Writing Meme - answers

[thisbluespirit]

I wrote these up last weekend, ready to post in the week when I was too tired to post anything else, but, er, I was too tired. Never mind...


For persiflage_1 - 5. The brash, loud one, mid album:

I am really stuck as to what fic this would be, which is a good start to the meme. Do I write brash, loud stuff? Have I ever?

Maybe Six fic? He is brash, it's true so perhaps Biggest Bang in History (Six/Jack, although it is only a ficlet) or Mistaken (Six/Rose. Because someone bet me a fiver I couldn't do it, so I did.)

I'm not sure either of them really meet the description, though. Whatever fic it is should probably also go on forever, or feel like it.


8. The one only you like, you insular weirdo:

OTOH, there are so many candidates for this one, I don't know where to stop. I checked of the fully-fledged pieces hanging about in the low-end of the kudos range, and probably Loose Ends (or Five Times Pieces of Silver Changed Hands), which is actually pretty good, I think, but I can't really blame people for not wanting to read fic for The Power Game.

And even less people want to read my Level 7 David Collings slash, Exercise in Futility, either, what a shocker. (Weirdly the even more obscure, originally even less popular Children of the Damned Alfred Burke/Alan Badel slash one seems to have 4 whole kudos now and was four pages in. I must have complained about it in this sort of meme question before now, because I don't think anyone else cares about CotD. I mean, I only accidentally wrote it because I was so bored with the bits that didn't have Alfred Burke in that writing it in my head was how I made it through the film.)

Oh, oh, and in things that I feel people ought to like, because the fandom needed it is Midwinter Night, my Nina/Vincent/Jimmy huddling for warmth fic for Manhunt even if it is, to be fair, chiefly bickering. Unfortunately, the fandom consisted of just me again, so I have to appreciate its necessity by myself. And I do. ;-p


From shewhostaples - 7. The bitter one about your ex/former manager/cat:

I've never written a bitter fic about an ex or cat or even a former manager but it is fair to say that while By the Book (hetswap origfic) is about a Librarian who summons a demon and they both get more than they bargained with end shippiness, it does also have government ministers who want to make budget cuts to libraries getting what they deserve among many other bits of ex-librarian bitterness. It was very cathartic! Hopefully also funny. People liked it. But, um, yes. :lol:


auroracloud - 9. The genre-hopping crossover hit:

So We Meet At Last. When it comes to popularity, my Miss Marple dusts Dracula ficlet is apparently what's going to be inscribed on my fannish tombstone.


astrogirl: 11. The anthemic final track:

I'd complain that this is a mean one to choose, except that I straight away chose it for theseatheseatheopensea, so what can I say? (It does sound ominous, though!)

I'm not entirely sure what kind of fic this should mean exactly, but going through them, I decided on instinct that maybe it could be Autumn Mourning (The Falling Leaves and Elephants Remix), a B7/DW crossover remix. With much death to cover the ominosity.


theseatheseatheopensea - 2. The obscure early one no one bought at the time:

I think all the really obscure ones have stayed un-bought. I went back to Teaspoon, but back then I used to just delete the unpopular ones. My oldest fic of my current writing incarnation is this Five/Tegan one, which isn't on AO3 because I think it'd need reworking, though.


4. The slushy one:

Oh, I don't think I've ever really done slushy. I mean, I would die of embarrassment or something. I think maybe I Shall But Love Thee After Death (Eight/Romana) was probably the lightest and shippiness thing I can think of, and it even has love poetry in it. But it's not slushy. ;-p


For hamsterwoman - 3. The "experimental" one, written when you were possibly on some substance:

There are rather a lot that could count as this, even though I have never written while under the influence of any other substance. Writing while really ill and befogged sometimes has the same effect, though, and probably about all my early S&S stuff would qualify - Awakenings, The Cornfield, A Tear the Sun Lets Fall?

And I did once, while very ill, write Kandyman fic which probably comes into some sort of special category of its own.


For john_amend_all - 10. The one where you tried to be "modern":

I have always tried to be fully modern when writing Adam Adamant Lives! even taking into account the sensibilities of the stranded Edwardian Adventurer, the first of which was a ficlet, Fancy Dress Escapade, which I wrote after about five minutes of watching it.

(That is totally what that question meant, right?)


For luthien - 1. The popular, catchy one:

So We Meet at Last again. I've written more popular ones, but pretty much all of those were for an exchange of some kind, and not some random ficlet written in five minutes for two comparatively obscure fandoms. But, hey.

Comments

[persiflage_1]

Sorry for landing you with a very difficult question off the bat!

[thisbluespirit]

Ha, no, it was fun! And then I thought of Six, who must count a bit, right? :-D

[persiflage_1]

Glad you had fun. And yes, Sixy is definitely loud and brash, but we luffs him anyway!

[liadt]

I'm impressed you found answers for the questions some hard ones in there, I'd still be um-ing this time next year.

Aw, 'tis true of 'Children of the Damned' since I passed it on to you and kept the first film!

'Out of the Unknown' how could I forget, except I did:S

[thisbluespirit]

OotU! And you actually had a whole not broken set, unlike me! I still have never seen the rest of it, tragically.

[liadt]

I didn't have a set, I just knew someone who gave up watching it as it was too creepy!

[thisbluespirit]

Neither of us had a set! Doubly tragic!

[theseatheseatheopensea]

Six is indeed Quite Brash! :D And I really liked your story about the sentient planet. Tegan is the absolute best! <3

Because someone bet me a fiver I couldn't do it, so I did.)

Truly the best reason to do anything! *high fives*

[thisbluespirit]

Aw, thank you! It's a very old fic, but I also love Tegan.

[theseatheseatheopensea]

Also: yes! S&S fic is experimental by default, heh!

[thisbluespirit]

It is!

[theseatheseatheopensea]

And that's one of the reasons why I automatically and immediately love ALL OF IT!

[thisbluespirit]

Aww. <3

[sovay]

And even less people want to read my Level 7 David Collings slash, Exercise in Futility, either, what a shocker.

I went over to check the numbers and saw that the audience appears to be me.

Weirdly the even more obscure, originally even less popular Children of the Damned Alfred Burke/Alan Badel slash one seems to have 4 whole kudos now and was four pages in

I think I missed that that existed! I like both of those actors.

[thisbluespirit]

I went over to check the numbers and saw that the audience appears to be me.

:-D I'm glad the audience found it eventually! (I mean, I think it was originally posted to a comm or something, so maybe someone else read it too over here. Possibly...)

I think I missed that that existed! I like both of those actors.

They are definitely the best bit of that film. (I'm not sure whether you mean the film, in which case it is so-so, but they are good! And if the fic, well, lol, it is not the sort of thing anyone would look for. Or write unless they were me.)

[sovay]

I'm glad the audience found it eventually!

I did appreciate it!

I'm not sure whether you mean the film, in which case it is so-so, but they are good!

I just meant on general principles: I have not seen the film. (And I gather it is not essential that I should, unless I decide that Badel and Burke are worth it.) I shall read the story regardless.

[thisbluespirit]

And I gather it is not essential that I should, unless I decide that Badel and Burke are worth it.

Well, as far as I can tell, when it comes to Alfred Burke on film rather than on telly, Children of the Damned is about as good as it gets! I just gave up watching any more films with him in because I was so bored with most of them. I mean, at least Night Caller was so bad it was almost worth doing just for the sheer disbelief that it existed.

It's so painfully ironic that all this stuff exists just because it was film when the whole S1-3 of Public Eye in which he's so brilliant was just casually wiped and burninated along with all the rest, despite being both hugely popular and critically acclaimed. (I'd swap all the AB films I've seen for a single episode more of Public Eye if that was a thing you could do. Alas, it's not.)

But what I meant to say was that I didn't realise you liked him/already knew who he was, so now I have to ask what films have you seen him in that clearly I should be looking for? Because, CotD aside, I largely found it such a frustrating hunt I gave up! (I was bored with Bitter Victory, I was annoyed by The Angry Silence, Night Caller was at least a special kind of truly terrible, I was unamused by something else I forget and I didn't realise how the merely dull-ish non-AB bits of CotD were a high point when I watched it. Although, tbf, if I'm tired, I can get really grumpy about films really fast because they take so much more effort to get into & then you have to do it all over again for the next film, unlike TV where once you've made that first effort, you get all the rewards for as long as it lasts afterwards. But still. I am interested to know what actually good things he's been in! From the point of view of someone who even watched Norman Wisdom for him...)

[sovay]

I mean, at least Night Caller was so bad it was almost worth doing just for the sheer disbelief that it existed.

Oh, yeah?

It's so painfully ironic that all this stuff exists just because it was film when the whole S1-3 of Public Eye in which he's so brilliant was just casually wiped and burninated along with all the rest, despite being both hugely popular and critically acclaimed.

I'm so sorry. I've never seen any of the show, but I keep meaning to watch what's left.

But what I meant to say was that I didn't realise you liked him/already knew who he was, so now I have to ask what films have you seen him in that clearly I should be looking for?

I can answer the first part of that question, but I'm not sure about the second, since I seem to have have Alfred Burke mentally filed in the category of "actors who are obviously so much better than their movies." I discovered him with the B-thriller Backfire! (1962), where he plays the ambitious partner of an old-firm cosmetics company who decides that the best way to balance the bleeding-red (and, since the incorporation of himself and his equally high-flying wife, dodgily kept) books is to burn them all down. His Mitchell Logan is a long drink of snake oil who only lowers his eyes and smiles a little, as if flattered, when called "poison" to his face, but the audience doesn't really expect him to graduate from insurance fraud to first-degree murder. He sloped around with his hands in his pockets and his long clown's face; he didn't look like a man who'd get his own hands dirty. He shouldn't have: he's not as clever when he does. It's not a sympathetic part except in the way of watching a character try to think on their feet, but I found Burke sufficiently watchable in it that I went looking to see what else he'd done and the answer looked like a lot of character work and some amazing but partly burninated TV. The film itself—I enjoyed it, but it's not Cash on Demand (1961) or even Five Days (1954). John Cazabon is delightful as the firebug fixer who test-burns meticulous little maquettes of his target buildings and carries his own swinging theme into all his scenes. Suzanne Neve as the heir and secretary of the company is mostly decorative, but at least gets in some detecting of her own in the last ten minutes. There is a superfluity of handsome young insurance investigator and after taking its sweet time setting up the arson, the script wraps up with such punch-line whiplash, I'd believe it if you told me on the last day of shooting the production just ran out of film. I am pretty sure that Burke was attempting an American accent for Logan, but fortunately it does not make a difference to the plot, since the key word here is "attempting." I don't know if you would be bored by it! But it got me to notice Alfred Burke, so it has that going for it.

[edit] This film is not to be confused with the American film noir Backfire (1950), which was merely mediocre until its climax when it pulled out all the stops including a mad scene and lived up to its name.

[thisbluespirit]

Oh, yes, Backfire was fun (and I love Suzanne Neve in stuff, too). I forgot those, as I think of The Edgar Wallace presents as another TV film anthology series, but of course they were all B-movies in the first place. I've seen all four of those with him, although two of them are smaller roles. The Man at the Carlton Tower is even better for the Alfie content.

Dammit, so there just are no good old Alfie films! Well, that was what my initial research proved...

Well, there is A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich which he did for Casper Wrede (aka James Maxwell's lot) but it's not on DVD and I keep on chickening out on attempting it online. I should, though.

We do at least have four series of Public Eye, but the loss of the first 3 is one of the biggest TV burnination tragedies going. There are five episodes in total surviving from those seasons, and I would definitely love to see more of them. Still, four seasons are awesome.

Oh, yeah?

Fake alien glove. Aliens advertising in Bikini girl magazine! Alfred Burke as a police inspector who has to investigate aliens in Soho sex shops. The ending where they all just go home and leave the aliens to it! The amazingly terrible colorization attempt!

It is top of the list of Things I Have Watched That I Can't Believe Somebody Made, although it is not as gloriously terrible as all that sounds. It's just terrible but you have to watch it twice just to check sort of terrible. :-D

[sovay]

I've seen all four of those with him, although two of them are smaller roles. The Man at the Carlton Tower is even better for the Alfie content.

I shall check it out. I am sorry I could not give you a lead on anything new.

Well, there is A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich which he did for Casper Wrede (aka James Maxwell's lot) but it's not on DVD and I keep on chickening out on attempting it online.

I want to see that for Tom Courtenay! Please let me know how it is if you get to it first.

Burke is also somewhere in the cast list of The Small World of Sammy Lee (1963), which I can't even find online but have also wanted to see for some time.

Alfred Burke as a police inspector who has to investigate aliens in Soho sex shops.

You know, that would never have been good, but there's a universe in which it might have been amazing.

It's just terrible but you have to watch it twice just to check sort of terrible.

I understand that.

[thisbluespirit]

I shall check it out. I am sorry I could not give you a lead on anything new.

Heh, that is okay! I had resigned myself to the fact that pre-Public Eye Alfred Burke films was just not the best category, so I am not at all surprised. Although it is true that I might have been unfair to some because of being ill. But OTOH. :(

I want to see that for Tom Courtenay! Please let me know how it is if you get to it first.

I've been hoping Talking Pictures will show it over here, but so far no luck. I don't know if there's some copyright issue or something, because it does seem weird that of Casper Wrede's films neither Private Potter or A Day in the Life are available. (As far as I can gather from what I have seen of Casper & Michael Elliott's stuff, proto-Royal Exchange Group productions will be slow, over-earnest yet weirdly compelling and overall I will like them. So I should get to it sometime.)

And, ha, if you follow Tom Courtenay about, you will run into James Maxwell properly, because it was James Maxwell who befriended Tom at drama school and introduced him to the rest of the group, and they are in A Day in the Life, Private Potter and Otley together.

You know, that would never have been good, but there's a universe in which it might have been amazing.

It genuinely was amazing on the retouched version where they hadn't bothered to colour his hair in. :-D

Oh, and:
I'm so sorry. I've never seen any of the show, but I keep meaning to watch what's left.

Public Eye is a weird thing - I think it probably genuinely is the best TV show I've ever seen, despite being old TV and therefore sometimes as problematic as the rest of it. But it is hard to say in what way it is so weird and different, because in theory it sounds and is like a lot of other things - the difference is hard to quantify. But it is there - there's a S5 ep where it's like normal TV and it's so disappointing and yet what is different about this very mundane thing to 'normal' telly? And I don't know, but it has a quality where you just have to turn each episode round and round in your mind and can never quite pin anything down. It is not a good one for watching odd episodes of, even though in theory it ought to be (very much an anthology of one-act plays linked only by Alfred Burke's sole regular character in many ways) because it genuinely takes about 3-5 episodes before you adjust to it. And I don't think that's just me because other people seem to have gone through the same process.

But Alfred Burke is just excellent in it and Frank is a fascinating character who is on this weird crusade as a enquiry agent undercharging people (prostituting himself is a comparison that comes up quite a few times), helping those nobody else can help, but also seeing his clients as mirrors of himself, except that because they tend to come to him at their worst, they are distorted mirrors and that just makes everything worse. It's like this genuine low-key odd heroism that is simultaneously an ongoing self-destructive act that anybody who ever comes to care about him tries to save him from, and he won't be saved. And Alfred Burke has this very controlled intensity that you will see for half a second once a season if that's all that's needed, or suddenly for a whole scene or half an episode and it's electrifying.

And so watching him be perfectly quietly competent in the background of half-baked films is very frustrating. But it was part of what made him who he was and what made him able to be Frank. He was, by all accounts, an unusually modest actor. (Roger Marshall, who created the show, tells the story of once PE hit the big time, everyone waiting for the fame thing to hit... and it just never did. He disappeared home off location one time in S4 and RM was going, "Oh, well, this is it, here we go." But he just had the flu and had collapsed and been sent home.) And I will stop now because I don't suppose you wanted a thousand words on this topic and this is why I'm not allowed to talk about PE and all I do is wind up telling people not to watch it because it's so mundane and weird and old-time problematic and also the best thing ever.

[sovay]

And Alfred Burke has this very controlled intensity that you will see for half a second once a season if that's all that's needed, or suddenly for a whole scene or half an episode and it's electrifying.

Nice.

and this is why I'm not allowed to talk about PE and all I do is wind up telling people not to watch it because it's so mundane and weird and old-time problematic and also the best thing ever.

Oh, come on, you read my reviews. Do I look scared off?

[thisbluespirit]

Oh, come on, you read my reviews. Do I look scared off?

Oh, no, but I never know quite where to start or stop with Public Eye. You are one of the people I could definitely see getting something out of it, especially if you already took note of Alfred Burke elsewhere. Just, generally, it's the worst sell, and in particular I know TV mostly is less likely to happen with you, which is fair enough. And while I would be very interested indeed to find what you made of PE (it is very much New Wave/kitchen sink drama stuff), if you're only going to find time for one more piece of elderly British telly any time soon, then I must still point towards Blake's 7 first, I think!

But, yes, PE is very interesting - it's of its time, but also taking an intelligent and close look at odd bits of society. And, as I said, Alfred Burke really is brilliant in it. I had watched in Enemy at the Door before I saw it (also a lovely performance), and I'd read his obits and everything, and yet after I finished the last PE ep and had no more, it was still a total gut punch that he was dead; impossible to take in for a while.

[hamsterwoman]

Ha, the Librarian and demon fic sounds like an excellent answer to the bitter question! And all of these were fun to read about.

[thisbluespirit]

Thank you! It was a great prompt and there was definitely a sense of catharsis going on when I wrote it. :-D

[john_amend_all]

(That is totally what that question meant, right?)

Search me — I think that by the time you've pushed an adjective through the strainer of a music album and got it to point at a fanfic, it means whatever you want it to mean :-)

[thisbluespirit]

True!