I will be the first!

[dbskyler]

I have signed up for the btfchallenge writing challenge, which stands for "Be the First," and I am going to write the very first fic for Quark!

I still can't believe that there is no fic for this fandom at all, but I haven't been able to find any. I don't consider it that obscure of a TV show, but apparently it is? Anyway, I'm really looking forward to writing for it! I even have prompts from when I requested it for Yuletide a few years ago.

Of course, I'm probably the only one who will ever read it until that day when the other lonely Quark fan who must surely be out there somewhere in the world stumbles across my fic and it makes her/his day merely by existing in the first place.

Comments

[thisbluespirit]

W00t! Go you! It is very fun to create a fandom on AO3, and, yes, you never know ONE DAY some mysterious guest will leave a kudos and run away and never speak to you about your shared love, but you'll know they're out there.

(Not that I speak from experience in any way here!)


(Also there could be TEN Quark fans out there. It is a US thingy, you never know.)

[dieastra.livejournal.com]

There is no tag on AO3 for the TV series "Bodyguards" from 1996 either. I have written but not yet published a fic for it. One really wonders if it's even worth it or if only people who search for the Bodyguard movie will be disappointed ;)

I've never watched "Quark" so I can't comment on how obscure it is.

Anyway, I wish you good luck with your story! Do you at least have a friend to show it to / discuss it / ask for beta? Sometimes I feel, showing it just to one person and hearing their opinioin is enough, anything else is bonus.

[dbskyler.livejournal.com]

You should sign up for "Bodyguards" at the Be the First writing challenge and then publish your fic! They will put it in an AO3 collection for you and everything!

I can't think of anyone who knows Quark who'd be willing to beta, but I do have a beta who is usually up for cracky sci-fi stuff even if she doesn't know the fandom, and this would definitely qualify. Quark was a sci-fi show that parodied sci-fi shows, especially Star Trek and Star Wars. And oh look, someone's put an episode up on Youtube in case you want to check it out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1BUCwf5yv4_

[dieastra.livejournal.com]

When I click the BTF challenge link in your post, I am getting an error, so I can't check it out. Possibly you spelled it wrong somehow?

I'll check out the link, thanks! Not sure I know enough sci-fi to appreciate a parody show - you have to know the original to be in the know for the jokes, and I don't really watch much sci-fi. But I was very wary of "The Orville" in the beginning and ended up loving it, so you never know!

[dbskyler.livejournal.com]

No idea what happened there -- apparently some weirdness between the original post on Dreamwith and the crossposting here -- but I fixed it! If you click on it now, it should take you to the right place, which is here: btfchallenge

[dieastra.livejournal.com]

Guess what, I just did. I mentioned your name so you might get a notification ;)
I never before have signed up to any challenges, as I prefer to write when an idea strikes me and not when a deadline is nearing, but given that I have the story already finished and only need to include the beta changes, I feel confident.
And how knows, one might find likeminded fans. I also just did my pimping post: https://btfchallenge.livejournal.com/5073.html?thread=78033#t78033

Does that sound convincing?

I actually searched for your post in DW back then and the link did not work there either.

[dbskyler.livejournal.com]

Hmm, sounds like I got the link wrong in the original post! But no one tried to click it on Dreamwidth, apparently. ;)

Anyway, glad you have now found the comm, and are going to contribute your fic! Also, just so you know, I used to have your exact same attitude about challenges -- I was sure that my writing style would never work with a deadline -- but I have discovered that I was wrong. Not only can I write to deadline, but quite a few of my personal favorites are fics that I wrote for challenges. In fact, the very first fic I ever wrote for a challenge was also my very first fic to be widely recced (it made it to Calufrax, the Doctor Who reccing community). So maybe this will be the start of a new era of challenge-writing for you! But even if it isn't, there is nothing at all wrong with seeking out the occasional challenge here and there which fits you, and it sounds like Be the First is a great fit!

[dieastra.livejournal.com]

No, definitely not. My writing style is different. It has happened more than once, that late in the evening, around midnight, when I am about to go to bed, just browse the internet one last time, and see a promotion picture, for example for the next episode of Arrow, and my mind starts to play out the whole scene, and then I have to write it down immediately, as I can’t sleep anyway. Or I am chatting with a friend about something we have watched, and an idea springs to mind. Sometimes I am even lazy, and she writes my idea ;) We inspire each other. Or I write the beginning and end and she the middle part that was set in the past. We did that for a Gotham/Alfred Pennyworth story. Something that haunts him from the past, but inspired by mentions in an episode.

But my own fics are all rather short, about 2,500-3,000 words, rarely 5,000, very seldomly more than that. Not long thought out stories with lots of plot, and I see people doing this challenge where they have to write a certain amount of words every day, for months, and I just don’t get it. Sometimes you’re tired and just want to watch TV. It should be fun and not hard work. So either the muse inspires or not.

Having said that, I am a member in a figure group and each month we get a certain word to illustrate with our figures, and it is fun thinking about that, and many of my pictures would not exist without these prompts. I have written most of my fic in the Stargate SG-1 fandom, but ever since that ended not so much, very few for Torchwood / Doctor Who and again only because it was for a Christmas calendar or other challenge. So yeah, I have worked with deadlines before I just realize. Then again, one year I had the idea for the annual Christmas fic in July ;)

There is one thing that worries me though. How do you understand the following sentence from when last year’s fics were revealed?

Now, one important notice: Please do not check out the fics out via the fandom list page on AO3! Due to AO3's new policy about not wrangling fandom tags on unrevealed works, many of the stories will not show up on said page. Instead, I've compiled an alternative fandom list below. You can also browse the collection via the works page on AO3, where none should be missing.

Does she mean, in the beginning after it was revealed it can’t be found under the tag (as this usually takes a while), or does she mean never ever? I mean, in that case the whole thing is for nothing, as nobody later will find the fic? What exactly is meant with wrangling fandom tags?

[dbskyler.livejournal.com]

But my own fics are all rather short, about 2,500-3,000 words

So are mine! The first ficathon I signed up for had a minimum word limit of 500 words. Yuletide -- which I'm pretty sure is the biggest multifandom exchange out there -- has a minimum word limit of 1000 words. And I just signed up for who-guestfest, another ficathon with a 500-word-limit. Plenty of stuff out there for writers like us!

Does she mean, in the beginning after it was revealed it can’t be found under the tag (as this usually takes a while)

Yes, this is what she means. It's because AO3 waits until the fics are revealed (made public) until they begin wrangling the tags (making them searchable), so right after reveal, the mod made a separate list and asked people to find the fics that way instead of going through tags. But it doesn't take AO3 long to wrangle tags, so the tags were likely all searchable within a few days.

[dieastra.livejournal.com]

It's the end of the year and I make another attempt of cleaning my inbox. I have no idea why I still kept your comment, but I am happy to announce that in the meantime I have written a 17 k fic! I am suprised by myself. And not only that but I wrote it in record time too, the first draft was done within just one week. I had a great beta giving me some inspiration when I needed it as at first the task and possibilities seemed way too big and overwhelming

I don't assume you watch "The Orville" nor will you probably know Seth MacFarlane's Western parody "A Million Ways to die in the West" - I did a crossover between those two. Albert from the Wild West was switched with Ed who is Captain of the "Orville" (both are played by Seth) and both had to deal with trying to find their ways through a totally different environment. Fish out of water so to speak. I had great fun with that one!

It's here if you are curious enough to try it.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/21123416/chapters/50266565

[dbskyler.livejournal.com]

Hi and happy new year!

And by curious coincidence, I just started watching "The Orville" recently, and am now about 4 episodes in. Haven't heard of "A Million Ways to Die in the West" but it sounds interesting, as does your crossover. : )

[dieastra.livejournal.com]

Happy New Year to you too!

Oooooh! Welcome to the show then, and hopefully to the fandom! If you made it that far already I hope that means you like it? If you do, please spread the word among your friends, we need more fans. Granted the first few episodes have some odd humor but from now on it will get only better, I promise. Season 2 was amazing.

If you need someone to chat to, I am happy to do so! It's my main fandom at the moment and I am impatiently waiting for season 3 at the end of this year. They are currently filming. And this show is so inspiring. I have written 10 fics during the past year! Not all as long of course. I am reminded of good old Stargate SG-1 times. Even though I had other fandoms in between (Doctor Who, Torchwood, Arrow, Gotham) I never wrote much for them.

It's also rare that I love every single character in a show. They are all so relatable. Seth said we need a positive sci-fi show like the old Star Trek shows were, as now all is dark and dystopian. They tackle some great issues as well.

"A Million Ways to die in the West" is a comedy that Seth wrote, directed, produced and acted in 2014, and in his free time on set he wrote the novel as well. I have no idea how he does it. It has a bit of the typical gross MacFarlane Family Guy humor which one needs to overlook, but I truly love this movie as he plays sheep farmer Albert who does not fit into the West at all so sweet and cute and adorably. His co-stars are Neil Patrick Harris, Amanda Seyfried, Charlize Theron and Liam Neeson, which surely is the reason the last two also are in Orville episodes. Especially with Charlize Theron he developed a great friendship, she helped him lots on the set as it was his first major acting role (only had done voice work before, Family Guy and also the Ted movies)

Someone enjoyed reading my fic without knowing the movie but of course I recommend watching it for the better fun. Especially if you have a love for the Wild West. Despite this being a comedy, it is also an homage and costumes, music, landscape are spot on.

The Orville is Seth's baby, he is involved with everything, ship design, costumes, even the music. He mostly cast people he has known and be friends with for a long time too. They have some old Star Trek people directing (Jonathan Frakes!) or writing the scripts as well or in guest roles like Robert Picardo. Seth knows exactly what he wants. There is a Star Trek fanfilm on youtube which he did at the age of 17 so it's nice to see he could fulfil his dream years later. Originally he wanted to do a Star Trek show but I think this is better as he can do what he wants.

And for me it's nice to be at the start of a fandom for once, as with both Doctor Who and Star Trek it is impossible to catch up with 50 years of TV, comics and books. I really hope the Orville is in for the long run. I want action figures!

Here's the fanfilm, it's only 2 minutes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sn_Sgcxg5PQ

Finally, have you heard the man sing? I always fall for people if they are not only actors but also can sing, and he has a wonderful smooth voice and fulfills my general love for swing and Frank Sinatra songs with big orchestra. So my next goal in life is hopefully seeing a live concert one day. Last year Hugh Jackman did a world tour and I saw him in Hamburg and Berlin, so never say never!

"Come fly with me" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wzVprkrNlT8

(I'm rambling, am I? ;) )

[dbskyler.livejournal.com]

Just saw "The Krill" tonight. I'm enjoying the show so far, but still trying to figure it out. I had heard it was kind of like a Star Trek comedy, but it's definitely not that. Star Trek that doesn't take itself too seriously? There's a lot of current pop culture references, which is kind of weird. I mean, a whole episode with jokes about "Avis"? You probably didn't even get those as you're not American. Avis is a well-known car rental company here. They even put in Avis' advertising slogan. It's like . . . why go for such a stupid joke?

On the other hand, I agree that the characters are relatable and interesting, and in some ways more "real" than the ones on Star Trek, even DS9. The opening bit where they discovered that Bortus can eat almost anything, and they immediately start giving him weird things to eat? Yes, that's exactly what would happen. And yet Star Trek just wouldn't have done it, not even with Neelix.

I'm not a fan of Family Guy and was worried that The Orville would have the same level of humor, but at least that hasn't happened yet. In fact, I've been surprised by how serious some of it has been already -- the bit with Bortus' daughter, etc.

Good to know that it keeps getting better. I need a new fandom -- I don't like the current era of Doctor Who, and need something to tide me over until Chibnall goes and we're on, I don't know, Sixteen or something.

[dieastra.livejournal.com]

I love the Krill episode for the scene where Ed admits that he is afraid of the mission. There is so much emotion in his voice. He’s really scared. When have you ever heard a Star Trek captain say that? And the end with him saving the children and Teleya saying he made now enemies is powerful too.
I totally agree that there was way too much humor in the episode otherwise. The way Chris and Devon acted undercover was way over the top and not believeable. They stood out like a sore tooth. If that was a season 2 episode it would have been much better. But I still like it as it has a wonderful continuation in season 2 and therefore it’s very important.

I am reading episode discussions (it was a Star Trek forum that got my interest) and so the Avis jokes were explained to me.

We think Seth sold it to Fox as a comedy as that is what was expected of him at the time. Nobody would have believed he wanted to do a serious show. And sadly the first trailer umped that.

So people expecting Family Guy in space are disappointed there are not enough jokes, and Trekkies who would love it don’t watch it. That’s why we need word of mouth. We like to say it is an homage.

The reason why they use so much current music etc. also has been explained by Seth. He says whenever you try to imagine what the music of the future would sound like you only can fail and it would sound weird. Everyone agrees that watching Seinfield on the bridge also was a bit much.
But yes, keep going and tell me how you like it! I love particularly the last two episodes of the season. And number 5. There is also an upcoming episode that is mainly about Claire’s character.

I watched and loved TOS but never made it to the other Trek series. What I have seen from Next Generation so far is so – boring. They only stand around talking. From Stargate SG-1 I am used to much better. I saw the one DS9 episode with the Tribbles and immediately loved the characters there, but I am afraid to dive into it further for all the war plots? Some say it’s the best of the Trek series. Have you watched Discovery? I tried 3 episodes, not to my taste.

I stopped watching Doctor Who in Capaldi’s last season. Shame about that really :(

[dbskyler.livejournal.com]

I grew up with TOS -- my local TV station showed reruns of it every afternoon, and I used to watch it when I got home from school. I hated Next Generation when I first watched it. Like you, I found it boring, and also slow-moving and self-important and lacking in humor. But I eventually got into it and now can say that I enjoy a lot of it. The later episodes are much better than the first ones. But overall, I like DS9 more because it doesn't view the Federation as this perfect organization. There are real characters, and real conflicts, plus real humor. The Tribbles episode is of course the best! But other episodes also have humor. Unfortunately, it does get very dark in the later seasons with the war stuff, which I hate. Just go watch seasons 1-5, before the war gets going. One of my favorite episodes is in season 5 -- "Doctor Bashir, I Presume."

Discovery is only available here through a special pay service, so I haven't seen any of it. If it was free I might have checked it out.

And yeah, I am right there with you about disappointment in Doctor Who. I really want to like it, and I just don't. Lately I've been re-watching Tenth and Eleventh Doctor episodes just to remind myself of what it was like when it was good.

[dieastra.livejournal.com]

AGAIN! LJ needs to raise their post limit.
Part 1/2:

Most people in East Germany were able to and regularly watched West Germany TV, but Dresden is located deep in a valley and the radio waves simply did not reach us. So we were left out a bit of everything, and it still shows today when I simply don't know certain things people talk about as it is too late to catch up. Never watched Dallas for example. Or all the iconic stuff like Bonanza (430 episodes? Dear God!) or Waltons.

In a way I think it was better though. Because all those other people saw stuff in the commercials they never could buy. I did not see it and I did not miss it. Does that make sense?

When I became a Shatner fan my friend who had been one for many years gave me all the stuff she had recorded, all his guest spots in those old TV series so I got to see a bit of that time.

I still remember the day when we got our first West German TV in August 1989 so yes, before the Berlin Wall came down. They had bought a satellite dish for all the apartment blocks together and when we tried it out we came right into the middle of a Knight Rider episode, of course having no idea why this car was driving by itself or talking. This show and MacGyver were the first that I watched regularly.

Of course I then also got aware of Star Trek but never watched it as I was no sci-fi fan at all (I watched Baywatch 'cause David Hasselhoff and always caught the last few minutes of Next Generation before that but it never looked interesting). And I figured that you had to have grown up with TOS, that it was too late to get into it now. In fact, I watched it for the first time in 2015, right after Nimoy had died. Now that was weird, everyone on my friends list was mourning and I simply did not have the same connection.

Of course I fell in love with it very quickly. I did not mind the wobbly sets or weird special effects, as long as there are good actors with chemistry and good stories. Also I actually enjoyed the slowness - long close-ups, a camera that is in one place instead of wobbling all the time, it makes me seasick.

TBC in part 2/2

[dieastra.livejournal.com]

And part 2/2:

Even the most dedicated NextGen fans agree that the first two seasons suck and it only picks up in 3 (when Gene Roddenberry was not involved anymore?), but still I think one needs to watch it all in order? We have a TV channel here that is regularly re-running, and sometimes I happen to catch a random episode - be it NextGen, or Voyager, or currently they are on Enterprise. But I have no idea what season they are in. I'll have to check when they start with DS9 again. Thank you for telling me that the war only starts in season 5, I thought it was the main plot of the series. That sounds better. And some of the actors already are familiar to me, I know René Auberjonois from a very famous guest spot on Stargate (where he was not a nice guy at all and got killed in the end) and of course also from Boston Legal which funnily is where I first saw William Shatner. And for a very very long time I really had trouble bringing the young Kirk's face in sync with the older Shatner. It was like two different people for me. Do you understand? It's different if you see him grow old as it goes.

I saw Richard Dean Anderson grow old over the course of ten Stargate years. I loved his silver fox look, he never looked better. Then after my first convention I showed my picture to my mother and she commented that MacGyver had gotten old. Of course, since it was the last time she saw him.

Also Colm Meaney was in an Atlantis episode I think and in general has one of those "where have I seen him before / I like him immediately" faces. Bashir most recently was Ra's al Ghul in Gotham. He's aged nicely ;)

The first two Discovery episodes were available for free at the time, to try and hook people into subscribing, but as it then turned out actually had not much to do with the rest of the series, it was more like a prequel. You really don't miss much, believe me. People who watch it complain that even after two seasons they still don't know the names of the bridge crew. It's apparently all about the main character. When one character finally gets developed you can be sure they get killed off in the same episode. It's only about special effects and looking cool but lacking in story telling. And (I saw this with my own eyes) it has Klingons talking in Klingon for minutes with subtitles which is very boring as well.

And, and this is the main complaint that I hear, it visually screems at you "Look how progressive we are with having a gay character! Aren't we woke?" while for example The Orville just does, without specifically talking about it, and lets you draw your own conclusions. Also while there was a plot twist in season 1 fans apparently saw it coming miles away and called it long before.

I definitely need to get back to earlier Doctor Who episodes. I have all those wonderful figures here and no idea what to do with them. I hope a re-watch will spark some ideas. Same for the Sherlock figures. They took so long between ordering and delivery (2 years) that in the meantime I lost interest. Shame, as the Abonimable Bride set looks really amazing! Check them out here!

https://dieastra.livejournal.com/321980.html

Since I end with Sherlock have my "me and Benedict Cumberbatch" icon for a change. I can do this for a while yet LOL At least with this being two posts I could do the Shatner one in part 1.

[aralias.livejournal.com]

really cool idea for a challenge! and i love that you're going to damn well give the gift you wanted to get for yuletide :)