24 Days of Prompts Take 6: Let's See How This Goes

[jedibuttercup]

I know I said I was going to put this up weeks ago, but between the yearly vacay and other exchanges I was in and family-related RL frustrations, I've been a bit low on energy. But I have time now, and I could use the nudge to get my writerly butt in gear again. So; let's give this a go!

What is the Wishlist?

The Wishlist is a multi-fandom fanfiction fest. It started very small and simple several years ago: the premise was simply to write twenty-four ficlets in response to twenty-four prompts, to be posted in December. Fandom gifts, if you will.

The wishlist_fic community is no longer active, but I participated for several years, and it was a good source of motivation to me to keep writing, so I'm going to collect another 24 prompts this year and see how it goes. :) I can make no promises on exactly when things go up, but I can promise that they will eventually all go up!

(For reference, see my progress on the previous list, stalled for canon review, hopefully all to be finished in November; you'll find the fully completed lists linked there for 2010-2014 as well.)

Rules

• I accept the first 24 prompts I am given, regardless of who you are or if I know you.
  (ALL PROMPTS CLAIMED)



• You give me characters/pairing, a fandom and a prompt. (Please don't skip the prompt part).


• If you don't have an LJ account, you can give your DW/IJ/TtH/AO3/whatever name in an anonymous comment, but do make sure to sign it. If you do not sign with a name I will not use your prompt; I have to have some way to link you the story.


• If I'm not offering the fandom you're requesting, I reserve the right to refuse the prompt.
  
  The current offerings list is: Buffy/Angel-verse (no comics); Stargate SG-1; Firefly/Serenity; Star Trek AOS or TOS; King Arthur: Legend of the Sword; The Marvel Cinematic Universe (Movie-based only); the Fast and the Furious series; Leverage; The Last Ship; Sleepy Hollow (Seasons 1-3); the Riddick-verse; Jurassic Park/World; Pacific Rim; John Wick; and the Mummy-verse (Brendan Fraser version).
  
  ETA: Person of Interest, Transformers movies, Star Wars!
  
  (I do sometimes take other requests, especially for canons on my current viewing list or continuations of other short-stories/fic series on a case-by-case basis; if it doesn't fit the above fandom list, feel free to ask, but I reserve the right to ask you to find another prompt.)


• If I find your prompt in any way offensive, I will disregard it, too. Fair warning.


• Your prompts can be for one fandom only, or a crossover (fusions on a case-by-case basis, and only with fandoms I've written in before) and should be in line with what I usually write. (That's a loose guideline, I know, but basically don't be deliberately ornery, okay?) It can be a quote, an idea, a specific situation, but it really helps to have something to aim for. Throwing Character X/Character Y, 'whatever' at me is going to get you 'whatever'.
  
  (HOWEVER: If your prompt is > 25 words, or if you request an idea that can't reasonably be covered in 500-3000 words? See again: whatever. I'm not a magic story-writing machine, and I have a full time job; the less review/plotting time your idea needs, the quicker I can write it!)


• I answer the prompts in the order I like best and post them starting in Dec 2017. (Sometimes RL events slow me down, particularly the last few years, but I will always get there eventually).

And that's it! Prompt away! (Whichever site you respond on - I'll keep a running total and close the list when it reaches 24).

Comments

[graycardinal]

Discovery's use of canon is...interesting. Their take on the Klingons is kind of heavy-handed, but it's not precisely un-canonical; it just draws from different parts of canon (notably, the Klingons speak mostly in subtitles because most of their dialogue is actually written in the Okrand Klingonese language!). We also have Rainn Wilson as a somewhat younger Harry Mudd, and there are parts of fandom that really don't like some of the writing attached to that so far (though Wilson is extremely good in the part). And the treatment of Sarek is likewise fascinating -- very intricately and defensibly reasoned, but in some ways a very sharp left turn from what one might expect. (James Frain is not quite as comfortable in Sarek's shoes as Wilson is in Mudd's, but then Sarek is not as comfy a character.)

As for grittiness/grimdark? It looks as if it should be (too much Mood Lighting, too many over-dramatic camera angles), and it does feature war with the Klingons as the initial major plot arc. But the core characters are really mostly pretty likeable, and both the writing and the performances reflect that. The most troubled characters are in (strong) secondary roles, not actual leads -- Sarek, Capt. Lorca -- and it looks to me as if the redemption arcs are being set up to outweigh or overcome the tragic ones.

War arc notwithstanding, I'd say that it's no grimmer than the AOS movies, that its overall tone is gradually lightening (much as Beyond is a bit cheerier than Into Darkness), and that the cast they've assembled for Discovery has amazing acting chops (Doug Jones as alien first officer Saru is dead flat brilliant).

I think we'll need to see the full season before we can really pass firm judgment on Discovery, given that the primary story arc is very strongly serialized. But given that they've been given a second-season order already, I am moderately optimistic that the season as a whole will live up to the potential I've seen so far.

[jedibuttercup]

I wonder what they'll end up charging for the DVDs? Sounds like full season will be the way to consume it for me, then.

[graycardinal]

The better question about DVDs/Blu-Rays may be whether they actually release the episodes that way; not everything one would like is showing up on disc these days. (Note the singular lack of season or series sets for either Galavant or Agent Carter, both of which I would have bought like a shot.) Paramount/CBS has historically been pretty stingy about discounting the Trek discs (except for the animated series), but that's eased up just a little recently, but at least they've steadily released discs -- whereas Disney/Marvel notoriously doesn't discount much at all and has a good deal of material that it keeps out of disc circulation.

OTOH, I have seen/heard various folk talk about waiting till the full season has been released, signing up for CBS All Access for a month or two to binge-watch, and then cancelling again -- the subscription model being purely month-to-month, there's no financial penalty at this point for doing this, and the net cost to do so is relatively low.

[jedibuttercup]

Well, they're not getting my time or money if they don't do discs. I never did Netflix or Hulu, I don't pay for songs on iTunes, I don't buy e-books, and the only computer game I play online right now is Diablo III all largely for the same reasons, and it has little to do with finances (though stacking subscriptions IS super annoying when I already pay for cable). The way my ADHD interacts with entertainment, it makes a big difference to my enjoyment of something and ability to get absorbed in it whether or not it's mine and I can touch it and interact with it according to my own comfort and interest, not under the service's or anyone else's restrictions. If that makes sense?

[graycardinal]

It does make sense. I'm not quite as hard-wired that way, but I do have a strong preference for physical media where I can get it. And I resisted the cable/satellite siren call for decades before I jumped into that briar patch. (I am now out again courtesy of the recent move; I signed up for 'Net-only at the new place, and just last month bought a Roku box, which should end up being adequate for such digital content as I actually need.)

I hope we do get discs of Discovery (and I think the odds are in favor of it, although not guaranteed). I will likely buy them if we do, precisely because that way I *will* have my own archive. The one real plus side of the shift toward digital content -- in both prose and visual media -- is that a bigger chunk of the $$ tends to get back to the creators. (And as soon as the right people figure out that they don't actually need Hollywood to finance top-tier content, the Hollywood money empire is in deep kimchi.)