What show are they watching?

[graculus]

I know it's not kind to mock the afflicted, but that premise also relies a little on the idea that the afflicted aren't going to come bouncing up to you like obnoxious puppies with big signs on their heads going 'mock me! mock me now!'.

Seriously, I've read some stuff recently which makes me marvel at how diverse the behaviour of the human brain can be. That's the only explanation I can come up with for how different their interpretation of what's going on in the show and how the characters interact with one another on the show is from mine. Not that I'm saying my interpretation is 100% correct all the time (or at least you can't prove it!) but this, this is just something else...

For example, say you're writing a gen fic. Note the genre here. Gen. Not slash, gen. Are you honestly going to have Jack O'Neill thinking about Daniel's beautiful blue eyes? In a gen fic? What possible canonical basis do you have for considering that Jack might think anything about Daniel's eyes other than that he has two of them, they apparently work better some days than others, and maybe (and it's a definite maybe, since Jack is a guy) that they're blue. Not cerulean, not lapis lazuli, and not beautiful. Save that kind of purple prose for when Jack is thinking about getting into Daniel's pants, folks! ;)

Meanwhile, other fandoms are not safe either. Let's take the show Numb3rs as an example, shall we? Passing swiftly over the rights and wrongs of the mass of Charlie/Don incest fic which is not my cup of tea but if people want to write it, well let them get on with it as long as it's well-labelled so I can avoid it (and it's overshadowed by the Charlie/Larry geeklove all the way for me!), you'd think there'd be lots of gen h/c being written, wouldn't you? I mean, FBI agent, geeky yet cute genius younger brother, it's a match made in h/c heaven.

I find myself tormented by the fact that what I'm discovering out there in gen Numb3rs fic land is things like the story that has Charlie getting thrown out of the house (which he canonically owns, so I'm not sure how that works) by his brother Don (the FBI agent) who threatens him with a) a knife and b) a pistol before Charlie runs away like a teenager on a bus from California to Texas (like you do, if you're a math professor at a prestigious university) with an OFC who just happens to have the same name as the author. Funny, eh?

*sighs*

It's like being back in Sentinel fandom with neanderthal!Jim and hapless!Blair all over again... ;)

Comments

[emony.livejournal.com]

It sounds like it's not so much their interpretation of the characters and the interactions on the show that's different from yours, and it is their interpretation of reality and what makes up a decent fic.

[graculus.livejournal.com]

The problem with a lot of these fics (imo) is that they're fics in search of characters to populate them - the writer has an idea for a story where character A (Don/Jim/Jack etc) is mean to character B (Charlie/Blair/Daniel) in a way that's out of character for them and character B then does something out of character as well in response. Which would be fine in original fic where it might be in character for those characters to behave that way but where some of us (if not the writer) have actually seen the show...

The scarier part is the 'omg, this is teh bestest fic evar!11!!!' feedback, of course. ;)

[emony.livejournal.com]

Exactly. Some twinkie writers has an idea ("omg i have the best bunny evah!"), and then picks their favourite characters of the moment an inserts them in to it. I read one the other day that was basically a PWP, could've been absolutely anyone on the face of the earth, but the author had picked a couple of blokes from one of the CSI. It was *so* OOC for them both, and the whole situation was ridiculous to the point of being completely unrealistic for anyone at all. Not only that, but she'd spelled the show's main character's name wrong, and her punctuation and grammar were atrocious. She seemed to think that the word fuck warranted a capital letter, regardless of its use and placing in the sentence. That in and of itself was bad enough, but she then got a raft of "omg u r teh best this waz so hawt! i luved when Character A did such-and-such OOC thing to Character B! He is so teh hawtest evah! write more soon!" feedback. It's like, do you even watch the show I'm watching? And if so, why do you claim to like it so much if that's how you actually wish these character were?! Gyah. Makes me sick. As you may be able to tell. *g*

[ruric.livejournal.com]

...but that premise also relies a little on the idea that the afflicted aren't going to come bouncing up to you like obnoxious puppies with big signs on their heads going 'mock me! mock me now!'.

GAH! Note to self: do not read f-list at lunchtime.

This just caused a pumpkin soup/monitor interface that should not have happened *g*

And on another note - with you all the way.

[graculus.livejournal.com]

Oops. Sorry about that. ;)

[penfold-x.livejournal.com]

Word re: the eye color issue. Stop the madness.

While we're at it, let's stop having my gen, straight male characters think or describe in startling detail another straight, gen male character's clothes. Sometimes they sound like they're channeling Carson Kressley. Yee.

(Btw, is there any good gen Numb3rs? I've just started watching... yes, Yuma's been beating me with a stick and now I see the appeal).

[graculus.livejournal.com]

I'm an equal opportunity disparager, I dislike it when male characters in gen wax lyrical (either verbally or mentally) about the attributes of any other character, male or female. Gen is gen, damnit, not pre-ship or pre-slash.

And obelix assures me there is good gen Numb3rs fic out there, so maybe I've just been very very unlucky... ;)

[obelix]

There is some good gen fic, it's just hard to find. Yum@ as actually written some good fics and then there are some good slice of life from Devra and I believe Joag as also started writing in Numb3rs. There are a couple of good ones you just have to weed through the MarySue fics, the suddenly reapparing from nowhere lost twin sister of Charlie fics, the Amita/Charlie and Don/Terry purple prose fics and the OMG we haven't watched even one episode of the show fics.

Wolfpup has an archive which has some of the better ones and then there are a couple on fanfiction.net (yes I know I hate that archive as well).

Let me know if you want any recs and I'll try to send you to the good ones.

[nausica2.livejournal.com]

I haven't read much fanfiction apart from Stargate, but there have been times where it's pretty blatant that the writer wants to write about emotions the characters would never have.

I like whumping, but some of the Daniel torture is very out of character.

I actually have a theory about how reading certain types of fic ends up ruining watching the show, because what you get is not what you read, and you get frustrated exactly because they don't met the expectations.

That said, there are fics that add, because they keep the characterisation and expand it, which makes the viewing experience richer. But at least in Gen SG-1 that kind of fics aren't common anymore. :(

[captain-tiv.livejournal.com]

Yeah. I miss the "old" fic days too. :(

[thenightsfall]

Or one of my bugaboos, where we're in the POV of, say, Daniel, in his head, and the narrative describes him as "handsome" or his eyes as "beautiful," or in one recent favorite, his "long, long legs." Sooooo... Daniel is hot for himself??