Tag Archives: Sam talks Writing

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regionalpancake:

quasi-normalcy:

ralfmaximus:

quasi-normalcy:

quasi-normalcy:

quasi-normalcy:

Jack Crusher is like…the textbook definition of Mediocre White Guy We’re Supposed to Hold in Awe

“This is my original character; he’s the son of Captain Picard and Dr. Crusher; he’s an awesome rogue who drinks whisky and loves classic starships and gets all of the girls, and he can knock people out with one punch and get away with it because he’s so cool, but also he has daddy issues and childhood trauma. His eyes glow red when gets angry and he also has superpowers. And he’s also part Borg and part Changeling and part Pah’Wraith and part Armus. He’s dark and brooding and Seven of Nine likes him.”

A bunch of Trekkies who’ve spent the last six years calling Michael Burnham a “Mary Sue”: “Yeah! Finally! Real Star Trek!”

UPDATE: He’s the Borg Queen’s specialest drone, whatever that means! But he can get out of assimilation through force of will and the power of flashbacks to the last 2 days or so spent kind of bonding with his father. Starfleet waived that whole “Academy” requirement (and indeed that whole “post-secondary education in general” requirement) because of how AWESOME he is! Seven of Nine lets him sit on the bridge as her “special counselor” even though he’s only been an ensign for a day because he’s SUCH a Badass! Q comes back to announce that he’s going to put him on trial for the crimes of humanity!

I’m not joking by the way; literally all of these things actually happened in the series finale.

It really does feel like somebody’s AO3 fic with a $90 million budget.

That’s unfair! Lots of AO3 fics are good.

Dear fanfic writers,

The next time you doubt your work, when you second-guess your ideas, your understanding of the canon, or your skill as a wordsmith…

Remember that Star Trek: Picard Season 3 was a babyfic AU with a bonafide Mary Sue author self insert (whose mummy was Beverly Crusher and whose daddy was Picard) who was such a Very Special Boy that he made ensign in a year, and who strode confidently across the bridge and commanded “lay in a course for the AUTHOR’S NAME system!!”

Remember that. 

And then post your stuff to AO3

image

Imposter syndrome is out.

Writing with confidence is in because look at what people got paid for!!

Write with joy ❤️ and yes post your stuff to AO3.

(via regionalpancake)

#I laugh so I don’t cry#if you ever need to feel better about yourself creatively this may help

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Ok buckle up it’s story time. I’ve been musing on the whole Jack Crusher thing on Picard and I have joked (as I have seen others do as well) being a fanfic OC, coming in and making everything be about him. Not to put shade on fanfic OC’s at all but what is fun in fanfic hits a little different on screen in canon. But anyway I am getting off topic and possibly digging myself a hole I don’t mean. So moving on!

It made me remember Warehouse 13 because for reason beyond all understanding they suddenly gave Artie a son in the show finale. A son that he hadn’t known about, and I can’t quite recall how old the son was when he learned. The implication seemed to be that they had one adventure snagging an artifact and there had been pretty much no contact before or since which I guess explained why this phantom son had never been mentioned before??? Except not really because damn Artie makes you look seriously bad. I suppose it was “oh the warehouse is dangerous” but ugh anyway I was more annoyed that this plot thread had just been dropped in the finale! Like why? Can’t do anything with that. It was so weird to come up with something so huge and then show ended, nothing to see here.

So obviously my fanfic writer brain started chewing on this and wondering how to make it interesting. So yeah true fanfic OC time because why the hell not? It is undeniably fun. Also I never wrote this so it exists only in my brain for my own amusement, and now potentially yours by summary if I ever get to the point.

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I am singularly disappointed with my note taking skills.

Last year when I decided I was going to quit fanfic I downloaded all the files from gDocs onto my HD. I couldn’t bring myself to delete them but I was trying to make them inactive.

Well my nostalgia for my own ideas grew to such a level I opened up the files today. I have vague memories of more related to the ideas than I appear to have written down. I am frustrated because it’s like having something on the tip of your tongue, unable to remember, and I thought my notes would clarify but nope.

I don’t have the spoons to write so I don’t really know what I was doing beyond *sighing heavily* with a big “I wish…” feel.

But seriously past!Self? You really super suck for not writing more of the swirling thoughts down, and not being clear about what you did write down. Some of those notes do not make the sense I think I thought they did after 6+ months of not looking at them.

Ooops I guess?

You see (sorry not done) it’s Camp bloody NaNo starting today and, and, the frustrated “I wish!!!” is kinda ruling me 🙁

I wish, I wish, I wish.

This isn’t the life I want.

I am sad.

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With how much I am really not vibing with Picard Season 3 (look at me being all diplomatic lol) I am thinking more and more about the season 3 I had plotted out and had intended to write prior to the real season airing.

It started life as an AU of them being in the Confederation for longer than an episode. I then backtracked it to branch from the season 1 finale, picking up some of those plot threads from season 1 so it turned into a season 2 rewrite, then season 3 my way fic.

It was going to be epic length and last year was the “year of moving house” and I didn’t have the bandwidth to focus on such a big project. I don’t have the spoons at all at the moment to do anything, so moping around wishing I could write this epic fic is ridiculous. If I have any spoons they are spoken for many times over. This isn’t on the radar.

And yet I keep thinking about it.

There was so much. Synths, xB’s, origin of the Borg, Q Continuum etc. for plot stuff but also characters. I was going to be bring in Harry Kim and B’Elanna, there was slow burn Saffi obviously. I mean Seven and Raffi would have been the main characters where I do get they aren’t because Picard is the title character on the show. But hey doing ‘my version’ means I can focus on what interests me and not have to invent something random to attempt to keep Picard relevant. Obviously he would still be a character and have a role to play but probably not any bigger than Rios or Jurati.

I don’t know it would have just been cool. Maybe it’s egotistical to say I like the idea? But hey when writing fanfic I am my target audience. I can’t guarantee that anyone else will read or like it so I might as well enjoy it myself.

Like my “Raffi on Voyager” idea. I miss that one too. I had so many thoughts, so many notes, and dammit one day fic or no fic I am drawing them kissing in a Jeffries tube. Of course I want to be better at art which is why I delayed that drawing originally. Now we’re like a year later and I am no more skilled. Lack of spoons is very sad 🙁

I think I get irritated when stuff happens like “big sentient robots” trying to come through a portal and then bam never mentioned again. Like wouldn’t the ‘killer robots’ that the Romulans were so afraid of? That an advanced race reconfigured a solar system to say “hey look here important warning” about not contacting said killer robots? Wouldn’t those robots wonder who had contacted them and why and maybe make their own way here? The old fashioned way. I mean seriously big deal and just nope not a thing anymore. Like I get having plots persist for multiple seasons isn’t very accessible to new viewers but it makes for a richer, deeper world.

I prefer plots that come from continuity. Not random new stuff out of nowhere. But also not calling on past stuff due to ‘nostalgia’ like make it make sense and have purpose.

Anyway I’ll stop rambling but dammit I am nostalgic for my own idea. I just wish I had the spoons to share it.

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I’m not watching Picard until later. I think sometimes it drops early but it isn’t supposed to drop until Friday in the UK, and so I watch it with pizza at dinner time.

Buuuut I have something to ramble about which I have mentioned in the good Trek discord before, and it’s sort of General show so not really spoilers.

I am a writer. Probably not a good one and not currently very active due to mental health. I am supposed to be working on an original novel trilogy but I digress. Point being I have written stories and I am familiar with what I would consider some easy mistakes/pitfalls.

One of the big ones I noticed during revision passes of a prior novel is that time didn’t really move all that much for characters if I wasn’t with them. It’s like if they weren’t active in a scene they were basically on a shelf just waiting. Some stuff obviously happened plot wise off screen but it was big picture, and it in no way accounted for the amount of time there had been. There wasn’t growth, there wasn’t life, there wasn’t realism. It was just sort of frozen to where it was convenient for me (the author) to move them around like chess pieces. It made for what I feel was a shallow and less engaging story. It was hard for the characters to feel 3D/real when they hadn’t had actual lives.

Ever since Picard season one I have basically been like “really?” because it feels like most of the characters have basically been ‘on hold’ in between their screen appearances. They haven’t talked to one another, they have been stuck in one pattern. Picard bummed around his vineyard for 20 years. Now this I was semi-ok with because it seemed to be a plot point that he had just been “waiting to die” as he had left StarFleet and lost his purpose. Season 1 was about finding that again.

But that kind of logic can’t be the same for every single character always. I don’t know. I feel like I’m not explaining this right. It’s just this sort of frustration that I feel like they just dashed off a single line to explain what characters had been doing for the intervening 20 years and left it at that. Life is more than that. I get that screentime is limited and there isn’t time but they can hint at things. But just having all the characters stop talking to one another until the “next adventure on screen” and just do one thing and not grow, is dare I say lazy?

Anyway I’m not sure I have made my point, or been clear at all, but this is just bugging me. Characters are supposed to have lives, not just stop on pause in between screen appearances.

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I also think (and I haven’t said this before it just occurred to me) that the writers fuck-up started back in season one with a very key thing.

Intervening years? What intervening years?

True there was some stuff very soon after the last movie with the Romulans but then Picard sat in his vineyard for 15 years until the next TV show came around. Yeah they gave Riker a family but for the most part again kinda exiled on pause. Some more stuff is coming up now like he had command of the Titan at some point etc. but for the most part it feels like they had no idea what these guys did until the “next adventure” (aka now) and that is maybe partly why it feels so fake and weird.

I mean I write sometimes and creating a living breathing world is damn hard. I constantly find myself going “well what do these characters do all day?” “Where are there friends?” Because it is so easy to fall into the trap of them being in a bubble and only existing in written scenes and not much in between. But it makes for a very shallow life and poor motivation and emotional resonance.

Another problem with the nostalgia element is that it doesn’t let the characters grow properly.

Seriously I do wonder these days if people working on franchises get a kick out of seeing how little effort they need to make. It’s like “oh it has trek / Star Wars / marvel etc. in the name and that’s enough”

Dude no it isn’t.

2022: Fandom Year in Review

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So this year was a ride due to moving. Let’s see what I actually did 🙂

Fanfics written/posted: 4
Fanfics started: More than 4 haha
Fandoms written in: 4
Number of fanfic words written: 134,636
Fanart completed: 2
Gifsets posted: 27

Most Popular Fic = Dancing on Broken Glass (with a whopping 44 more kudos than the next closest fic)

Most Popular Gifset = – How it started vs how it’s going (Star Trek: Picard, Seven/Raffi) – 340 notes, 34 more than the next highest which was also Trek 🙂

Most Popular Fanart = Winter Advent 22 (Amanda Tapping, Stargate and Sanctuary mixed media) – 59 notes, so a 54 note difference

Links and rambling on everything under the cut 🙂

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galactic-pirates:

I saw the poster for the movie “The Spy Who Dumped Me” and I clicked on it because it had two women on the cover and I thought it was going to be an epic lesbian rom-com.

Naturally I was disappointed. The spy was a guy, and the two women were just room-mates BUT it made me wonder, could it work for either of my ships? The answer is I think it could work for both of them! but in different ways.

1) Original thought – After locksat was dealt with Haley eventually got bored and started travelling for work again. The distance, plus the age gap, led Haley to break up with Alexis. When some bad guys from her latest job start hunting Alexis, Haley thinks their break-up was an even better idea because look at the danger she put her in.

Alexis disagrees, she’d been kidnapped and shot at long before she met Haley and what she hates the most is the people she loves being in danger, and not being there to help them. Alexis asks Haley whether she expects her to turn her back on her dad and never see him again. Shocked Haley says no, so Alexis says then why would she turn her back on her? To cut a long idea short basically they prove they are stronger together, plus being forced together like that reminds both of them why they fell in love with each other in the first place.

2) Second thought – Ruby had dated Whale, Victor Whale, for a short time. Unfortunately it was during this short time that Victor was tailed and so Ruby was flagged as being his weak spot. Now Victor is a lothario but not a jerk, if he could then he would have gone to protect Ruby, but he was deep undercover on another assignment. So instead the agency dispatches Mulan.

Things get a little more complicated when Merida from down the hall gets caught up in the initial shootout/chase at Ruby’s apartment. Now the three women are on the run and to be cheesy – sparks are going to fly.

Yeah I want to fic it.

A spambot (I think) just liked this old post of mine and I love my brain sometimes.

In honour of NaNo I am bringing this back.

I don’t talk about my original writing much. I think that is mostly fear because I feel I should compartmentalise. Fandom and my (hopeful) ‘professional career’ shouldn’t mix, and this is my fandom space.

But I would be a total liar if I said that I hadn’t been inspired by fanfic. I read a blog post about it a long time ago, by a professional author called Holly Lisle, which she entitled something like “How to steal ideas without stealing them”. It’s basically about taking one very small concept, something very vague like a trope, and then change utterly everything else.

As indeed is the case with the first scenario on this list. I turned a vague variation of that general concept into a sci-fi thriller. You’ve heard of world building for novel planning? I had to do a small amount of universe building as there were four planets in this thing.

Anyway it is possibly the worst first draft in the world. In fact it probably doesn’t deserve being called a first draft. It is a zero draft. It requires a complete rewrite. But it exists. I have something to work with and that I can develop further.

I had totally forgotten the second concept and now I need to think of a good background and make that a thing too. I don’t know when. I have a dozen series ideas (series, not books, series of books). I could probably write solidly for the next decade before I would need to think of anything new.

But yeah I want to write it.

Fandom, Creation and Me

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With it being NaNo tomorrow I am doing update posts, and planning posts, and basically sorting everything out. It’s also something I do at the end of/start of every year. It’s part cleaning house, part goal setting.

This has been a funny year with moving house dominating all of it. I was just going to update my art goals, only to discover I didn’t make my customary end of December post because that was during the madness. Then I remembered I didn’t think I updated here either. I checked the archive and I did say I’d finally moved on September 13th but as to my fandom plans not a whisper. So I’m going to talk about it now!

Mid-April I made a post in which I said:

SO! My mission, should I choose to accept it bwahaha is to write EVERY SINGLE fanfic idea on my list (that I still want to write when I get to it) before the end of the year. Deadline December 31st. After that the slate is wiped clean. 

This started to go off the rails when I stopped writing in the summer. Some people write more when they are stressed as an escape. I wish I could say I was one of them but alas I unfortunately do my best turtle impression instead and basically very little gets done.

When I moved into my house that was a fresh start in the biggest way possible. I want – no I need – to make the most of that. I had to think about what serves me, and ultimately I decided to make my clean break then. So yeah, no more fanfic from me.

I have a few WIPs on my HD but thankfully due to my policy these days of not posting until stories are complete, that doesn’t matter. I do feel… I wanted those ideas to be brought to life as I do like them, but I had to make a choice about what was best for me, and wistful thoughts about what could have been aren’t going to change my mind.

So am I quitting fandom?

No.

I’m still co-mod of Saffi Prompts and I intend to help with that if it comes out of hiatus. I’m still running Saffi Bingo, in as much as I sent out the cards months ago but nothing seems to have happened. I’m helping put together the 13th anniversary event for Bering and Wells next April.

I also just signed up for a Leverage Bingo Card because you see while my fanfic days are over, my fanart days are not.

I want to get into art in a big, big way. I feel like fanfic helped me a lot with my writing journey. Fanfic helped me see projects through from beginning to end, helped me produce on a schedule, helped me keep up the practice when my mental health wouldn’t permit me to write other things. I owe fanfic a lot. It’s my hope that fanart might fulfil the same function in terms of getting me started.

Now I know I’ve promised I would do art in the past and then haven’t done it. For years I have made it a goal to do 1 piece a month and I’ve never got close. I think the best I ever did was at the start of 2021 when I think I made it to April before I stopped.

That was before though, and the start of my writing journey was a similar tale. I went through a time when I wrote once a year – for NaNo – and didn’t write at all the rest of the time. It’s unthinkable now but that’s how it was. So just because I didn’t draw on the regular in the past, despite saying I would, doesn’t mean I will always fail at that.

TLDR

No more fanfic from me. Expect fanart – eventually. I want to work through some art courses I have first before I go back to trying to draw what I imagine. Hopefully this will mean when I attempt those imagined pieces they will be better, and not as cringeworthy when I look back later as to how I ever dared post them on the internet.

P.S. What about gifsets?

Nearly forgot about that. Fandom Friday will not be returning. I don’t have the time. However, I’m not ruling out making sets when/if I feel inspired to do so.

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Ok so with “Raffi on Voyager” thinking.

Year of Hell.

Seven stayed with the “senior staff” when the others went into escape pods. Raffi presumably wouldn’t have qualified (although Harry was there) and now I can’t decide what’s more angsty. Seven being all “it is more efficient if you leave as you’ll be safe” or “I will tell the captain I can not complete my duties adequately without your assistance”