VERY late answers to top five meme
Aug. 15th, 2009 07:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ishtar795 favorite sci-fi/fantasty writers (creators for TV, movies, books, comics, whatever... just your top 5)?
1. Joss Whedon: All appearances to the contrary, I know that Joss is not, in fact, God. I’ve had my issues with some of his writing decisions (and production decisions, like handing over the reins to Marti freakin’ NOXON) over the years, and if anything, the flaws become more obvious as times goes on. But that doesn’t change the fact that this is the man who introduced me to fandom-by virtue of making me so passionate and in awe of a source text, that I felt the need to seek out fandom before I knew what the concept even was. This is the man who wrote dialogue so hilariously quirky that not only could I at some point quote the damn near entirety of Buffy off the top of my head, but that it’s seeped into my speech patterns so completely that I sometimes? Still talk like this. More importantly, this is the man who gave me Buffy (and Angel, Firefly, hell, even the problematic Dollhouse), which will forever be my TV gold standard that no other show will ever quite reach (and it seems I’m not alone in this-in many corners of fandom, ‘the new Buffy?’ is the highest compliment a show can receive).
2. Ronald D. Moore While Battlestar Galactica is how I even became aware of his name, it’s safe to say I was a fan since his DS9 days. I prefer my sci-fi dark and gritty rather than inspirational, and my heroes being in fact as far as from the concept of ‘heroes’ as can be, and in fact deeply flawed, often unpleasant human beings who make questionable decisions that part of you ends up sympathizing with. Of course, this is taken to a whole new level on BSG, aka The Show That Kills Your Will To Live (but in a good way), but I still have a soft spot for DS9, if for no reason than that he brought that ambiguity to the Trek universe. DS9 remains my favorite Trek for precisely the reasons that much of Trek fandom seems to despise it (and I don’t hate Voyager. Clearly, I fail as a Trekkie).
3. Chris Claremont When I said Whedon introduced me to fandom, I kind of lied. While technically true, if the Internet was widely available when I first got hooked on X-MEN comics at age 14, the world would have clearly been subjected to my juvenile ramblings and possibly a horrifyingly bad Mary Sue fic or two. Thankfully, I was spared that particular embarrassment. I caught a good chunk of his oeuvre, starting by reading the (hopelessly out of date-I read the first issue of the new uncanny X-MEN team over a decade after the actual print date) Greek translations, and when they ran out, I started buying the originals, even though my English skills at the time were virtually non-existent ( I’m self-taught in English largely through the comic books, TV and music, which accounts for my occasional creative spelling and the sheer bizarreness of my accent). I did keep reading them since my early twenties (where the cost of several comic books a month got scraped to redirect those resources to such student necessities as coffee, alcohol, and various legal and non-legal smoking substances) and have occasionally picked up an issue in a fit of nostalgia, but nothing compares to the Clairmont era for me.
4. Steven Moffat: He’s written my favorite Doctor Who episodes, and I am very much looking forward to him taking over the franchise.
5. JK Rowling: …yeah, I’m as surprised by this inclusion as some of you may be. I’ve made no secret of the fact there are parts of the books I absolutely hate, I certainly never believed them to have any real literary value, and the woman couldn’t write a convincing romance to save her life, but for all the unevenness, there’s no denying she got me hooked on the verse and characters so much, I can never complete leave the HP fandom. Also: Severus Snape. For that alone, she belongs on this list.
Top five single eps of anything (can be 1 episode from 5 shows).
1. Doppelgangland (BtVS) It’s damn near impossible to pick favourite episodes in Buffy. Do I go for the epic ones (Becoming, The Gift, Chosen), the heart-wrenching ones (The Body, Seing Red) or the unique, stylistic ones (Hush, Restless)? But when it comes down to it, it’s about the episode I never tire of rewatching, and for me that would be vamp!Willow showing up in Sunnydale, resulting in amusing shennaningans as mistaken identities, inappropriately hot Willow/Willow subtext and Alyson Hannigan playing two (or arguably four, if you count both Willows attempting to impersonate each other) characters. I’ll concede that how fabulous Alyson Hannigan looked in leather might have influenced my choice.
2. Fool For Love (BtVS) My love for Spike might have faded to near non-existance later (partly because of the writing and partly because of JM’s bloated ego and some of his batshit fans), but that episode was pretty much the high point of the character for me. It’s also the episode that made me a shipper (spoilers about it made me google Spike/Buffy, leading to the discovery of fanfic and, well, the rest is history), and it showed the full potential in that beautifully fucked-up dynamic. If only the writers hadn’t screwed it up so royally
3. Five By Five: (Angel) The obligatory Faith-centric episode. While this is part of a double, I much prefer the first part of out of control Faith, looking compelling whether she’s torturing, fighting or dancing, all at the same time. I actually liked her redemption arc but there’s something quite beautiful in a female villain that’s all id, taking what she wants and making no apologies for it.
4. Pilot (Veronica Mars) I wish I could cheat and pick ‘all of VM season 1’, because in a way it feels like an unbroken entity, tightly plotted and about as close to perfection as television can get. But I picked the pilot deliberately, because of how rare it is for me to be so completely enthralled by one. Pilots are flawed: they’re often akward, filled with exposition, and rarely emotionally engaging (it takes a while for characters and verses to ‘click’ together). Not in this case: from the first cynical voiceover, every aspect of the mise en scene was beautifully noir, and I knew I was in for something special.
5. Flesh And Bone (BSG): Hm, I’m sensing a bit of a ‘female characters torturing male characters’ theme-I wonder what that says about me. In all seriousness though, this is a brilliant exploration of the darker side of Starbuck, setting up the Kara Thrace’s Special Destiny arc as well as her fascinating dynamic with Leoben, establishing Roslin as an occasionally terrifying BAMF with a fondness for airlocking, as well as showing unflinching depiction of torture…that ultimately doesn’t work. In the TV land of 24, we need more of those.
Top 5 jobs you've ever done:
Not technically fannish and really, a ‘worse five jobs you’ve done’ would be a more apt description given my employment history.
1. Journalist: Whenever I come across a young person contemplating a career in this field, filled with the romantic notions I once had, I do my best to dissuade them. Mind you, my experience of nearly two years unpaid work, odd hours, working in an environment where ‘yelling’ as considered normal volume, regular journos were under the impression that my name was ‘hey kid!’ when asking me to do their work and getting the credit, and news stories like the Darfour situation weren’t worthy of coverage because ‘the audience doesn’t care’, might have biased me somewhat. The fact is, I’d rather stick needles in my eyes than be associated with any Greek media again.
2. Translator: While it was on a temporary basis, I’d say it was the least frustrating job I ever had. Largely because I got to use my relevant skills, produced decent work, and got paid for it. Imagine the novelty.
3. PR: I was a mere intern, but there were aspects I did enjoy. I will point out, however, that the only worse thing than being a journalist is dealing with them. Especially when you have to fight off the advances of one without resulting to the cruder, more violent response it would provoque from me in say, a bar.
4. English teacher: I don’t know whether it was the job itself, or the incompetence of the college I was working in, the lack of any educational standards (their motto was ‘they pay, they pass’) or the fact they saw fit to place my youngish (relative to the rest of the faculty), female self in a class with 18 guys a few years younger than me chronologically, but forever stuck on horny, leering adolescent mode in terms of behaviour. Good times.
5. Bar Staff: I lasted one day. Whether the sexual harassment comes from the customers or the boss, I’m not one to suffer silently and brush it off. Unlike my teacher job though, I did get the satisfaction of a parting tirade. Just as well, or there would be one more ‘Greek woman setting man’s genitals on fire’ story for the news.
Top five fanfics you're embarrassed to like. Any fandom!
Oh man, I debated with myself about answering this one because of the drama potential, but mostly because ‘embarrassed to like’ still means the story offers me some (shameful) enjoyment, and I feel it would be ungrateful to publically diss them.
So as a compromise, I decided to omit the names. Any similarities to familiar stories are not at all coincidental.
1) The One With All The Mary Sues: (HP) I realise that OFCs are often wrongfully viliefied, but in this particular story, the Potterverse very much changes and shifts to accommodate them, and they all seem to possess the typical Sue traits: tragic backstories, Special Powers, the ability to get most canon males into bed….Despite all of that though, I still found myself interested in those characters, unrealistic as they were (and let’s face it, Harry can be a bit of Stu himself).
2) The One With Lex’s Evil Twin: (Smallville) If the soap-operaish evil twin plot wasn’t enough to throw this into badfic category, over-the-top romantic dialogue, unlikely understanding!Kents, honest-to-God private hitman/quasi-father figure and occasionally hilariously angsty ANGST do the trick. And yet…it’s like sweet, sweet crack.
3) The One Where Tara and Spike get over their ‘abusive’ relationships through unlikely love (BtVS) Spike/Tara is problematic in itself because of the politics of turning a gay character straight for a fic, but this fic’s also got bonus mean!Scoobies, Buffy bashing, and Spike reassuring Tara about her self-image issues by favourably contrasting her ‘real woman’ figure (you know, as opposed to those fake bootleg women?) to skinny Buffy/Dru in such length it became obvious that this should be an issue kept between the author, and her therapist. Still, I can’t help but think both these characters got the shaft in season 6, so this was a nice antidote to my issues.
4) The One Where Willow Hooks up With Snape: (BtVS/HP) Because sometimes, crossovers all not so much about details like a solid idea, characterization or actual plot as the fun factor of grabbing two random characters off from a multifandom hat and smushing their faces together while making kissing sounds. (See also: pretty much any BtVS crossover involving Faith).
5) The One Where Snape Turns Out To Be Harry’s Dad (HP) Any of them.
Your top five squicks.
(Since fic/fandom/source wasn’t specified, I thought it might be fun to do them all)
1. Pregnancy: I don’t mean MPreg-that’s usually clearly labeled, and easy to avoid. I mean babies suddenly taking over a TV show (Angel S3, I’m looking at you), previously happy and fulfilled female characters going unexpectedly baby-crazy (like Brennan on Bones), formerly hot het fics turning into baby and kid!fic, with the characters half-way replaced with cooing, dotting parents (even if said character is Snape. Let’s contemplate that image for a moment. Really.) I just have no interest in that particular plotline, and wish it didn't keep getting sprung out of nowhere on me.
2. Who got Fox News on my show/fic? It’s not that I mind political themes in my entertainment. BSG has done it particularly well, even when I disagree with the underlining message. It’s when the political message is presented as truth, particularly one that I find vile, that I feel like taking a shower afterwards. 24 is the most obvious, blatant, anti-Arab/pro-torture/glorifying some construct of white American masculinity as the world’s only hope example, but Bones and House have both had some very questionable episodes (hm, I wonder what the common denominator between those three is). It’s even worse when it creeps into fic, like teenage pregnant Hermione being against abortion because of her beliefs (really? Pragmatic, non-religious, middle-class British Hermione? Which ‘beliefs’ would those be?).
3. Magical/forced bonding fic: While I’ve seen it handled well, all too-often it’s used as a plot device to get the leads together, with some minimal angst along the way, leading to a happy ending. It’s like I’m reading a completely different story than the one the writer is writing. Consent issues? What consent issues? Extra ‘ick’ factor if the magic of the bond contains some built-in anti-infidelity failsafe.
4. The word ‘love’ being thrown around too soon In canon texts it often makes me think of stalkers and again, the problem of seing a different story than the intended. In fic, it just makes me roll my eyes and go for the back button, especially when uttered by emotionally closed-off characters.
5. Alan Rickman
Top five places you've visited.
1. Prague: Probably the most beautiful city I’ve ever seen. My only regret is going there with my mum and being unable to enjoy the vibrant nightlife along with the stunning architecture and almost storybook-feel of the old city.
2. The Bretagne region, France Paris may well be breathtaking, but I have a soft spot for Bretagne, with its green landscape, gorgeous castles, and mouth-watering food (and cheap, too!).
3. Tunisia We took a tour around the whole country, so I can’t pick one place. I especially enjoyed the Sahara desert, as well as passing by several Star Wars film locations, because I’m a dork.
4. Brighton Well, not so much ‘visited’ as ‘lived there for almost six years’, but for all of London’s appeal, Brighton remains my favourite place in the UK.
5. Belarus: I didn’t quite know what to expect before going, but I enjoyed it. I’ve posted about my trip though I admit, the booze might have played a role (post under flock).
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2009-08-16 07:24 am (UTC)Dobbelgangland is great! After hearing nothing but great things, I tried watching the VM pilot, and it left me utterly cold - I didn't even finish it. I've passed eps on the tv now and then, and never once have they drawn me in; I wonder why, since I usually like what everyone else likes.
Lol, I love that sentence.
Not being ironic? I used to be an AR fan, and was very excited to hear he was playing Snape in the first HP movie. Then by the second movie, I remember being put off by his old, pudgy self in the trailers, and it's only gone downhill since O_o
no subject
Date: 2009-08-16 08:26 am (UTC)Not being ironic? I used to be an AR fan, and was very excited to hear he was playing Snape in the first HP movie. Then by the second movie, I remember being put off by his old, pudgy self in the trailers, and it's only gone downhill since O_o
See, I could have written that sentence. It's at the root of my Rickman issues.
no subject
Date: 2009-08-17 04:04 pm (UTC)Heh, pregnancy fics. Hermione/Snape pregnancy fics. Hermione/Snape pregnancy fics where Snape gives a damn about Hermione's pregnancy. I admit I've enjoyed one or two of them, but they are firmly in the camp of fics I'm ashamed to enjoy. Pregnancy fics are like trainwrecks for me: you shouldn't watch, but you can't help doing so.
Your experience as an English teacher is soooo encouraging. And while I'd like to become a translator, if I want to actually be able to earn my living, I'll probably have to do some teaching. Fun. Or not.
no subject
Date: 2009-08-15 08:08 pm (UTC)I really agree about the VM pilot: I've never seen a show that managed to create such a wonderful edgy character right before our very eyes... It did more in an hour than most shows do in 5 seasons.
no subject
Date: 2009-08-15 11:14 pm (UTC)So, you love Snape but not Alan Rickman? I like Alan Rickman, but I don't like the way he plays Snape. Not in the last few films.
... Wait. You're in Greece and are aware of Fox News? :((((((((((((((((((((((((( I hate that this is what America exports. :(
no subject
Date: 2009-08-17 01:09 pm (UTC)The entire VM first season is just perfection.
no subject
Date: 2009-08-17 01:10 pm (UTC)I hate Rickman's Snape, both in terms of the look and the acting.
And heh, I do follow a lot of Internet sites, so yeah, I'm aware of Faux News.