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gogmagogHey, Doctor Who made fandom_wank! And not even for shipping wank either, but for full-on batshit BNF/semi-official crazy!
Short version: Lawrence Miles, co-author of the admittedly awesome About Time series of Who encyclopedias and a few spin-off novels, dislikes NuWho (possibly in part because he has not been asked to write for it?). As a challenge to himself, he wrote a NuWho spec script set in a space library. Yesterday an episode set in a space library aired, written by Steven Moffatt (he of the "are you my mummy" gasmask-people and the hella creepy Weeping Angels). Having seen the one and read the other, I think Moffatt's is ultimately better, though Miles' has its good points. Anyway, Miles feels the need to spew vitriol all over Moffatt, the episode, and for some reason Neil Gaiman, and basically Miles blames Moffatt for making him an alcoholic and for throwing his arm around him in a clearly manipulative alpha-male kind of way. It's completely tl;dr, but nevertheless worth reading, if just for the sheer unbalancedness of it all.
A sample of his vitriol against Moffatt, with bonus Gaiman-hate:
To an extent, he's the Doctor Who version of Neil Gaiman, a writer who's prepared to contrive his storylines with near-clinical precision to make sure that (a) the right demographic groups are interested and (b) he gets to look like a rock star. This is probably the harshest thing I've said so far, since Gaiman is a stinking parasite who'll sink to any depths in his quest to make goth-girls cop off with him, and even Moffat isn't that desperate.
...wow, that is some quality bile, huh? (Especially since, as far as I know, Neil Gaiman is a very happily married man who does not go around copping off with goth-girl groupies. However, I also hear there are rumblings of Gaiman writing an episode for s5 of NuWho, which I imagine rankles Miles.)
Anyway, my thoughts on yesterday's episode...
Doctor Who, 04x08, "Silence in the Library"
Wow, Moffatt does it again. It's not up to the par of "Blink," or even "The Empty Child"/"The Doctor Dances," but it's still hella entertaining. And the concept of the Data Ghost, and specifically the scene of Miss Evangelista's, ended up being deeply chilling (and sad, because everyone had treated her kind of like crap except for Donna).
Speaking of Donna, it seems pretty clear that all indicators are pointing to her end-of-season fate as "doomed." This week's indicator: River Song, who apparently knows the Doctor in his future but her past, looks stricken when Donna asks where she is in that future. (Still, the fact that she knows about Donna makes me happy; it means that the Doctor will continue to talk about her in the future, even if she does bite the dust.) In contrast, Donna's fate in this two-parter seems ominous, but you know she's not gonna spend the next four episodes as a head on a stick, so I imagine she'll get out of it somehow (spoilery filming stuff seems to paint an interesting picture of how that'll happen).
Speaking of River, I kind of like her. Okay, the hints are less-than-subtle - OH HAY DO YOU KNOW THAT SHE KNOWS THE DOCTOR, BUT HE HAS NO IDEA WHO SHE IS? - but I like her calling him "pretty boy" (and his subsequent misunderstanding: "...what? ...oh, I'M 'pretty boy'..."), and she is doing a good job of selling the whole shared past, if only on her side, thing. I am thinking she's gonna die, though...after all, "your song must end," the Ood said to the Doctor. And if she dies now, that won't impact the Doctor being able to go back and meet her...I kind of see it as being not unlike the Doctor and Sally in "Blink," where he knew her but she didn't know him, and when she meets him in person he doesn't know her but she knows him. I'm imagining River will die saving the Doctor or Donna, the Doctor will find her book, discover she was whatever she turns out to be to him, and then go back and live through all the stuff described at some point, knowing that she's doomed to die at that place and time.
Speaking of anvilicious, yes, Moff, we get it...you hate spoilers.
Also, I'm mildly horrified that I stayed up until 2:30 a.m. last night reading Twilight. It's SO CHEESILY BAD...on the cheestastic scale, it's cheesier than early Laurell K. Hamilton or Mercedes Lackey, but not as cheesy as, say, The Da Vinci Code. Bella is a horrific Mary Sue, the writing is lackluster, THE VAMPIRES LITERALLY SPARKLE IN THE SUNLIGHT, and the relationship between Bella and Edward is horrifying to my feminist tendencies. They're highly codependent: she says things to him like (actual quote) "You ARE my life. You're the only thing it would hurt me to lose." Also when he kisses her, sometimes she passes out, because her HEART STOPS BEATING, LITERALLY.
...and yet I could not stop reading. (Sometimes I hate my weakness for cheese.)
My favorite scene was probably the ridiculous vampire baseball, which has to be played in a thunderstorm, so that when they hit the ball with their super-strength and speed, the resulting thunderous crack can be passed off as thunder. If I'm lyin', I'm dyin'.
Edit: I was talking to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
sergiekins about Twilight, and came up with a description that I feel perfectly describes the books as a whole:
sergiekins:God, this is like. XDD Every teenage girl who's read some vampire piece of fiction's wankfest ever. XDD
yoshitsune: Yes, it's like Anne Rice filtered through Lisa Frank. XD
Short version: Lawrence Miles, co-author of the admittedly awesome About Time series of Who encyclopedias and a few spin-off novels, dislikes NuWho (possibly in part because he has not been asked to write for it?). As a challenge to himself, he wrote a NuWho spec script set in a space library. Yesterday an episode set in a space library aired, written by Steven Moffatt (he of the "are you my mummy" gasmask-people and the hella creepy Weeping Angels). Having seen the one and read the other, I think Moffatt's is ultimately better, though Miles' has its good points. Anyway, Miles feels the need to spew vitriol all over Moffatt, the episode, and for some reason Neil Gaiman, and basically Miles blames Moffatt for making him an alcoholic and for throwing his arm around him in a clearly manipulative alpha-male kind of way. It's completely tl;dr, but nevertheless worth reading, if just for the sheer unbalancedness of it all.
A sample of his vitriol against Moffatt, with bonus Gaiman-hate:
To an extent, he's the Doctor Who version of Neil Gaiman, a writer who's prepared to contrive his storylines with near-clinical precision to make sure that (a) the right demographic groups are interested and (b) he gets to look like a rock star. This is probably the harshest thing I've said so far, since Gaiman is a stinking parasite who'll sink to any depths in his quest to make goth-girls cop off with him, and even Moffat isn't that desperate.
...wow, that is some quality bile, huh? (Especially since, as far as I know, Neil Gaiman is a very happily married man who does not go around copping off with goth-girl groupies. However, I also hear there are rumblings of Gaiman writing an episode for s5 of NuWho, which I imagine rankles Miles.)
Anyway, my thoughts on yesterday's episode...
Doctor Who, 04x08, "Silence in the Library"
Wow, Moffatt does it again. It's not up to the par of "Blink," or even "The Empty Child"/"The Doctor Dances," but it's still hella entertaining. And the concept of the Data Ghost, and specifically the scene of Miss Evangelista's, ended up being deeply chilling (and sad, because everyone had treated her kind of like crap except for Donna).
Speaking of Donna, it seems pretty clear that all indicators are pointing to her end-of-season fate as "doomed." This week's indicator: River Song, who apparently knows the Doctor in his future but her past, looks stricken when Donna asks where she is in that future. (Still, the fact that she knows about Donna makes me happy; it means that the Doctor will continue to talk about her in the future, even if she does bite the dust.) In contrast, Donna's fate in this two-parter seems ominous, but you know she's not gonna spend the next four episodes as a head on a stick, so I imagine she'll get out of it somehow (spoilery filming stuff seems to paint an interesting picture of how that'll happen).
Speaking of River, I kind of like her. Okay, the hints are less-than-subtle - OH HAY DO YOU KNOW THAT SHE KNOWS THE DOCTOR, BUT HE HAS NO IDEA WHO SHE IS? - but I like her calling him "pretty boy" (and his subsequent misunderstanding: "...what? ...oh, I'M 'pretty boy'..."), and she is doing a good job of selling the whole shared past, if only on her side, thing. I am thinking she's gonna die, though...after all, "your song must end," the Ood said to the Doctor. And if she dies now, that won't impact the Doctor being able to go back and meet her...I kind of see it as being not unlike the Doctor and Sally in "Blink," where he knew her but she didn't know him, and when she meets him in person he doesn't know her but she knows him. I'm imagining River will die saving the Doctor or Donna, the Doctor will find her book, discover she was whatever she turns out to be to him, and then go back and live through all the stuff described at some point, knowing that she's doomed to die at that place and time.
Speaking of anvilicious, yes, Moff, we get it...you hate spoilers.
Also, I'm mildly horrified that I stayed up until 2:30 a.m. last night reading Twilight. It's SO CHEESILY BAD...on the cheestastic scale, it's cheesier than early Laurell K. Hamilton or Mercedes Lackey, but not as cheesy as, say, The Da Vinci Code. Bella is a horrific Mary Sue, the writing is lackluster, THE VAMPIRES LITERALLY SPARKLE IN THE SUNLIGHT, and the relationship between Bella and Edward is horrifying to my feminist tendencies. They're highly codependent: she says things to him like (actual quote) "You ARE my life. You're the only thing it would hurt me to lose." Also when he kisses her, sometimes she passes out, because her HEART STOPS BEATING, LITERALLY.
...and yet I could not stop reading. (Sometimes I hate my weakness for cheese.)
My favorite scene was probably the ridiculous vampire baseball, which has to be played in a thunderstorm, so that when they hit the ball with their super-strength and speed, the resulting thunderous crack can be passed off as thunder. If I'm lyin', I'm dyin'.
Edit: I was talking to
sergiekins about Twilight, and came up with a description that I feel perfectly describes the books as a whole:sergiekins:God, this is like. XDD Every teenage girl who's read some vampire piece of fiction's wankfest ever. XDDyoshitsune: Yes, it's like Anne Rice filtered through Lisa Frank. XD
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2008-06-02 03:50 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-06-02 04:45 am (UTC)...seriously, SPARKLY VAMPIRES WTF
(no subject)
Date: 2008-06-02 08:50 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-06-02 06:31 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-06-02 03:38 pm (UTC)So I think you're right, that it's a sort of "how dare he be successful, and socially adept!" thing.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-06-02 01:31 pm (UTC)...
Shit, I'm almost tempted. XD
(no subject)
Date: 2008-06-02 03:35 pm (UTC)"His skin, white despite the faint flush from yesterday's hunting trip, literally sparkled, like thousands of tiny diamonds were embedded in the surface. He lay perfectly still in the grass, his shirt open over his sculpted, incandescent chest, his scintillating arms bare. His glistening, pale lavender lids were shut, though of course he didn't sleep. A perfect statue, carved in some unknown stone, smooth like marble, glittering like crystal...The meadow, so spectacular to me at first, paled next to his magnificence."
This is, of course, why vampires can't go out in the sun...not because they have a tendency to catch fire, but because they'd be SO BEAUTIFULLY SPARKLY IN SPARKLEVISION that they would attract attention from people. XD
oh my god, it's full of sparkles
Date: 2008-06-03 01:05 pm (UTC)Now I'm wondering how I'm going to read this. There's no way I'm paying for 500 pages of hilarious badfic, it's probably too long to be read IN the library, and I sure as hell don't want anyone to see me checking it out. XDDD I WILL FIGURE OUT SOMETHING... oh hey maybe I can get my cousin to buy it and loan it to me. 'Cause I mean, she loves the Anita Blake novels. The new Anita Blake novels.
Re: oh my god, it's full of sparkles
Date: 2008-06-03 08:46 pm (UTC)It's long for a YA book - about 350-400 pages, I think - but it goes fast, so it might be okay reading in the library too if you have a few hours and read fast.
I guess I don't understand people who like the new Anita Blake books? I mean, not only are all the awesome supporting characters from back when it was good abandoned and/or character-assassinated in favor of random new wereanimal manbiscuits with names like Micah or Requiem or Nightsong or Doodlebug, but the sex isn't even SEXY. I mean, I can deal with softcore porn if it's GOOD - I did used to read a lot of romance novels, after all - but between the new characters basically being faceless giant penises (...er, figuratively, not literally) and the fact that Anita can't go more than 30 pages without rubbing her lady-bits up against some random dude, it ends up being "oh, yawn, another sex scene."
I mean, the HORRIFIC MURDER SCENES in the books end up being sexier, because at least you don't end up with the mental image of LKH typing them one-handed, you know? D: D: D:
Though one-handed typing WOULD explain the horrific amount of typos and their/they're/your/you're mixups in the last few books...that and LKH's "I don't need no stinkin' editor" policy.
...er, sorry, that turned into way more of a rant than I meant it to. HAY WHAT ABOUT THOSE SPARKLY VIRGINAL TEEN VAMPIRES WHO LOOK LIKE MALE MODELS
Re: oh my god, it's full of sparkles
Date: 2008-06-04 01:46 pm (UTC)I think I love the phrase "wereanimal manbiscuits." XD But yeah, I really have no idea why she likes them. Not that I've actually read them myself, but most people I know who have an iota of taste seem to agree with you. She tries to get me to read them, like, every time I see her - and the last time she said something about how "they get better after the first few books" (augh) followed immediately by "but sometimes you might want to skim past the sex scenes." From what I've heard from LKH's many f_w appearances, that means you'd get about 5 pages out of each book. If that. XD; Not to mention that like you said, it's not even decent porn! The stuff I saw quoted on f_w looked like something out of the dregs of the Nifty archive.
Though one-handed typing WOULD explain the horrific amount of typos and their/they're/your/you're mixups in the last few books...
Oh helllll no. That alone would be the kiss of death for me.
Re: oh my god, it's full of sparkles
Date: 2008-06-05 03:59 am (UTC)The weird thing about the new Anita books is that LKH actually started a new series, the Merry Gentry series (about S&M fairies) where the sex is an integral part of the story, right around the time the Anita series had a brief hiatus on the sex (in what was by far the best book of the series). It seems like she created that series SPECIFICALLY to get out all her jollies.
But now, despite the fact that Merry's MAIN GOAL is to get pregnant before her psychotic cousin can get someone else pregnant (so that she can become queen of the fairies and not get killed), and her methods involve by sleeping with as many Mary-Sue-hair-colored faerie-men as possible, nevertheless the Merry Gentry series has LESS SEX than the Anita books, which had a heroine who was CELIBATE AS A NUN for like 9 books.
And yeah, the sex scenes ARE like something out of Nifty or the Greyarchive (except without any lesbianism, presumably because that would involve something other than LKH's Mary Sue or hott vampire/werewolf/wereleopard/wereswan/werelion/werepoodle men).