hmpf | Keeping some kind of record of my emotional state after my second big fandom catastrophe...

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Keeping some kind of record of my emotional state after my second big fandom catastrophe...

Still pissed at LOM. Fighting hard to keep at least some of my love for the show alive by furiously writing fix-it fic. Which, amazingly, is going very well - it's like my frustration's a speed booster for my writing. I suppose a need to 'fix' something always has been one of the strongest motivations for writing fanfic. (I'm writing a very bitter Maya right now; seems all my bitterness has ended up in her. Which kind of makes sense, because she's always been the character through whom I channel my emotions for Sam, only earlier, it used to be all kinds of tenderness.)

Maybe I'm going to end up writing *all* the alternative non-stupid endings I can think of... *g* LOM still makes marvellous fic material, and I can probably learn to love my own versions of it. I've moved permanently to alternate realities in other fandoms... (Heh... all I need to do is jump from the canon building, and I'll be in my preferred version of fanon... forever...) It's just such a shame I can't love the original, at the moment. Nor any fic which affirms the ending, which basically makes 99% of all fic written post 2.08 unreadable for me.

I'm waiting eagerly for more fic from the disappointed minority. *g*

Going to the ep 8 thread at the RA still pisses me off, although I know it's unfair and stupid and arrogant of me to get angry at people for enjoying the ending. And since I'm wise enouogh to know that it's unfair, stupid and arrogant of me, I'm trying to keep my interaction with the RA to a minimum, for the time being. (Can't *quite* keep away from it; the obsession's still alive, even if the love isn't.)

Probably that's also good for my fanfic, as I now channel nearly all of my remaining obsession into that.

Sadly, I'm actually dreading rewatching *any* of the episodes now, because so much that I thought poignant before I knew the ending is now so meaningless and cheap. Also, I miss my burning Sam Tyler love.

**

For anyone new here who may not know what my first big fandom catastrophe was: the cancellation of Farscape in 2002. That hurt like hell; but at least that show didn't essentially kill itself.

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I feel your pain. Though I try to be a naysayer, I keep feeling like I'm in a highly unwelcome minority for pointing out what I believe are huge flaws in the show's ending. I've rewatched it a few times, and I still hate it, in fact more than ever.

People looking for harlequin romance endings got what they wanted, and sadly those of us who genuinely love good sci-fi and horror are kind of left out in the cold--Which is odd, because I think it is the latter that the show actually *is*. I'm still trying to figure out why the pre-screening of the episode by journalists were cheering when Sam jumped off the edge of the building. I was just stunned by it, and I genuinely *hated* Sam at this point. I couldn't stop thinking of how rotten and selfish he was to abandon his life like this after he'd suffered so long to get back 'home'. I needed a better resolution than him offing himself and destroying the people he supposedly loved in 2007. Which now that I think of it, makes me hate Sam even more. He was worried sick about leaving his make-believe buddies behind in a tragic shoot-out, but he doesn't care a thing about leaving his mother an emotional mess from his suicide. What a jerk :(

Gah, every time I think of that ending, I have new reasons to hate Sam. I cried all right...For every coherent, non fanbrat servicing, give 'em what they want television scriptwriter out there. That's one hell of a hollow tunnel.

Not that I'm bitter or feeling angry and cranky or anything :P.

Yeah, that mystifies me, too.

Also, I totally understand your feelings about Sam. I can't say I *hate* him, exactly, but I've gone off him in a big way. So, so sad. Liking him was nice. Now I have to reinvent him before I can like him again. :-(

Btw, if you want to ask me questions about working in a long term care facility, you can direct all of them to this email: lavenderonion@yahoo.com

:D

What is it with you and bizarrely coloured foodstuffs? ;-)

Will e-mail you when I've collected my first batch of questions. The main question's really: Got any experience with patients in a persistent vegetative state?

I basically need to know what a typical day would look like in the 'waking-up phase' of one such making an unlikely recovery. I.e. typical nursing routines, types and frequency of therapy (once he's properly awake... well, actually, he'd probably be transferred to a specialised rehab facility pretty soon for that, wouldn't he?) etc. Loads of little details. Also, would there be a prognosis at some point or would they adopt more of a 'wait and see' approach due to the unpredictability of brain injury recovery?

So many questions... these are really just the tip of the iceberg.

Not sure how many of those questions you can answer; it really all depends on the first, doesn't it?

Actually, I have first hand experience with people in persistent vegetative states due to acquired brain injuries--there have been a few elderly people in the facility who have atrophied to the point of having little else other than eye-movements, and some whose consciousness is debatable. We do have a man in his mid-thirties who, while not in a true vegetative state, has what we call 'automatic movements'--ie: constant tics of him touching his head, swinging his legs, and no real consciousness that can be discerned due to the amount of brain damage he has suffered.

Will e-mail soon. May take a day or two, as I need to devote a bit of time to Real Life now...

Well I'll make no bones about being one of those people who wanted Sam to stay in 1973 - but I wanted it to be a real 1973. One which turns into 1974 and eventually back to 2006. I wanted real time-travel dammit. (I do come at things from a SF perspective!) I wanted it to be Sam getting his "second chance" to make a difference and learning that feelings do have their uses.

And failing that ... if the whole thing had turned out to be a coma dream, I wanted him to return to 2006/7 with a new-found appreciation for life. And you know, Matthew Graham didn't have to write 2007 as a bleak, alienating environment. He could have had Sam wake up with all his family around him, crying for joy. Have his colleagues great him with "Welcome back, Sam. We missed you!" Instead of showing Sam in a tedious bureacratic meeting, shown us what drew Sam to his job in the first place.

But in the end, what we got was ... a mentally and probably physically ill man, plunging to his death. A horrible, pointless tragedy all wrapped up in rainbows and fluffy-bunnies.

And my last fandom/character catastrophe - like you, Farscape. The scene where John "whacked" Harvey in Season 4. I'd grown very fond of Harvey - see my nickname! - and I was enjoying watching him grow into A Real Boy. And the rest of Season 4 seemed to be all John/Aeryn angst. (I did like them in the mini-series though. They seem to have recovered their equilibrium. Getting disintegrated must have been therapeutic!)

And adding to my own post - what's more, I get the impression that Matthew wouldn't have shoehorned the last episode into the interpretation he did if he wasn't planning to write A2A, with a new character interacting with Gene. But he - or they - didn't seem to have the courage to make 1973 "real" (Euuggghhh! Science fiction!) so they resurrected poor Sam in 2007 only long enough for him to tape his 1973 experiences and pass them on, then had him jump off a building into fantasy land. Sam's character was massacred for pure plot convenience (unless we're being lied to because of, once again, A2A. I'm beginning to dread the thought of it.)

Otherwise... well there seems to be enough strangeness in the 2007 Sam returned to make me think it was all part of his coma dream. For instance, who leaves a hospital after a major illness on their own and wearing a suit? Didn't Sam need to convalesce? Doesn't he have anything else in his 2007 wardrobe?

Maybe I should simply stick my fingers in my ears - "la, la, la!" - and ignore everything Matthew said. 1973 was real, 1973 was real, 1973 was real... Or ignore 2:08 altogether.

I actually come at things from an sf perspective, too, but while it was fun to play around with sf explanations for LOM, the writers never really gave us much reason to *really* believe any of those sf explanations, even before the show jumped the shark/building ;-). So, I never got too invested in the sf angle here, because it just never seemed very likely to me, within the framework the show seemed to have set itself.

I just wanted an ending that made sense within the logic of the story I'd been following so far. :-(

I was disappointed when Harvey was 'deactivated', too; that was a cop-out. And season four was uneven. But overall, it was still not the kind of artistic suicide that we saw Life On Mars committing. Flawed, yes, but not completely rotten, IMO. So for me, the real pain came when the show was cancelled - and Peacekeeper Wars is pretty bad, in my opinion, but mostly because they tried to cram all of season five into three hours, I think. I don't think Farscape ever *really* lost its integrity. Unlike LOM. :-(

Yes, that's how I feel. I'm prepared to suspend disbelief for any amount of strangeness if that's how that's how a show's (or book's) internal logic works, but if it's supposed to be set in the "real" world (ie. one without time-travel, ghosts, vampires, living spaceships, etc.) then I expect it to play by the real world's rules. Which means that suicide is *not* a happy ending.

Going to the ep 8 thread at the RA still pisses me off, although I know it's unfair and stupid and arrogant of me to get angry at people for enjoying the ending. And since I'm wise enouogh to know that it's unfair, stupid and arrogant of me, I'm trying to keep my interaction with the RA to a minimum, for the time being. (Can't *quite* keep away from it; the obsession's still alive, even if the love isn't.)

Hail Mary! Praise the Lord and hallelujah. I'm exactly the same. I know I have no reason to begrudge someone for enjoying something that I desperately wanted to enjoy - but for some reason I do.

And fix-it fic is good!!

Maybe we should start a community or something for it... so we won't contaminate other people's happiness, and also, so people like us will know where to find the kind of fic they need after this finale...

We could call it 'Alternate Alternate Reality'. Or is that too meta? Actually, I'd like to call it 'Jump off the canon building!' but that's kind of spoilery... *g*

'Jump off the canon building' is PERFECT

Would it be a community for people who weren't happy with the ending?

Hmm, well, at least it would have to be a community for people who want to explore alternative interpretations of the ending, but I'd say we could also accept complete alternative universes. That would make it slightly less exclusive.

But we couldn't call it a spoilery name, could we?

Then again, the entire community's content would be spoilery, so...

(Why am I speaking about this as if it's already a fact that we're going to start it? *g*)

Consider it done!!

http://community.livejournal.com/jumping_off/profile

Anyone want to co-mod or some such?

Just joined! :-)

Not so sure I'd like to co-mod - I'm already involved in an archive project with the four ficswomen of the apocalypse (Loz, janni and Andromeda. Well, and me.) and there's only so much time I can devote to the fandom, especially as this term at uni looks like it will become difficult. But then, you already seem to have one volunteer... *g*

Shouldn't we either name it something less spoilery, *or*, if we keep the spoilery name, at least go all the way and explain what exactly we're jumping off of? Because as it is, I'm not sure if anyone who hasn't been part of this conversation will get what the name's about... ;-)

A-ha! I obviously have come in at the middle of the conversation!

(Thanks for inviting me... it's already given me plot-bunnies. Which I thought were all running scared from Episode 8 - hurrah!)

(If you still need co-mods, sign me up)

muaahahahahaaaaa--considered yourself signed up for co-modding....*rubs hands together in evil glee*

Well I'm certainly willing to participate! Maybe the name shouldn't be spoilery though if people are going to be talking about it...

Wakey wakey?
Sunken dream?

Jim'll Fix It.......

I renamed the title page Test Card Girl Dreams--I don't think jumping_off is too much of a spoiler--Those who haven't seen it would naturally assume it means we are 'jumping off' of canon, so I think it's pretty safe :P.

Where should it be advertised? Word of mouth or posted link to the comm? I'm not too sure how it's going to be received by the happy masses :P.

I don't see why we can't post a link to the com and TRA - it's not a secret that we didn't like the ending much!

Chances are there are potential 'dissidents' lurking there we haven't noticed yet because they haven't dared posting anything. So, we should advertise this community as well as possible, to collect as many potential contributors as possible.

We should just be careful about wording the announcement in a way that does not spoil anyone. (Though I'm really glad I actually was spoiled and wasn't *completely* surprised by the ending; I think I would have hated it even more if I hadn't been warned... *g*)

I truly suck at summaries, if you haven't noticed from my fics >.<. I'm with on the spoilers--If I hadn't of read them, I probably would have hurt somebody after watching that final episode!

I reworded the description on the profile page, and hope that throws a few off track. In all honesty, this is a kind of gut-wrench-no-way-Jose reaction against that final episode anyway :P. If you or anyone else wants to write up a little advert, that would be awesome. I suck at ad copy, LOL!

"Ever felt like you wanted to 'jump into another universe' when canon goes some place you *really* can't follow? Now you can. Jump into alternative universes with us! We're mostly interested in alternative endings to 2.08, but anything that's seriously AU goes.

(link)

Be warned, though: we're a post-2.08 community, so spoilers abound. Also, the majority of us aren't exactly happy about the ending canon gave us, so you may encounter some negativity and snark.

(We only snark because we love the show.)"

?

...

Ooooh, can I join? I'd love to be a co-mod as well, if I may.

And as for the ending, it's more disturbing than anything else. I know I shouldn't get pissed at the positive forum people, but when they say the negatives don't get it, or they'll come around, it makes me want to hit something.

I see suicide as suicide, no matter what genre its in. I try, but I cannot see it as a leap of faith, or a way to time travel, or 'feeling'. I see it as a disturbed man becoming a smashed up corpse on the ground. And can anyone explain to me why his mother would actually understand, other than the ridiculous reason of 'she knew he kept his promises'? I can't see any mother understanding.

I see the end as a dying fantasy before he dies for good, and before I saw everyone elses reaction, I thought the writers had done that intentionally, but no, everyone loved it and the writers made suicide into a positive action, with rainbows and driving off into the fricking sunset. Any my god, I need to stop ranting about this, so I'm going to ignore the writer's views and retreat into denial. LA-LA-LA-LA! I can't hear you!

There doesn't seem to be a co-mod feature anymore on the communities thingy O.o''. Unless I'm brain dead and it's staring at me which is perfectly possible.

It shouldn't be so evil to maintain. I'll put the usual Use An LJ Cut, story format info on the profile page, and I guess we could also adopt the Cortina ratings system :P.

Woohoo! I finally figured it out! They hid it on the 'invite' page...o.O'''''???

Anyhoo, you are co-mod now, LOL

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Keeping some kind of record of my emotional state after my second big fandom catastrophe...

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Cheering journalists

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E-mail

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You're my perfect source of information!

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sf perspective/Farscape

Ooops, forgot to type my Farscape response.

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Fix-it fic

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Wheeee!

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I think it would be okay to advertise it on lifein1973.

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Re: I think it would be okay to advertise it on lifein1973.

Or is that too spoilery?

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