hc_bingo and a Writing Whinge

[przed]

In spite of an inspiring card, I didn't make a bingo from my hc_bingo card last round. But I've decided to give it another go and sign up again, because a) it's h/c! and b) I'm a masochist.

Here's my new card.

loss of voice	invisibility	severe / life-threatening illness	forced soulbonding	falsely imprisoned
forced marriage	archaic medical treatment	surgery	head trauma	estrangement
medication	possession / mind control	WILD CARD	secret identity discovered	toothache
orphans	shipwrecked	eating disorders	crucifixion	drowning
depression	bodyguards	loss of limb / limb function	falling	brainwashing / deprogramming

I never thought I'd say this, but I'm sort of pleased I pulled crucifixion because I'm betting I can work it into the TT/Spartacus AU that I seem to be working on reasonably seriously. (Well, I've been getting research info from sineala and working out structure at the very least, and there's even been some writing happening.) But I think even I will balk at filling the loss of limb square.


Signing up is probably madness. I've been working on a story that was meant to be a fill for my last trope_bingo card (not to mention a sequel to my Howard-as-cop TT AU), and I have a stupidly huge case of writer's block on it. I've got a scene that just isn't doing what it needs to do, but I'm not sure how to change it, so I've been staring at the same sentence for weeeeeeeks whilst my brain my brain grinds away at it like an asthmatic hamster caught in a wheel. I finally decided this week to do an end run around the bloody scene and start writing everything that follows. I'm hoping this will lead to me figuring out how to deal with the recalcitrant scene. The jury's still out on whether this is working, but at least words are being produced.

Part of the problem might be that I think the creative part of my brain is more keen to vid than write at the moment. With the problem being that I don't have the huge chunks of time I need to vid available at the moment. But I definitely want to. And I've promised myself and a few others that I'll have a new vid for BistoCon.

::sigh::

Comments

[draycevixen.livejournal.com]

"Loss of voice" seems like a ringer for a member of the TT fandom. *g*

Only in fandom can one be glad to have pulled crucifixion, for "reasons."

[przed.livejournal.com]

Ooh, somehow I'd missed the potential for the "loss of voice" square. (Though shouldn't you be pushing Pros prompts, not TT ones? *g*)

Fandom is a strange and wonderful place, ain't it? ;-)

[draycevixen.livejournal.com]

I suppose I should but fandom is a strange and wonderful place that should be all about the happy and right now I think more of your happy is coming from TT. *g*

[przed.livejournal.com]

You're probably right, there. Though TT is also a source of frustration as well at the moment. (Whyyyy is no one else writing TT right now? Whyyyyyyy? /whinge)

[draycevixen.livejournal.com]

Welcome to my world. In the fandoms that are catching my eye with a well turned ankle either nothing is being written (Ripper Street) or very little is being written and practically nothing that meshes with my own sensibilities about the canon.

*whinges back*

[przed.livejournal.com]

You have my empathetic sympathy, as it were. (I've re-read my favourite TT stories so often I practically have some of them memorized. I need something new. That wasn't written by me.)

I keep meaning to ask you about Ripper Street. I'd held off on watching it because one reviewer I read (possibly in the Guardian) said they weren't sure if it was gory rape or rapey gore, for which I have little to no appetite. Would you say they were being hyperbolic, or is there a lot of sexual violence. (To give you an idea of my tolerance for that kind of thing, I've watched half of an episode of Criminal Minds and it gave me nightmares for two weeks. And I don't do nightmares.)

[draycevixen.livejournal.com]

That's the thing, when you complain about having nothing to read people say "well write it yourself" and the thing is we do but that's really not the same as having something written by someone else to read... Yeah, I'm agreeing with you. *g*

I'm pondering your question. I watch Criminal Minds, a lot of times with my face hidden behind my hands but then sometimes I have to leave the room because it just gets too much. There have been a few moments in Ripper Street where that's happened but not on anything like the same scale.

I think a lot of it is POV? In Criminal Minds, the audience spends a lot of time in the killer's POV. In Ripper Street we're always with the cops or with their sidekick, the American medical man, Jackson.

There are graphic scenes inside a Victorian mortuary, aprons covered in blood, that sort of thing, but it takes place post Jack the Ripper (Reid was one of the lead detectives on the case and it's set in Whitechapel). There's violence against women but there's also violence against men and it has some strong female characters as well, one of them a madam another a Jewish teacher who runs an orphanage. To me most of its "horror" when it arises is of the desperate lives type rather than the gore type. It doesn't shy away from the issues of the day. One of the shows in the second season deals with the plight of gay men in Victorian England and in season one there's a Molly House. Some of the violence comes also with Drake's bareknuckle fights, filmed a bit more realistically than RDJ's Holmes one in the Sherlock Holmes film.

There's lots of authenticity which can be unpleasant, like cops beating up suspects but it also gorgeous in things like the rhythms of their speech.

It's been a while since I've seen season one which is why I'm pausing and thinking back.

This is the first couple of minutes of the first episode for texture. Warning: You will see a dead body.



The central relationships in the series are between Reid (Matthew Macfadyen), his sergeant, Drake (Jerome Flynn) and Jackson (Adam Rothrnberg), who is really a very early forensics man, an American with a shady past.

These three:

[przed.livejournal.com]

You're definitely selling me on it. I love Macfadyen, and Jerome Flynn is fab on Game of Thrones, so they're definite selling points. And I don't have a problem with gore and dead bodies in general, it's more when a story gets into details of very sexualized violence against women that I lose my shit. (The Criminal Minds episode that did me in concerned a killer who kidnapped women, tortured them sexually while videotaping it, and then buried them alive. What did me in was Garcia having to watch the tapes to figure out where the killer was, and shots of the instruments of torture. If I could press delete on any memories in my head, those would be it.)

Completely hypocritically, the same level of violence against men doesn't squick me at all. Not that you see that terribly often.

Which is a long way of saying, I think I'll give Ripper Street a shot. Because those clips look like they are right up my street. (Victorian police/forensic dudes with bantering relationships? Yes, please!)

[draycevixen.livejournal.com]

No, it'd not that type of graphic violence, more of the set-up followed by seeing the results in the street and the morgue. Actually, the most graphic violence (from memory) does involve male characters. Forgive my fuzziness, it was two years ago but it didn't leave me with an impression of graphic violence against women.

From reputation and osmosis fandom discussion (I haven't watched it and have no interest in doing so) I think you're probably seeing a lot more graphic violence on Game of Thrones.

I love Macfadyen and Flynn and have come to love Rothenberg too.

The only place I'd seen Rothenberg before was on Person of Interest in a guest spot. Reid, Drake and Jackson are all highly competent, flawed and with enough baggage to need a train to carry it around for them. *g* The relationship between Drake and Jackson is particularly loaded (Drake thinks Reid shouldn't associate with such a man and Jackson thinks Drake should get that stick up his arse surgically removed) BUT Jackson looks our for Drake in ways he doesn't even know about. Yes, I ship Drake/Jackson, thanks for noticing. *g*

[przed.livejournal.com]

Okay, now I definitely have to give it a shot. My affection for Macfadyen notwithstanding, Drake/Jackson sounds like my cuppa.

[draycevixen.livejournal.com]

Drake and Jackson have had hard life experiences of a type that the respectably middle-class intellectual Reid has not although Reid has his personal tragedies too.

There's only a teeny tiny bit of fan fiction for it, mostly het, but on the even tinier slash side Reid/Jackson seems to be the main pairing.

There are two seasons (8 episodes each) so far and then it was cancelled by the new BBC director idiot who wants to see less costume dramas *sigh* but it got snapped up by Amazon and BBCAmerica so there will definitely be a third season.

[przed.livejournal.com]

I found Ripper Street on Netflix last night, so I gave the first episode a go. Definitely liked it. The characters are fun, the milieu is fascinating, and I never had to hide my eyes once. I also couldn't help but compare it favouraby to Copper, which mined the same era Stateside but was a horrible mess. (A mate was the post-production supervisor on that show, and said that behind the scenes it was as big a mess as it was from the audience side. He declined to work for the second season.)

So far, I'm liking Drake the best (I always like the sidekicks), and we shall see if I pick up the Drake/Jackson vibe. Jackson is definitely intriguing so far.

And a big boo to BBC director idiots who stupidly cancel good shows. Hopefully someone in Canada will pick up the third season.

Boo to BBC director idiots who cancel good shows for spurious reasons.

[draycevixen.livejournal.com]

I'm glad you liked it. :D

I couldn't get past the first couple of episodes of Copper because yes, it was a mess, but I also couldn't get past the fact that it didn't give me anyone to root for.

Drake is my favourite, then Jackson, then Reid but it's all very close. *g* I think it was about halfway through season one when the Drake/Jackson thing settled on me but there's a connection of a sort much earlier than that.

[przed.livejournal.com]

I gamely stuck out the full first season of Copper, though by the end I was fast forwarding through everything except the storyline with the little girl former prostitute because that storyline was such a train wreck I couldn't look away. And no, there certainly wasn't anyone to root for in that show.

I'm with you liking all the main characters in Ripper Street. Looking forward to seeing more of all their back stories. There's only been intriguing bits so far.

[draycevixen.livejournal.com]

It's one of the key differences between England and US TV shows that MG and I have talked about, that US shows tend to do an information dump in the first episode hence first episodes here being universally bad. English shows are much more likely to get the story under way and then fill you in as you go along.

I was about to give you an example using Touching Evil but I don't know if you've ever seen the show so I won't.

[przed.livejournal.com]

I've noticed the same thing, and right there is the reason that so much US TV drives me batty. (We're still watching Supernatural and they had a --blessedly failed--backdoor pilot this year that was so full of information dumps and shoddy exposition that we giggled our way through it.) If there's one thing I loathe in any writing--TV, movies, pro writing or fanfic--it's bad exposition.

I have seen Touching Evil (ages ago) and lurvvvvv it. Well, the British version thereof, anyway.

[draycevixen.livejournal.com]

It's got to the stage with us where if we see *anything* of interest to us in the first episode of a US show we'll watch the second episode, just in case. It was one of the remarkable things about the first episode of Person of Interest,that we didn't get information dump.

We've only seen the first episode of Penny Dreadful so far and that didn't do an information dump, but while it's on American premium cable it is a co-British production. We liked it a lot we just need to find time to watch the second one. *g*

Ah, as you've seen it then this example won't have spoilers. In the UK version of Touching Evil, as you know, it launched straight in to the story and it took us quite a while to fill in the background of why Dave Creegan is the way he is. The American remake starred Jeffrey Donovan and was actually surprisingly decent unlike the way these things usually go. Only the opening scene of the first episode is Dave Creegan getting shot in the head. *sigh*

[dawnebeth.livejournal.com]

You're not intrigued by archaiac medical treatment? lol A little AU with Victorian Doyle and Bodie, one of them about to have a forced trepanning?
How about invisibility and missing limb, I could see those going together.

YES. Do a vid for Bistocon. (bounces in my seat.)

[przed.livejournal.com]

Wow, you're clearly a genius! Victorian AU Bodie and Doyle and trepanning have definite possibilities. *g*

I figure the more people I tell I'm going to do a vid, the more likely I'll get the damn thing done. (I've got about 5 whole seconds edited so far. Which is better than nothing, right? *g*)

[dawnebeth.livejournal.com]

I am a genius, it's true. bwahahahaha. Trepanning and Doyle immediately came into my head with archaiac medical--holey magical, I suspect.

Hey, 5 seconds is more than I have ever vidded ever, so I think that's impressive.