story for us.
"Look upward, and share the wonders I've seen."
And just out of curiosity… why would there be a word, a five syllable word, solely for describing the throwing of a person out a window? I mean. Does it happen that often that we need a single word for it? (Yes, we don't just read, we dissect.) *g*
blogalicious
Spent part of Monday getting caught up on my blog fetish. Red makes us laugh til… well, appropriate metaphor eludes me. Laugh. A lot.
We don't know 'when' we're gonna find time for recreational reading because effective tomorrow we'll only have three days a week for life and sleeping. Probably won't have that great an impact, because frankly we're addicted to the recreational reading thing and sleeping is highly overrated. Mostly we're hoping we don't scare the members of the public too much.
Skiffy seems to have made an 'improvement' to the ending credits of each episode in that they are now absolutely impossible to even attempt to read, therefore any tranny's the BBQ manages to crank out will be sorely lacking in that department unless the eps air somewhere that the ending credits go out unsullied by advertising and some kind 'scaper emails the complete credits to johnskeedvabbq@thevortex.com. However, at this time, we're simply enjoying the episodes and making no move toward creating transcripts. We can't imagine where we'd find the time.
Any minute now SciFi is gonna want to trademark or copyright the word: Skiffy. Whoever came up with that oughta beat 'em to the punch.
Vignette playing off and beautifully recreating that far too short moment in TF before the bad guy busted in and ruined it. Wrought with emotional tension without becoming overwrought. Nicely done.
Oy! *gigglesnort* I just loved this one. Long comedic vignette based entirely on character interaction, and the humor really works. I'm wondering if that thing about the cheese is true, or what. Too time consuming to research. Good thing I don't really like swiss cheese.
I swear. I don't know how she does it. Another enormously plotty piece that switches between future fic and sometime after Heat. AU of course. Non-linear, so hang onto your seats as the switches are abrupt but sublime. This one finally proves that it's just Lex that makes it for me 'cause this one's mostly Peter Parker (aka Spiderman)/Lex Luthor with a dash of Superman for flavor. Impressive read. Jenn needs betas with spelling and english comprehension chops. Those tiny little glitches are really starting to chafe.
And along with that, jenn completes another giant of a story that comes out somewhere around 180 pages of plain text. How does she do it?
This is an awesome tale that we've been reading since it first went up 'in progress' and we absolutely love every word. Not sure if it's most important that it just makes sense, that the characters act exactly as they should as depicted by the author and are utterly engaging. The erotica is intense. Jenn can blow your mind.
I just know that everyone who comes here regularly also checks out the Save Farscape website on a daily basis to keep up on all the latest news. I just know you're all diligently doing your homework like dedicated 'scapers. Right? Geez, how could you resist the latest assignment, what with the opportunity to fling ep quotes and stuff. *g*
s'kinda why I don't double up on it, 'cause I have confidence you guys are pluggin' away and you come here for Ally and the BBQ Freakishness and Fic Recc'stm. Takin' a break from the fight, right?
All that being said, this freakin' excited me and I just had to share it. According to the latest news at Save Farscape, there's a chance that we'll get a bit of widespread coverage on FOX. Check out the latest news on possible FOX affiliate coverage. Call your local FOX affiliate... there are zillions of numbers, and step by step instructions provided. The young woman I talked to was very sweet and kindly took my information, assuring me it would get into the proper hands. Using my very best public charm, I even got a nice little giggle when I told her that it would mean I'd have to watch KCBA (my local FOX affiliate) all day today and tomorrow in hopes of seeing the coverage. This could be better than the New York Times spot. Or at least, right up there with it, and it only takes one local phone call.
Another small filler for Kansas. Loved this one. Short, sweet and to the point with gorgeous interaction between John and Aeryn. Lovely characterization.
Our DVD storage and retrieval system had proved itself inadequate to our needs. We suspected that it was in fact, working against us in small but malicious ways… a rickity shelf that held about 50 DVDs would topple nearly weekly; searches for DVDs we thought safely in our grasp often resulted in the purchase of duplicate DVDs (the one we thought we had, normally found on placing the newly purchased DVD on said rickity shelf); successful searches took a ridiculous amount of time based on the sheer number of locations we had DVDs stashed, and that was on a good day.
Our DVD system was outsmarting us. We, by god, needed a plan!
If—our logical brain told us—our DVDs were in alphabetical order, it would solve many DVD woes. No more duplicate DVD purchases. Simple. So, with a minimum allotment of time, and only split 70-30 between feeling 'incredibly dorky' and 'facinated by the process', we catalogued and alphabetized our DVD collection. We felt very happy with ourselves for about two days, whereupon the carefully alphabetized shelf overturned, producing a charming, yet very un-alphabetized heap.
Justifiably surly, we eyed the mess for about a week and a half, stirred the pile from time to time with our toe. We didn't give a flying frell what movie we had. We were never going to watch another one. We had a list. DVDs could be purchased without fear of duplication or the need to find one. Toss the new ones on top of the pile and move along, nothin' to see here. The system was working. Heh.
Eventually we had to conceded the necessity of a less frail shelf for the whole DVD holding thing. It's a conspiracy. Really.
Although entirely un-alphabetized we're a bit happier with the orderliness. Heck, we're inordinately fond of it. But since alphabetizing seems to lead directly to shelf tipping, we're gonna resign ourselves to alloting additional time for the search.
fanfic rocks!
FARSCAPE:
If there's a bigger Crash fan than the BBQ we don't know who they are, but we are so not gonna get sucked into Cholak's Demon over at Kansas until said fic is done. The Crashster is way too good at torture and cliffhangers.
Thinking about what we really really want to add to Ally's Archive, and discovered that with the revamp over at Orchid's... Place, the fic links went bye-bye. What the frell?
Now up to Chapter 16, and yep, I give. Gonna get caught up on this tale and be a good little fic reader and wait patiently for the rest. Oddly, I was thinking of this fic while watching Kansas *g*.
Bit of a blind recc although I've teased myself with the first few paragraphs. I'm expecting a satisfying read. Err. No pun intended. Uh-oh, I snuck a look ahead and it looks like PLOT!
Enjoyed this one today. Nothing to say that won't spoil the surprise, but it's a fun, uncluttered, well paced read. Check it out. You got nothing to lose but a few giggles.
Nothing I love more than a kick ass author who gets sucked into a new fandom. It's sort of a cliche fic, but Ally's a sap who can't get enough so… and, who knew winters in Kansas could be so nice? More of that awesome romance Smallville ficcers do so unbelievably well.
Damn, I missed the FL vs NC debate, although it sounds as though the right decision was made without us. Shoot.
Some other static 'don't like it' things: c) the author's story relies heavily on a retelling of events from aired episodes. d) we're not a huge POV stickler, but if it wavers like a drunken gunslingers aim, we'll give up on the story long before it's over.
SMALLVILLE:
Uh, re: Freshman Orientation. How does Punk DO that? And, why can't Punk write the scripts for the show? Why can't Punk come and write for me personally so I'll have a nice little Punk tale everyday after work? Huh? Is life fair or not?! That is characterization to DIE for!
We'll have an entire email soon. Have to sign it: 'Sincerely Not A Stalker', Ally.
"Chloe smiles and even her hair looks sarcastic." *gigglesnort*
FARSCAPE:
Is Kansas hosed? I swear there's nothing new since the last time I checked. Although, granted, that was only yesterday.
Just gonna snurch the feedback I left on this one (slightly edited for content).
"See, I love this because the author uses the normal motivations for the Moya crew for doing anything. Saving their ass. They aren't acting out of character. They don't hire out as mercs or exchange goods for services. They get themselves dug into a hole (Rygel purple/reddish) and have to perform some service to get out of the hole (Rygel back to his normal self); but what normally seems benign and relatively safe, turns around and bites them in their collective asses."
Nice work. And whoo, short. Read that in a flat 3 minutes.
And we finished the story today, it's quite the little page turner and we do have happy babbling to do on it. It's actually also an interesting read for discussion on the 'scape issue of the variable nature of right and wrong, it being highly dependent on who is looking through the peep-hole. The 'rightness' of enforcing a personal sense of right and wrong on others when the opposing viewpoint is radically different from your own or worse, because the opposing viewpoint is... inconvenient- a little something we deal with in real life. Who'd've thought that the whole right vs might or might=right (whatever it is) would still be plaguing us as a species? Glass prods that same issue here, delicately.
It seems I have a lot to say about this story, but first I want to say, read it, write the author, tell her what you think, beg for more if you think it will do any good. *g*
First, I can't say enough about not publishing works in progress. *g* The best possible outcome is that the wait between parts becomes intolerable for the reader and they go insane and you lose your audience... but what about the writer? The pressure to put 'something' out there must become enormous and the chance of compromising your work would become greater the more pressure you feel. Bring in a good half-dozen betas to read it as you go if you need feedback. But I'd strongly encourage anyone to hold onto the work until it's ready to go to the presses. (It's too late for you, Rebecca. Forge ahead. *g*)
Okay. Small Favors. Starting sometime after DWTB and branching off from there to an Unrealized Reality. Overall. Great story. The writer's got some chops and knows how to use them. The first half of the story rocks and hits a strong climax almost exactly at mid-point. My jaw-literally-dropped to the floor. The ride to the end is a bit more sedate compared to the pacing of the first half, taking some time out for poigniant character set pieces. There were a couple plot points that struck Ally as a bit too coincidental in the latter half, but it wasn't enough to spoil the tale. Backstory was salted in with brilliant bits of non-linear story telling that we adored! And the only thing we liked better than the tightly woven and extremely well paced narrative, was the fact that Glass held her plot cards close to the vest, revealing them like candy popping from a Pez dispenser. Characterization was spot on and well developed, and that is incredibly tough to do when you're talking about more than 3 or 4 characters with substantial parts. Freakin' brilliant.
There's something in the story for everyone and you'll read this and think, wow, 'I wish 'so-n-so' had a part like this in one of the scripts.' Although I'd say the weight of the story is on John and Aeryn (who both take a serious beating from the author). Everyone else has brilliant moments.
Read it. You won't be sorry you did.
I saw an epilogue for A Waltz In Canaan and realized I haven't read it yet. That one's next I guess.
Are you guys sure you want me reading your stuff now that I'm back to actually saying what I thought? *g*
Time for this again. Bear with or skip to the reccies. There's some good ones there.
Blind Reccs go up just to give links and remind Ally to go back and read a story. If we love it, we normally re-recc and babble on a bit in semi- to throughly-happy ways. If we don't re-recc it means: a) we're feeling incredibly lazy and the story in question didn't really make us feel all semi- to throughly-happy anyway, did it? or b) we didn't like it and would prefer to forget the link was even there.
Ally recommends fanfiction to be read based entirely on her own personal opinion. That's it.
Fair. Right? After all, the thing is called 'Ally's Fic Pics' -- er, well, it used to be.
Ally doesn't consult a panel of experts, or run the stories by her 12th grade English teacher. It's strictly a 'like it'/'don't like it', kind of thing.
Reasons for 'liking' are usually pretty plain based on the happy babblingtm (see below for samples).
Reasons for 'not liking' range from static to varied. Static reasons for 'not liking' are: a) overused plot devices, b) painful grammatic, spelling, or sentence structure (a really good beta can help immensely with this one). Varied reasons for not liking can be as odd as 'not liking the way the story ended', or 'lack of belief in characterization' (this involves voice more than 'he/she wouldn't do that!' kind of thing.
And, hey, it's not the end of the world. We have 'not liked' because the author used the word "upon" one too many times. Yes. Petty. We know. It's a pet peeve we'd be willing to abandon if anyone could come up with a sentence that uses the word 'upon' when it wouldn't be better served by the use of the word 'on'. This rule, of course, excludes poetry.
On to the fic.
SMALLVILLE:
Freshman Orientation, by Punk::NC17/slash:: Eeeeeeeee! Or, ahem. Very excited. See. We learn quickly. Gotta read. Now.
Punk writes lines that make me go, "Ah!" in a really good way. Absolutely gorgeous prose. Not as throughly beta'd a I've come to expect from someone who obviously cares about what gets out there, but that's just us. Meticulously picky. hehe. We wonder if Punk would like one of our "it's not then, it's than" emails. hehe
Taste this: "Lex's tongue can tie him in knots and his eyes can undo him and Clark wants Lex so bad that he sometimes forgets he has him."
Mm. Gorgeous. God, I could excerpt this one to death... just one last taste: "Lex stretches out next to him, places a hand flat on his chest. Lex is in love even if he doesn't know it. Clark will tell him one day. He'll explain that this is love, that it's deep and powerful and doesn't mean a thing. It's just a word, and there whether named or not."
And, oh damn, make me cry and laugh and all that in between. Hm. Probably email time. Crap. Don'tcha just hate it when an author 'makes' you write an email? *whine*
Gonna say it again. Author. Doesn't. Write. Enough.
We put this up as a blind recc and read it twice since. Set sometime after WWL2 and Promises, Crys does here what she is past master at, defining emotional ties between characters through smartly drawn character observations and interactions, and tying it all together in a focussed environment. John and Chiana's close emotional tie; that brother/little sister thing is drawn sweet and tender without becoming maudlin or overwrought in the narrative. Love this story. It's a keeper. (Pub. 11/17/02)
Character study with more bleakness from the Queen of Angst. It's a bottomless pit, baby!
Author notes this story is in the UR of Sleep While I Drive (which we wrote a book on, btw), and will make more sense if read second. I'd say that if read second you'll get one of the few sweet lip quirks of the story; being on the inside. Soon, John will whisper sweetly in her ear.
While Maayan cops to knowledge of 'tiny TVGuide spoiler', the BBQ can't really sense anything other than that which logical story progression would naturally reveal. Yeah, and, okay, I admit to using 'logical' in assessing Farscape. Firing squad at dawn.
If you are completely sworn off spoilers, please avoid. We were weak and greedily read this. Like we're gonna take a pass with a title like 'that'.
Hm. Well, there's really nothing we can say that won't spoil the story except that this is Maayan's usual extraordinary style, just a bit less surreal and more tangible in plotting. SWID can probably be viewed as the most 'Farscape' Farscape story she's yet given us.
We loved the style choice and the second person POV (Aeryn), an even more interesting undertaking than you'd think once the plot starts revealing. Characterizations are amazing, yet the flip side of the coin tends to be more shadowed, although the payoff is in the character interactions, which occasionally made me grin. Again, we admit to being fairly subject to gallows humor.
I'd love to fling my absolute favorite line of the story but it's a hideous spoiler, so we'll have to live without it.
Another great story. Understanding should come when the object is placed at a personal level. Nothing's more personal than this.
eh. We know we've said this before, and we're actually pretty happy about it even though it means we go shrift fic starved while she works her ass off in the banner advertising department. Check out the real purty banner ad that went up over at the hot gaming site Nintendojo. Excellent!
Just because I can
Hm. No new fic to fling, but Ally still has a lot of reading to do anyway.
Just 'have' to throw a bit 'o bait... Hey, non-believers, Smallville is a fic writers paradise. The show avoids the one-trick-pony o'doom with clever spins on Superman canon that give the show very strong themes to play with while setting them amidst such weak scripting it's difficult to believe they actually use scriptwriters.
Found info on the Hollywood Reporter ads appearing in the January 14 and 28th issues being coordinated by the folks over at Ben's Den. You can also view the USA Today ad (which, Mm, can we say sexy ad stuff?), although I can't determine when the USA Today ad is appearing or how contributions can be made. It does look as if any and all financial support would be happily received. Pop over and check it out.
Okay, Ally's Archive got severely frelled by blogger and now it's working again for some reason. Sheesh. It's severe update time at Ally's. Gonna add a separate Farscape Picks and Smallville Picks Page and fix whatever is wrong with Ally's Archive. Also, Ally is in the US, so no Transcripts until Ep 12 begins on Friday! Apologies to fans outside the US.
A lot of blind reccs here. Words = read it. No Words = Not read yet.
Oh my. Gorgeous prose, stunning metaphor, emotional agony. I've been challenged to 'read and understand' the story, and I gotta say again, each reader takes from a story what they will and I didn't have a problem applying my own understanding to the story. My favorite POV combined with a story structure that automatically makes any story difficult to put into a single piece, but who gives a damn about that? Nuh-uh, not Ally. Tiny shadings of cliche fic, smartly and painfully done. Loved it. Gorgeous unrealized reality. Can't imagine how hard it was to write.
BBQ does the happy dance. In a response to sunshiner's 'What if' challenge, Angel gives us something completely unexpected and absolutely beautiful. A poigniant read with pale touches of irony.
Snivel. One of those future fic things without an altogether happy ending. It's our inner masochist that likes this kind of fic. Watch out and don't get concussed by the completely valid social commentary.
Looks a bit like a two part vignette... first part Smoke, which could pass for that Lex/inanimate object that Maayan was looking for, and Mirrors; Lionel explores the limits of his world.
Future Fic; plot, action, romance, tragedy! Exceedingly well defined characterizations, excellent dialogue. Story development and pacing are all devine. Author is much too talented for my own good. Yum. All around lovely story.
Self-described 'shameless schmoop' and Christmas schmoop at that. Ally's pretty much schmoop proof when it comes to these guys and Lanning never disappoints. This one comes with touches of angst and teasers from the 'Identical' Universe, with plenty of giggles and warm fuzzies to go along.
Like Ally could say 'no' to that title. Second person POV (Clark), beautifully rendered. The title says it all. A taste to whet the appetite: When you hang up, you think spitefully: *See? She's my mother, calling to check on me. Superman doesn't even have a phone.*
