LJ Crickets and Plot Help

[hells_half_acre]

Crickets

Man, LJ is kinda dead these days, eh? I can nostagically think back to just maybe 4-5 years ago when I could post an entry saying that I was thinking of writing some fic, and I've have 20 responses with suggestions.

I guess it's a number of things - people on LJ, moving onto different shows and leaving the SPN fandom, while newer SPN fans aren't on LJ at all, but rather tumblr and AO3 combos, or other platforms that I don't even know about. And then there are some who have just moved over to tumblr and left LJ behind.

It makes me wish I was better at tumblr.

A friend of mind recently joined the POI fandom and started, voraciously, writing for their main lesbian canon ship - and MAN, the amount of engagement they get makes me so envious... even though I know I had that back in the day too, here.

Anyway, this is all to say that if any of you ARE on tumblr and want to follow me, I'm at driftwooddragons. And if you have any suggestions on how I could tumblr better, let me know.

Plot Help

So, I kinda want to write a sequel to Men of Legend. But, I can't think of a good plot. I've got specific scenes that I want to write, which can only exist if Arthur and Merlin are summoned to the SPN universe BY THE BAD GUYS. So, any ideas for why? who? Because I have no clue, which is why I've never written a sequel to that fic until now (and possibly not now either.)

Comments

[hells-half-acre.livejournal.com]

Haha, yeah, I wasn't SURPRISED by the large cast - I was just surprised by my reaction to it - which was "uh, actually, do not want."

I like well-developed villains too. I just...don't want to see them? I don't know, it's hard to explain. It's really mostly just that I don't like knowing things that the hero doesn't know. I really liked how well-developed Fisk was and how it all came down to choices. I guess it just really comes down to what information is being given to me when... and overall I'm much more compelled by good-alignment characters. *shrug* It is what it is.

Sadly, it's also a huge weakness in my own writing - because I have no interest in villains, I can't write them. They either end up being one-dimensional moustache-twirling types, or my villain is something abstract like "institutionalized racism" and then probably no one is bloody interested, because there's not the satisfaction of a defeated personified evil at the end.

And cool about Man in the High Castle - I think I actually did hear about that when it was just a book, but then forgot the title. Let me know how it is when/if you watch it.

My friend just reminded me that they REALLY want me to watch Person of Interest. So, I might be watching that next, once I catch up with Agent Carter and get over my ennui towards TV shows. :P

It's too bad I don't live closer to UBC and conveniently have a multi-room apartment that I can't afford by myself... but sadly I am across town in only a one room place.

It's really only affordable to go to foreign universities when they're in countries that otherwise offer free university. The fees in Germany weren't that bad at all.

[franztastisch]

Yeah that does sound hard to explain. :P But hey, whatever floats your boat. :)

Oh I've never tried to write villains. At least, not villains that aren't a/ easy to imagine (e.g. horrible gladiator slave owner) or b/ largely absent. But then, I tend not to write those kinds of stories, so it's not much of a surprise. Though, I dunno, getting back at institutionalised racism can be super fucking satisfying, even in fiction. And hey, not all stories need villains.

Will do! I keep forgetting that I need to watch S3 of Orphan Black too. I'm so bad a keeping up with things sometimes.

I would totally hijack your spare room if you had one. :P Aah free universities. What a wonderful, Utopian ideal that would be. *dreams*

Incidentally, can you speak fluent German?

[hells-half-acre.livejournal.com]

Yeah that does sound hard to explain. :P

HAHAHA, so polite for "You don't make sense."

I'm really hoping that getting back at institutionalized racism will be satisfying, because that's basically the goal of the high fantasy novel that I'm currently writing. :P

It's really hard to keep up with TV when there's SO MUCH OF IT.

I was never really fluent in German. I was "pretty good" and could follow most conversations, movies, and read and understand most books. My spoken German was always broken and accented with incorrect syntax. Basically, if you take the thick-chinese accent stereotype in English, that's probably what I sounded like to Germans - or I'm being too hard on myself. But yeah, I could understand it okay.

That all being said, I'm using the past tense because I really haven't spoken German in 10 years, and it's super rusty - and probably my comprehension isn't what it once was either. I used to watch TV shows and such in German on youtube to try to keep it up, but I haven't done that in a long while either.

I have a couple friends in Berlin, but I haven't been able to afford to visit them since 2010. So, yeah... it's hard to keep up language skills when you don't use the language day to day.

[franztastisch]

Hey! I never said that! :P

I think it can be pretty satisfying, though you do always need a person who "showcases" it. Like Agent Thompson being the "showcase" for 1950s misogyny in Agent Carter. But I've always thought that's a little easier than making a villain from scratch, because they're still people, and you know what their one really bad character trait is already. But that's just me. And, like I said, I've not actually done anything like that.

Oh hey, that's way better than any of my "second" languages. I know people sometimes read the news in the language of choice as a way of keeping up with the language. Have you ever tried that?

[hells-half-acre.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's true about Thompson, and I'm cool with "villains" like that, who aren't so much villains as just people. I guess it's really the "evilly plotting" villains that I don't like seeing the story of. Like, Thompson can almost get Peggy killed by accident, due to being a misogynist, but we don't see him sitting around going "Now, I lay my trap in which to kill Peggy, because she stands in the way of my dreams. Little does she know that tomorrow will be her LAST DAY AT THE OFFICE!" No, he's just like "Ugh, Peggy is the worst. I'm going to insult her a lot and be big prick, but then get on with my day."

Actually, Agent Carter is a good show for me for that reason, because there's only a few villain centric scenes, where we see the hitman getting orders, or someone else buying bombs, but we don't see the wide web of Hydra/Red-Room/Leviathan/Whatever until Peggy does. They don't have meetings and discuss their next moves and how they are or aren't dealing with Peggy. That was my big problem with Daredevil.

ANnnnnnyway... yeah, in my high fantasy novel, I tend to just have Thompson-esque villains. I mean, a little worse than Thompson, because I've modeled them more on 1930s antisemitism, where there's at least a few people actively dehumanizing a large segment of the population (it doesn't help that they aren't actually human, so... yeah, pretty easy to do.) I've also got another person/group who is sort of that PLUS examples of toxic religion, like you see currently in the states a lot when it comes to homophobia+money-hungry churches.

But, yes, it means that I DO have villains that I can defeat, I guess! So, yay!

I used to read the news about once a month or so in German... that was when I was working my other job though, on days when I had to go into the office. Because it was a gov't office, a lot of websites were blocked (social media, mostly - because the gov't doesn't want you wasting time)...but news sites aren't blocked at all, so I used to see what was happening in Germany whenever I wanted to do something other than my job. Anyway, I should start doing that again, instead of wasting all my time on social media. :P

[franztastisch]

I think, at least in that respect, you'll enjoy Jessica Jones more. But then, it might be counter balanced with a lot of unpleasantness re: misogyny, rape, consent and control issues and graphic... ickyness (I'm not sure it's quite violence or gore on Daredevil levels, but it's definitely something and it's definitely unpleasant). All handled very well, I hasten to add, but not exactly easy to watch. On the other hand, Trish, Luke and Malcolm are all delights. Especially Malcolm. <3

But yay to having defeatable villains! Always a good thing. :)

Haha maybe it's a idea. That being said, the news is so very depressing. :/