Finally have time for a proper update

[petronia]

Some days ago my home computer caught a worm which proceeded to install a spam virus, so I was treated to the annoying sight of mystery emails outbound through my antiquated filter. Now it's freezing unpredictably at startup. I can't be arsed to cleanse the infection when the hard drive needs a reformat this badly so reformat it is. But it's extra work, and my installation disc of WinXP is so old (and so much of the hardware upgraded) I expect any number of things to stop working afterward. I owe various photo memes, music etc. but it may not happen for a while, depending. ^^;

It's only worrisome because I think it may have been idling on IRC that did it - that machine is essentially unprotected against threats newer than 2003 but it's dial-up and receives no email so there're not that many vectors for infection. It'll have better security once I get it up and running again.

Anyway, onto fandom talk that is less boring:

1) Everyone by this point knows I've been watching Ouran High School Host Club, I just haven't been blogging about it. Haven't read the manga as decided I could live with the vision of anyone who was this traumatised by revelations from the Utena fanbooks ("Oh, the pointing hand? We just wanted to make sure you noticed those bits of the scenery. Spent time drawing them in and everything. ...Miki's watch? Yeah, he uses it to time things. Look, at one point he forgets to stop it and it runs for the entire episode haha do you see what we did there!"). Besides series like this are always more random at the beginning than later on, and anime allows for reorganisation.

It really is an odd little series in that it takes SKU's Mozartian trappings and... remains Mozartian with them. That's one word to describe at once the soundtrack, the chief love interest and the series itself: Mozartian. Frivolous charm, Watteauesque wistfulness, surprising strength of character. But no sturm-und-drang, no id. What I found instructive about the Alice in Wonderland episode was how easily the setup could tip over into Utena's gaping maw of Freudian surrealism - the Red Queen! - but an artistic choice was made to keep character exploration this side of the mundane, and let parody provide the heightening effect.

I do find it more entertaining the more on crack it is. I mean it's not like I would watch reverse-harem gakuenmono for serious. XD Also, raise your hand if you suspect Koyasu Takehito's kids are exactly like Haruhi in real life.

2) Over the past several months I also watched Jewel in the Palace, which sucked up as much time as you'd expect from a 70-episode drama. The innovation of the series is portmanteauing several fields of appeal, I think, as follows:

1. old-school shoujo of the Ace wo nerae, Glass Mask (poss. Yawara?) type, where the spunky heroine ganbarus a lot to get ahead in her chosen field, plus well-born rival, love triangle, etc. Why is this sort of thing not being written anymore? Have all the female readers gone over to shounen now that WJ's discovered fanservice?
2. food pr0n. If I'd been watching by myself I would totally have been rewinding and taking notes. YOU ARE THE WEAKEST LINK IN THE IMPERIAL KITCHEN, GOODBYE.
3. political intrigue as per the regular run of Asian historical TV drama. More absorbing than most historical dramas, in fact, given that the script goes both "upstairs" and "downstairs", embroidering at will for maximum narrative effect. XD Reminded me of Dumas at times.

The bad: I'm not at all prone to disliking characters for being annoyingly perfect, virtuous, talented, etc., so if Janggeum gets on my nerves as much as she has over the course of the series I imagine she would drive people I know into frothing rages. XD Couldn't abide, specifically, the fact that the villains of the piece were in the right practically if not morally - politics is a necessity for survival in the palace - any palace, any time. I adore Lady Han but she would have been a disaster sooner or later at the head of any organisation (except the Seigaku junior high tennis club, debatably). One gets one's hands dirty or one becomes a victim, which is a fine choice to make for oneself but not on behalf of one's family, and not the sort of thing anyone has a right to get sanctimonious about unless they've walked in those shoes. Revenge is one thing, smugness is another. Janggeum spends most of her time clawing her way up from holes she was dropped in through no fault of her own, and in the end she walks away - sensibly, but also conveniently.

Which is a wordy way of saying I think Geumyeong is a much more interesting character. XD

What saves the character for me is the actress. She's not stunningly pretty, nor even the prettiest in the cast by far, but pulls off the unaffected likeability necessary to a character when the rest of the cast is perpetually occupied in singing his/her praises. *g* It's not hard to see that a man could fall in love with that smile. Which brings me around to Lord Min (or as I call him, Mr. Swordfighting Quotient), who is totally the fourth reason to watch this series. Watch, as he battles ninjas, busts up espionage conspiracies and works in the library! He supports her career choices because her self-realisation is as important to him as his own! I was on the floor. Shoujo love interests are not normally what you'd call realistic but this is not the usual run of shoujo love interest.

Besides after we finished watching Jewel we misguidedly started watching Stairway to Heaven and holee shit that is an hour of my life I'm never getting back. orz If Janggeum makes Haruhi look good what is there to say about the heroine of Stairway to Heaven, at least Janggeum has the horse sense to give back as good as she gets when she's fucked with.

3) Re: remixing fic - I love the idea, but to get the most out of the execution as a reader it would have to be a sterling remix of a fic I already love, and I can't remember it happening yet. Were talking at some point about currently stratospheric standards for what a remix is expected to accomplish - in dance music [1], I mean, but I think the attitude's carried over in my head. Possibly I'd have to personally run a remixing project where the signups are ficcers-I-know, rather than by fandom or whatever. [2] Or yanno, feel free to rec me your favorites. XD

[1] Speaking of which Justin Timberlake's "Sexyback (Linus Loves Remix)" is the first buzzy electrohouse I've loved in a long while. And this Tom Novy Ibiza dub thing isn't half bad either! High standards, see. marej, this is definitely not breaking the disco ball where I live. XD

[2] Not that this would be a ploy to get my own fic remixed or anything. Nothing of the sort.

Comments

[meril.livejournal.com]

I hate to say that I still don't get the idea of fic remixes. (Is Bridget Jones's Diary a remix of Pride and Prejudice, for example?...yes, I know, I'm probably wrong.)

[petronia.livejournal.com]

Hmm, my instinct is to say no... With the caveat that I've never participated in a remix challenge and for all I know no one else thinks like me, I sort of conceive of it in directly musical analogies.

1) the "add more dansudansu sparklies" remix: keep the original plot as is but up the pleasure principle, tighten the script, add more jokes and fanservice, insert sex scene if required.

2) the "turn this acoustic folk into electrohouse" remix: change the genre. Keep the characterisation development arc and/or romance intact but instead of realism, write it as hardboiled detective fiction. Or take present-day story and set it in the Heian.

3) the "strip it down to the bassline and chorus" and/or "punk cover" remix: take a long and intricate story and retell it in as few words as possible.

4) the "loop this synth riff for nine minutes" remix: take a short story and run with the possibilities raised, expand to limits of plot.

5) the "camp eurohouse DJ cover" remix: slash it.

6) the "sample a few bars, make unrelated track" remix: rejig the story completely keeping only one key event the same, tell it from the eyes of a narrator in the opposite camp, etc.

...and so forth. XD;

[canis-m.livejournal.com]

#5 is what I would do with "Honour" haha

I've always thought this would be fun--made an abortive comm for the purpose once, come to that, before realizing I totally lack the organizational fu to make it happen in a way that would allow everybody to be in a mutually agreeable relationship with mixer/mixee.

[smurfmatic.livejournal.com]

In case you do reinstall WinXP, ask me for a CD where I collected most Windows patches dating back to and including SP2...

[petronia.livejournal.com]

! I might want to get that from you this week. T_T

[smurfmatic.livejournal.com]

k, make a proposal.

[petronia.livejournal.com]

Thursday, 7PM? Where will you be? I won't bother you to move, unless the answer is "very far from downtown". XD

[smurfmatic.livejournal.com]

St-Viateur/St-Laurent is my day address. XD But I typically/invariably walk down, take the 55, all the way to my usual haunts. Call/mail, I'm not sure if I can make it for 7.

[tongari.livejournal.com]

YOU ARE THE WEAKEST LINK IN THE IMPERIAL KITCHEN, GOODBYE.

YOU UNDERSTAND. (actually I've only watched bits and pieces, here and there, but that single line really sums up what I have gained from the experience so far. ;;)

Host Club: Nekozawa is a lot cuter in the manga~~~♥ Admittedly though in general the anime transmits the appeal of the characters a lot better than the manga. But seriously there is at least one panel in the Alice chapter of the manga that no amount of brilliant animation can match xD

[petronia.livejournal.com]

Haha if it weren't for that aspect of it I doubt I would've watched the entire thing. The other people in this house are constantly watching historical dramas and my normal exposure is five minutes here and there as I wander in and out of the room. XD

I wish there were more Nekozawa! He could be, like, bbs friends with Sunako in my diaryverse. XD

[cis.livejournal.com]

oh, man, i can not believe I didn't make that connection. He's stamping on the disco ball, the disco ball, the disco ball! my nsync fan card might have to be revoked. :(

I'm generally pro the whole we-invented-the-remix thing, though I can't really connect it in my head to actual dance remixes, it's more like... Tori Amos covers, or maybe those r'n'b remixes which basically consist of a new verse saying "yep, that's hot". I think the urge to be Aphex Twin would be a little too strong. XD (thinking of remixes, that amelie one at allsexistape! oh, luciano, why won't you be my girlfriend, i'll treat you good)

[petronia.livejournal.com]

I think my problem is that I want them to be dance remixes (whatever that means in this context) and they're not. XD

OMG yes the Amélie remix, I'd wanted to hear it forever since spotting it @ discogs! As serendipity goes I recently discovered that part of the tune sounds v. much like a theme from Prokofiev's Second Piano Concerto.

[yoshitsune.livejournal.com]

Also, raise your hand if you suspect Koyasu Takehito's kids are exactly like Haruhi in real life.

*raises hand*

[petronia.livejournal.com]

I was like, "So your dad... this explains so much about you."

[youkofujima.livejournal.com]

I watched bits and pieces of Jewel in the Palace, and I do have to say that I agree with you that man, sometimes Janggeum lets people really kick her about when she is very obviously smart enough to also get back at them.

(I can't remember...oh yeah, she did use some scheming to get at the villains at one point with "I have the letter?")

[petronia.livejournal.com]

Yeah, she was always more on the ball than Lady Han at least. ^^;; Someone supposedly that intelligent has to know how to scheme a little, or I cry foul.

[worldserpent.livejournal.com]

Oh dear, please don't tell me that your parents are getting sucked into Korean drama. If they like historicals, one the might like is Emperor of the Sea (the hanja read sea + god). Another one which is historical but more manwha or wuxia like is Damo.