overlook my supposed crimes

2002-12-21T00:33:00.000-08:00

Maayan said this, remember:

To say that Farscape--its heart--is about the girl is, to me, selling it short. It's passing by a lot of love along the way. It's that chaotic web of lives which makes Farscape special. (Don't struggle, the trap will only tighten around you.) That's the heart of the series, over a single strand.

In response to Ben's comment that Every Great Story is about The Girl.

Can't help but agree with M, but it got me thinking -- what if it were? What if Farscape were about the girl, what if this were Aeryn's story, or, rather, the story of Crichton's pursuit, the story of, the glory of capital-L Love?

2:57 am and I can't sleep but I can almost, almost see it, enough that it made me get up from bed to put my fingers to work and follow where she goes. Enough that I can squint in the dark and nearly see what it looks like.

The universe, perched on the back of a great turtle (and what's underneath that? Why, it's turtles, all the way down) and held together like the best kind of fable, where all the hints get dropped and at the end (oh and let's not, for a moment, worry about that, about Farscape and The End, let's exist outside linear time and look at it as if it Was and not as if it Will Be -- because as a fable, Farscape has always existed, and every story was already told in the Bible or Shakespeare, world without end amen) it all comes together in a six word moral: And They Lived Happily Ever After.

On the right hand. A boy just barely out of school sets off to seek his fortune. Got the father he can't live up to and the mother he wasn't able to love in time. Needs to become a hero for himself and for dad, needs to love for his mother and for Her. Got the culture too primal for his provinciality, Earth, the universe's teething baby brother. He doesn't know what he doesn't know: Unconsciously Incompetent, my father would say, playing in Freud's sandbox and never venturing too far from his mother's teat. Knows nothing, drooling, dumb and wide open.

On the left hand. A girl raised on regiment, no family, no love. A clone of a soldier; for all the world, a blank slate. Got the culture too rigid for its own mortality -- ostensibly infinitely aware of the Wonders She's Seen and too afraid of all of them, walls up, weapons trained on. Knows everything, terrified, dwarfed, locked away.

Ask Crichton the moral of Farscape and he whispers in awe: "Earth needs to know the wonders I've seen."

But as far as he's concerned (and therefore as far as we're concerned, as far as we can fathom, as far as we go, turtles all the way), it's about The Girl, about Earth, Crichton-embodied, meeting glory and evil, love and hatred head-on, Aeryn and the Peacekeepers, the Uncharted Territories, knowledge and war.

So it becomes what he has to sell (blissful ignorance, solitude, youth, security) to let her in, and what she has to sell (defensiveness, training, cellular memory) to allow for the possibility that the galaxy's eternal knowledge of right and wrong might not be exacting after all. What Crichton has to sell -- what Earth has to sell -- to become part of the galactic community, part of a larger story they were never exposed to. What Aeryn has to sell -- what the ages-old politics of the UTs has to sell -- to return to innocence again; to find Love.

Because we've been convinced (the fable, again), that Crichton and Aeryn can't come together until Earth takes its place among the stars, until the UTs breathe again with that wide-eyed wonder of rebirth and everybody's seeing it new for the first time.

Their Love will stop wars; their union endures, not with the human (that's lowercase h human, humanity of a kind) need of two against the world, isolated and clinging to one another while the plague rages on around them -- but ONLY with the approval of the universe (enter Einstein, Find Your Way Home), handshake and an agreement to return to that most primal of treaties and introductions, Boy Meets Girl.

In other words, to get Crichton and Aeryn together, the fable says, the universe (the whole goddamned ever-expanding expanse) must learn to Love.

Friday nights, Maayan's spot-on. We see shreds of it bubble to the surface, battle of Jericho and the walls come tumbling down. We see the sidelong winks of love, in all our people, the kids on Moya, the rare humanity in the wink of a soldier, the tugs of selfishness and self-protection that create dictators and start and end wars. Good actors and good writers offer it up ever week, whether it's Braca returning to Scorpius' side or Chiana asking D'Argo one more time for forgiveness.

That's the tapestry, the background, that's the Whole Story.

But what if...

What IF it was just about The Girl?

What if we removed her from context and imbued her with all the symbolic responsibility of her culture and her pocket of the universe, and we stood her up, nose to nose with Our Hero and said I Dare You?

Maybe it's the same thing, only broader? Or more narrow? Maybe it's a quest with a moral only Einstein knows.

And next time I put hand to keyboard I'm back in a foxhole again, with that clingy all-too-human need and the plague raging on, but you never know -- (we're still Earthlings, after all, drooling and provincial and turtles all the way down) maybe it is just that one perfect kiss and we're back in the garden of innocence again; the universe gets a Do Over.

And maybe after four years out there Crichton's getting hints of it too (not the whole story, of course, never the whole story), and that's what he means (though he doesn't know it, not yet) when he talks about the Wonders He's Seen. And when Einstein broke him free and set him reeling, daring him to find his way home, maybe that's what he meant too.

So anyway, if you wake up tomorrow to find that innocence has reached out to take the hand of forgiveness, if you wake up to find peace on the mountain and the slate wiped clean, maybe that was all it took, Our Hero and Our Heroine finally making it work, humanity taking its place among the stars, the stars with open arms ready to accept it, spears into plowshares into valentines, Boy Meets Girl.

Anyway, what if.

2002-11-26T22:16:00.000-08:00

Why not, I thought, an ambienated con report, and here, because that's where it goes.

And it should come as a surprise to no one that the voice in my head speaks with a french accent, now.

I'm home. Returned with a busted shoulder, worked today, all day carrying heavy things, and I'm wiped and wired, foggy from the ambien and the painkiller, all in all eyes wide open and feeling good.

I missed G, and then I miss her, and now she's gone and I miss her more. More on that in the LJ, when we hear her plane's landed safe in Oz.

Backing up.

There's a kind of poetry of place that comes with Ambien, when it doesn't put you to sleep but instead begs alliteration, begs a lyrical take on the world, taking on the world. Here, I'm taking on the weekend, and it went like this:

I finished both books on the plane and bought Patchett's "Bel Canto" at the SF airport. Finished "Bel Canto" later, and recommend it heartily, as it's a marvelous musical twist of terror, tragicomic, tapestriac, elegiac, layered. Good book.

Got to LA and met a women called Jan and her son called Ian on the airport shuttle; Scapers both. It seems there's another one, a daughter, possibly of the Ultimates board, but I met her several times and never caught her name. She has twins.

Found Fi and Maayan in the hotel, Fi being much as I'd left her x many moons ago, bit too thin and pale but not much the worse for wear, and a damned good hugger. Maayan and I circled in silence at first, sized up the prey, sniffed each others' asses and assessed. We weren't sure how it would be. Later it was made markedly clear.

Off with Max to pick up Deneba from the airport, my only venture outside the Hilton's borders and straight shot to LAX and back. Max was reluctant but still made my mimes, dubious at first and there was a lot of hand-waving (of the adorable variety, to be sure). Deneba was as I'd pictured and more, in control, in charge, dynamic, remarkable, spunky.

Back to learn my Maayan was sleeping off the jetlag, so the rest of us retired to the bar with cheesecake and beer, with Red and Jul and WG, with Orchid and cofax and Teri the BBQ. Max and Fi and D and me. We met Tiriel before that, at the preregistration, and she introduced me to Gremlin and next I knew I'd been roped into producing the Save Farscape documentary. I didn't know, then, that that assignment would proceed to devour my flesh from my bones (in a good way), but there it began, and there it was.

We were tired. We went to bed. Then it turned into Friday.

M and Fi woke me up for the 9:30 strategy meeting, plyed me with lousy coffee and propped me up till I was called on. We organized a table, squeezed a Rygel, carried a Moya and wore Scorpy on our heads. No one gave me breakfast, and I think I might have volunteered to do things. Deneba was princess and taskmaster, and laid out an agenda that saved our asses more than once. Cofax and Fi seemed to know things, and the tri-Brain had an office set up, complete with printer/copier and a ream of yellow paper. We made flyers. We had a headquarters. We were a business. We were in business.

We found Ricky in the morning, after a couple of shy shoulder-brushes. I'd lost my cell phone but a call to my voicemail told me Omar at Henson had gotten me on the guest list, which earned me a green handstamp and no seats. So I wandered into the -- what was it? Must have been Anthony. Oh, no, it was Wayne. And there was Ricky in the corner and I sidled up, saying "mind if I skulk over here with you?" and he gave me a look. I whispered, "do you know who I am?" "You're Em," he whispered back. "I am Em!" I said, and good that I did, for I'd need to remember that one later.

Maayan sauntered Frenchly over and we skulked till they made us stop, and then we sat and let it all happen. Wayne spoke. Fi cried. I held on to Maayan's head. I held on to Maayan's head a lot, over the course of the weekend, and later we'd sneak out back and smoke cigarettes in the bitter old fic queen vortex, and we'd stare in silence and I'd hold her head. We'd check out every once in a while, and though we never got farther than the parking lot, it was far enough, and we'd go.

Anth was jumpy, shot of adrenaline to a fading crew (and so early!), and then upstairs, to Maayan's suite, where the Save Farscape documentary team (meet Ally, the director, Clint, the lighting designer, Gremlin, the sound engineer, and Tiriel, the interviewer, hereafter referred to as the documentary team) had built a fabulous set for the evening's Ricky Manning interview. Ricky and Cheryl came up. They signed things. I got Mambo presents. I got a glimpse of the afterlife. Ally crouched behind the camera and the interview proceeded apace. At the end, I traded in my green handstamp for Cheryl's orange VIP pass, the rectangular orange saving grace for the documentary team, the orange bane of my existance, the orange monkey on my back. I was hooked.

Then the band, and our girls (Fi, Deneba, Max, cofax, the rest?) took on a conga line of epic proportion, rocked on till dawn, till Lani and Raelee and Gigi had no choice but to join in. Anth sang songs of lost loves, and Wayne wayned the hell out of that drum kit.

After. Maayan and I, skulking in the corner, maybe I'm holding Maayan's head. It's unclear, my memory's foggy. She says, "you can go back there" after the band, pointing at the orange sticker. "Not without you," I said. "We're not joined at the hip," she said, and it's true sometimes it's nice to break off and be alone. So I left her there, went and joined our conga girls, and then wandered into the bar, to find Ricky, Cheryl, Gigi, Lani, and Annabel (Lil's assistant) at a corner table. They skootched over to let me in, and Cheryl and I talked cats and bonsai, talked Harry and Gab and Naren, talked failed Farscape writers and impossible Farscape successes. Talked Ricky, the hardest working man since James Brown. A nice woman in a wheelchair bought me a whiskey sour, and Annabel let me finish it. Gigi introduced herself to me: "I'm Gigi." I giggled at her and invited her up for a Save Farscape interview after her stage time, Sunday. She merrily agreed.

I'm sure I found Maayan later, and I'm sure I slept, because then Saturday happened, with another meeting and slightly better coffee. We hammered out the update for Sunday and talked about the radio blitz and the Save the Children auction. We missed Ricky.

Saturday, setting up for another interview, hoping for Wayne, Anthony, Claudia. We get Lani, a fair consolation prize after wearing down his publicist until she gave in. Lani was a delight and the interview went well, Tiriel on-camera this time. Ally's MIA.

Saturday, backstage for Claudia's panel, sitting with Ricky and Cheryl at that long table. Maayan got one autographed french fry. They gave me shrinkwrapped bread. We ate and watched Claud from the back, as she told farting stories and called Ben.

I pounced, afterward, clutching my orange tag, "hey Claudia, if you have a minute when the autograph signing is done, want to come up and do an interview for Save Farscape?" "Sure," she says. "Talk to Tracy."

So I talk to Tracy, from Henson, who says "sure" as well and takes my number -- but the documentary team gathers, redresses the set and finishes only to get a call from Tracy saying "Claudia's running late to another appointment, she won't be able to make it." Alas.

The documentary team meets. We discuss the proceedings. Ally has returned -- a misunderstanding led her to believe we wouldn't need her till the evening. I apologized, and we blamed the fickle nature of stars. Failing Claudia's appearance, the crew interviewed Fi, championess of the Save Farscape cause and the first SF team member to be interviewed for the documentary.

In the meantime, a cocktail party. The stars table-hop, I catch Wayne early on and ask him if he can pop up for an interview after the party. He agrees, with the caveat that I have to physically WHISK him away, lest the Creation people bind and gag him and lock him down, out of reach. Much the same from Anth, so I'm standing by the door, smoking with Maayan and Chris (AZ), gossiping with Annabel about Melrose shopping and the delightful Manning family.

Wayne! We pounce, grab him by his coat collar and run like mad for the elevator, fending off chasing Creation people with thrown chickens. At the elevator and the doors aren't closed yet, and it's Crazy Irish Girl, she's feet away, gaining!

"Close the door close the door close the door!" Wayne's backed himself into a corner. "She'll get us!" But the doors shut and we're safe, for now. Upstairs, Wayne takes a Red Bull and enjoys an interview, as we enjoy him for all his rambling and luddite tendencies. We give him the Save Farscape book -- e-mail downloads. That's e-mail, Wayne, we explain. It's for reading. It's spelled "schizophrenia."

Go back down for Anth and he sees me, he waves at me over the heads of four big Creation bodyguards (including Big Mike, my meal ticket and the extension of my magic orange badge, the man who guards "backstage"). Can't get to Anth, and within seconds he's whisked off, boxed up for the next time Creation needs him.

"Is Wayne okay?!" the Creation people ask me. I can't not smile. "Um, yes. He was in an elevator. He seemed okay. He went upstairs. We gave him a Red Bull. He's hanging in there." As if for fear we'd break him. Fragile Scorpy, I've always said. And Wayne, when he spoke, agreed that Scorpy and Crichton are in love -- if not a romantic kind of love certainly a physical and emotional one. They need each other, they complete each other. QED. Or, less politely, "told ya so." :P

Now we're downstairs again for Teri the BBQ's fic thing, except I'm mostly on the couch and this time Maayan's holding my head, and sometimes we go outside and smoke. We're exhausted, dazed, unsure what to say. The convention thing, the Farscape thing, the personal exhaustion, all conflating to a mass of ennui and a lot of staring into space. Weighty staring, weighted, tired silence, not the uncomfortable kind. We sit on the sidewalk and stare.

Something else must have happened but then I got to go upstairs and have spanikopita and round shrimp things, and Red, and Fi, and we all sat in silence and stared. Then downstairs, with Maayan, watched bad TV in silence, read my book, drifted off.

The next day must have been Sunday, because someone fed me something and then we were outside with coffee and the SF team updated for the masses. The light was great and Ally got excellent footage of the update, the fan response, the relic that is Steve Palmer. We shot Deneba's interview outside too, great questions on the accountability of the fund as well as general information on the FWA, mostly just D being her lovely self. Clint acted as a human c-stand and later picked up the smaller camera and got some vox pop from con goers. We went inside to hear Raelee speak.

I waved my orange sticker again, got backstage to find Raelee in the greenroom, doing an interview with Paul Simpson of the Official Magazine. "Do you have time to do an interview for our docu next?" I asked her. She was all alone back there. "I've got an hour," she said. Tina from Creation gave us the go-ahead, and Val from security took Raelee and I out back to smoke cigarettes and talk about dresses and tattoos. Then Val walked us to the elevator and dropped us off, and Raelee was ours for a time.

Her interview went deliciously too, she's just a spunky fiery sylph and she signed everything we put in front of her and more. My Maayan showed up to help me escort Raelee back to her people, tip of the hat to Big Mike backstage, and then Tracy from Henson showed up to yell at Raelee for going off to be interviewed at all. Seems I'd cleared it with Tina/Creation but not Tracy/Henson, was all a big mistake, and Raelee and I apologized to one another ad nauseum for causing the radar blip. I got Ally's information to Tracy and everything was copacetic.

Ricky laughed at the tangled bureaocracy and later made it all better.

Maayan and I went down for coffee with Ricky and Cheryl at some point, sat while Ricky called Oz Sue and passed the phone around to M and the others who frequent that Oz IRC chat. I talked with Cheryl about mah-jongg and bonsai, and they brought us cappucinos which Maayan, graciously, charged to her room.

Later. In the dark.

I tell Ally upstairs to sit tight, that I'll get Gigi after she goes on stage at 5 ish. But 5 turned to 7, with the surprise visit from David Kemper (looking for all the world like some descended god and it set the fans AFLAME, THUNDERING with applause, a standing ovation, though it was clear his mind was elsewhere and he'd just checked in for the same reason men climb mountains). So autograph sessions went long and even longer, and I ran back upstairs to tell Ally to pack it in, we weren't getting Gigi, it was over.

Chickened out, it was, inches before Maayan got in for her autograph, because I was deathly afraid David wouldn't recognize me and I just...I couldn't. But she made me. Maayan made me come back, later, with the Save Farscape team. I told Ricky to tell David I was here, and, shaking, wrote my name on my badge, just in case I forgot. "I am Emily," I said, often. They seemed to agree. We stood in line a while. Ricky showed up, though whether he had his own reasons or whether it was out of solidarity for me I'll never know, but he was good enough to stand behind David at the signing table and reassert my identity. "I am Emily," I said weakly, when my turn came. "She is Emily," Maayan and Ricky agreed.

David, tired. Looked up, smiled, Took me in a hug. "Hey, baby. So good to see you." A good hug. I told him I was glad he came. I was glad he came.

Later.

We tried to say goodbye. They were gone already. Gigi was sick in David's arms. A woman was packing a three thousand dollar pulse pistol to ship to Ohio, and Deneba had tears in her eyes.

Later they'll say the best part of the weekend was when David showed up, on stage with Gigi, to the thunderous applause.

For me it came a little later, over a chicken sandwich with Maayan in the bar. First that weighty silence, but it all started to coagulate then, to take on meaning. Farscape, separate from Save Farscape (it's been difficult to do that), separate from the con, separate from Ben Browder's reedy genius, from Ricky's flirty cameraderie, from fanfiction, from writing. From Maayan and me, eating sandwiches and talking about the whole thing, the mediocrity of us and the genius of them and the bureaucracy in between it all.

And now the voice in my head speaks with a french accent, and tells me to write the story of Crichton not wanting anything, and Ambienated it's easy to see Crichton drugged for the safety of numbness, and Aeryn, and a Scorpy been de-fanged, and an earth demystified, and no place to go anymore, not really. Except inward, except except the self, and so we were two selves over chicken sandwiches in the hotel bar, and maybe we worked something out, but mostly it went, "I'm so glad you came." And then later it went, "I want to write again. I want to be writing now."

So that's next on my agenda, just heard from G who's stopped over in SF but is on her way to Oz, and I'll miss her like fire.
And Maayan and Fi are here tomorrow, so I have to clean my room.

And then, to the people who made the weekend what it was -- Maayan, Fi, cofax, Deneba, Red, Jul, Max, WG, Tiriel, Ally, Gremlin, Clint, BBQ Teri, buggs, Mickie, Orchid, Shrift, Ricky, Cheryl, Annabel, Wayne, Lani, Anthony, Gigi, Raelee, Steve, Big Mike, Val, Gary from Creation, Tina from Creation, and the late great DK -- thank you thank you thank you.

I wrote my phone number for Annabel on the battered VIP sticker, "because being a VIP is nothing but trouble" and gave it to Ricky to take home. I'm more exhausted than I've ever been, maybe. But there it is. In French.

2002-11-26T17:27:00.000-08:00

Everything hurts. Everything. Hurts. More on this story as it unfolds.

and a con update, to follow, to boot.
God I love all of you. xxx

2002-10-09T10:41:00.000-07:00

Fiction speaks louder than words? Or something.

Anyway, a post-UR for the rest of us.

[I do believe in ghosts, post-UR, John, Scorpius, Aeryn, Sikozu. Power fills a vacuum.]

2002-09-20T02:40:00.000-07:00

If We Build It, They Will Come..

DK and company want that 2.0 rating, we'll get 'em a 2.3 if we play it right. First, learn about the Nielsens, if you're not sure how the ratings system works:

http://www.nielsenmedia.com/index.html

With Farscape's current audience, we can't get that 2.0, but with the power of this movement behind us, we can bring a half a million more eyeballs to the television come January.

So your homework, for the next two or three months, is Publicity. For us, for the movement, for Farscape, for quality television. Go ahead and target the networks, SFC, UPN, Showtime, whoever -- but also target (and use!) local and national media to get our cry out there.

In the coming weeks, we're going to set up templates for "letters to the editor" over on the savefarscape.com site, for you to use to write to your local papers, industry magazines, webzines, blogs, whatever. Talking about Farscape, why you love it, why you'd miss it, why it's an important show.

Also, for the journalists among us -- try to write articles, reviews, blurbs about Farscape for any magazine that will publish you. Talk about the fan movement, and talk about what the show has done for television and for audiences everywhere. While some Scapers are deluging SFC with mail and faxes, we'll stay here and write about them, write about US, what we've done.

Or if we can't write, we'll find sympathetic journalists who will -- Renay San Miguel, for example. Caitlin Kiernan. Others.

As long as we keep "Farscape" in the media's popular vocabulary, and as long as we make a spectacle out of our crusade, come January, the half-season premiere can be nothing BUT Must-See TV. Everyone'll tune in, just to see what the fuss was all about. And we'll get them hooked. And we'll get our 2.0 with room to spare.

Start even earlier, get new fans recruited by the Christmas marathon. Use a buddy system, find a friend, convert him, make him convert one more. Spread the word.

And we'll write about that, in our letters to the editor, and we'll have our letters written about in articles and our articles covered on CNN. We're in the pot, here, we're doing the stirring.

So that's the homework, from now until the marathon, and until that next ep premieres in January.

Make FARSCAPE a household word -- a scandal, even. Make our experiences known. Whisper that SFC broke ineffable contracts with their viewers, make a big noise about what happened now.

And oh, they'll watch. If wind of our campaign gets out -- the lengths we're willing to go to, and fight -- oh, they'll cluster around their televisions in January because they just gotta know what all the fuss was all about. What show could be SO SPECTACULAR that it would cause its fans to take on this kind of crusade.

We know, already, of course.

The show was great, it brought great fans together. Great fans say great things, make great noises, and the people will come. And they'll see that the show is great, they'll agree, and in February sweeps the numbers won't lie.

We can save this show.

2002-09-19T22:54:00.000-07:00

You know, it's not that I was counting on Farscape, or Henson, to be my meal ticket. They never have been before.

It's just that with all the fighting this week, all the passion and energy directed at a cause...it's just that someday, I hope beyond hope ("beyond hope") that I'll be able to work for a living at something I believe in this much.

Because the believing is accidental -- it comes naturally from the pens of Farscape's writers and the stories the cast and crew bring to life. So, yeah, I'd believe anyhow.

The thing is -- I'd move halfway across the world to work on a project I cared about this much, and I'll do so from the comfort of my computer anyway. Still, you know. I'll keep writing, and maybe. Someday. Maybe we revolutionize television and I'll get to tell the stories I want to hear told.

Mmm, rallying cry blog entry is below. But I'm tired and wired now, and wondering, like Bartlet does, What's Next?

2002-09-19T20:43:00.000-07:00

“It is now a time for us to step back. Stay a community. Maintain your Farscape friends.” – DK, September 19th, IRC chat

Those who were waiting for a deus ex machine to come from Oz tonight, in the form of Farscape being renewed on SFC or picked up by another channel, we know how you feel. Easy to see our campaign as a failure, but look again, because that’s not what David’s telling us, and that’s not what we should be telling ourselves.

If we’d come here with the single goal of getting SFC to change its mind about Farscape, we wouldn’t be many thousand strong here now, to talk about it.

Might have looked like that, at the beginning. But that’s not what we’re here for. And that’s not what David, and Ricky, and Rockne -- and anyone else out there with a story to tell -- need from us now.

This is only the beginning, for them, and for us. Because there’s something in the wind now, something new that’s only starting to take form, something the savvier folks at CNN and TV Guide and the LA Times have recognized and are willing to explain to the world.

Forty years ago, a letter-writing campaign saved Star Trek at NBC, but those were gentler times. And in an era where the world has enough technology to destroy itself a thousand times over, and where millionaires pale beside their multi-billionaire cousins, we need to make an even louder noise to be heard.

And we have.

With the internet as our soapbox, our water cooler, our town meeting hall, we’ve gathered together in the greatest force EVER to take a stand for quality television. We’ve made more noise and gotten more publicity than any save-our-show campaign in the past, and we’re still growing.

So Farscape is on the bench at the moment. Sweating it off. Doesn’t mean we’re out of the game.

The world only spins forward, and our actions and our words here will create a new era for television programming, where the media content comes straight from the mouths of the folk, where we’re back around our caveman campfires again, telling the stories WE want to hear told.

Writers of fanfiction have known this for ages, even if they didn’t know they knew.

Media belongs to the masses. Viewers of the world, unite! We keep speaking in one voice, we keep challenging the opinions of network executives who don’t have respect for us now, and soon enough they’ll have no choice but to listen. We have the money, the numbers, the power. And the internet, to keep us together.

David Kemper came to talk to us tonight, not to tell us we failed, but to tell us we succeeded in making a noise, in getting people to pay attention. And when it comes down to it, Michael Jackson at SFC is one man, and if we put the fear of god in him for five minutes, we’ve done our job.

So, you ask, what next? For Farscape, for us?

Keep fighting. Keep the websites updated, share information, get smarter. The more intelligent voices we can add to our plea, the stronger we’ll grow, every day. Network execs listen to Nielson homes, not “gaggles,” but that’s the old school regime and we’ll throw it in their faces if it takes all year.

It’s gaggle time. It’s audience time. The old regime doesn’t work anymore.

In this century already, unions formed, to show lot bosses that the workers wouldn’t stand to be stepped on anymore. The United States learned a similar lesson when the electoral college failed us during the 2000 election. Napster shook the very foundation of the music industry. It’s our turn now. Let’s get together and make a big-ass change, for television, forever.

For Farscape? Wait until January, and then rock SFC with the best ratings they’ve ever seen for the remainder of Season 4. Place ads, take to the streets, make noise and let them know we’re still here. Keep sending letters and making calls, but don’t burn yourselves out. Do research so we can bombard them with real information.

For us? Stick together. Organize. Let TPTB know we’re not a flash in the pan, confined to one show, one project, one dismissable group of fans. Let them know that the old methods don’t work anymore.

I’ve worked in the television industry for a lot of years now, and in those back offices they’re mired in the old ways. So let’s get ‘em to open their windows, let’s show ‘em we’re standing outside, railing and shouting and singing in one great voice. Let’s show ‘em we won’t stand to see what happened to Farscape happen again.

Trust me, they’ll listen. We do our jobs, and Farscape will return. David and Rockne and Ricky and the rest of them will return, and they’ll get a chance to tell their stories, and new stories, for as long as we’re out here listening.

And I plan to be out here listening for a long, long time.

2002-09-18T22:37:00.000-07:00

I quit my job at PBS after only a handful of months, because I hated it, because I didn't care about the show we were working on and couldn't stomach the bureaucracy.

I quit working at the SCI FI Channel when they stopped letting me work on good shows like Farscape, and when I couldn't stomach the bureaucracy.

Sad thing is that bureaucracy's everywhere, and in this industry it seems that the better the content, the more difficult it is to find right-minded people in positions of power.

At SFC it was my job to respond to fan mail, and in that very first March when Farscape premiered, one of the best things I got to do was send a package of posters and light-up pens and network toys to Kiki and Perri, widely acknowledged as Farscape's first fans.

Common sense says you can't always get what you want, but for a long time there I had it -- I got to be connected, however tangentially, to one of the finest shows on television, and I got to work, however tangentially, with folks like Rockne O'Bannon and David Kemper, who cared about quality, and content, and knew how to tell a damned good story.

So hell yeah, it was my show, and it still is. And even if I didn't know these guys I'd still be fighting for it, because like is drawn to like, and the television industry is a wasteland save for those shimmering oases that come along every few seasons and remind us that there are marvelous stories to be told.

In college I majored in media and cultural studies, and wrote my thesis on television even though my professors came from the art world of classical Hollywood film. I said I liked the serial nature of television, the sprawling narratives, the longevity of characters to grow old and fat and bald with, to watch fall in and out of drama and love. Not just a fan, also a client, dem's de breaks. Which is to say, TV brought me here, but it's still who I am, still what I look for on that drop-down menu under "employment": Television, broadcasting, media. I'm a nerd, I'm a junkie, I'm a flunky, I'm a businesswoman.

So what's my pep talk for this evening? Listen to my team at wdsection, listen to Maayan and Fi, listen to your heart, listen to each other. Talk, the way we do, each night, to figure out what it is exactly we want out of all this, what we're here for, what the nature of this currency is.

Because what we have to offer to the cause is ourselves, in force and in number, in passion and in intellect. Enough of us shout and they can't help but listen -- we're the music makers, the fundraisers, the consumers, the reporters, the listeners, the thinkers, the choir.

They'd mock the hell out of the fans over at SFC, another reason I left. Another reason they dumped the fan letters on my desk where they never made it to the eyes of the highers-up. But it's their own fool fault, because they've forgotten we built them, and we can break them, buddy, and even if we don't, we're still speaking in one voice -- louder than ever in the history of television, think about that, louder than ever! -- saying we do care about quality, we do care about stories, and characters, and passion, stop jerking us around, stop treating us like children, listen!

And David, Rockne, Ricky, Ben, the rest, they're the ones that do listen. The ones that will arise from this revolution stronger because they treat the viewers like family. Because they know they're only half of the relationship.

So today, I'm down with the working class. Proudly aligning myself with the fans who are fighting, not for money, not for nepotism or power or bragging rights, but for story, and for quality, and for our right to choose what we want to be exposed to. Call it PTA moms railing against violence in cartoons and it's a movement -- call it sci-fi fans pounding the sidewalks for Farscape and we're wasting our time. But I don't see the difference, not really. Money is power, power is power, hard to defend a position when public opinion says we don't "get anything" out of it.

But I don't work for SFC anymore, I'm just an audience member today and I'm still fighting just as hard. And anyone who tries to tell me Farscape doesn't exist in my world too has another thing coming.

With all that, a word to the Save Farscape campaign:

Make a big noise. In the direction of SFC, toward Michael Jackson, toward the advertisers, toward the marketeers and executives who don't think we're out here. Be loud and proud and don't forget you're as much a part of this show as they are, and, in number, far greater.

Remember what you're fighting for. This isn't about vitriol, or about pointing fingers or placing blame. This is about our quest for quality storytelling and the right to have a say in what's on television. This isn't about who knew before who, or what kind of pissing contests go on in executive conference rooms. It's about us, and if we don't get this one, we'll get the next one, but damn it, we're gonna be heard.

Learn. Rumors don't help, and neither does being alarmist. Research the key figures we're fighting about, SFC, Henson, Vivendi, EM-TV. Research the advertisers, the competitors, the business behind the business. Play by their rules, or if you don't like them, figure out a way to change them. We won't get anywhere without direction, and we have to make sure we're taken seriously. Write good letters. Ask around. Make friends. My folks at wdsection know what they're talking about. Listen to them. Ask good questions. Share what you know.

At the risk of sounding like an armchair psychologist, that's what I've got, as a pep talk to myself and the rest of you. Because folks keep asking if this is over, when it's gonna be over, how we'll know when to stop. But why does it have to end, just because Farscape goes one way or another? There's still a need to challenge the decision makers, the executives with about as much contempt for fans as we have for them, right about now. Enough from us, down the line, and the Davids and Rickys of the world will have a safe place to tell their stories. And how happy will we be then!

2002-09-12T21:55:00.000-07:00

Well, don't forget that NBC threatened to cancel Star Trek after its second season, and a letter-writing campaign saved it. Then again, that was a more enlightened time.

So, you know, there are a couple of alternatives. And visit Fi's blog and Maayan's blog for more calls to action and specific methods of protest. But in broad strokes:

Encourage SCI FI to keep Farscape.

This probably won't happen. It's a matter of money and a matter of image at this point, and those things are the true currency of network executives. Farscape is an expensive show, and with the $1.4M SFC shells out for every Farscape episode, they believe they can make two or three episodes of other, less production-value-heavy, original programs. Michael Jackson, the new head of programming at SCI FI, has the goal of expanding the reach of the science fiction genre to reach mainstream audiences. As long as Farscape continues, in his estimation, to bring in only "sci-fi nerds," it's a loser bet. They look at the Nielsens and the numbers don't lie. So if you want to argue, research the ratings history of the show and use numbers to back you up.

But if we can convince the network that Farscape has brought in new eyeballs, it's our one chance. The open letter to SFC in today's Variety did a good thing when it appealed to the underwriters of the show, Mazda, Volkswagen, whoever. Talking to executives at those companies, or the ad sales departments of networks, would not be a bad move either. Money talks. If the advertisers believe Farscape is useful to them, they can exert power over the channel.

Encourage other networks to pick up Farscape.

There's a rumor that UPN has expressed interest, but it could be just a rumor. Showtime is also being bandied around as a possibility, and it would be wise to contact their execs, as fans of THEIR networks and tell them you believe Farscape would be an asset to their lineup. See some of the other blogs for that contact information.

Brainstorm other possibilities.

There was some gossip about some Farscape movies in place of a 5th season -- a strong enough campaign for that could show SCI FI that that's a worthy investment. And there are always alternatives that the execs haven't thought of -- with a braintrust like the internet fandom, we can come up with some viable ideas for Henson/Hallmark to research. Any ideas you have to keep the show alive should be sent to the folks at Henson, with a reminder that the fans are out here and that we will follow Farscape wherever it goes.

More to come. It ain't over.

2002-06-11T20:08:00.000-07:00

As of this hour, aqui esta a spoiler zone. Saw Farscape 401 and 402, won't spoil 402 until after Friday. But US airdates are my sandbox and I don't know how to whitefont in this template and haven't tried especially hard to learn. *g*

relaying message, creating friendly spoiler space Maayan, come to the NYC con after Burbank. SR and I promise to be hospitable and delightful hosts. /relaying message

Oh and while we're at it:

And it wasn't even rigged.

Crichton Kicks. mmm, could've been written by us chickens. A splash of cofax, dollop of Maayan, just a sprinkling of me, all the post-322s colliding because apparently this was the bit where we all got Crichton right.

Consummate DK episode, said SR, appropriately. twisty characterization grounded in supersonic breathless action, backs against the wall. With more than a touch of hysteria. That's the way I like Crichton -- determined and edgy and crazy -- and rising to the challenge like an embittered Jedi in the knee-boots and white robe. Turns out he is stuck being a good guy (in Cambridge, Maayan whispers, "I told you so"), with genuine compassion beyond selfishness and beyond singleminded hero dreams. Not in an "everything I do, I do for you" way, but rather in a cowboy drawl, "stick with me, kid, we'll go places."

and so of course there's our girl Sputnik, who I warmed to quite quickly though she won't have a chance to develop a character of her own till Jool's toast (we hardly knew ye!) and till we see her interact with the rest of the crew. Still, promising. I like her with Crichton, like her with Rygel (shades of early Chiana?), and the Sikozu/Chiana girlfight was the tastiest one since Xena.

I'm waffling on Crichton's pull toward Aeryn and the baby, but I think that's partly because 401 and 402 are blurred in my mind and I can't remember which things he said when. So I'll hold off on that, especially since 402 was a cliffhanger and there will be more to say after we get our hands on 403, 404, and 405 next week (godwilling). I'll take a "that's mine!" for the beach with Harvey and the bikini, and I'll tell you, if there was one thing I missed in Crichton Kicks, it was the vinyl-clad bunny chewing up Crichton's brain.

I mean. Kid's alone long enough to grow one mean-ass beard, then spends a good chunk of time spewing wormhole data aboard the dying Leviathan -- where's Harvey? I just don't think it's plausible that Crichton would have silenced his doppelganger in that environment -- John's too talky a guy. He likes to mumble out loud, bounce ideas around, sing to himself (speaking of which! 1812! Greatest DRD since the late great Pike! mmm, DRD Pike...) -- I won't believe Harvey wasn't right there with him. Here's where the format of TV has to bend a little to make room for the content, so we'll just pretend all the Harvey scenes happened off-camera.

I dunno, man. I'm fucking thrilled. was the best I could have hoped for and better than most, Crichton and some needy strangers trapped alone on a dying ship. Shades of the Premiere, but this Crichton is a nutbar compared to that white boy astronaut who ricocheted off the turnip truck in 101. Total crackpot, and more sane, too. Layers of buried personality emerging. Which has got to be a relief for the poor guy -- took him three years in space and godknows how many years back on Earth for him to shake off the high school kid facade and let himself babble and sing and go after what he wants and not be afraid to climb mountains just because they're there.

Maybe Aeryn's leaving taught him that, taught him to look after Sputnik and work on the wormholes and not leave the new Pilot alone to die. Maybe it took her leaving to get him to stop running toward the future and start dealing with the stuff in his hands, in front of his face. I mean, baby Crichton might have kicked, but John Crichton didn't look like he was in a hurry to get anywhere in particular. He was open to possibility, for the first time, taking things as they came.

Makes for a promising season, dude.

2002-05-25T14:08:00.000-07:00

New graphic, in honor of Maayan's "Red Shift," currently in beta over here. In honor of "Hard/Work," and, since you asked, yeah, I've gotten a handful of mailbombs and about three pieces of approximately positive feedback. A protective fandom this is, indeed. Ah well. I write for myself, anyhow. And sometimes for Pene.

Then there's the new thing I'm working on -- described it to M. as "Gehenna meets Planet of the Apes" and described it to Pene even more vaguely, because she needs to help. And lurking somewhere in the background is Lennier, poised to fall in love.

Whence came the Farscape renaissance? Somewhere between M meeting SR and my Scorpius action figure looking at me at work. Somewhere between LE writing Aeryn and Consuela talking to me about Xenophilia. Somewhere, most specifically, between New York and New Jersey, between me and Pene.

And I haven't read in a while but I'm looking at "Red Shift" now, and it's big, and it's new, and it's a perfect place to (re)start. You'll see. *g*

2002-05-21T11:34:00.000-07:00

Sometimes it's nice to read entirely positive reviews. Sometimes it's just good to know that other people are having as much fun as we are. with a grain of salt: "I've Got Your Warp Drive Here, Pal", courtesy SR.

2002-05-21T09:54:00.000-07:00

Consuela said I'd be drawn and quartered. And I've never written Aeryn POV before. that said:

[Hard/Work], set in between "The Choice" and "Fractures" with this very particular Aeryn that maybe only exists in my crazy brains. stranger things have happened. SR had questions about the clinicalness of it all; Consuela had questions about the rough edges. I had questions about Crichton. I don't know.

2002-05-15T11:27:00.000-07:00

Fuck the Zendom article. It's giving me agita and it's just too big. The questions are too big: why do we write about these characters if we're not keeping them in their natural habitats? Is it fanfiction at all if Mulder and Scully are 1920s jazz musicians?

squint and you'll see it, though: yes.

Because Maayan mentioned offhand that Lennier was like Aeryn, a little. And he is. And damn it if I didn't start scribbling right there, Aeryn though. Not Lennier. Lennier's still percolating -- but of course, that's why I'm here, because it looks like I'm writing Aeryn for the first time. We'll see what she does for me.

So, squint and you'll see it, yes. Yes, if the author knows what she's doing. Yes, if the author gets that visceral nag from the character, that whateveritis that makes Cordelia better than OFC Heidi. Write a story about a slave girl on a pirate ship starring OFC Heidi and mom'll be proud: "why don't you write something you can publish?" Write a story about a slave girl on a pirate ship starring Angel and Cordelia and we get paid in blogbacks and feedbacks, but more because we get to spend a little more time with those kids, our kids, the kids we watched and studied who got us here in the first place.

Strangely, that wasn't going to be the point, but it looks like it is the point.

The next point's about Aeryn and Lennier, about what we've been taught and what we respect and what we think makes us weak.

We'll see if writing Aeryn gets me any closer to Lennier. And we'll see if Maayan watches B5. We'll speak French. We'll speak later.

Zendom. I'm not sure I can save this now.

2002-05-01T07:11:00.000-07:00

Okay, Zendom article time. I need a couple volunteers to answer: "Why I write AUs." Or "Why I Write Alternate Histories" or "Why I Write Futurefic." Really I just need one Farscape volunteer, and I'll send you interview questions. Also a West Winger and someone from another fandom entirely (like JAG) who believes her fandom tends to beg AUs/alternate histories/etc.

THEN I need someone in one of the Big Three (Trek, XF, Buffy) who's willing to be interviewed re: Why Their Fandom Doesn't Require AUs. Or alternately "Why I Write Post-Eps" or "Why I Write Casefiles."

So. Lemme know if you're interested and I'll send you the whatsits, this needs to happen sooner rather than later.

Thank you and good day, sir.

2002-04-03T08:26:00.000-08:00

So in...May, mid-May, I have this article due for Zendom. Mainly on the act of getting scooped by canon, more specifically on shows that leave less room for fic than others. On why the big three (Trek, XF, Buffy) are the big three -- they've got a pattern that includes both mytharc/character development elements and an MOTW schedule. Which leaves fic writers plenty of wiggle room to stick a story in. The hot and heavy action happens off camera anyway, and we can descend into debate about whether Mulder and Scully have indeed been sleeping together since season 3 without Chris Carter showing us.

Then there are the shows that, for whatever reason, leave less room for fic to be "plugged in" to canon. Or, not shows, I should say "fandoms," because I include BBS in this particular category. There's obviously nothing we can do with Lance and Justin that'll mesh with, ahem, "canon," so that fandom abounds with AUs, dream sequences, all excellent devices to eschew the canon problem.

The two shows I'm looking at specifically (aside from BBS) are West Wing and Babylon 5, because those are ones I follow, and also ones about which I've heard the "being scooped" complaint. West Wing because we can't initiate or solve any political problems (since that's Sorkin's job), and the cast is flatter, the characters nearly useless without the political narratives where we see them shine. Or as Pene said, "we can't take them outside."

It's true. Buffy and Spike can safely get snowed in in a mountain cabin; same with Mulder and Scully; same, to a degree, with Janeway and Seven. And the fic writer can use their characters "as seen of TV" transposed in that new bottle environment.

But take Josh and Sam out of the White House and they lose some of their appeal. They, like Dan and Casey, like all the kids in the Sorkinverse, are their best when they're working, and except for a very small handful of clever political stories in WW fandom, that's an environment that's hard to duplicate.

Babylon 5 is the same and different -- just like we trust that Sorkin has a plan to solve the mytharchical political problems he sets up on the show, we've known since day 1 that B5 was a "five year mission," and that JMS did everything for a reason. So anything the fic writer takes as her own to spin off with will undoubtedly be proven AU down the line.

The ways we've found around these snarls, I think, are to adopt other writing styles beyond the "bottle ep," the MOTW, the inserted scene.

We write AUs, instead. We write futurefics (Ivanova as head of the Rangers, David Sheridan as Centauri lackey, Lance as 30something washup) or past fics (CJ working in LA pre-White House, Dan and Casey meeting in Texas). We write alongsidefics, stories that run parallel to various episodes and let us delve a little deeper into the characters' thoughts and motivations (what was Marcus *really* thinking when he went home to save Ivanova, why did Casey come back to apologize in "April is the Cruelest Month").

Which isn't to say that the Jossverse, the Carterverse and the Trekverse don't also have their share of the above kinds of stories, but they also have a fair share of could-be-episodes, where Janeway and B'Elanna are stranded in a shuttlecraft, repair the damage, fall in love, where Garak and Bashir have lunch and then have sex -- any of these things fitting safely anywhere in the arc of the series without necessarily betraying (or excusing) what we see on screen. Harder to do that in the Sorkinverse or JMSverse, where everything's pre-meditated.

Or simply where the show's creators do it better.

I still need to chew on these ideas. Figure out the whys and wherefores. Figure out where Farscape fits in. Where canon whores and AU sluts find common ground.

If you got it, I want it. Talk to me?

2002-03-22T07:02:00.000-08:00

First, I love Asystole too. New recs are going up in April, so I can collect my fic and my thoughts and my mind, but for what it's worth, Maayan's pretty universally right. Additionally, Shaye's recs are worth the price of admission, and I haven't read half of 'em yet. I need to spend more time reading Alara's stuff. I haven't quite formulated an opinion yet, even though I've been reading her stuff for years, since back in the days of Q and 7 and Xavier and Magneto. What I do know is that Alara has love and respect and perspective on Scorpius, and that's enough, for now, that's enough.

As for Babylon 5, there's not enough good fic, yet, not that I can see. and "yet" is a funny word for a fandom that's been around so long, but if you ever doubted it was beautiful, visit my new wallpaper. there's something about Minbari...

Space opera, hm? quite. Honestly -- and I'm not the first or the last to say it, even today, even this hour -- but there's nothing like science fiction to allow for the stories we want to tell about war and love and peace. To allow for a utopia where love means victory, where together we are the One.

Currently, I'm trying to figure out if it translates. I mean, across series, barriers, narratives. "The Sisko is of Bajor, but he will find no comfort there." "A Minbari not born of Minbari."

John and Delenn are the One, the right people in the right place at the right time. they fall in love despite that, for that, with and in it, because it was Destiny.

John and Aeryn? is there some connection between Humans and Sebaceans, some need fulfilled by their togetherness? I tend to see them at odds. tend to see their relationship, their attraction existing despite all the forces in the universe conspiring against them. Where our John and Delenn were brought together by cosmic forces too great to ignore.

As far as the fairy tale is concerned...no. As far as I'm concerned, the against-all-odds approach seems more appealing. a rockier path, more conflict, scarier somehow, more romantic, more violent, more vital.

But why, then, do I buy John and Delenn so much more? they had almost no conflict -- so rare in television romance, so rare in love affairs of that magnitude. What they did, they did side by side, together. Aeryn and John work at cross-purposes. when they work together, it's contrived, or bizarre, or for the good of the crew. They're their best when they're fighting, hiding behind phase pistols because they can't admit the force of their attraction. sex is love is hate is love. Because they're so afraid for their feelings. because they're not used to this sort of thing.

John and Delenn eased into it, and it was the simplest thing in the world. "I will share command of the Rangers with you." "As co-sponsor of Babylon 5, I concur." "We are there."

We are there.

I'm such a sap, and I never buy it. never. These too-perfect relationships, these too-perfect Chosen heroes. John Sheridan is far more of a textbook hero than John Crichton, but somehow...somehow it doesn't bother me in the slightest. Because he has Delenn, yes. Because it is actually no more and no less than his love for Delenn that pushes back the darkness. That is the entire shape of it. Love conquers all. Amazing.

the parable would say, we will all go down together. The parable would say, in the face of overwhelming odds, hold my hand as we walk bravely into the fire. The parable would say, fingers entwined, they stepped through the snow, and where they stepped, flowers sprung up in their path.

I believe that kind of fictional love. I want to believe. and next to that, what John and Aeryn have is maybe too human? too edgy? And this from the girl who thought Mulder and Scully hated one another. This from the girl who paired Kira with Dukat.

I don't think it's the fairy tale romance I'm looking for, per se. I think it's the power of that romance. the believability of the love. Whether it's for the good of the universe, the Army of Light, or just a chance to brush your hand in the maintenance bay and feel that much better for it. Just once, before we go back to work.

I've grown quite different, in my old age. Or then, maybe not. Because Dan and Casey will remain the pinnacle of romance, for me. the height of partnership. The breadth of love. And what that is, in the space of the office, against the network, against all odds, is the touch of a hand or the exchange of a glance --

"I wouldn't trade these last ten years with you for anything, Danny. Seriously, not for anything."

And it's closer to John and Delenn than it is to John and Aeryn. It just is.

Partnership, I suppose, in all its guts and glory.

2002-03-19T01:43:00.000-08:00

Sabine wrote a Babylon 5 story instead. it's entirely imperfect, but it wanted to be done. I suspect more B5 will follow.

But for now, as far as things that are good, and beautiful, and brilliant, we have Pene's I Give You More Lives Than You Can Count. with exactly the right Aeryn. And John and a baby and a fence, and blue people that come in threes. This world that's entirely alien, and entirely human, and perfect. This is not the house that pain built.

Pene is doing a thing with Aeryn that I haven't seen done yet, that I would do if I could write Aeryn, which I can't. but she can, and she does marvelously. Because this Aeryn is not a mother, not a lover, not a housewife, not family. Aeryn is a Peacekeeper, even if they don't have jobs available for "people in her condition." even if she doesn't clean the floor until two days later.

Pene, that is, is the tallest genius in the world. and if you are reading this, you should be reading that. Because there's an Aeryn there worth talking about.

2002-03-13T20:42:00.000-08:00

Wednesday, a good day for feedback, apparently. it is Wednesday, right? I'm having brain zaps.

I'm hosting Pene now. so go to [makikoscape] and navigate your little heart out. Pene is now located here: [the stars, baby, the stars]. and, because she's not given her due appreciation, doubleplus thanks to [luperkate], the Geek Girl mama of grapefruithead and our own personal genius.

on Leviathan, they're talking about writing strategy. Rather, the strategy of writing (and not, like, how to write strategy, which is something I'm still not good at, even after a couple of years in strategy-rich SN and WW, but that's another story for another time) and a world of approaches.

me, I'm having brain zaps. But as far as approaches go, hm. I'm working on this WW thing right now that I want to "feel like a Paul Simon song." That's not an uncommon aspiration for me, or type of aspiration. like --

[Not Dead] wanted to be patronizing, obnoxious, wanted an unreliable narrator. That's what I sat down with, on the train on the way up from Princeton, with Josh's upside-down notebook and brain zaps and my favorite ball-point pen. I didn't have a plot yet, didn't know the shape of the thing, but I knew what I wanted it to feel like. knew I wanted it obnoxious, defensive. Knew I wanted Crichton seeing Aeryn through envy glasses. knew I wanted him feeling competitive.

The events of the story followed as I went along. had no idea how it would go, what the punch line would be, etc.

[A new device is being tested] wanted crazy-Crichton. wanted a Crichton who reached for Scorpius because he was there and because Aeryn wasn't. the story went through about nine million iterations on the way there, because that was all I knew to begin with, and I had no idea how I was going to execute that. I delete more than I write in any given day. I have outtakes twice as long as the story. I try to do the thing, you know, "carve away everything that isn't elephant." Which is why when Maayan says the finished version is miles away from the first draft she saw, she's not just whistling Dixie. *I* knew what I wanted in there, but it took two dozen drafts to get my ideas on paper. I tried going chronologically, first, starting on the command carrier with Crichton having sex, being obsessed with Scorpius, with Aeryn off doing her own thing, with noble Crais, with tormented Co-Kura, with Crichton burying himself in Scorpius and wormhole work because Aeryn was ignoring him, and it wound up somewhere between vague and overwrought, with emphasis on the wrong scenes because Crichton was too crazy too early.

For a while there I had a complicated plot involving the Ancients and the Charrids and wormhole tech, but it was just there to be a step along the way, to get me to Crichton/Scorpy/Aeryn. and it turned out I didn't need that either.

people keep asking me why Crichton forgot about Scorpius so abruptly at the end, why he didn't protect Scorpius against the black Ops, why he didn't go back for Scorpy at the end, after all they'd been through. Which means there was at least one thing I didn't do correctly. I wanted Scorpius to be a replacement for Aeryn, so Crichton would naturally forget him the minute the Actual Aeryn appeared. he shuts Harvey up too, he doesn't need either of them. Yeah, you know, one squelched thought about Scorpius might not have been out of line, but too late now. On the other hand, I did want it this way -- whether it worked or not. I wanted Aeryn to erase the memories of Crichton's messy previous weeks, wanted her to fill his consciousness so completely that he didn't even need Harvey anymore. Because, don't forget, he's tricking himself, perpetually, into believing what he wants to believe, needs to believe to get through the day. what's safest for him, out here on his own. I dunno.

I'm having brain zaps. but I think that's as lucid as I'd be anyhow. I don't generally outline, don't generally know the end at the beginning. I just know the punchline, the underlying moral/emotional theme. At least, that's the thing that makes me want to write a particular story. Then I try and hammer out a story that tells the story I want it to tell.

and then, last, I find a title.

Anyway, it was a good day for feedback. Thanks Shrift, thanks Alara, thanks sheridan. more for you later. and, yeah, in my old age, I write for me. or, better said, rule #3. "Fuck the View."

2002-03-08T20:28:00.000-08:00

So, two or three e-mails, a couple nice reviews on ff.net, and most of it from Maayan. (thanks, M.) Which isn't tremendously surprising because I've just come from West Wing, which isn't a great fandom for feedbacking, and Sports Night, which has about four people in it total. and before that X-Files, which is the best fandom for feedback, better even than Trek, so I don't expect anything to compare.

Consuela says they're still digesting, still trying to figure out what to do with me. The people on the bboards probably aren't used to this sort of thing. possible. (or there's the option that it's Just Not That Good, but I'm not accepting that one today. *g*) And of course there's the fact that not everyone's seen the final four yet. but it does beg the question, can a piece of fanfiction actually affect a reader to the point that the reader would be unable to respond to it? (and not this piece of writing, per se, but in general.) I mean -- I know when something affects me, in a positive way, in a negative way, I'll generally comment on it. Anything that's evokative enough to produce an emotional response deserves some kind of recognition (leaving aside, for now, like, gratuitous rape fics or insane violence). then again, I don't tend to be evoked too often by fic. I mean, I don't get my wheels spun except by the very best, or very strangest, or very saddest or hardest stuff. [On Edit: some thoughts deleted] But there's another point after that, where you go, "this affected me, and not in a way I can quite put into words." not in a good way, not in a bad way, just in a mysterious way. Right? And I don't have that experience very often when reading.

But I mean. take Consuela's Thumbnail. Whether MJohn would really have been able to [spoiler deleted] without going insane at the end, whether TJohn really knew what he was giving up, and what he got, whether Rygel would really have [spoiler deleted], based on the way we see him with his friends now -- dunno. Plus, C sees the characters differently from the way I do. Duh. but these were indeed things that raised questions, things that evoked emotional responses across the fandom. I don't think John could have [spoiler deleted]. I don't think Rygel would have [spoiler deleted]. But in the context of the story, it did make me feel something.

Would be very cool if my story evoked something, out there. interesting, either way. Or I'm just being a huge egotist, and it was just another story through the pipeline. Which is perfectly fine, there's more out there and there's more in me. And it's just Friday, March 8th, or something.

But I wonder what's next. I wonder if Pene will kick some more ass on her Aeryn thing. I wonder why I'm out of water.

[on edit: this is a blog, of course. I mean, no one really expects me to make sense, right?]

2002-03-07T21:15:00.000-08:00

A new device is being tested and I suspect it's not going to make me any new friends. But I'm done, I'm done. and I'm happy. I know tomorrow I'm going to smack myself because I came up with that perfect line for Harvey to say that would have made everything make so. Much. More sense. But for now, I'll let him sleep, let Crichton sleep.

knock back a little more bourbon; I'm done.

Consuela, that must have killed you. this was only 58k and I feel like taking a long nap.

Instead. Something else. something about Crichton and Scorpius, about action and introspection, about Roseveare's Duality. Spoilers here for that story, and if you haven't read it, you should, since it's some masterful writing and some subject matter close to my heart...

I said: same reason that Crichton-and-Scorpy fic on fanfiction.net was beautifully written but still not my style: too much plot, not enough story for my brains to wrap around. And the author e-mailed me to point out that it wasn't actually plot, just movement, regardless, Crichton and Grasshopper still stuck in a bottle, facing off. And you're right, Roseveare, and I didn't mean for my comments to come off like a value judgment, just a mini existential crisis because I'd gone down a path in my own story that ran the risk of becoming plot for plot's sake, and I'd left the characters behind. (since been deleted, we can all breathe a little easier. *g*) Which didn't happen in Duality at all, as it turns out, just a lot of evil twisty John and Scorpy moving through this desolate place.

So I guess the problem I had with it -- hell, I don't know the problem I had with it. *g* Could be as simple as I'm working on my own Crichton and Scorpy over here, and we see the characters quite differently. though that usually doesn't trouble me. And the writing was elegant, clever, perfect. So, hm.

I think I felt told, rather than shown how Crichton felt about Scorpius. told elegantly, but told nonetheless. Told what the planet looked like, told what was happening to them, while being sort of distanced from the characters at the same time. Which is a technique I find really useful in action-driven pieces (lay the framework, make it happen, then let the story tell itself) but in something like this, which was actually more of a character study of these arch nemeses, I think the arms-length storytelling made it difficult for me to empathize. Made me immediately assume it was an action story, a plot-driven piece, because that's my instinctive assumption with writing like that.

Because -- hm. I tend to view style (and use style) as an extention of the story being told, as a method of executing the story being told. you know, the difference between the stichomythiac banter of Sports Night fic and the introspective tug of an X-Files vignette and the crazy obsessive detail-oriented business I'm apparently addicted to, and the world-building vivid description that you might use to move a story along.

When I start to write, the story usually comes first, and the style adapts itself to the narrative (although sometimes my tiny people get away from me, and angst turns into sexy fun, and then we're all fucked *g*) -- not sure. If it's intuition or just habit, if it's rhythm picked up from stuff I've written or read, or something more innate. Big questions for my little achy head.

Actually, I think I'll just listen to Alanis, drink some more bourbon from the bottle, and sit here a while. because my device is out there in the world, being tested, and that's a little freaky for a person like me.

2002-03-07T16:24:00.000-08:00

I'm just saying, once I build this wormhole and insert some science, I'm done. well, gotta tame the ending a little bit. But this thing is coming out tonight, hezmana or high water or whatnot. and it's no surprise to me that we bottomed out, I believe, at 23 pages.

"...and blood-drenched Frisbees fly through the crisp, cool air for no reason at all..."
-- Snow Crash, Neal Stephenson

2002-03-06T13:07:00.000-08:00

Hawkeye's tail on the windowsill looks like a whole other cat, watching me. And I think I'm doomed never to pass page 23 on this thing.

Problem I'm having isn't a new one -- in fact, we talked about it today in Consuela's blog. but I'm just -- spinning my wheels, stuck in a place with not enough action and too much plot. And these are all different elements we're talking about here, same reason that Crichton-and-Scorpy fic on fanfiction.net was beautifully written but still not my style: too much plot, not enough story for my brains to wrap around. And still, the holy grail for me is a meditation on a roast beef sandwich. Or not a meditation, just a roast beef sandwich.

I mean, Kafka's Metamorphosis was about waking up a bug, but it's hardly supposed to be a study in entomology. then again, Kafka's better at this than I am.

The people at the cell phone store will break his twenty, but that would mean putting shoes on and he doesn't want to right now.

"You got a MetroCard?" he'd asked, six in the morning and the sun just peeking up behind Riker's Island. She shrugged. "Okay."

He opened the desk drawer, felt around for the ziploc bag and then upturned it on the blotter, stack of quarters and pennies in a heap. She scraped the change off with the side of her hand, pocketed it. He hadn't meant for her to take it all.

"You'll be okay, then?" he asked, and she smiled. His t-shirt still smelled like cigarettes and her shampoo, like college, before he'd moved to New York and she'd gone to Africa with Daniel, before the postcards.

"Yep," she said, rooting in her purse for her keys or a stick of gum or a gun, not looking at him. "I'll call you."

And now he's at the top of the stairs, arms full of sheets and his t-shirt and unmatched socks, and he can't move, because he's doesn't to go back inside but he can't do laundry because the cell phone store's the only place to make change and he doesn't want to put his shoes on right now.

and I'm in this unique place with Crichton, where I've got too much plot and not enough action, something very unfamiliar to me. Because I want to be able to tell a story through action, but that requires a covenant with the readership that I'm not bold enough to make right now. Familiarity where they say "this is laundry, but it's not just laundry" instead of "she's a hack and isn't good enough to describe what her character is feeling." A place I'm not at yet, though I want to get there, and it's why I'll keep writing and keep fucking up. Same problem I ran into with Not Dead, but to a greater degree because this thing's long and complex and has a story more relevant to the story than Aeryn's was, repairing the StarBurst chamber. More plot than anything I've written in a while, maybe ever. And I'm so used to using action to tell the interior story that I forget how it's used to move the plot along as well. There must be a way, people do it all the time (Hemingway, Camus, Tim O'Brien's my favorite example), but then, there's something else, being a published author, where people are less likely to suspect that you meant to include heaps of introspection and just left them out, accidental-like. Nobody reads The Plague and asks why we don't know Rieux better -- or, rather, I don't. Nobody asks for the specifics on the plague itself. It's not an action-adventure drama, it's introspection and character analysis told through action and simple sentences, the simple acts of human people.

and boy am I a jerk to think I can pull that off here. Makiko the bold, my ass. But it's still what I like to read, and what I'll try to write.

Because rich description is lovely, but not when you've got a character who wouldn't notice it. And introspection is nice, but not when you've got a Crichton who doesn't know his ass from his elbow right now. and nice is nice, but not when he'd rather just take a nap. And too often, for me, naps turn out to be Boring.

So I'd still rather write the story where Crichton cleans his gun -- for real, cleans it, reads the manual, takes it apart, scrapes at chemical buildup with the tip of a jacknife, spit-polishes the handle, really cares, this is his gun, he loves this thing, he needs this thing -- then a story where he broods about Aeryn and watches stars go by. But only if it's the same story. only if it's about loving, and holding on, and paying attention, and caring, and being afraid to let go. And if it's not -- I fucked up.

So I need to pare down my plot, make it less like "Outbreak" and more like "The Plague." or I really am doomed never go get past page 23. sigh.

2002-03-05T21:23:00.000-08:00

I'm writing because I'm writing, and my eyes hurt. I had 23 pages on "Device" earlier today, then I had 17, now I'm coming up on 20 again. Paxil withdrawl makes me jumpy, but I'm on my way down.

This is the biggest thing I've written since the Statesmen series, the most exhausting if only for the constant deleting and rethinking and replotting. And being reminded about "baby" and "home" and the fact that Aeryn's prettier than Scorpius. This is also a big thing because Crichton's trying to figure out the meaning of life in twenty words or less, and they left us -- the lunatics -- at this very dubious crossroads at the end of 322 where really anything can happen.

When I asked why he loves her people responded "you mean why does he follow her?" and I'm not sure that's what I meant. Though maybe. But does he follow her? I mean, he's stuck (and we've got plots that work around it, note this thing, note TEH, note that John-and-Scorpy-on-a-planet thing Maayan sent me to read), but if he weren't? If Moya hadn't been sucked up, would they have caught her? And then what? The same fight again, except she's pregnant now? Would her response have been any different?

Which is why it's good Pene's here, working from the Aeryn side, reminding me. I haven't spent much time in Aeryn's head, I don't know the business in there.

heh, and I'm just putting it off, because I'm going to have to deal with her sooner or later, but I'll stall and write flashbacks to Gilina (thank you, PV) instead, relationships I understand. Relationships Crichton understands.

Oddly, that wasn't the question. wormhole. weapon.

Maayan says Jack's "displacement engine" (cf. IP) made the wormhole into a weapon. Without it, the simple power of a wormhole was enough to, say, suck a hostile planet out of existance -- with it, Jack and Crichton created a different kind of weapon to use against the Scarrans. A very specific one, it seems, different from this threat of "wormhole weapons" Crais died to prevent, right?

but to make a statement? To allow Crichton (and the viewer) to witness the horror of a wormhole weapon? Is that what it was for? To make it tangible? Blowing up a Scarran ship killed one John and shook the foundations of their moral being, while blowing up a PK command carrier didn't? where's the noble act? Where's the planetbuster? where's the butter battle?

And though John may have told John through the mask, Scorpius still doesn't know about the displacement engine. Leads one to wonder -- if all had gone well -- what Scorpius would have done.

I think that's what I want to know -- imagine a universe where the PKs do have wormhole technology. What does the war look like then?

and, pseudoscientifically, how do you build a wormhole?

2002-03-05T10:44:00.000-08:00

So Makiko has a blog. first, because she's her own girl. Second, because it was time for a color change. Third, because I was exhausting Sabine's friends with talk of Farscape on the LJ. Fourth, because the hands-on-ness of blogger is right nice. fifth, I'm hungry. sixth, fuck the view (because that continues to be good advice, we say). Seventh, because this blog is for Farscape and the other one is for Sab.

So Makiko has things to say, waiting for the wheel to come around and for this Scorpius thing to be put to bed. (so to speak). Blogspot tells me knitting is better than Prozac, reminding me to call the shrink again.

here be spoilers. And rather than doing the font color thing, I'm just going to trust you to avert your eyes if you've wandered here against your will and haven't seen 319-322 yet. But since it's you, you're not strangers, I know you, I'm just going to trust that those of you that stick around are my buddies, spoiled aready. (is it time to thank SdS again? Always.)

I think I fell out of love with Aeryn. I being John, and not really, of course, because she's Aeryn and it's abiding. but enough time in John's head with Harvey, enough time being lost and left behind and left behind again, my John's looking for something else. Something a little more reliable, a little more constant. (in my world, today, that's Scorpius, but could be anything.)

Problem is, I want to be in love with Aeryn again. I need to remember the whys and wherefores -- Pene says it's best when they're working together, you-and-me-against-the-world, but we haven't seen that in a long time, not this John, not really. (because -- and this is another one, Aeryn's presumed "support" of John in 320/321 amounted to exactly nothing, housewifey around the edges but the only partnership she actually participated in was Crais' ["I kept Aeryn safe because I need her" vs. John's "maybe you should go back to Moya"], and John did whatever it was that he did, very much alone [except, of course, for Scorpius].)

so is it just me? or is it any wonder I see John partnered up (in that pene-style you-and-me-against-the-world) with Scorpius, these days? not Aeryn?

And I miss her. He does too. He loves her, knows he does, but it's a bit like habit now, we haven't seen it manifested in any of those glorious fighting ways. Or we have and I've missed it?

Anyway, a gold star to anyone who can help me feel the love again, help me understand why now (not why in general, why now, 320, 321, 322), why Crichton is looking for Aeryn as his touchstone in the UT. why not the wormholes? I'm asking. Why not Scorpius?

five, ten, fifty edits later, and my big post-322 thing is no closer to completion, though I have a plot now, and I'm watching the characters unravel (in my direction). Thanks in large part to Pene, Ernesto too.

And currently the title is "A new device is being tested." my first not-all-capped title. I feel like Torch.