more bizarre dreams, as usual

Apparently I sleeped again
which wasn't quite the plan

see this is where my days go


Had an interesting dream
well, bizarre, but interesting

with time travel

there was this one guy (with long hair and bad taste in dresses)(looked like a hooker)(albeit pretty much on purpose) who had all this time energy in him, but he couldn't let it out without help. there was his boyfriend, who could get to the past, and me, who got glimpses of the future and could do a sort of fast forward of time in a local area (which ended up meaning Matrix style FX sometimes, which was cool)(although Matrix looked like it slowed everything down, that was because it sped the cool people and the camera up).

... er, way too many brackets up there...

ANYways, if he didn't get to use the chronal energy it started to hurt. And then there was moaning.

Yup, time travel blue balls. *facepalm* My subconscious just isn't even subtle.


But it was a pretty cool dream. ( Read more... )

There were lots of other details, like the dance of the wool shop and the quest for currant buns, but I feel they didn't add to the main thrust of the plot. And the plot was pretty cool, really.

And fairly plausible. I mean the average bloke gets the power to turn back time, are they going to run around saving the world? No. They're going to run around until the local lack of medecine and tendency for all the cool people to catch something nasty sends them back to their home timestream for long enough to take the antibiotics.


... so, icky, but with potential fun to write aspects ...

xover bunnies: stealing plots

So I was thinking about Stargate.
And how I've said previously that it has all the breadth of Doctor Who - the effective time travel to any Earth civilization, the potential for futuristic civilizations, the random aliens and artificial life forms, the lack of need for a ship - without (usually) the brain breaking continuity loopiness. Plus, with the team being adjustable, the actors wanting out doesn't break the premis.

So today I start thinking, drop SG1 into a Doctor Who plot... and we're back to brain breaking. Since there's a teensy mismatch in tone.

First one I thought of: Happiness Patrol.

:-)

Only now I'm trying to think of ones that would work well, and differently, if you swapped the characters.


Is a whole cheap way of generating plots, and making odd xovers.



I think it was this morning that I dreamed that it was canon that Doctor Who, Blakes 7 and Babylon 5 were all in the same 'verse. That was *strange*. Really doesn't work.
... except my brain keeps trying to bend it so it does...

Richie, problems

I've been thinking, trying to figure out why some people don't like Richie.
To me this is a tricky problem. I'm a Richie fan. I step up to flag wave by reflex. I like the guy, the story, the possibilities.
But, thinking on it, even I have to agree, there were times Richie was... less easy to adore.

And there were times he would have been easy to leave out.

Richie is the sidekick, usually the comedy kind. He plays the damsel in distress sometimes, or dates her. He's often the source of the plot. He'll bring home someone or meet someone or get the attention of someone and somehow it ends up being Mac's problem, especially in the early years. So he's annoying, because of being often the problem.

He is also often distracting. There's times Duncan and Tessa are talking and he steps in the middle. If you don't see his story as interesting of itself, thats kind of irritating. There are a lot of times he'll disagree with Mac, often turning out to be wrong, and using a lot of words to prove it. There are times when his plot seems totally irrelevant to the rest of the plot. I can see some thematic connections in 'Methos', but I have to stretch to find them, and I do sympathise if people want to skip his sections.
So the writers use him to say something, or to stretch the story out long enough. And because he isn't the main character, that's kind of annoying, because who wants to see him just to see him?

Well, me, of course. Because...

There was this post someone wrote the other day about the difference between hero, main character, and protagonist.

Richie is not the main character on Highlander. You can tell, on account of the show not being called Richie. With the way the show is structured, that means his basic function is to make Mac look good. Which necessarily involves him being not so good.

He always tries to be the hero. This involves a lot of Cunning Plans, some of which work out better than others.

But the part that I like the most about him is that he is, quite often, the protagonist.

In that he is often the one that is changed.



Richie starts off as our way in, breaking in to the world of Immortals. He starts off trying to steal all the shiny things, but Mac gives him some options, and soon he's the guy minding the store and protecting things. Richie changes enough that when he goes back to the old neighbourhood he doesn't fit in any more. He keeps trying to find a way to be, something to do to make his life mean something. Sales and bike racing in the more mundane side of the world, both of which he is good at but quits for moral reasons. And in the Immortal world? He keeps trying to make a difference there. Immortals never intimidate him. If he sees someone in trouble, he'll grab a gun and protect. Sometimes it'll get him in more trouble, sometimes he's chosen the wrong side, but he keeps trying and keeps getting better at it. And then he gets shot. And dies. And wakes up Immortal. And here's this whole world we/he has been watching, and here's his chance to be part of it. Which turns out not so simple. So he has to try and deal with all of that, and keeps finding new situations and challenges that require him to change to keep up with it all.

Richie is *always* being changed. Right up until his last line of the series (that I'll admit to), "I'm learning." That right there is essence of Richie.


So, yeah, there are episodes where he doesn't do so very much, and episodes where he needs bucket of cold water treatment, and he isn't always very skilled at what he tries to do, but. There are other times. When he's the story of growing up. Which I think is worth watching.