Writing and other things
Feb. 16th, 2018 08:08 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shallownessWay back at the start of the week, I posted We Are Golden - a Sue Thomas: F.B.Eye ficlet (Sue/Jack, post-canon). Summary: The new ring on her finger keeps catching the light, drawing Sue’s eye.
First off: Sue Thomas: F.B.Eye? Yes, a Canadian-American show from a long while ago. It had been on my radar from whenever it first aired in the UK, probably. The show is about a deaf woman who can lip read English and works for an FBI unit – I think it’s based on a real life individual. The actress playing her is deaf. The boss of the unit is called Jack and he is very pretty. So, I’d seen a few episodes way back when, and now it’s being repeated at a good time for a TV supper so I’ve seen a few more.
The quality of episodes varies enormously: see the how they handle the procedural stuff, and how on the ball they are about remembering Sue’s deafness. Most of the episodes I’ve seen do have a scene entirely from Sue’s POV, where the sound drops away, and hearing viewers get a better sense of her experiences. But I wouldn’t say that the writers and directors are always conscientious about conveying whether Sue would be likely to follow all the cross-talk among the unit, for instance.
Anyhow, Sue is so decent and upbeat, even though the show mines the obstacles and challenges she faces for drama, which also arise from her character and being a young woman doing this job, not just her deafness. And Jack is pretty, and there’s something between them that they can’t act on because he’s her boss, and I looked ahead and the show was unfairly cancelled before it could go anywhere.
It’s been making me think about communication – I sincerely hope I’ve done a good job on that on the fic (I’ve gone with putting ‘deaf’ in lower case here). It also ties into conversations about the representation of disabled people (imdb shows that the actress playing Sue has had work since, but nothing on the scale of Sue Thomas: F.B.Eye).
So, the driver of the fic was Sue/Jack Meant To Be Together shippiness, obviously. Its genesis was a fic I talked about a few weeks ago, which got lost before I saved it. It was also a Sue/Jack ER fic, but something else was the main focus and it was angstier (which is partly why I haven’t recreated it), but some of the stuff on the periphery of that fic made its way into this one. The title for this comes from the Mika song of the same name.
In other fannish news, because The Lake House has been in the ether and because I was under the weather, I rewatched the 90s adaptation of Persuasion. Once again, I got caught out by Anne’s jostly journey from Kellynch Hall - I think it's going to be a soothing watch, but that scene isn't. I wish it had been a miniseries, because the compression at the end of Mr Elliot and Mrs Clay and Mrs Smith’s parts in the story end up being so different.
I then went back to watching The Lake House on Valentine’s Day, which is accidentally apt. It made me think I should push 'Persuasion' up my rereading list, because from memory, TLH's take on the book is...selective.
And I have seen The Shape of Water. (Swoon.) It really is best described as an adult fairy tale, and I love that del Toro obviously got to make the film he wanted to make, and it’s true to its genre. Some criticisms I would want to make are nullified by that. It’s gorgeous to look at and listen to, contains what is probably what is going to be my favourite film sequence of the year and has timely themes. While I’m aware that it didn’t quite live up to all my expectations because my expectations were mega, it’s an excellent film, and it’s brilliant that it’s getting award attention. (I will now look properly at the claims of plagiarism, which I’d avoided because of spoilers.) A little part of me likes to think that that drifting/dancing/dreaming scene between Mako and Raleigh in Pacific Rim that never got filmed was part of the inspiration.
Finally, Strike: Career of Evil is being aired really soon – at the end of the month.
First off: Sue Thomas: F.B.Eye? Yes, a Canadian-American show from a long while ago. It had been on my radar from whenever it first aired in the UK, probably. The show is about a deaf woman who can lip read English and works for an FBI unit – I think it’s based on a real life individual. The actress playing her is deaf. The boss of the unit is called Jack and he is very pretty. So, I’d seen a few episodes way back when, and now it’s being repeated at a good time for a TV supper so I’ve seen a few more.
The quality of episodes varies enormously: see the how they handle the procedural stuff, and how on the ball they are about remembering Sue’s deafness. Most of the episodes I’ve seen do have a scene entirely from Sue’s POV, where the sound drops away, and hearing viewers get a better sense of her experiences. But I wouldn’t say that the writers and directors are always conscientious about conveying whether Sue would be likely to follow all the cross-talk among the unit, for instance.
Anyhow, Sue is so decent and upbeat, even though the show mines the obstacles and challenges she faces for drama, which also arise from her character and being a young woman doing this job, not just her deafness. And Jack is pretty, and there’s something between them that they can’t act on because he’s her boss, and I looked ahead and the show was unfairly cancelled before it could go anywhere.
It’s been making me think about communication – I sincerely hope I’ve done a good job on that on the fic (I’ve gone with putting ‘deaf’ in lower case here). It also ties into conversations about the representation of disabled people (imdb shows that the actress playing Sue has had work since, but nothing on the scale of Sue Thomas: F.B.Eye).
So, the driver of the fic was Sue/Jack Meant To Be Together shippiness, obviously. Its genesis was a fic I talked about a few weeks ago, which got lost before I saved it. It was also a Sue/Jack ER fic, but something else was the main focus and it was angstier (which is partly why I haven’t recreated it), but some of the stuff on the periphery of that fic made its way into this one. The title for this comes from the Mika song of the same name.
In other fannish news, because The Lake House has been in the ether and because I was under the weather, I rewatched the 90s adaptation of Persuasion. Once again, I got caught out by Anne’s jostly journey from Kellynch Hall - I think it's going to be a soothing watch, but that scene isn't. I wish it had been a miniseries, because the compression at the end of Mr Elliot and Mrs Clay and Mrs Smith’s parts in the story end up being so different.
I then went back to watching The Lake House on Valentine’s Day, which is accidentally apt. It made me think I should push 'Persuasion' up my rereading list, because from memory, TLH's take on the book is...selective.
And I have seen The Shape of Water. (Swoon.) It really is best described as an adult fairy tale, and I love that del Toro obviously got to make the film he wanted to make, and it’s true to its genre. Some criticisms I would want to make are nullified by that. It’s gorgeous to look at and listen to, contains what is probably what is going to be my favourite film sequence of the year and has timely themes. While I’m aware that it didn’t quite live up to all my expectations because my expectations were mega, it’s an excellent film, and it’s brilliant that it’s getting award attention. (I will now look properly at the claims of plagiarism, which I’d avoided because of spoilers.) A little part of me likes to think that that drifting/dancing/dreaming scene between Mako and Raleigh in Pacific Rim that never got filmed was part of the inspiration.
Finally, Strike: Career of Evil is being aired really soon – at the end of the month.
