Lokifan

Speaking of favourite Christmas music - I’ve put some faves below the cut, and I’d be curious about yours! My housemate K loves Christmas pop like Mariah Carey and Wham! But I tend to go for the earnest and slightly weird, or the comedy stuff.

( Vienna Teng, Tim Minchin, and musicals )

The five questions meme! If you would like questions, say "Jacobins!"

I've got some great questions from sabethea and oursin ( under the cut )

The last twenty-four hours in South Korea have been wild and terrible, but inspiring. I think a lot of the details are still-to-be-confirmed, but in case you missed it:

( the people stopped a coup )

I saw Hadestown at the weekend - even better than the last time! I saw it in 2018 and was like ‘hmm, I see why people like it but it didn’t set my world on fire’. This time I enjoyed it way more, though I find its politics good but depressing.

( details under cut )

princessofgeeks recently posted in bewilderment that Rings of Power doesn’t use almost any of Tolkein’s story, even the things they have the rights to. I must admit I don’t know anything about it - I’ve read very little Tolkein - but it reminded me of my enormous ????? around the Dirk Gently TV programme from a couple of years ago.

I just really don’t get why they even used the name? The book and TV programme are completely different. Only one character, Dirk himself, even has the same name, and he’s nothing like his book incarnation - he’s now a young, posh, handsome Englishman-in-America with superpowers. Nothing like the book Dirk, who I admit I remember vaguely but indelibly - he’s vague, a bit shambling, generally in a crumpled hat, and arguably psychic but in a 'does fortune telling' way not a 'weird government agency backstory' way. I’ve wondered if Derk from Dark Lord of Derkholm has some of Dirk in his DNA, actually.

None of the other book characters are there; at first I was expecting Todd, the ordinary guy caught up in Dirk’s whirlwind, to be a Richard analogue, but no.

The plot doesn’t have the slightest resemblance to the book; the concept of a ‘holistic detective agency’ is all that links them, and some time-travel. They’re definitely both weird, but it’s a totally different kind of weirdness. The amount of blood and death and torture! I was shocked. Not from the violence in and of itself but because it’s worlds away from the ambling whimsy of the book. I mean, a central mystery of the book is how a sofa jammed halfway up some stairs got there, and how it can be got out, when both seem physically impossible. Then there’s somehow a horse in a bathroom. In the TV show the mysteries are like ‘who tortured these people to death?’

I did end up watching the first season and some of the second; it’s not bad! But I’m still baffled by why it has that name attached. Like, I don’t think Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency has that much name recognition in the US (it was made by BBC America) so why bother trying to get that fanbase? You could’ve edited the stuff that’s copyrighted out, it wouldn’t take much. I dunno, I’m sure whoever wrote/made it was a fan of the book and Douglas Adams, but it’s just so different that I feel like other people like me, who saw the name and did start watching out of name recognition, were probably also like “oh my god NO was not prepared!” I don’t think I would’ve kept watching that first episode if I wasn’t watching with C. I love horror and I enjoy a lot of stuff with that level of violence but Dirk Gently meant I was expecting something totally different. I did keep watching (partly out of morbid curiosity re: would anything from the book appear) so I guess they got me??? But idk. The basic premise, the characters, and most especially the tone are all gone so what’s the point?

Would love to hear any of your theories, I’m genuinely baffled!

TL;DR: so there’s this HP fandom person, MelusinaHP, who I was friends with for years. She’s a militant TERF now. I wrote her birthday fic or fic to her prompts way back in the day. Should I delete her name off the Author’s Notes on AO3 given how comprehensively over our friendship is, and given she might still be a bit of a presence in HP fandom?

( slightly longer version under the cut )

Here's the link to the Stonewall guidance - there's different guidance depending on how much time you have.

I just got round to it like an hour ago so I thought I'd link just in case. I'm a tutor at an international FE college, so aside from all the general points, I pointed out that in my case, requiring me to tell parents of even just our under-18s meant requiring me to tell not only parents who could abuse them and we'd have no way of doing anything, but often government sponsors from countries where being trans is illegal.

I mean, I'd obviously just flagrantly ignore the guidance but they don't know that.

The plagiarism saga rolls on but I don’t have the energy! So an end-of-year meme. Every year I read other people’s and vaguely mean to do it myself and don’t. But this is the year!

( cut for questions )

1. Classically, I reached the end of the second week of term and got a nasty cold. I managed the first three days but was off today and will probably be off tomorrow; shame, when I’m paid hourly, but ugh I can’t. Have been comfort-reading A Tale of Time City by Diana Wynne Jones and playing some more Persona 5; we’ve all made friends with Futaba, so I’d guess I’m a bit more than halfway through? Overall the game’s cute but doesn’t massively compel me, so it’s just what I play when I want to do something low-brain.

2. Due to cold-induced fuzzy brain, I haven’t started Mary Beard’s new book Emperor of Rome, but I’m looking forward to it. I went to an interview with her at the Barbican the other week; she was interviewed by David Olusoga, and it was v interesting. It was the week of “how often do men think about the Roman Empire”, and she was asked about it; her answer for why that happens (with apologies to the men in her audience, to whom this didn't apply) was that it's a way of thinking about macho conquest in a distanced way.

3. Yaaaay October! Our spooky decorations are up in the living room. This month an American friend who I haven't seen since 2019 is coming back to London, and will staying with me & my BFF K for at least a week. And then it's London Comic-Con, and an annual Hallowe'en trip with friends. This year we're going to Whitby, for max Goth vibes.