skygiants

This is something I wonder about a lot: what are people's favorite ways to watch things socially? If I sit down with friends and we're like 'let's watch a thing!' my inclination is always to suggest something that I've seen that other people in the group haven't, because I really enjoy watching people watch things for the first time while staring creepily at them out of the corner of my eye to make sure they're laughing at all the good parts. And the first time that I see anything that I super like, my IMMEDIATE next step is to scheme how I can get as many people to watch it with me, as soon as possible. (See: Princess Tutu, and the approximate TEN TIMES with TEN DIFFERENT PEOPLE I watched it all the way through in 2009.)

...then if I do that repeatedly I feel selfish because I assume that is other people's favorite way to watch things too, But perhaps it isn't! Obviously I enjoy socially watching things in many ways, but I'm curious about people's preferences. So I made a poll!

The back cover of Marie Lu's Legend informed me that the author "was first inspired to write Legend while watching Les Miserables one afternoon, and wondered how the relationship between a famous criminal vs. a prodigious detective might translate into a more modern story."

It is not Marie Lu's fault that this somehow explicitly led me to expect a genderswapped steampunk Javert/Valjean fanfic about an obsessive police officer with a black-and-white morality and the escaped prisoner she pursues over the course of three or four decades . . . but apparently somehow this is something that my soul desperately craves, because I was unfairly disappointed not to get it.

Not that Legend is not good! Legend is a perfectly enjoyable dystopian YA novel about two SUPER TEEN PRODIGIES, one who is accelerating within the system (but only because she doesn't know all the terrible things the system does) and one who works outside the system (and is accused of terrible crimes, but has only ever committed the non-murderous ones), and how she's sent to bring him in because she thinks he killed her brother, and it's all very dramatic and interestingly world-built and involves government plague conspiracies and that's fine, I will totally be willing to read the sequel and see where it goes! I did wish that there was more of a clash of legitimately opposed ideologies, as opposed to the heroine realizing that everything she believes in is wrong. ( Spoilers. )

Anyway, it all worked out, because now that I've realized the tragic scarcity of YA novels with the EPIC MELODRAMA of Javert/Valjean slash fiction at their heart, I have simply decided that someday I am going to have to write my own, except with lesbians. (Working title: YOU KNOW NOTHING OF JAVERTINA.) You're welcome, world!

This also however begs the question of which OTHER famous musical nemeses should be updated into steampunk dystopian YA novels. I have provided some options for you, so please feel free to vote for your favorite! I will almost certainly not write it for you but YOU NEVER KNOW.



The depressing secret of my life is that I would one hundred percent read all of these. (But especially Velma/Robot Roxie.)

PLEASE ALSO SUGGEST YOUR OWN.

A rough transcription of a conversation that happened last week in California:

skygiants: I think as a follow-up to The Borgias there needs to be a terrible sleazy Showtime series about the Romantics! It would be kind of like this comic! Seriously, I have been waiting for this for years.
pseudo_tsuga: Well, I don't know about that, but I did find an ARC recently of a YA novel about the dramatic lives of Byron, Keats and Shelley . . . in a US high school.
aamalie and allchildren, sensibly: HAHAHA that sounds ridiculous!
skygiants: HAHAHA that sounds ridiculous . . . and I must acquire and read it immediately!

So the path before me seemed to have been prepared! HOWEVER, then on Friday I was lurking in the YA section of the bookstore waiting for shati, and I discovered, in addition to So Shelly . . .

1. Jane: Jane Eyre is saving money for Sarah Lawrence and Rochester is a rock star!
2. Withering Tights: performing art school on the eerie Yorkshire moors! This may not be an actual high school AU of Wuthering Heights but between the title and the oft-mentioned 'eerie similarity' of the moors I think it's close enough to count
3. Falling for Hamlet: High School AU's Ophelia's life is not only dominated by Prince Hamlet's family drama . . . but also by high school drama and paparazzi!
4. Another Pan: Not only is Peter Pan now a sexy supernatural high school student gang leader at an elite private school who is leading astray nice young Wendy Darling . . . but he's searching for the lost Egyptian secrets of eternal youth!

And now, guys, I don't even know what to do. I feel like I have to read at least one of these, but I really don't think I have the time or fortitude to tackle all of them! Therefore, I turn to the internet for assistance!

You can vote at the LJ crosspost, because I do not have enough account at DW to do polls here.

PS I have already read the AU in which Jane Eyre is a cyborg.

Okay, I am going to do my best to remain straightfaced and unspoilery for the rest of the costume poll, but let me just say upfront and get it out of the way: THIS EPISODE WAS REALLY HARD TO DO.

But first let's go back to the joy of last week's victor:



This is going to be one of my benchmarks for cunning disguises going forward. The dapper fake moustache! The glass-less glasses! Never change, Woo Wan. Never change.

( Top five episode 15 costumes under the cut! )

To pick your favorite, go vote over at the LJ crosspost!

It's been a while since we had one of these, but don't worry: the show has been saving up some awesome in anticipation. >:D

Last time, Cha Song Joo cleaned up for the third time in a row with this amazingly dramatic ensemble:



Blindfolds and visual analogies are in for the well-dressed revolutionary this year!

HOWEVER, this week the dudes are making a comeback with a vengeance.

( Top five episode twelve costumes under the cut! )

[Poll #1722412]

Last week, Cha Song Joo carried the polls pretty much by sheer force of badassery:



And this week I will admit just up front is pretty Cha Song Joo dominated. I CAN'T HELP IT IF SHE'S ALWAYS FABULOUS.

( Top five episode ten costumes under the cut! )

[Poll #1680100]

So episode seven gave us another landslide victory, as Mr. Sun Woo Wan and his expert deployment of gingham swept the polls:



Which is kind of funny, because in my opinion, the gingham cannot EVEN COMPARE to the suit Woo Wan is rocking in episode eight.

( Top five episode eight costumes under the cut! )

[Poll #1670436]

First, an OFFICIAL-TYPE ANNOUNCEMENT for fma_ladyfest types: genarti reminds me that we are halfway through the writing period, and probably should make mention of this! And thefore I would like to take a moment to remind people that there are two weeks left to finish (or start) your brilliant assignments and send them in to us. A few people have already sent stuff in; Gen and I are united in thinking that these people are AWESOME and also being a little bit terrified of them. (But, you say, as mods, surely you guys should already have your fics done and betaed well in advance and be prepared to dive into the process of being responsible and organizational! I think we would also be united in responding to you with hollow laughter.)

Something in which Gen and I are not united: our reading habits. Every few months Gen and I have the same discussion, and it goes something like this:

BECCA: Well, I will read this book that you recommend to me next time I have a slot for it in my reading quota system, which should be . . . hmmm, approximately four book from now.
GEN: I find your reading quota system strange and lolarious.
BECCA: See, if I did not mentally schedule my reading, I would pretty much just always read YA fantasy and never read nonfiction at all. And I want to read nonfiction, because learning things is useful and interesting, but it has less immediate appeal to me when I am grabbing the first book to catch my eye.
GEN: I do not understand this problem of yours. Nonfiction catches my eye all the time, it is enormously appealing! It is much more guaranteed to be interesting than fiction.
BECCA: But . . . plot! And characters! Make things much easier to read! Boring nonfiction is a lot harder to get through than boring fiction.
GEN: But if a novel is boring or frustrating, then it's just pointless and I don't care. At least in nonfiction you are guaranteed to learn some facts!
BECCA: BUT WHAT IF THEY'RE BORING FACTS, GEN. WHAT THEN.

Despite giving myself the last word in this fictionalized version of our debate, I think Gen probably has the moral high ground in this argument. But I stand by my position all the same.

As a partial result of these differing literary worldviews, pretty much every time Gen and I see each other, I foist some fantasy off on her and she foists some nonfiction off on me. The most recent trade ended up in me reading Women in the Middle Ages: The Lives of Real Women in a Vibrant Age of Transition. Fortunately this is not the kind of nonfiction book that is full of boring facts! The first half is pretty 101 on The Middle Ages, These Were Women's Roles, They Were More Interesting Than you Might Think; the second half is more specific, and traces the documented lives of some actual ladies, ranging from politically powerful noblewomen to guildswomen suing their employers to upwardly mobile merchant's wives defending their lands from siege by their neighbors. I wouldn't recommend it to the medievalists on here, but for someone who doesn't know that much about the era - or would just like a better idea of some of the scope available for a lady at that time period - it's pretty interesting. I don't really have that much more to say about it, though, so, instead: a poll!

[Poll #1622741]

Yes, a week later I am still thinking about the FMA finale. WHO IS SURPRISED?

Anyway, something has been puzzling me that I would like to discuss with people. (I promise it has nothing to do with anyone's personal grooming and facial hair decisions.)


( EXTREMELY SPOILERY questions are under the cut! )

A while back, avariel_wings mailed me a copy of Mary Stewart's Merlin Trilogy all the way from England (which is dedication) and after a shamefully long time I have finally gotten around to reading it!

I should be honest: I tried to read The Crystal Cave a few times a kid and I never could get through the beginning few chapters of Merlin-as-a-kid. Once I got to the parts about Ambrosius, though, the story really picked up for me, and I think the second half of The Crystal Cave and the Baby Arthur parts of The Hollow Hills have been my favorite parts of the series so far. (Kate also sent me The Wicked Day, which I think is the finale of the series, so I will be reading that at some point too.) I really like some of the ways that Mary Stewart pieces together the myths, and re-interprets them, and I like how she is careful to show how stories spread. All that is very cool! I like less the focus on Arthur in the last book to the exclusion of much of the other characters of the legend (I am sorry, I just could not love this Arthur as much as T.H. White's Arthur - he was formative for me!) and how unambiguously evil Morgause and to a certain extent Morgan are, because Ladies' Power Means Using Sexuality For Evil, Duh.

I am not quite sure how I feel about this Merlin; Merlin has never been the most interesting part of the story for me. Sometimes I think I quite like him, especially when he is young and kind of arrogant and being sarcastic and clever! Other times I am frustrated by him and how content he is to give up agency to Divine Power and how little he morally questions that. (Other times I just want him to stop going on about how pretty the hillside is because sometimes my attention span is short.)

Anyway, pretty much everyone knows the Arthur stories and everyone sees them in a different way, and I am very curious about everybody's favorite Arthurs. I asked this question before when I reread The Once and Future King, but it is different now because there are new people on my flist! Also, because it is in the form of a POLL, and that makes it officially shinier.

[Poll #1469901]