elwinfortuna | Entries tagged with 2023

Time passes so much!

Anyway, quick update on me: I was knocked flat at the end of November by a really rough chest infection that left me useless for about three weeks, and I'm still not 100%. Apparently it was going around -- so many of my friends had this exact same thing at some point in the last couple of months.

Holidays have been quiet and nice, with an undercurrent of stress because, due to aforementioned chest infection, I didn't get my assignment in for uni before the holidays. I got an extension, but that means I have to do all the work now. :(

So, I have watched a few things and I'm going to give brief non-spoilery reviews of them!

Doctor Who: Enjoyed the specials, love Ncuti Gatwa as the Doctor, very excited to see more of him. Finally the Doctor gets to be as fabulously queer on the outside as they have always been on the inside! Meh on Ruby Sunday at the minute but maybe she'll grow on me. Love her mum and grandma though.

Heaven Official's Blessing Season 2: OH MY GOD it's SO good! I love it I love it I love it, I want it to never end. I know some people are worried about the pacing, and the fact that if they keep going this slowly through the book, it's going to take like 8-10 seasons to get through it all, but frankly I feel the donghua team are here to adapt TGCF accurately and commit gay crimes, and there's plenty more of both! The English dub is vastly improved this season too; the writing is MUCH better.

Violent Night: John and I watched this movie the other night, and really enjoyed it! It was a little, um, spicy on the gore at times but the storyline was fun, the dialogue was excellent, and the character of Santa Claus really captured me. His backstory is revealed just enough to be tantalising, honestly! I want more about him!

Happy holidays and New Year to everyone, I hope you're all having a great time! I'm planning to participate in

snowflake_challenge again next year, looking forward to seeing all of your posts for it as well.

Edit: I'm also planning to restart #fannish50 in the new year, maybe that will get me posting again. I've been so social-media-avoidant since I quit Twitter in August.

Current Mood: awake

I'm

elwinfortuna.

I'm so excited that you'll be creating something for me; I can't wait to see what you come up with and enjoy it! Thank you so much, I hope you enjoy the experience too and are happy with what you make.

Of course my prompts are optional and just there to serve as a jumping-off point for you. Take what you make in whatever direction seems best or come up with something I didn't prompt at all, I'll love it!

Treats are very welcome (and enabled on AO3), including art treats and past prompts from previous exchanges.

( General Likes )

( Art preferences )

( Shipping and smut preferences )

( DNWs )

( Prompts for the fandoms I've requested: )

I'm

elwinfortuna.

I'm so excited that you'll be creating something for me! I can't wait to see what you come up with.

Prompts are optional; if you get another idea, just run with it! The most important thing is that you have fun and love what you write/draw, I'm sure I will love it too.

Treats of all kinds are very welcome, including prompts I’ve given for previous years.

( General Likes )

( Art preferences )

( Shipping and smut preferences )

( DNWs )

Onward to the fandoms!

( Word of Honor RPF )

( Word of Honor )

( Tian Guan Ci Fu/Heaven Official's Blessing )

( The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-earth )

( Once Upon a Time in Lingjian Mountain )

( Cook Up A Storm )

( The Princess Diaries )

( Love Between Fairy and Devil )

( Rogue One: A Star Wars Story )

Challenge #4: In your own space, add something to your fandom’s canon.

I'm going to take inspiration on how to answer this one from

dancing_serpent and link you to some Tolkien fics I've written over the years where I've filled in the blanks, answered nagging questions, or resolved plot holes. All are gen and quite short.

Fëanor didn't burn the ships! It's not his fault! in Loss at Losgar.

Idril is known as Celebrindal (silver foot), and comes by the name in a somewhat more literal sense in Silverfoot.

Finarfin returns to Tirion all alone in darkness and finds only Empty Streets.

As young people in Valinor, Finrod and Galadriel engage in some wild speculation about what mortals might be like in Another Race (From Outer Space).

Éowyn becomes a healer, but it's not a random decision; her heart is changed by the example of Ioreth in Then the heart of Éowyn changed...

Current Mood: awake

Challenge #3: In your own space, Scream Into the Void. Get it all out.

I've been in fandom for a very long time -- over half my life, and I've seen fandom (by which I mostly mean fanworks-style fandom) go from a sort of niche hobby to being more or less mainstream. And while that's good in some ways, it's also made things very difficult in others. Fanfiction, in some places and in some ways, feels more like being a "content producer" like some hideous Instagram influencer or Youtuber than it feels like just writing whatever randomness you think is fun or enjoyable today. There seems to be a lot of pressure to focus on stats, feedback, how well you're "performing," comparing yourself to others, etc, etc.

I hate all of this. Comparing stats is a game best not played, and dwelling too much on stats is a surefire route to depression no matter what they are. My own favourite stories aren't my most popular ones, they're the ones that I reread after some time and think, "yeah, I did good with that one!" As someone who writes all kinds of different stories, there are times I value getting just a couple of kudos on a femslash rarepair more than I value getting tons of kudos on a very popular m/m ship.

I want to make people happy (for values of "happy" that can sometimes mean crying buckets) with what I write, and the numbers on that don't really matter. Just as long as I make someone happy, just one person is enough. So my view on stats is: I get my kudos email and it makes me happy. I get a comment and it makes me happy (well, assuming it's a nice comment). I check my stats every now and again, usually when it comes up in memes.

I view fanfic as playtime, as an opportunity to explore and mess around and experiment. I have very few headcanons, ships, or perspectives that I see as set in stone, and I'm always pushing at my own boundaries in terms of what I'll both read and write. Sometimes I find out I don't particularly want to write certain kinds of fic, but I'm always glad I tried. I've written experiences from my own life in a fictionalised format, things I would love to try but are impossible, things I wouldn't ever do, and things I find morally repugnant in real life.

I strongly feel there should be very few limits on what a person can write about. I wouldn't necessarily want to read certain things, but I'll defend to the death a person's right to write them. Ultimately what matters is, is it well-written? What a person writes about in fiction is not reflective of their real-world moral viewpoint, and honestly one of the worst ideas floating around fandom today is a belief by some people (usually very young people) that it is.

Fictional people should not be treated like real people, and real people should not be treated like fictional people. One of the biggest problems fandom has right now is this tendency to attack real people, real authors or artists, because they've created something that "harms" a fictional person. Antis* dismiss the pain that they are causing to real human beings in favour of getting upset about the "pain" a fictional character might be in, and that is absolutely the wrong way around.

Fictional characters are fictional; ultimately they don't matter, they are toys, dolls. Fictional characters are there to be played with. I cannot fathom valuing them over a real person, cannot imagine causing harm to a person because of what they created, no matter how distasteful I might find it.

*Antis: people who are opposed to others writing certain kinds of stories or creating certain kinds of art, usually involving dark topics such as rape, incest, or underage sex. Antis attack and harass creators, and have driven some people to self-harm or suicide.

Current Mood: thoughtful

Challenge #2: In your own space, write a promo, manifesto or primer for your fave character, ship or fandom.

Today I want to talk about the second best book that I have ever read, Tian Guan Ci Fu or Heaven Official's Blessing by Mo Xiang Tong Xiu (MXTX). I wasn't expecting to ever find something that even got close to measuring up to where Lord of the Rings sits in my heart, but TGCF has so much of what I'm always looking for: a truly good-hearted hero who really struggles to remain good in the face of desperate obstacles, undying loyalty, delightful humour, heart-wrenching scenes that invoke tears, catastrophe and eucatastrophe, wrestling with deep questions about power and the nature of true strength, and above all, a love for humanity. The canon queer love story is the utterly wonderful and delightful cherry on top.

It is currently being released in English in an eight-volume series (this book is LONG), and books 1-5 are out in paperback, published by Seven Seas. I read it all as a free translation before it was published, and if you like, I can send you a copy, though I do recommend you buy the translation officially, as it not only has better cleaned-up text but has lovely illustrations and guides at the back.

There is also a manhua (manga or comic) adaptation, and a donghua (animated) adaptation. I highly recommend and love the donghua, which is available with subtitles on Netflix (eta: in the UK, not sure about elsewhere) and also has a really nice English dub available on Funimation. The manhua is by Bilibili Comics, and has some truly gorgeous art which is very fanservice-y. There may be, at some future point, a live-action adaptation as well: it has been filmed and stars Zhai Xiaowen as Xie Lian and Zhang Linghe as Hua Cheng, and now we wait for Chinese censorship to see how badly it gets butchered.

Our hero and viewpoint character is Xie Lian, Crown Prince of Xianle, who ascended to godhood at the age of just seventeen after two marvellous achievements: catching a child who fell from the high wall during a parade, and defeating a demon who was blocking a bridge. But he doesn't stay in heaven, and after falling, ascends again, then falls again, losing his brilliant reputation, and becoming known as the Trash God, or the God of Misfortune. 800 years go by, and Xie Lian ascends once more, this time to general mockery and being told he's caused damage and incurred debt.

To pay his debt, he is sent to Mount Yujun to solve a problem for the gods: a Ghost Groom is stealing brides. In order to find out what's going on, he dresses up as a bride himself, and is met by a mysterious man in red, who guides him through the woodland and breaks a dangerous spell, but who dissolves into silver butterflies when he tries to find out who he is. Unbeknownst to him, this mysterious man has been looking for him for a long, long time....

Our second lead is Hua Cheng, a Ghost King, one of the Four Great Calamities, ruler of Ghost City, with a fearsome reputation. He defeated 33 gods, some of them in combat, some in debate, and burned all their temples down in one night. He is also known as Crimson Rain Sought Flower, for the story of how he held an umbrella to protect a white flower underneath his trademark blood rain. He wields the terrifying saber E-ming, a magical weapon forged using one of his own eyes, and, in counter to Xie Lian's bad luck, has extremely good luck himself.

The story of how they find each other, fall in love, and uncover the mystery of deep corruption at the heart of the Heavenly City is truly an 800-year slow burn that pays off in spades. The book consists of five "parts" -- each telling a different aspect of the story. Parts 1, 3, & 5 are "present day," parts 2 & 4 are flashbacks. Part 4 absolutely destroyed me, I sobbed my heart out while I was reading it.

Content warnings: this book contains horror imagery, gory scenes, extreme physical and emotional trauma, scenes involving or discussing suicide, homicide, torture, genocide, cannibalism, gaslighting, and self-harm.

(I am not very keen on any of these things, but I absolutely believe the journey is worth it. I promise a happy ending, though the journey is rough at times.)