Lokifan

I’ve been watching more TV than usual lately - I usually watch almost none. Which is nice, because I’ve been able to get to stuff I’ve been meaning to watch for ages.

I watched Our Flag Means Death. I enjoyed it but didn’t love it - probably my expectations were too high. I liked Oluwande, Frenchie and Lucius best and it was a lot of fun in general. Also omg, I know Ed’s heartbroken and all but Stede’s books! Noooooooo!!!

My favourite sitcom of the last year remains, unequivocally, We Are Lady Parts, a hilarious Channel 4 programme about an East London heroine who a) wants to find a nice boy and get married and b) joins an all-female all-Muslim punk band despite her crippling stage fright. So good <3

But the most interesting programme is definitely Kevin Can Fuck Himself, which januarium turned me on to, mostly via her brilliant recruitment vid (on AO3 here):



It’s about a ‘sitcom wife’, beautiful and intelligent and lumbered with a stupid, lazy, often drunk husband who does nothing round the house and says mean things to her and always wins through, a hero who's made an artform of weaponised incompetence. And she’s sick of his shit and decides to murder him.

It’s really clever: basically Allison, the wife, is in a prestige drama and her husband’s in a sitcom, and the show changes lighting and soundtrack and adds a laugh track based on where they are. It’s not just a meta joke, imo: it reflects how Kevin, and his emotional abuse, warps the world around himself. She always gets pulled into his world, the rules based on what’s funny and leads to his eventual victory; he’ll never see things from her perspective. And the whole show is incredibly intelligent and insightful about emotional abuse, and does really nuanced characterisation and some great twists.

Under the cut is like... more meta & a bit of Patty/Allison squee than review? And should be understandable if you haven't seen it, I think.

( S1 spoilers - abuse, gender, and my OTP )

I’d give s4 a solid 7/10 but this post is just me bitching about the very last scene, lol.

( nobody’s paid the price like he has paid the price )

Still all spoilers all the time under the cut!

( the final boss and etc )

Still feeling somewhat grumpy and disappointed by the current JKR sitch, but also whatever, the text exists outside the author and I do think this is cool:

For some reason I don’t think I’ve ever posted about this theory of mine, so here goes: Harry is much, much more affected by the Sectumsempra scene and what he almost did to Draco Malfoy than he seems. Lest we forget, in the book he moves on amazingly quickly: Snape sends him to get the Prince’s potions book, Harry hides his real one and brings Ron’s, and Snape gives him detention. Harry at this point is literally covered in Draco’s blood, but he’s not thinking about that: he resists getting detention (and feels it’s unfair of Snape to give it to him!) for eviscerating a classmate, because of Quidditch. Even after that, there’s never any indication that Harry feels particularly guilty. He’s upset that the Prince has led him down this path - “as if a beloved pet had turned suddenly savage - what had [the Prince] been thinking” - but that’s not at all the same. He gets a twinge of conscience when someone brings up Draco’s injury but that’s it. It’s definitely not what we’d expect from a hero who’s just committed a very messy near-murder, even if it was unintended.

But this is not a criticism of Harry! Or indeed the book. Because I don’t think this is Harry being callous. I think it’s Harry being kind of damaged already and then almost killing a classmate in bloody fashion (with a spell that’s for enemies, and Harry would’ve said Malfoy was his enemy but he didn’t mean this.) I think this is, canonically and concretely, Harry going into complete and utter denial.

The denial reading makes sense of what is otherwise a weird lack of guilt. Like, even if you as a reader think Harry is 0% culpable for what happens and could have happened, that’s different from the experience as a person of “I did this thing and then HIS FACE AND BODY WERE SLASHED OPEN AND THERE WAS BLOOD EVERYWHERE.” Especially from a person who often feels guilty for deaths he actively tried to prevent! The Sectumsempra scene is by far the bloodiest in the books, and while Harry’s been through a lot, that’s the first time he ever sees violent injury on that level. But it doesn’t overtly affect him.

Draco disappears from his consciousness after the Sectrumsempra scene in a way that’s really weird. We don’t see Draco coming back to class. (We saw that after Buckbeak, so why not now?) We don’t see the first time he and Harry lay eyes on each other after that spell; we don’t know anything about how Draco reacts. No patented Harry-and-Malfoy glares across the House tables at meals. Literally the next time Draco appears in the text after Sectumsempra is the Tower scene, and after a book in which Harry has become “obsessed with Draco Malfoy” that is such a sharp change.

But it makes sense: ( Harry is unable to cope with what happened so he’s just ignoring it ferociously )

But all of that is significant, I think, but not THE reason why I think denial is the only reading that makes sense. Harry spends most of HBP telling anyone who’ll listen - Arthur Weasley, Lupin, Ron and Hermione, Dumbledore - that Draco Malfoy has become a Death Eater. They all dismiss him. What Harry hears in that bathroom proves that Malfoy has been threatened all year by a man Malfoy believes can kill him, and that he’s working on a project for that threatening person. GEE I WONDER WHO THAT COULD BE. And Harry doesn’t tell anyone!

WHAT?

( That really only makes sense if Harry is in deep denial )

Ginny even brings up Draco’s attempted use of Cruciatus as a reason he should be taken seriously as a threat, and that it’s acceptable for Harry to have reacted that way. Harry has spent the whole book up to this point trying to convince people that Draco’s a serious threat, while the others - Ron and Hermione especially - doubted that Voldemort would have made Malfoy a Death Eater. Now there’s explicit discussion about Draco’s use of an Unforgivable - who trained him to do that, hmm? - and whether Draco should be treated as a real threat. And yet in this conversation, Harry somehow doesn’t bring up how he heard Draco actually say that he’s trying to do something, and his life has been threatened if he doesn’t do it! They never even ask Myrtle about it!!!

DENIAL.

I just finished a massive fest fic. Under a deadline, having been given many extensions, very kindly. It’s about twice as long as my previous longest fic - it’s the longest thing I’ve written, in fact, original or fanfic. (I should really get on an original novel draft.) I got a big rush of relief when I heard back from the mod but man, I barely have any feelings. All my feelings went into the last week of getting it done.

I have little-to-no sense of whether it’s good. I hope so, though!

More discussion of it later, perhaps, once I can claim it.

Mooooving on -

So my interwebs silence for the last few months has been a lot to do with this fic, as well as the various RL things that led to me needing extensions (a hideous cold, my BFF getting married, the joy of Hallowe’en.) And Episode Ignis, a DLC for my new fandom Final Fantasy XV, came out DAYS ago and I haven’t watched any playthroughs or done anything, because I knew it would cover me in Iggy feelings and I needed to finish this Potter fic.

And I’ve been free for nearly six hours (I finished the fic all night, then collapsed and slept all day) and I still haven’t watched it. I know it’s got a second ending, where you get to live in a happy AU instead of the tragedy of canon - and loooooool I love that even the creators are writing fix-it fic. But omg. Nooooo. I’m scared.

I WILL WATCH IT IN A MINUTE. Probably.

I do really, really want to enjoy some fandom time, playing and RPing and writing and reading, without the sense of omg I should be writing that fic. I’ve not been on Tumblr since Hallowe’en. I haven’t seen the new Star Wars. I haven’t seen Thor. So going on my FFXV Tumblr at least is gonna involve being enjoyably spoiled. And I love these characters so much, I want some more time with them.

But noooooo. OMG the trailer alone, it gives me so many feelings.

( cut for the trailer and some speculation as I ramp myself up to actually do this )

Hi guys! Wow, it’s been aaaages. I’ve been working like crazy the last few weeks. It should taper off in the next few weeks, or at least the timetabling should get less crazy. (These are the moments when I wonder if I should try qualifying as a secondary school teacher after all, cos I’d get paid a lot more for my exhaustion. My tax form tells me I survived on £12.6k for nine months in London, which is TMI but I’m sharing it because that number keeps rattling around in my head. I don’t know whether it makes me what to curl up and never spend money again or be like I AM A FUCKING GOD OF BUDGETING LET’S DO THIS.)

Anyway.

I’m adding new people here on Dreamwidth, and I’m gonna try and do an intro post/getting-to-know-you meme soon. (As well as brief thoughts on LJ’s latest round of poor choices, and the new series of Doctor Who.) But for now I’m just gonna post what I got, which is a slightly edited Tumblr reblog I want to be able to find again.

The online_bookclub read Harry Potter and the Cursed Child in April and I was in the group chat for some of it. Something that came up was Delphi’s existence, and the weirdness of the idea of Voldemort and Bellatrix having a baby - and it’s a massive sticking point for people in general, I think, even those who like CC. I was thinking about that, and then my friend boundingheart posted that “if you can accept that Hagrid’s parents had him, you can accept that Voldemort and Bellatrix had Delphi.”

Now I’m actually totally down for Delphi’s existence (even if I’m firmly Team IT WAS A MAGICAL RITUAL) but I still disagree with that, because there are definitely factors that affect people not accepting Voldemort and Bellatrix conceiving a child that don’t affect Hagrid’s parents. ( It’s about more than just squick )

Thought I'd post this as well since today is shaping up to be meta day. I’ve come to “who you really are, that doesn’t matter. It’s the legend. The stories, the adventures.”

Noooooooo.

The voiceover at the end gets its own post, because I’m getting into the ~thematic significance and Doctor Who comparisons and such.

( we’re all stories in the end )

Let’s talk about Cursed Child in script vs production. Now obviously the production adds a vast amount of detail & light and shade to the script that can’t exist in the script alone. That’s theatre. But there are a few elements of that and a few outright changes that I want to document for people.

NB: I’ve seen Cursed Child four times in the last seven months, and have seen more than one actor for several key roles including Albus, Scorpius, and Harry. That said my memory is not perfect!

#1 and #2 are the actual script changes, fyi. Everything else is about implication.

( script vs production )

Will reply to comments later, sorry - I’m off to see Cursed Child for the fourth time again! With mywitch! YAYYYYY!

I’m not in Sherlock fandom but I’m sort of fandom-adjacent; I’ve read a bit of fanfic, and I have enough friends who’re in the fandom and enough awareness of fandom at large to have a (very) vague idea about it and its reactions. And I’ve caught up so I wanted to post this before the last episode airs. Now as ever you’re welcome to disagree; I’ve got dear dear RL friends who are also fans I disagree with on some stuff I’m a lot more invested in :D

Although I imagine the real disagreement will come from the shortly-forthcoming post about queerbaiting and Epic Friendship, because it will involve defending Cursed Child :P

Please to not spoil the next episode, I know nothing!

( spoilers for Sherlock series 4 so far )

Part two of my massive rambling Cursed Child post be here. This is getting more into plot, thematic stuff, and particular scenes/moments. ( spoilers abound, natch )

Sleeptime for me now :) I promise I’ll catch up on comments tomorrow!