space_oddity_75's answers
Hello everybody! Hope these are not too boring.
Canon Questions
1. What was about Life On Mars that grabbed your attention enough to make you want to tune in that first time? What made you want to keep coming back for more?
The first time I heard about Life on Mars was when a RL friend of mine talked positively about it on LJ, saying it was an interesting, thought-provoking British series. I’d just finished watching the excellent first season of Doctor Who with Chris Eccleston, so I checked out the BBC website and discovered that LoM was about another time-travelling, short-haired Mancunian bloke in a leather jacket, who had an accident and woke up in the seventies. The premise was good: angst, action, vintage clothes, car chases, mystery! What more could I want? I love British TV shows and adore the 1970s (I was born in 1975 and my memories of that era are really vivid), so I thought I’d give it a go.
I’m unashamed to say that I was hooked as soon as I watched the trailer. Episode after episode, I fell in love with everything about LoM: the characters, the setting, the storylines, the music. Nothing was out of place, nothing needed to be changed in order to make it a better product (which was amazing, as I’m usually difficult to please in terms of TV shows). Then I found out that Season Two was about to be broadcast, so I decided I had to catch up and watched all the episodes of Season One back to back in one night, jumping head-first into the fantastic world of Sam Tyler and Co., anxious to know what was really going on and how Sam’s predicament could finally be resolved.
In only a few weeks, Life on Mars became my all-time favourite show, and I’m pretty sure it will be impossible for another series to ever take its place in my heart. After all, you just can’t top perfection, can you?
2. At what point did you realise that you had “fallen in love” with Life On Mars?
That would be about five minutes into episode 1.01, when Sam first wakes up in 1973, looks around in bewilderment and then checks the old car with ‘Life on Mars’ playing on the eight-track tape. Sam’s exchange with the policeman is fantastic, as is his first encounter with Gene and the rest of the team a few minutes later. Whenever I want to spread the love for this series among my friends, I show them this bit: many of them have now been converted to the cult of this series and have become rabid LoM fans themselves!
3. Which character has earned a special place in your heart above all others and why?
It’s cliché, I know, but I couldn’t love any other fictional character more than Sam Tyler. He’s cute, well-mannered and apparently very sensible, but can also be a self-centered, magnificent bastard who thinks he’s entitled to step on his moral high horse and chastisize anyone who doesn’t share his way of policing or his ‘modern’ ideas. He’s also incredibly good at manipulating people (and the audience) into liking him in spite of these flaws and into siding with him in most situations. This is both his weakness and his strenght, which makes him very human and different from the bi-dimensional characters I’ve been used to seeing in many other TV shows. My full appreciation goes to the authors who created Sam, and especially to John Simm, who portrayed him so wonderfully.
4. Which character do you feel did not get the attention and development in Canon that they deserved and why? What would YOU have done with this character in the Canon ‘verse if you’d had the control?
I would definitely have liked to have seen more of Nelson and Phyllis.
Nelson, with his cryptic speeches, could have been a character from the real world who had somehow managed to find a way to get into Sam’s dream, maybe to give him more clues about his predicament.
Phyllis has always fascinated me for her strong character. I would have loved to have seen more banters between her and Gene (or the rest of the team), and maybe a bit more involvement in their cases, offering them her pills of wisdom and witty advice.
5. Are there any other aspects of the show you feel weren’t touched upon enough?
I feel that Sam’s life in 2006 (both pre- and post-accident) wasn’t touched upon and fleshened out as deeply as it should have. In this case I’ve felt a bit manipulated by the authors, who chose to portray 2006 only briefly and only in its negative traits (failing relationships, lack of feelings and personal contact with other people, too much red tape, dull grey and blue colours everywhere) to convince us that 1973 was the best option for him and his only chance for happiness. But there’s no way Sam’s real life could have been so empty and depressing all the time, unbearable enough to drive him to give up so easily and take refuge in his fantasy world. We know very well that Sam has the instincts of the fighter: in 1973 he fights all the time to go back to the real world, to Maya and to his mother, and therefore I would have liked to have seen him fight a bit harder, trying to cope with reality and coming to terms with his experiences in 1973 without reaching such a drastic conclusion as fast as he did.
6. Mad, in a coma, or back in time? What do YOU think is going on with the Sam In 1973
Mystery? Are you happy with Matthew Graham’s explanation, or do you have a theory of you own that you prefer?
Why, oh why did Matthew Graham have to justify what he did and why he did it, for God’s sake? I wish he hadn’t said anything and left us to draw our personal conclusions. He had managed to create a wonderfully ambiguous finale (not easy to achieve) in which all theories were plausible and everybody could keep toying happily with their own ideas, and then he went and spoiled it all for us by offering such a banal explanation. What a disappointment!
Anyway, in my personal canon Sam is an actual time traveller who has somehow managed to get his mind to ‘duplicate’ his body in a different time and space (yes, I’m a sci-fi geek, so what?). I simply can’t accept the fact that Gene, Annie, Chris, Ray and the others are mere products of Sam’s sick mind (even though the guy IS a bit of a lunatic from time to time): I like to think of them as real people, living in a past reality and possibly in a parallel world.
7. To someone unfamiliar with the show, which specific scenes would you show them as a way of defining exactly what each central character (Sam, Gene, and Annie) is about? Only one scene for each character.
I often talk to my RL friends about LoM, trying to convince them to watch it. Usually, I bring evidence of how good the programme is by making them watch the pilot. The scenes that I think really capture people’s attention are when Sam enters the 1973 version of CID and throws a tantrum over his missing desk, when Gene first grabs him by the lapels and shows him who is King of the Jungle and when Annie checks if Sam is okay, laughs at the idea of him being from the future and then punches him in the ribs. In those few minutes lies the essence of these characters, who are fleshened out very simply and effectively.
8. What episode, as a whole, stands out to you above the rest and why?
I really couldn’t choose a particular episode, because IMO all of them are equally great. Anyway, being a Sam/Annie fan, I must confess having a soft spot for 2.04 (the one with the swingers party), because my favourite couple finally has some nice romantic moments together and there are good dialogues and great character interaction. Gene is also magnificent in it (but when is he not, anyway?).
Fanfiction Questions
(reading related)
1. What was the first piece of Life On Mars fanfiction that you read?
I’m pretty sure it was Something must break by dorcas_gustine, back in March 2007. An excellent piece by an excellent writer. What a great way to enter the world of LoM fanfic!
2. You are going to be stranded on a desert island. Which three pieces of Life On Mars fanfiction would you take with you? You can only select three.
This is a really, really hard choice! There are hundreds of great LoM fics saved into my faves list and I love them all to bits. If I really had to choose, though, I’d probably go for something lenghty (to pass the time on a desert island you can’t choose a drabble, can you?) and thought-provoking, like Steady as she goes by dakfinv with all its spinoffs, Palimpsest by lozenger8 and All you Zombies by dorcas_gustine. I’ll read all the other fics once I’ve been rescued from the island! *g*
3. Have you ever read a piece of Life On Mars fanfiction that you think should be officially Canon?
Even here there are many to choose from, but this time I’d like to go for a fic featuring a minor characher, Glen Fletcher, in a piece that explores his relationship with Sam Tyler in both 2006 and 1973. This fic is The Visit by amy_wolf and I strongly advise you to go and check it out, because it’s excellent.
4. What type of genre do enjoy reading the best?
I can’t live without my daily fix of good angst! The angstier, the better. I like seeing (and making) Sam suffer, both physically and mentally. I guess he deserves this treatment as an atonement for his being such a prick sometimes. *g*
Anyway, I also like fluffy and nice happy!fics (I too need a break from the angst from time to time), especially if they are Het or Gen.
As many of you already know, I’m not a slasher, but I don’t mind reading slash!fics, provided there’s a good plot behind them and they’re not only smut or PWP.
5. What pairing, if any, do you enjoy reading for the most?
I’m a devoted fan of Sam/Annie and Sam/Maya. Yes, I realise I probably belong to a small minority in this fandom, but have never failed to find good stories based on these pairings. I just wish there were more, because Annie and Maya are both made of awesome and deserve to be included in fic a bit more often.
6. Do you have any pairings that you consider a “guilty pleasure”? Are there any “rare” pairings that you would like to see more fanfiction for?
Sam/Mobile phone = OTP!!! Hehe, this is my guilty secret, but I think you all know how much I like pairing Sam with technology.
Another thing I really like (in a non-slashy kind of way) is Ray/Chris buddy cop. I adore those two together, they make a great duo. In spite of their differences, I feel there’s a strong bond of friendship and mutual respect between them, and I like to see that come alive in fic.
7. Do you have any specific “kinks” that you secretly love to see in fanfiction?
Hurt/comfort is my secret kink, especially if Sam is involved. Physical damage with lasting consequences is also something I’d like to see more of. Yes, I’m EVIL at heart! *g*
(writing related)
1. What was the first piece of Life On Mars fanfiction that you published?
It was In the Mirror, nothing more than a little Sam Tyler character study, a comparison between his life in 2006 and in 1973. It’s not the best fic I’ve ever written, but not even the worst, all things considered.
2. What inspired you to put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard) that very first time?
I was rewatching the ‘real-unreal’ scene with Sam in front of the broken mirror in episode 1.02, and wondered what Sam’s feelings may be in that particular moment. That’s why I wrote my first fic.
3. What pairing, if any, do you enjoy writing for the most? Why?
I really like writing Sam/Annie and did it three times (out of a total of six fics written to date): in Sunday Mornings we see an angst-ridden Sam ‘stalking’ an aged Annie in 2007; in Christmas at the Tylers’ we see them live happily ever after and in the drabble Loving the Alien we find Annie cope with Sam’s loss in the A2A timeline.
My love for Sam/Maya has only produced a single fic so far (The Long Way Home, in which I came up with an AU ending for 2.08, when Sam chooses reality over his coma dreams), but more are in the backburner. Hopefully, one or two of them will see the light before the end of the year.
4. What genre of fanfiction, if any, do you enjoy writing the most?
Of course, I love writing Sam!angst (gen or het), although happy!fic comes out from time to time.
I could never write NC-17 smut or PWP; I’m just not cut out for that type of fic, but I like reading it nonetheless.
5. What piece of your own fanfiction would you love to see officially turned into an actual episode for television?
Hmmm... Probably The Long Way Home, although that would mean giving a different ending to the series. I guess it all comes down to the strong personal issues I have with the whole ‘leap of faith’ thing that Matthew Graham proposed as a positive action. For all those fans who are in denial about the finale, this fic could probably offer an alternate ending.
6. What fanfiction piece of your own are you the most proud of?
Well, I wouldn’t say I’m exactly ‘proud’ of it, but I think that Christmas at the Tylers’ came out pretty well. It’s a bit cheesy and cliché, I admit it, but it also gives me a sense of peace and closure I haven’t been able to find anywhere else in my own fic.
7. What fanfiction piece of your own gave you the most grief during the writing process?
Definitely The Long Way Home. I wrote it for the LoM Ficathon 2007, based on a prompt by blancafic, but had to re-write it half a dozen times before finding a decent way to convey my emotions into that story and describe what I wanted to say in the way I wanted to say it. It was very stressful. The result is a bit of a mess, also because I was trying out a new style without dialogues (I suck at writing them!) and I didn’t have much time to write it, as work and RL kept on getting in the way.
8. What character do you find easiest to write?
None of them! Well, maybe Sam is the least difficult one to describe, but the others are pretty hard to pin down.
I really should try to work on Gene a bit more, as I can’t write him to save my life and tend to avoid involving him in my stories as much as I can. I doubt he’ll ever forgive me for neglecting him. If one day I should find that somebody has come over to my house and stamped on all my action figures, I guess I’ll know who it was and why!
9. What character do you find the most difficult to write?
As I said earlier, it’s most definitely Gene. He has a thousand emotional layers and a secret life outside of CID, complete with a history we hardly know anything about. His quips and one-liners are difficult to recreate, especially by a foreigner like me, who doesn’t always know how much his words are connected to typically British socio-cultural or historical situations.
10. Are there any characters that you’re guilty of neglecting in your own pieces?
Now that I think about it, I’ve never written anything involving Phyllis, Nelson, the creepy TCG, the Tyler family in 1973 or other minor characters. I guess I’ll have to stop neglecting them and find a good storyline that could allow them to shine as much as they deserve.
11. Is there anything that you are actually scared to write, but would like to if you had the courage?
I don’t think I can pull off decent NC-17 het stories, crack!fics or crossovers. They’re just not my cup of tea. I’m too scared of writing myself into a corner to even start writing something of that sort. Nevertheless, the idea has tempted me more than once...
12. How do you write? Are you a writer who likes to carefully plan and outline, or do you just let nature take its course? Talk a little about your own writing process.
I’m absolutely not a planner. Usually, a particular scene (or maybe just a scrap of dialogue) starts playing in my head incessantly and doesn’t want to go away. I take the hint and write down that bit, then I build the rest of the story around it. One might even say that I write in concentric circles’, building scenes and dialogues around a few key themes that are the backbone of the story until they are all linked together to form a single narrative unit.
I’m a slow writer. It takes me months to write a few thousand words, basically because I’m never happy with what I’m saying and would always like to improve the style and find more elegant words for dialogues and situations, or because I simply want to make them less cliché or boring.
Another thing that slows me down is the fact that English is not my first language and I’m not used to writing it extensively every day. Although I tend to write without looking words up in the dictionary, sometimes I re-read the lines and spot a typo, a wrong choice of tenses, an adjective that I’ve repeated too many times or a grammatical construction that I feel prevents the sentence from flowing as smoothly as I would like. Being the little nitpicker that I am, this drives me crazy, so I spend hours polishing the text and trying to make it better. Of course, I don’t always succeed, but at least it’s a good exercise to improve my language skills. Anyway, thank God for beta readers!
A Little Off Topic
1. How did you come to find the Life On Mars online fan community? What prompted you to seek it out?
I’m an avid fanfic reader and whenever I start watching a TV show I particularly like, I immediately go hunting for good fic and for info about the characters and the actors who portray them. That’s how I found ‘The Railway Arms’ (which, sadly, I rarely visit anymore because my PC has issues with the site and won’t open its pages) and especially lifein1973, where I found great writers, but most of all lovely people, some of whom have now become my good friends also in RL.
2. What other Canons, if any, do you enjoy?
Ok, here’s a random list of what comes to mind (old and new), in no particular order: Doctor Who, Pushing Daisies, Coupling (UK), Relic Hunter, Space:1999, F.R.I.E.N.D.S., Star Trek, Torchwood, This Life, Starsky & Hutch, Teachers, Men of the World, ER, Due South, Early Edition, the X Files, Stargate SG1, Wonderfalls. There are probably more, but I can’t remember them right now.
3. Are you invovled in any other fandoms?
These days I’m mostly interested in the Doctor Who, especially since Chris Eccleston (whom I adore) starred as the Doctor, although my heart still beats for old series like Space:1999 (my all-time favourite), F.RI.E.N.D.S. and Relic Hunter. I even used to write fanfictions about these shows, which I never published, because they were utter rubbish and I couldn’t compete with the real writers out there. They were fun to write, though.
I used to like Star Trek a lot (especially TOS and ENT), but never really got over a few bad personal experiences with some obsessed and creepy fans I met, so I soon gave up on that fandom.
All the others are merely ‘passive fandoms’: I do like watching those TV shows, but can’t find a reason why I should get obsessed with them. Unlike Life on Mars, I have not fallen in love at first sight with those characters and stories, so they represent nothing special to me, though I still find them a good enough excuse to spend a few hours in front of the TV instead of cleaning the house or doing the washing up. *g*
4. Tell people a few other facts about yourself that you don’t mind sharing.
Well, let’s see... I’m an interpreter and translator. I speak English, German and Spanish fluently and enjoy learning some new words and expressions every day.
I’m 100% Italian and I love my country (apart for its politicians), but I’ve always been obsessed with England and with the English language. I started learning British English in middle school (I was 12 years old) and have tried to practise it as much as possible ever since. I first visited London whan I was 14 and immediately fell in love with that city and Great Britain in general.
My dream would be to become fully bilingual, but I’m pretty sure this will never happen, as I’d need to actually live there to improve my language skills and my pronounciation, and this can’t be done because I have a husband and child here in Italy and we can’t leave or jobs and our country just to fulfill a dream (it would be nice, though). Anyway, I’m already starting to teach my 4-year-old daughter a few English words, so that she can start learning the language soon and with a correct pronounciation (Italian schools are not renowned for their language classes). Apparently, she loves it, and is already obsessed with Doctor Who, whose characters I use to tell her bedtime stories in English! *g*
I’m a huge sci-fi geek and I’m not afraid to say it. My love for Space:1999 has lead me to join the Italian Fan Club ‘Moonbase99’, where other geeks like me can meet and thrive. We are a bunch of friends from all over the country and every year we organise a Convention inviting one or more of the cast and crew of this cult TV show. I’m the official interpreter of the event and have therefore managed to meet most of the actors who starred in the series, talking with them extensively about their lives, their acting experiences and careers. I have learned a lot from these professionals, and meeting people like Barry Morse, Roy Dotrice, Johnny Byrne and the others was really an honour and a moment I will cherish and remember fondly for all my life.
Enjoy! :)
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Canon Questions
1. What was about Life On Mars that grabbed your attention enough to make you want to tune in that first time? What made you want to keep coming back for more?
The first time I heard about Life on Mars was when a RL friend of mine talked positively about it on LJ, saying it was an interesting, thought-provoking British series. I’d just finished watching the excellent first season of Doctor Who with Chris Eccleston, so I checked out the BBC website and discovered that LoM was about another time-travelling, short-haired Mancunian bloke in a leather jacket, who had an accident and woke up in the seventies. The premise was good: angst, action, vintage clothes, car chases, mystery! What more could I want? I love British TV shows and adore the 1970s (I was born in 1975 and my memories of that era are really vivid), so I thought I’d give it a go.
I’m unashamed to say that I was hooked as soon as I watched the trailer. Episode after episode, I fell in love with everything about LoM: the characters, the setting, the storylines, the music. Nothing was out of place, nothing needed to be changed in order to make it a better product (which was amazing, as I’m usually difficult to please in terms of TV shows). Then I found out that Season Two was about to be broadcast, so I decided I had to catch up and watched all the episodes of Season One back to back in one night, jumping head-first into the fantastic world of Sam Tyler and Co., anxious to know what was really going on and how Sam’s predicament could finally be resolved.
In only a few weeks, Life on Mars became my all-time favourite show, and I’m pretty sure it will be impossible for another series to ever take its place in my heart. After all, you just can’t top perfection, can you?
2. At what point did you realise that you had “fallen in love” with Life On Mars?
That would be about five minutes into episode 1.01, when Sam first wakes up in 1973, looks around in bewilderment and then checks the old car with ‘Life on Mars’ playing on the eight-track tape. Sam’s exchange with the policeman is fantastic, as is his first encounter with Gene and the rest of the team a few minutes later. Whenever I want to spread the love for this series among my friends, I show them this bit: many of them have now been converted to the cult of this series and have become rabid LoM fans themselves!
3. Which character has earned a special place in your heart above all others and why?
It’s cliché, I know, but I couldn’t love any other fictional character more than Sam Tyler. He’s cute, well-mannered and apparently very sensible, but can also be a self-centered, magnificent bastard who thinks he’s entitled to step on his moral high horse and chastisize anyone who doesn’t share his way of policing or his ‘modern’ ideas. He’s also incredibly good at manipulating people (and the audience) into liking him in spite of these flaws and into siding with him in most situations. This is both his weakness and his strenght, which makes him very human and different from the bi-dimensional characters I’ve been used to seeing in many other TV shows. My full appreciation goes to the authors who created Sam, and especially to John Simm, who portrayed him so wonderfully.
4. Which character do you feel did not get the attention and development in Canon that they deserved and why? What would YOU have done with this character in the Canon ‘verse if you’d had the control?
I would definitely have liked to have seen more of Nelson and Phyllis.
Nelson, with his cryptic speeches, could have been a character from the real world who had somehow managed to find a way to get into Sam’s dream, maybe to give him more clues about his predicament.
Phyllis has always fascinated me for her strong character. I would have loved to have seen more banters between her and Gene (or the rest of the team), and maybe a bit more involvement in their cases, offering them her pills of wisdom and witty advice.
5. Are there any other aspects of the show you feel weren’t touched upon enough?
I feel that Sam’s life in 2006 (both pre- and post-accident) wasn’t touched upon and fleshened out as deeply as it should have. In this case I’ve felt a bit manipulated by the authors, who chose to portray 2006 only briefly and only in its negative traits (failing relationships, lack of feelings and personal contact with other people, too much red tape, dull grey and blue colours everywhere) to convince us that 1973 was the best option for him and his only chance for happiness. But there’s no way Sam’s real life could have been so empty and depressing all the time, unbearable enough to drive him to give up so easily and take refuge in his fantasy world. We know very well that Sam has the instincts of the fighter: in 1973 he fights all the time to go back to the real world, to Maya and to his mother, and therefore I would have liked to have seen him fight a bit harder, trying to cope with reality and coming to terms with his experiences in 1973 without reaching such a drastic conclusion as fast as he did.
6. Mad, in a coma, or back in time? What do YOU think is going on with the Sam In 1973
Mystery? Are you happy with Matthew Graham’s explanation, or do you have a theory of you own that you prefer?
Why, oh why did Matthew Graham have to justify what he did and why he did it, for God’s sake? I wish he hadn’t said anything and left us to draw our personal conclusions. He had managed to create a wonderfully ambiguous finale (not easy to achieve) in which all theories were plausible and everybody could keep toying happily with their own ideas, and then he went and spoiled it all for us by offering such a banal explanation. What a disappointment!
Anyway, in my personal canon Sam is an actual time traveller who has somehow managed to get his mind to ‘duplicate’ his body in a different time and space (yes, I’m a sci-fi geek, so what?). I simply can’t accept the fact that Gene, Annie, Chris, Ray and the others are mere products of Sam’s sick mind (even though the guy IS a bit of a lunatic from time to time): I like to think of them as real people, living in a past reality and possibly in a parallel world.
7. To someone unfamiliar with the show, which specific scenes would you show them as a way of defining exactly what each central character (Sam, Gene, and Annie) is about? Only one scene for each character.
I often talk to my RL friends about LoM, trying to convince them to watch it. Usually, I bring evidence of how good the programme is by making them watch the pilot. The scenes that I think really capture people’s attention are when Sam enters the 1973 version of CID and throws a tantrum over his missing desk, when Gene first grabs him by the lapels and shows him who is King of the Jungle and when Annie checks if Sam is okay, laughs at the idea of him being from the future and then punches him in the ribs. In those few minutes lies the essence of these characters, who are fleshened out very simply and effectively.
8. What episode, as a whole, stands out to you above the rest and why?
I really couldn’t choose a particular episode, because IMO all of them are equally great. Anyway, being a Sam/Annie fan, I must confess having a soft spot for 2.04 (the one with the swingers party), because my favourite couple finally has some nice romantic moments together and there are good dialogues and great character interaction. Gene is also magnificent in it (but when is he not, anyway?).
Fanfiction Questions
(reading related)
1. What was the first piece of Life On Mars fanfiction that you read?
I’m pretty sure it was Something must break by dorcas_gustine, back in March 2007. An excellent piece by an excellent writer. What a great way to enter the world of LoM fanfic!
2. You are going to be stranded on a desert island. Which three pieces of Life On Mars fanfiction would you take with you? You can only select three.
This is a really, really hard choice! There are hundreds of great LoM fics saved into my faves list and I love them all to bits. If I really had to choose, though, I’d probably go for something lenghty (to pass the time on a desert island you can’t choose a drabble, can you?) and thought-provoking, like Steady as she goes by dakfinv with all its spinoffs, Palimpsest by lozenger8 and All you Zombies by dorcas_gustine. I’ll read all the other fics once I’ve been rescued from the island! *g*
3. Have you ever read a piece of Life On Mars fanfiction that you think should be officially Canon?
Even here there are many to choose from, but this time I’d like to go for a fic featuring a minor characher, Glen Fletcher, in a piece that explores his relationship with Sam Tyler in both 2006 and 1973. This fic is The Visit by amy_wolf and I strongly advise you to go and check it out, because it’s excellent.
4. What type of genre do enjoy reading the best?
I can’t live without my daily fix of good angst! The angstier, the better. I like seeing (and making) Sam suffer, both physically and mentally. I guess he deserves this treatment as an atonement for his being such a prick sometimes. *g*
Anyway, I also like fluffy and nice happy!fics (I too need a break from the angst from time to time), especially if they are Het or Gen.
As many of you already know, I’m not a slasher, but I don’t mind reading slash!fics, provided there’s a good plot behind them and they’re not only smut or PWP.
5. What pairing, if any, do you enjoy reading for the most?
I’m a devoted fan of Sam/Annie and Sam/Maya. Yes, I realise I probably belong to a small minority in this fandom, but have never failed to find good stories based on these pairings. I just wish there were more, because Annie and Maya are both made of awesome and deserve to be included in fic a bit more often.
6. Do you have any pairings that you consider a “guilty pleasure”? Are there any “rare” pairings that you would like to see more fanfiction for?
Sam/Mobile phone = OTP!!! Hehe, this is my guilty secret, but I think you all know how much I like pairing Sam with technology.
Another thing I really like (in a non-slashy kind of way) is Ray/Chris buddy cop. I adore those two together, they make a great duo. In spite of their differences, I feel there’s a strong bond of friendship and mutual respect between them, and I like to see that come alive in fic.
7. Do you have any specific “kinks” that you secretly love to see in fanfiction?
Hurt/comfort is my secret kink, especially if Sam is involved. Physical damage with lasting consequences is also something I’d like to see more of. Yes, I’m EVIL at heart! *g*
(writing related)
1. What was the first piece of Life On Mars fanfiction that you published?
It was In the Mirror, nothing more than a little Sam Tyler character study, a comparison between his life in 2006 and in 1973. It’s not the best fic I’ve ever written, but not even the worst, all things considered.
2. What inspired you to put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard) that very first time?
I was rewatching the ‘real-unreal’ scene with Sam in front of the broken mirror in episode 1.02, and wondered what Sam’s feelings may be in that particular moment. That’s why I wrote my first fic.
3. What pairing, if any, do you enjoy writing for the most? Why?
I really like writing Sam/Annie and did it three times (out of a total of six fics written to date): in Sunday Mornings we see an angst-ridden Sam ‘stalking’ an aged Annie in 2007; in Christmas at the Tylers’ we see them live happily ever after and in the drabble Loving the Alien we find Annie cope with Sam’s loss in the A2A timeline.
My love for Sam/Maya has only produced a single fic so far (The Long Way Home, in which I came up with an AU ending for 2.08, when Sam chooses reality over his coma dreams), but more are in the backburner. Hopefully, one or two of them will see the light before the end of the year.
4. What genre of fanfiction, if any, do you enjoy writing the most?
Of course, I love writing Sam!angst (gen or het), although happy!fic comes out from time to time.
I could never write NC-17 smut or PWP; I’m just not cut out for that type of fic, but I like reading it nonetheless.
5. What piece of your own fanfiction would you love to see officially turned into an actual episode for television?
Hmmm... Probably The Long Way Home, although that would mean giving a different ending to the series. I guess it all comes down to the strong personal issues I have with the whole ‘leap of faith’ thing that Matthew Graham proposed as a positive action. For all those fans who are in denial about the finale, this fic could probably offer an alternate ending.
6. What fanfiction piece of your own are you the most proud of?
Well, I wouldn’t say I’m exactly ‘proud’ of it, but I think that Christmas at the Tylers’ came out pretty well. It’s a bit cheesy and cliché, I admit it, but it also gives me a sense of peace and closure I haven’t been able to find anywhere else in my own fic.
7. What fanfiction piece of your own gave you the most grief during the writing process?
Definitely The Long Way Home. I wrote it for the LoM Ficathon 2007, based on a prompt by blancafic, but had to re-write it half a dozen times before finding a decent way to convey my emotions into that story and describe what I wanted to say in the way I wanted to say it. It was very stressful. The result is a bit of a mess, also because I was trying out a new style without dialogues (I suck at writing them!) and I didn’t have much time to write it, as work and RL kept on getting in the way.
8. What character do you find easiest to write?
None of them! Well, maybe Sam is the least difficult one to describe, but the others are pretty hard to pin down.
I really should try to work on Gene a bit more, as I can’t write him to save my life and tend to avoid involving him in my stories as much as I can. I doubt he’ll ever forgive me for neglecting him. If one day I should find that somebody has come over to my house and stamped on all my action figures, I guess I’ll know who it was and why!
9. What character do you find the most difficult to write?
As I said earlier, it’s most definitely Gene. He has a thousand emotional layers and a secret life outside of CID, complete with a history we hardly know anything about. His quips and one-liners are difficult to recreate, especially by a foreigner like me, who doesn’t always know how much his words are connected to typically British socio-cultural or historical situations.
10. Are there any characters that you’re guilty of neglecting in your own pieces?
Now that I think about it, I’ve never written anything involving Phyllis, Nelson, the creepy TCG, the Tyler family in 1973 or other minor characters. I guess I’ll have to stop neglecting them and find a good storyline that could allow them to shine as much as they deserve.
11. Is there anything that you are actually scared to write, but would like to if you had the courage?
I don’t think I can pull off decent NC-17 het stories, crack!fics or crossovers. They’re just not my cup of tea. I’m too scared of writing myself into a corner to even start writing something of that sort. Nevertheless, the idea has tempted me more than once...
12. How do you write? Are you a writer who likes to carefully plan and outline, or do you just let nature take its course? Talk a little about your own writing process.
I’m absolutely not a planner. Usually, a particular scene (or maybe just a scrap of dialogue) starts playing in my head incessantly and doesn’t want to go away. I take the hint and write down that bit, then I build the rest of the story around it. One might even say that I write in concentric circles’, building scenes and dialogues around a few key themes that are the backbone of the story until they are all linked together to form a single narrative unit.
I’m a slow writer. It takes me months to write a few thousand words, basically because I’m never happy with what I’m saying and would always like to improve the style and find more elegant words for dialogues and situations, or because I simply want to make them less cliché or boring.
Another thing that slows me down is the fact that English is not my first language and I’m not used to writing it extensively every day. Although I tend to write without looking words up in the dictionary, sometimes I re-read the lines and spot a typo, a wrong choice of tenses, an adjective that I’ve repeated too many times or a grammatical construction that I feel prevents the sentence from flowing as smoothly as I would like. Being the little nitpicker that I am, this drives me crazy, so I spend hours polishing the text and trying to make it better. Of course, I don’t always succeed, but at least it’s a good exercise to improve my language skills. Anyway, thank God for beta readers!
A Little Off Topic
1. How did you come to find the Life On Mars online fan community? What prompted you to seek it out?
I’m an avid fanfic reader and whenever I start watching a TV show I particularly like, I immediately go hunting for good fic and for info about the characters and the actors who portray them. That’s how I found ‘The Railway Arms’ (which, sadly, I rarely visit anymore because my PC has issues with the site and won’t open its pages) and especially lifein1973, where I found great writers, but most of all lovely people, some of whom have now become my good friends also in RL.
2. What other Canons, if any, do you enjoy?
Ok, here’s a random list of what comes to mind (old and new), in no particular order: Doctor Who, Pushing Daisies, Coupling (UK), Relic Hunter, Space:1999, F.R.I.E.N.D.S., Star Trek, Torchwood, This Life, Starsky & Hutch, Teachers, Men of the World, ER, Due South, Early Edition, the X Files, Stargate SG1, Wonderfalls. There are probably more, but I can’t remember them right now.
3. Are you invovled in any other fandoms?
These days I’m mostly interested in the Doctor Who, especially since Chris Eccleston (whom I adore) starred as the Doctor, although my heart still beats for old series like Space:1999 (my all-time favourite), F.RI.E.N.D.S. and Relic Hunter. I even used to write fanfictions about these shows, which I never published, because they were utter rubbish and I couldn’t compete with the real writers out there. They were fun to write, though.
I used to like Star Trek a lot (especially TOS and ENT), but never really got over a few bad personal experiences with some obsessed and creepy fans I met, so I soon gave up on that fandom.
All the others are merely ‘passive fandoms’: I do like watching those TV shows, but can’t find a reason why I should get obsessed with them. Unlike Life on Mars, I have not fallen in love at first sight with those characters and stories, so they represent nothing special to me, though I still find them a good enough excuse to spend a few hours in front of the TV instead of cleaning the house or doing the washing up. *g*
4. Tell people a few other facts about yourself that you don’t mind sharing.
Well, let’s see... I’m an interpreter and translator. I speak English, German and Spanish fluently and enjoy learning some new words and expressions every day.
I’m 100% Italian and I love my country (apart for its politicians), but I’ve always been obsessed with England and with the English language. I started learning British English in middle school (I was 12 years old) and have tried to practise it as much as possible ever since. I first visited London whan I was 14 and immediately fell in love with that city and Great Britain in general.
My dream would be to become fully bilingual, but I’m pretty sure this will never happen, as I’d need to actually live there to improve my language skills and my pronounciation, and this can’t be done because I have a husband and child here in Italy and we can’t leave or jobs and our country just to fulfill a dream (it would be nice, though). Anyway, I’m already starting to teach my 4-year-old daughter a few English words, so that she can start learning the language soon and with a correct pronounciation (Italian schools are not renowned for their language classes). Apparently, she loves it, and is already obsessed with Doctor Who, whose characters I use to tell her bedtime stories in English! *g*
I’m a huge sci-fi geek and I’m not afraid to say it. My love for Space:1999 has lead me to join the Italian Fan Club ‘Moonbase99’, where other geeks like me can meet and thrive. We are a bunch of friends from all over the country and every year we organise a Convention inviting one or more of the cast and crew of this cult TV show. I’m the official interpreter of the event and have therefore managed to meet most of the actors who starred in the series, talking with them extensively about their lives, their acting experiences and careers. I have learned a lot from these professionals, and meeting people like Barry Morse, Roy Dotrice, Johnny Byrne and the others was really an honour and a moment I will cherish and remember fondly for all my life.
Enjoy! :)
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