nineveh_uk

Conkers, conkers everywhere, the surprise of how dark it has suddenly got, annoyance of booking a flu jab and having the time suddenly altered on one, and even new students. Fancy eating apple cake but not cooking it. Miss blackberry season. Again. Realise you ticked off family birthday (1), but now have three more within the next 11 days you need to sort out. Oops. Er, party conference season.

And of course the Yuletide tagset. Hurry to find out if someone more organised than you nominated what you want. Find new canons that look interesting. Find existing ones you'd not have thought for fic for, but would absolutely read. Wot no Nirvana in Fire? Outrage! Ah, way over the limit. Marvel at ever more professionally published Jane Austen fanfic. Consider that maybe you'll sign up this year, but probably not. Haunt the nominations spreadsheet anyway. Look forward to what there might be to read.

In short, autumn.

* Apparently my delicious almond croissant and rare actual coffee with naraht this morning was too much by way of stimulants for my poor CNS to cope with after a poor night's sleep, and I have spent the rest of today feeling decidedly up and down and sometimes sideways while tidying up the place before going away next weekend and having the surveyor come tomorrow. I want him to be able to look at the garage, not die from tripping over plant pots on his way in. But hey, at least it shows that my recent efforts to reduce carbohydrate intake during the day (breakfast and lunch) to see if it reduces energy fluctuations of long covid is worthwhile!

* I have a new dress! I found on Wednesday that not having bought any new work clothes since February 2020 I currently have no dresses between jersey casual, but OK for work, and silk for attending very fancy things, neither of which was really what I wanted for the Encaenia garden party. So I ordered one in the Boden sale on Thursday. It is excellent, except wrap in style, so will need a couple of buttons adding to make sure that it doesn't suddenly undo while I'm wearing it.

* My creative destiny at the moment is apparently to write all the She Who Became the Sun fix-it fic. I am now at various stages of three different ones. Naturally the one for which I have a title is not the one that is just about finished, which has not even the barest inkling of a title. I have also started sewing a dress again that I started in October, and may thus finish while there is still weather to wear it in.

* It seems that England are not doing terribly at cricket this summer, which is very nice. However it remains to be seen whether this change of form will continue next time they tour overseas. In the meantime, I'll take it.

Last week I finished The Untamed, Nirvana in Fire, and Hilary Mantel's The Mirror and the Light. That's 50 episodes, 54 episodes (for the third time), and 872 pages. I find myself not quite knowing what to do with myself - it's almost a good thing the US election results took so long.

If you've not come across it, The Untamed is a lengthy Chinese fantasy drama in the xianxia tradition, a genre I'd really like to read an introductory article on by an actual academic specialising in popular Chinese fiction/media, because it is clearly drawing on a hell of a lot of established themes and cultural concepts that its original audience is familiar with. The protagonists are 'cultivators', essentially sort of Taoist wizards attempting to study and practice arcane arts in order to attain immortality and slay monsters in the meantime. They aren't very good at this, given that their average life expectancy appears to be significantly below that of the average peasant on account of their constant inter-clan warfare, not helped by an apparent psychological weakness for fantasy Chinese fascism. This particular series is based on the novel Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation( 魔道祖师 ) by Mo Xiang Tong Xiu (墨香铜臭)*, which has had multiple adaptations in various media.

Short version of novel's plot: after a rather rowdy stint as a visiting student at a strict magical finishing school, the protagonist Wei Wuxian (m) invents a new kind of magic that is kind of based on necromancy, is very good at it, other people don't like this, he does some bad stuff and gets blamed for worse bad stuff he didn't do, he gets killed, brought back from the dead thirteen years later, oh yes and has an epic romance with a seemingly starchy and massively repressed figure from a rival clan, Lan Wangji (m), including lots of explicit sex with various rape fantasies. Every single character is in need of therapy, with the possible exception of the symbolic rabbits. There are vast quantities of flashbacks.

You can see that this presented some adaptation challenges.

The explicit sex had to go, replaced with a fairly similar storyline without the sex scenes and making sure that they don't actually say anything more explicit than "soulmate", but leaving in enough familiar tropes that the audience would have to have never seen a single star-crossed lover narrative ever to miss what is going on by the time they're half-way through and that's even without being Chinese and able to appreciate the Symbolism of the Chickens. I mean, "our mystic hairbands can only be touched by our immediate family or significant other", followed same episode by "I will tie my mystic hairband round your wrist so the magic cave full of creepy rabbits** recognises you as a member of my family and won't kill you" is not exactly difficult. I haven't read more than a few bits of the book, so no doubt the themes also change a bit, but it's pretty good job considering the constraints they're working with, with the exception ( Spoiler )

I can't straightforwardly recommend it, and yet I watched 50 episodes. It is addictive in a sort of popcorn way, at least once you hit ep 15ish, and that addictive quality only ramps up through the rest, but I spent a goodly part of the first quarter simply boggling at terrible wigs, more polyester robes than you can imagine, some decidedly mixed quality acting***, and the phrase "tortoise of slaughter"****. What saved me from giving up was the sudden realisation about six episodes in that I was watching a school story - or possibly, if I were American and more familiar with the genre than through the works of Paula Danziger and Addams Family Values - a summer camp story. At which point, suddenly everything made sense as a story of rival posh boarding schools filled with characters you've met before, and a goodly dose of "they fuck you up, your mum and dad".

I shall cut for length. ( Flashman and the Slut, and other archetypes )

*Also responsible for The Scum Villain's Self-Saving System, which is definitely the most post-modern concept of a storyline I've come across for some time. Say it three times backwards and Mephistopheles probably appears to complain about people slashing him with Faust.

**I must apologise to the production team, who I initially blamed for the fact that the rabbits look like a job lot of laboratory escapees. Having looked at various traditional Chinese paintings and prints, white rabbits appear to be a thing.

***Though the cute child is pretty good as young child actors go.

****Some concepts are better just transliterated.

Clearly if Elrond cared so much about his daughter not marrying a mortal he ought to have made sure that she spent at least a year being annoyed by each successive heir of the Dúnedain toddling round going "But why, Lady Arwen?"

OTOH, perhaps Elrond did remember, and that's why Arwen wasn't around: she'd had it up to here with the whole thing, and this time as soon as Gilraen turned up, Arwen packed her bags for Lórien. Which unfortunately meant that she arrived back in Rivendell just in time to think he was rather sweet, if not particularly interesting to her personally, as a handsome twenty year old who was feeling pretty good about himself after performing great deeds in company with his (many times removed) cousins, and then think "cor, he turned out all right" when they met another thirty years later. Which to my mind Galadriel definitely arranged.

Yes, I am slowly making my way through the Appendices.

Truly, this year is not as other years.

In other news, initial details of the Yuri on Ice film have been announced. Good news: it appears to be about young Victor! Bad news: no-one told them that Ice Adolescence is a utterly terrible title.

Feel the Force and Do it Anyway

What Colour is Your Lightsaber?

Eat, Meditate, Repress all your Emotions

I'm a Wookie, You're a Wookie

How to Win Acolytes and Influence Billions

Who Moved My Droid?

The Seven Habits of Highly-Effective Jedi

Men are from Tatooine, Women are from Alderaan

*

Suggestions for more?

For the first time in ages I wrote a fic for Yuletide! As per the last couple of times it was a treat rather than doing the exchange, but it was still a fic. 2018 resolution: Do More Writing.

Let's Tell the Press (1852 words) by Nineveh_uk
Fandom: Fyra år till / Four More Years
Rating and Warnings: G, CNTW
Summary: The Swedish media reacts to the Riksdag's love story of the century.

I've written about the film previously on LJ/DW here. Thanks to the recipient for prompting the one story that I could actually write: I don't claim to know a lot about the Swedish media, but you can get a long way on a superficial knowledge gleaned from the winter sports pages and it was fun to do. It's an absolutely tiny fandom - this is the first AO3 story - but that's the great thing about Yuletide, it's the one time when your really obscure interest will find its one reader. Now I'm looking forward to the opportunity to actually read some Yuletide stories myself.

I thought that I had already ticked the "stupid thing of the week" box when on Sunday I walked downstairs with damp feet, no slippers, not paying attention, and feel. During the next second or so, time slowed down to give me ample leisure to reflect on my stupidity. Fortunately it also gave me time to grab the bannister and lift my head, so while I have a sore arm and shoulder and am bruised across two bits of back, neither of them is my tailbone, victim of the stair incident you'd think would have taught me better, and I didn't then bounce the rest of the way to the bottom. My dignity is harmed, but not my forthcoming skiing trip. Though I might pick up some pre-emptive diclofenac from the GP because I'm definitely going to fall down again while I'm there. Annoyingly, the visible bruises are not very impressive.

Anyway, that is the only the second stupidest thing I have done this week, and it's only Tuesday. Far, far worse is that I saw a new chapter of a fic was up and I clicked on it, and now I want to read it and know what happens, but I still have a chapter and a half that was already posted to go that I have skimmed, but not read properly (it is in German. Reading properly takes me a long time). And of course I clicked to an early bit and argh, now I need to know what happens next BUT I WILL BE STRONG!

Stop being productive, author! You were supposed to wait a week until I was on holiday and had more time.

My fandom year ended annoyingly as the new year's eve performance of Five Guys Named Moe I was supposed to go to was cancelled due to cast illness (possibly the stinking cold going round that has deprived me of most of my voice). But the year ended, a new one has begun, and as I am supposed to be packing to get the train home tomorrow, I am allowing time for a meme instead.

Courtesy of naraht

1. Your main fandom of the year?

I think that this probably has to be Tanz der Vampire. Not because I've written loads in it (grand total: two fics) or am active in the online fandom, but because as a direct result of it I've started learning German again and went on holiday to see it, so in terms of personal commitment it definitely gets a lot of points.

2. Your favourite film watched this year?

*Attempts to think which films I've seen this year* I'm really not sure. Perhaps When Marnie Was There. Not because it was the best film I've seen this year (I'm assuming they were also supposed to be in the cinema), because Carol, Rams, and The Wind Rises were all better. But it was an excellent film that introduced me to a new genre, was gripping all the way through, and portrayed the travails of childhood done with much sensitivity and skill.

3. Your favourite book read this year?

Oh dear, I'm not sure about this one, either. Not the first Elena Ferrante - it caught me in the wrong mood and I didn't finish it, though I shall certainly come back to it. I don't think I could really call it a favourite, but perhaps the book that has left the most lasting impression on me this year has been Stefan Zweig's autobiography The World of Yesterday, which felt at times appallingly topical. His description of the events leading up to the First World War, not as the thunderous hoofbeats of history, but as something that just sort of happens while being so bizarre a concept that it is impossible to believe it is actually going to happen. Zweig literally gets the last train back from Belgium (where he has been on a seaside holiday) to Germany and sees troops and trains massing at the border and even then he recounts still thinking/telling himself that it's obviously manoeuvres, because there's no way that Germany is going to invade Belgium. It's not the best-written book I've read this year, but it was fascinating. Even the several chapters of deeply-tedious fanboying of early C20 minor French and Belgian poets gain pathos later when one appreciates the degree to which Zweig is writing in exile, looking back to a different world that, for all its egregious faults, was not the world of World Wars and the Holocaust.

4. Your favourite TV show of the year?

Oh dear, this probably has to be Yuri on Ice. Fun as Deutschland 83, Trapped and The Night Manager were, enchanting as Planet Earth II inevitably was, YOI was a delightful accompaniment to a rather trying autumn and something to look forward to amidst the global and domestic politics and perpetual nose-blowing/sniffing/48 hour flu etc.

5. Your favourite online fandom community of the year?

I have certainly spent too much time on FFA.

6. Your best new fandom discovery of the year?

Quite how many hits/kudos it is possible to get through production of a timely fic in a larger fandom. I shall not be switching all my fic production to hunt-the-kudos, but it is a nice change on occasion.

7. Your biggest fandom disappointment of the year?

(1) Me. Definitely not enough writing, the giant Wimsey/HP crossover made some progress but still isn't finished (and I've realised that I think I'm going to do a major edit of one aspect of it, kill your darlings argh), and I had lots of ideas for various things and just haven't got to more than rough notes of it. It's basically a question of time and energy (and German), but very annoying.

(2) Therese Johaug (Norwegian cross-country skier) failed a doping test and is currently suspended pending the formal outcome. I veer between thinking that her account is plausible as someone having an ill-timed but understandable in the circumstances moment of carelessness over medication that clearly brought no performance benefit, and that that is exactly the sort of story that you'd come up with if you were in fact doping and that maybe there's a reason for that extra sprint prowess last year.
I'm a lot less disappointed with the ongoing revelations about some of the Russians because I've had suspicions for longer, not least because of their pattern of competition.

(skips a couple of questions, can't be bothered to re-number)

10. Your biggest squee moment of the year?

Without a doubt, going to see Tanz der Vampire live, which is a good thing considering I went to another country in order to do so. Absolutely enormous fun, surrounded by an audience of people also having enormous fun. With vampires.

Honourable mention for Yuri on Ice episode 10 . I laughed like a drain the entire episode and spent far too much time on the internet afterwards. It was hilarious, but also really enjoyable to see a work really pull off a narrative switch on the audience like that. It's something far more creators attempt than succeed at.

11. The most missed of your old fandoms?
Definitely the moment at which I realised that yes, I really, really did want to go and see The Cursed Child once it was on stage and tickets were unobtainable. I had assumed beforehand that I wouldn't be that fussed, that I'd wait and see how it was reviewed etc. etc. It was a mistake.

12. The fandom you haven’t tried yet, but want to?

My first interest isn't fandom, it's canons. If there turns out to be a fandom that I enjoy that's great. There are plenty of things I have enjoyed reading or watching in which I have very little fannish interest at all, such as Tolkien.

The series of the year I haven't watched appears to be the third series of Norwegian Skam, and I plan to catch up with the lot in 2017. However the English-language fandom (tumblr) sounds awful, and I'm both too late for the Norwegian one and don't have good enough (i.e. any) written Norwegian to participate. Also, world enough and time...

13. Your biggest fan anticipations for the New Year?

Can Andrew Musgrave make the top 10 in the Tour de Ski? (Dubious. Top 15, OTOH, possible and would be nice to see.)

DOING MORE WRITING MYSELF and making an attempt to finish the eternal Wimsey crossover WIP. I will conquer, I swear!

I posted a fic last night. I'm not sure what time, maybe about 10:30 - 11pm. I was tired and ought to have gone to bed, but often when I have a cold I feel my best late evening, so I didn't. The fic is this one: In the Studio. It's about 500 words, outsider POV of a canon moment, namely the episode broadcast earlier yesterday, and inspired by a combination of an unlucky Eurosport commentator and Test Match Special.

Since then, I have been sitting back and watching the stats add up and for someone who is used to small book fandoms, the contrast is bizarre. At this point it has the most hits of everything I've ever posted on AO3, and it has achieved that in less than 24 hours. It has three times as many kudos as the next fic - which is also a short fic in the same fandom - and five times as many kudos as the third-ranked fic, which is the post-Gaudy Night Peter/Harriet one.

This is definitely not my best ever fic. There's nothing wrong with it, it's short and fun, it found a happy audience. But if you're in need of a quick ego-boost, get thee to an active slash-heavy fandom with new canon and tag with the main pairing!

Normal service will be resumed shortly when I decide to write a quiet character study for a minor character from something like Beware of Pity.