So, there were these questions...
Jul. 10th, 2003 05:45 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
butterflyInterview questions from ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
minim_calibre. And, as she said in hers, if you want, you can comment to this post and I'll ask you five questions.
1. Better Solo Artist Potential and Why: Justin or JC?
Justin.
Honestly, neither of them is my favorite (though Justin is higher on my personal list) and I like both of them better in the group than out, but if I had to bet on a horse, it would be Justin. Although I do believe that JC is the better singer, Justin is the better performer. I've never seen anyone work a crowd like that man (although Stephen Hawking is pretty good). He talks sometimes about how he thinks that he was destined to be a singer and I do think that he's right. Because I can't imagine him anywhere else. You can see him soak up the love of the audience and send it right back to them. He's a born performer (kid won a beauty pageant at, like, 12 or something).
2. How did you get into fandom?
Well, I was sorta born into it. My parents were huge Trekkies (my mom was one of the people who wrote in to stop the original series from being cancelled). I grew up knowing that it was okay to be into a show enough to wear dorky clothes and rearrange your schedule around it. We played D&D, read fantasy, and watched Trek.
My first independent fandom was Buffy. I was the only one in my family who liked it back then (though my dad got into it a couple of years ago and my mom watched the seventh season with me). I would watch BtVS and then Dawson's Creek, and wonder about possibilities.
The first show that I wrote fanfic for was actually Hercules. It's embarrassing and I refuse to show it in public or private. Also, I have never truly recovered from that young crush on Kevin Sorbo.
The first show where I wrote fanfic, posted it, and was proud of it? Buffy. I Don't was probably my first BtVS fic. It relies heavily on dialogue from the actual show and tells more than it shows.
But Buffy is where my unapologetic personal fandomness started, which is probably one of the reasons that I adore it so. It's the main reason that I started looking for like spirits online, since I couldn't find any in 'real life'.
3. Would you take omniscience and immortality if you had to exist in the form of a stuffed paisley frog and could only communicate with two out of three people?
*giggles*
No. But that's a really hilarious image and would make a funny premise for a sitcom.
Most of the things that I enjoy most in life would be hard to enjoy as a stuffed paisley frog - reading, writing, and just plain living. Also, I suspect that I would get bored quickly, and with forever to look forward to? Not the best thing.
4. You can jack into the muse of any one writer, from any time period, and learn his or her tricks. Who do you choose, and why?
Oh, wow. So many choices. Joss Whedon. Shakespeare. Frank Herbert. Jane Austen. Tolkien (if only to understand why he's so impossible to me!). Judith Tarr.
Still, if I can only choose one...
R. A. Salvatore, who created my favorite fictional character ever, Drizzt Do'Urden. I haven't talked about him on lj. But, yeah. More than Buffy or Xander or Frodo, Drizzt is the character that I admire most. He's compelling, conflicted, complicated, and just damn cool. He went against his family, his society, because he knew it had to be wrong. And R. A. has some of the most beautiful descriptions of place that I've ever read. I'd love to be better at description.
5. Is the family you're born with more important than, less important than, or equally important to, the family you make?
Not afraid to ask the tough questions, are you?
Family is such an incredibly complicated thing. When I was young, my family was my whole world. My mom, dad, and brother were the only ones that I knew would be there in a month, in a year. Friends and places changed, but they stayed.
Security.
Then the facade crumbled and I found out that my mom'd been miserable for most of her married life. And my dad wasn't someone I wanted to spend time with and all I ever did with my brother was fight. And it was lonely.
So, I found the online community, but back then, it wasn't family. Before lj, I didn't really share my life with anyone. Didn't know how. Not with my family, where it's easy to yell about the little things and so much harder to talk about the important things.
The family that you're born with shapes you.
The family that you choose reflects who you are.
The people that I choose to surround myself with online are the type of people that I think are intelligent and enjoyable. People that are open-minded.
I would say that born family is more important early in life, chosen family later, but that ideally, they should balance.
Or, to be totally honest, I haven't the faintest idea. Emotional intimacy, born or chosen, scares me half to death.
On a totally different note, is it widely understood that the first/second season of due South are better, quality-wise? I mean, I probably shouldn't take TWoP as that serious a source, but even the people there who enjoy third/fourth season more seem to think that the earlier ones were higher quality. I think that they had a different sensibility, partly because of the exec. producer change, but quality is such a subjective thing at times. Certainly, I'd argue that the supporting characters (especially the women) were given much more depth in the later seasons, which I think speaks highly of the overall quality of those seasons. And I do think that Fraser was wearing a bit of a protective mask in the earlier seasons, because the Fraser we see in the later seasons (especially Call of the Wild) very much resembles the Fraser of the pilot movie.
I just paid for another six months of lj. Mostly because I liked being able to have and change icons. And I just changed about 20-30 of my interests. I didn't have Connor on there!
minim_calibre. And, as she said in hers, if you want, you can comment to this post and I'll ask you five questions.1. Better Solo Artist Potential and Why: Justin or JC?
Justin.
Honestly, neither of them is my favorite (though Justin is higher on my personal list) and I like both of them better in the group than out, but if I had to bet on a horse, it would be Justin. Although I do believe that JC is the better singer, Justin is the better performer. I've never seen anyone work a crowd like that man (although Stephen Hawking is pretty good). He talks sometimes about how he thinks that he was destined to be a singer and I do think that he's right. Because I can't imagine him anywhere else. You can see him soak up the love of the audience and send it right back to them. He's a born performer (kid won a beauty pageant at, like, 12 or something).
2. How did you get into fandom?
Well, I was sorta born into it. My parents were huge Trekkies (my mom was one of the people who wrote in to stop the original series from being cancelled). I grew up knowing that it was okay to be into a show enough to wear dorky clothes and rearrange your schedule around it. We played D&D, read fantasy, and watched Trek.
My first independent fandom was Buffy. I was the only one in my family who liked it back then (though my dad got into it a couple of years ago and my mom watched the seventh season with me). I would watch BtVS and then Dawson's Creek, and wonder about possibilities.
The first show that I wrote fanfic for was actually Hercules. It's embarrassing and I refuse to show it in public or private. Also, I have never truly recovered from that young crush on Kevin Sorbo.
The first show where I wrote fanfic, posted it, and was proud of it? Buffy. I Don't was probably my first BtVS fic. It relies heavily on dialogue from the actual show and tells more than it shows.
But Buffy is where my unapologetic personal fandomness started, which is probably one of the reasons that I adore it so. It's the main reason that I started looking for like spirits online, since I couldn't find any in 'real life'.
3. Would you take omniscience and immortality if you had to exist in the form of a stuffed paisley frog and could only communicate with two out of three people?
*giggles*
No. But that's a really hilarious image and would make a funny premise for a sitcom.
Most of the things that I enjoy most in life would be hard to enjoy as a stuffed paisley frog - reading, writing, and just plain living. Also, I suspect that I would get bored quickly, and with forever to look forward to? Not the best thing.
4. You can jack into the muse of any one writer, from any time period, and learn his or her tricks. Who do you choose, and why?
Oh, wow. So many choices. Joss Whedon. Shakespeare. Frank Herbert. Jane Austen. Tolkien (if only to understand why he's so impossible to me!). Judith Tarr.
Still, if I can only choose one...
R. A. Salvatore, who created my favorite fictional character ever, Drizzt Do'Urden. I haven't talked about him on lj. But, yeah. More than Buffy or Xander or Frodo, Drizzt is the character that I admire most. He's compelling, conflicted, complicated, and just damn cool. He went against his family, his society, because he knew it had to be wrong. And R. A. has some of the most beautiful descriptions of place that I've ever read. I'd love to be better at description.
5. Is the family you're born with more important than, less important than, or equally important to, the family you make?
Not afraid to ask the tough questions, are you?
Family is such an incredibly complicated thing. When I was young, my family was my whole world. My mom, dad, and brother were the only ones that I knew would be there in a month, in a year. Friends and places changed, but they stayed.
Security.
Then the facade crumbled and I found out that my mom'd been miserable for most of her married life. And my dad wasn't someone I wanted to spend time with and all I ever did with my brother was fight. And it was lonely.
So, I found the online community, but back then, it wasn't family. Before lj, I didn't really share my life with anyone. Didn't know how. Not with my family, where it's easy to yell about the little things and so much harder to talk about the important things.
The family that you're born with shapes you.
The family that you choose reflects who you are.
The people that I choose to surround myself with online are the type of people that I think are intelligent and enjoyable. People that are open-minded.
I would say that born family is more important early in life, chosen family later, but that ideally, they should balance.
Or, to be totally honest, I haven't the faintest idea. Emotional intimacy, born or chosen, scares me half to death.
On a totally different note, is it widely understood that the first/second season of due South are better, quality-wise? I mean, I probably shouldn't take TWoP as that serious a source, but even the people there who enjoy third/fourth season more seem to think that the earlier ones were higher quality. I think that they had a different sensibility, partly because of the exec. producer change, but quality is such a subjective thing at times. Certainly, I'd argue that the supporting characters (especially the women) were given much more depth in the later seasons, which I think speaks highly of the overall quality of those seasons. And I do think that Fraser was wearing a bit of a protective mask in the earlier seasons, because the Fraser we see in the later seasons (especially Call of the Wild) very much resembles the Fraser of the pilot movie.
I just paid for another six months of lj. Mostly because I liked being able to have and change icons. And I just changed about 20-30 of my interests. I didn't have Connor on there!
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2003-07-10 06:51 am (UTC)However IMHO, the show was better quality the first two seasons. Fraser wasn't nearly so much of a caricature - sure he had the mask, but we the audience got to see his motivations and his struggles when the Americans didn't.
The show was more focused around Fraser, yes - there were episodes when David Marciano was practically a walk-on, but that's what the show was about. Estrangement and isolation, dealing with culture shock.
The third season suddenly had us dealing with the bizarre a whole lot more often, and the Americans' idea that it was Canadians in general who were wacky suddenly got endorsed by the Canadians themselves. Where Fraser used to be an anachronism, weird to Americans and Canadians alike (with the exception of one of his father's former partners and Turnbull) now we had episodes like Mountie on the Bounty. (Which, yes a lot of fun but hello an entire troop of crazy Mounties?)
We got more depth from Welsh and Francesca, but really it would have been nice to have seen more depth and backstory to Turnbull, who could have been more of an ally or at least commmiserator for Fraser. And I felt Elaine's absence deeply.
Maybe it is more of a style difference, but Due South became much more of a comedy in its final seasons and I thought that was a bit of a shame.
Hmm. Interesting points.
Date: 2003-07-10 09:14 am (UTC)Maybe my approach to it has something to do with the fact that first episode I saw was Mountie on the Bounty (though my second episode was the pilot movie). I thought of those Frasers as the 'real' Fraser, especially since they were so separated time-wise, but so similar.
And of course, I adore good comedies and feel that they make the dramatic moments deeper. And I'm all about humanity set against a backdrop of the bizarre (see: BtVS).
So, it's probably a matter of taste. Some of the first/second season episodes really moved me - Victoria's Secret (I adore Victoria as a character) most of all.
And when I watched the show, it felt like Elaine was just there to provide another woman to sigh over Fraser, so I was pleased that she became a cop and they put Frannie into that role.
Re: Hmm. Interesting points.
Date: 2003-07-10 09:44 am (UTC)I forget the episode precisely, (
But... as Vecchio leaves we see Fraser pass Elaine at the filing cabinet and she makes a remark, something along the lines of "Nice work" that a) makes us aware that Elaine thinks Fraser's not as naive as he pretends and b) Fraser's answering smile lets us know she's right. Kowalski took over in that respect, and went further, forcing Fraser out of his mask as often as possible, but it would have been nice to see Elaine develop a little more too.
Re: Hmm. Interesting points.
Date: 2003-07-14 01:33 am (UTC)And yeah, Vecchio could be incredibly trusting when it came to believing that Fraser hadn't a clue.
Like the time Ray asks him if he knows what a sap is, and Fraser goes on and on, all technical and Ray buys into it and then Fraser says, "Ray, don't be a sap." Ray, I think, was very invested in Fraser being an... innocent.
wow!
Date: 2003-07-10 07:26 am (UTC)*winces*
(no subject)
Date: 2003-07-10 10:38 am (UTC)Such a brilliant character.
Date: 2003-07-10 06:56 pm (UTC)But yes, Drizzt is such a great character. I'd recommended rereading (or reading, if you haven't read those particular ones, I suppose) the Dark Elf trilogy first. You get to see his childhood, especially his father, who helped teach Drizzt to fight against their society's way of doing things but was too weak to escape himself.
Re: Such a brilliant character.
Date: 2003-07-10 10:46 pm (UTC)