Various fandom-related subjects

[tarigwaemir]

Stanley Hall on the Feast of the Transfiguration

Real life = very busy. If I were capable of shorter posts, I would have done a better job of updating, but unfortunately, I haven't found the time.

For the few of you in Hikaru no Go fandom who don't follow the blind_go community, silvermuse89 and I stepped down as moderators yesterday. chaineddove, doumeki and trixie_chick have kindly agreed to take over running the challenge, and judging by how enthusiastically they were brainstorming ideas for future rounds, I expect they'll do a wonderful job. Anyway, it probably comes as no surprise to anyone, given how infrequently I update these days.

This round of fifthmus fics have been generally quite good. My submission, Portraiture, was written for qem_chibati. I had some trouble with the requests because I hadn't been writing fic for a while, and I was generally short on inspiration. I considered several ideas, some of which I still hope to write, but had trouble fitting them to the terms of the request. Finally, I decided to attempt writing an idea that I've had for quite some time. Disclaimer: the original premise wasn't mine; it came from someone on Tin's friends list about five years ago, and she posted it as part of a list of fics that people wished someone would write. The idea was that in replaying his game with Sai hundreds of times, Touya Kouyou would slowly reconstruct a mental image of Sai himself.

I had wanted to try my hand at this idea ever since, and I made about a half-dozen aborted attempts over the past five years. The breakthrough happened when I realized:

1. I could use an outsider's perspective.
2. I could position my narrative "after the fact".
3. I could have Touya Kouyou become an artist.

Number 3 is a little random, I know. It hit me out of left field when I was walking to lab one morning, worrying about what to write for fifthmus, and I worried that people would find it implausible. I'd been thinking about midlife bursts of artistic creativity--probably because of Steve's idea for an artistic collective*--and also about Marcel Duchamp, who made the inverse transition from art to chess. The story assembled itself in my head fairly quickly, and I wrote most of it in one long stretch on my ultraportable while still at lab.

* Yet another thing that I keep meaning to post about (also meant to write about -80° freezer breakdown, eating Filipino food, consuming magic mushrooms, my latest haul from the local used bookstores).

More importantly, ontogenesis wrote The Journey for one of my fifthmus requests: Touya Kouyou journeys to a remote city in Yunnan and plays go there. Am completely thrilled that ontogenesis got assigned my requests, and even more thrilled by the fic she wrote. Go read it now! ^_^

Started watching Kure-nai on arboretum's recommendation. Murasaki is adorable and bossy! Episode 5 was a little bizarre though (the cast decides to put on a musical).

Finished Library War. Not sure what to think of it; the series turned out to be frothier than I expected. I did like the relationship between Doujou and Kasahara but the hospital scene was a little trite. >_> I would like to read fanfiction for the series though.

Yours &c.

Post-script: lacewood, I got your email; sorry for my lack of response and perpetual tardiness. I'll get my chapter to you soon! >_

Comments

[arboretum]

Yeah, that episode was seriously bizarre. I'm glad you're finding Murasaki cute, though. I also thought she was adorable. :)

[troisroyaumes]

I thought she was adorable from the beginning, but she really won me over when she went to apologize and thank the lady at the public baths with her super-formal language. <3 So cute! Thanks for recommending the series; I've been out of the anime loop entirely and would never have known about it otherwise.

[uminohikari.livejournal.com]

Murasaki is so cute! I think I skipped ep 5 though... this is why watching out of order is bad.

[troisroyaumes]

Episode 5 is funny but rather confusing; it seems like a crack episode to me. ^_^

[love_archived]

Episode 5 was just _wrong_, but all the others I adored. ^_^ Murasaki is so cute. The subway bit with the delinquents made me think a lot though.

What do you mean by frothier?

[troisroyaumes]

I found it hilarious but I just had no idea what was going on after the halfway point. ^_^ The scene on the subway made me adore Murasaki just a bit more too.

Frothier as in not serious and without substance. I thought with such a great premise that the series would explore the implications of censorship with more depth. I still liked the series but I was a little disappointed. I suppose that leaves more room for fanfiction though.

[love_archived]

Ah. Yes, they didn't do anything like that. It rates maybe 7/10 (or 8/10) with me. Nice, great, I don't regret spending time on it. Not really something that gives me very much to take home, though.

[troisroyaumes]

Yes, despite the disappointment, I'm still glad I watched it. I think perhaps the series would have benefited from having more episodes to tell a full story. Kind of hoping that aishuu will write fic for it...and now that I know you've watched it too, I shall try to find a way to request fic from you as well. ^_^

[love_archived]

*laughs* Well, the next blind_go may provide an opportunity for you to do so. I like your prompts--they're actually writeable.

[rilina.livejournal.com]

I found the wild swings in tone in Library War distracting; I think I would have liked it more if it had been generally more serious or generally more frothy, rather than an awkward mix of both.

[troisroyaumes]

Yes, I think I wouldn't have minded the "wild swings" so much if the series had ended on a serious note but I felt they tried to wrap things up too neatly and squelched the darker undertones that had been cropping up before. Perhaps the series should have been longer? In any case, it was a great premise, so I feel a little disappointed.

[shoujo22.livejournal.com]

Totally random here as well, but I remember when our -80 broke down at the Biochem facility. Apparently, it'd happen overnight (which was even worse). I had never seen our P.I. move that fast before! We were all pretty frantic at the time though.

I thought about watching Library War but...I'm still uncertain as to whether or not it would be worth my time. I guess I just don't want to be disappointed. Would you recommend my watching it?

I'm always prowling for anime recs; especially because (just like you) I've been out of the anime loop for quite a while. Maybe I'll give Kure-nai a try as well.

[troisroyaumes]

Our breakdown happened late on Sunday night, and I was the only person from our lab there. ;_; Luckily there were enough people from friendly neighboring labs to help me out, and I got in touch with my P.I. so it all managed to go well, but I definitely was panicking at the time.

Hm, I'm not sure...Library War is definitely very prettily drawn, and as I mentioned in the above comments, it has a great premise. If you go into it knowing that it'll have more cute moments than serious ones, you probably won't be disappointed. I did like the characters, which is why I didn't regret watching it.

Kure-nai is definitely all about the cute, but it has some really touching moments, in my opinion. arboretum made a public post about it recently so you can get a preview of it there.

[shoujo22.livejournal.com]

Thanks. I'll check out her post then.

I'm glad that you had someone there to help you out. I can totally imaging how much of a shock that must have been.