I ain't got to drive it since she brought that thing home
I have never seen Xena: Warrior Princess (1995–2001). I became culturally aware of the show during college, but most of my information about it has actually come from Tumblr, where gifsets of it are in constant rotation for their convincingly deserved queer lady value. So I'm not sure what to do with the fact that only on my most recent re-read of Phyllis Ann Karr's Chrétien de Troyes-inspired picaresque The Follies of Sir Harald (2001), by which I mean last night, did I realize the entire second chapter is a Xena crossover with the numbers very lightly filed off.
It was not this passage:
A mounted figure waited on the far bank, as if guarding the ford. Sir Harald started on seeing that it was a beautiful woman with long dark hair and piercing, steel-gray eyes, a haughty smirk, and a breastplate in the ancient style, who sat astride a buttercream steed with mane and tail like sun shining on milk, as proud as her rider.
Or this one:
The Lady Gavrielle of Wisten was a pretty, perky, chirky, cheerful-faced young blue-eyed blonde who wore a coronet of thin gold wires interwoven with many kinds of white and blue flowers to set off the honey-russet color of her hair. While not quite of a loveliness to rouse envy in the breasts of the famous beauties of King Arthur's courts, she could at least have held her own amongst them, if only by virtue of her insouciance.
It was the scene where Sir Harald, whose knightly honor has taken a (self-inflicted) beating in the first chapter, runs into someone comprehensively worse at knight-erranting than he is:
"Sir Jokesir the Puissant," the other made answer, drawing himself up proudly. His helmet, if helmet it could be called, was an old-fashioned leather cap with protruding earpieces, covered in overlapping iron plates of which several were absent and most of the rest dented. It would have disgraced a common foot soldier, and it covered none of Sir Jokesir's almost boyish face—a face that would have been more nearly triangular if it had been better fed: his nose narrow; his chin almost pointed; his cheeks almost hollow; and his wideset brown eyes, perched between high cheekbones and spare brows, wearing beneath the braggadocio an almost melancholy cast.
and the Ted Raimi penny dropped.
Karr does note in the novel's afterword, "While, to those readers who recognize the Warrior Woman of Part the Second, I can only apologize for failing to show her in action," so I must have known there was an in-joke from the first time I finished the book. I was just not culturally equipped to get it, as opposed to the Ivanhoe and Mozart shout-outs in other chapters. In my defense, I have spent a lot more time on Tumblr since then, in addition to acquiring reasons to pay attention to Ted Raimi's face.
I think what I'm trying to say is that,![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
skygiants, Phyllis Ann Karr may literally have asked for Kay fic on Yuletide that one year.
It was not this passage:
A mounted figure waited on the far bank, as if guarding the ford. Sir Harald started on seeing that it was a beautiful woman with long dark hair and piercing, steel-gray eyes, a haughty smirk, and a breastplate in the ancient style, who sat astride a buttercream steed with mane and tail like sun shining on milk, as proud as her rider.
Or this one:
The Lady Gavrielle of Wisten was a pretty, perky, chirky, cheerful-faced young blue-eyed blonde who wore a coronet of thin gold wires interwoven with many kinds of white and blue flowers to set off the honey-russet color of her hair. While not quite of a loveliness to rouse envy in the breasts of the famous beauties of King Arthur's courts, she could at least have held her own amongst them, if only by virtue of her insouciance.
It was the scene where Sir Harald, whose knightly honor has taken a (self-inflicted) beating in the first chapter, runs into someone comprehensively worse at knight-erranting than he is:
"Sir Jokesir the Puissant," the other made answer, drawing himself up proudly. His helmet, if helmet it could be called, was an old-fashioned leather cap with protruding earpieces, covered in overlapping iron plates of which several were absent and most of the rest dented. It would have disgraced a common foot soldier, and it covered none of Sir Jokesir's almost boyish face—a face that would have been more nearly triangular if it had been better fed: his nose narrow; his chin almost pointed; his cheeks almost hollow; and his wideset brown eyes, perched between high cheekbones and spare brows, wearing beneath the braggadocio an almost melancholy cast.
and the Ted Raimi penny dropped.
Karr does note in the novel's afterword, "While, to those readers who recognize the Warrior Woman of Part the Second, I can only apologize for failing to show her in action," so I must have known there was an in-joke from the first time I finished the book. I was just not culturally equipped to get it, as opposed to the Ivanhoe and Mozart shout-outs in other chapters. In my defense, I have spent a lot more time on Tumblr since then, in addition to acquiring reasons to pay attention to Ted Raimi's face.
I think what I'm trying to say is that,
skygiants, Phyllis Ann Karr may literally have asked for Kay fic on Yuletide that one year.
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Well, that's perfectly in line with today today.
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Some days the zeitgeist has teeth.
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I have, actually! The Somerville screened a print last October as part of their Halloween programming and I saw it with a friend of mine and his brother. I couldn't tell if it would have made more sense if I'd seen the preceding two movies, but it did contain Ted Raimi. I've also been able to place him in bit parts from Darkman (1990) and his brother's Spider-Man movies. It is probably now inevitable, thanks to
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I've never actually watched Xena either, and, lol, that is very lightly filed off indeed, only just a bit scratched here and there...
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I really didn't pay attention to most TV.
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Right: now I want to read it and see if I can figure out what the musical was. (Did you like it?) [edit] (and/or did you recognize the musical?)
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Do it do it do it!
(I'm already trying to think of obscure musicals without knowing anything about the novel, but this is a mode of thought I'm terrible at. I have no idea what is actually obscure and what I just don't know.)
[edit] I can't think of Gilbert and Sullivan as obscure, otherwise I would be seriously tempted—see thread with
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I guess I know a disproportionate percentage of people for whom it's top-shelf G&S. Now I'm even more tempted. Karr's just got such a visible thing for it as a canon—if the bibliography on her now-deceased website is accurate, her first publication was a Murgatroyd coat of arms in a 1970 issue of The Savoyard. Not to mention a couple of related-looking articles. And then all the crossovers.
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I haven't read those in years!
Shea is known as Harald in some parts of the multiverse.
Karr says in the afterword that her Harald de Folgeste goes back to her college juvenilia of the 1960's. She does not mention if he was named after anyone at the time.
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I really felt you should know about this.
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https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MnMCh2aXitg
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Okay, I thought Phyllis Ann Karr had made up the part where he went around singing his own theme song, I didn't realize it was filk.
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I am honestly charmed. I only wish I'd noticed sooner.
Then again, I didn't know until tonight that she holds strong opinions about the 1952 MGM Ivanhoe.
Or that she wrote Gilbert & Sullivan IN SPAAAACE.
Although I kind of feel I should have seen that last one coming.
[edit] OH MY GOD SHE HAS WRITTEN BUT NOT YET PUBLISHED A RUDDIGORE/AUSTEN GOTHIC CROSSOVER WHY DOESN'T THAT EXIST YET I DON'T WANT TO READ IT I JUST WANT TO MAKE YOUR GIRLFRIEND REVIEW IT I CAN'T BELIEVE THE ARTHURIAN MURDER MYSTERY IS GOING TO TURN OUT TO BE THE MOST NORMAL THING PHYLLIS ANN KARR EVER WROTE.
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OH MY GOD
I TOO WANT MY GIRLFRIEND TO REVIEW THIS, IDEALLY YESTERDAY OR SO
Everything about all of these discoveries is AMAZING, and makes the very existence of Idylls of the Queen make infinitely more sense. *___*
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SHE PUT SIR RODERIC MURGATROYD IN HER MASS-MARKET DEBUT REGENCY ROMANCE.
I feel I am watching a person live their fully realized life.
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Not only that, but the only review is BY HER, HERSELF, saying "I don't remember writing half of this but I really enjoyed it rereading it 30 years later! :D" I am gobsmacked and thoroughly charmed.
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Part of me wants to read the romance novel and part of me is reluctant to do so because it might be a bit of a let-down. Not sure if curiosity will win.
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Please, if it does, write the results up. I hope they don't disappoint.
(Phyllis Ann Karr seems to go for the id unerringly. Her Kay in The Idylls of the Queen is a cranky competent emotional tire fire, and I unsurprisingly love him.)
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It is absolutely impossible for me not to wonder now if there are in-jokes I'm still missing in The Idylls of the Queen.
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Interesting factoid: I still follow Lucy Lawless, mostly on Twitter, and she's spent a good part of the last decade being an actual real-life hero with Greenpeace, doing stuff like getting in the way of whaling boats and trying to stop ocean pollution dumping.
And sadly I lost the bookmark, but somewhere out on the web is a wonderful paean written to Lawless/Xena by a woman who had been a model and got a bit part on the series. Basically it changed her life by showing her a wholly different paradigm of what women could be. The author went on to quit modeling, throw off the abusive guys who'd been controlling her life, and go be the woman she wanted to be. Inspiring as all get-out.
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Do you have episode recommendations? I am now vaguely curious, but my general impression of the series, beyond the queer gifsets, is serious mytho-historical crack.
Basically it changed her life by showing her a wholly different paradigm of what women could be. The author went on to quit modeling, throw off the abusive guys who'd been controlling her life, and go be the woman she wanted to be.
That's excellent. For all the people who (still, somehow) say that fantasy changes nothing about the world.
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I do not. There are no specific episodes that stand out, imo. They're all kind of silly fun and wildly ahistorical. It's complete fantasy and you'll likely hurt your brain if you think of it as having any relationship to actual history.
It's like how Adam West Batman had "crime" that wasn't really anything like actual crime, if you get my drift.
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That's not chopped liver. (I've seen gifsets about Callisto.)
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I can totally believe that. I CLUNG to Xena all through the nineties. Especially the Callisto storyline about revenge and emptiness, that was pretty damn advanced for a 'silly' crack warrior babe show!
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I know I am responding to this absurdly late, but I missed your original post about watching seaQuest DSV, since I was still in the crater of life implosion in 2015. I love the first season of that show an absurd amount, the second season rather less. There is no third season, and not just because they changed the name. I've written fic for it, mostly centered on the teen hacker, who is my One True Character in the fandom. I also have a soft spot for the great bromance/ship between Tim O'Neill and Miguel Ortiz (one thing I did like in season two, Migs grew his hair out). My DVDs are in storage in California, and I drifted out of active fannishness for various reasons, but that love will always be there. More relevantly, though, I thought there was so much potential in the rather incoherent worldbuilding and clunky backstory and storylines. It's really a fan's goldmine, but it's never been a big online fandom, which is a shame. I still have WsIP for it, including a few crossovers with other fandoms of the type I call "future in retro." My backbrain likes to puzzle through how the different worldbuilding of things like Dark Angel and sQ might hang together.
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I don't care! I like when people comment. Years after the fact is still cool.
More relevantly, though, I thought there was so much potential in the rather incoherent worldbuilding and clunky backstory and storylines.
Agreed. I like the first-season cast: I like them as people, I like their relationships, and I would have liked to see them continue to develop as an ensemble rather than get scrambled by the network in an even worse case of executive meddling than Babylon 5. (I never saw any of the other seasons. I'm glad to hear there are points in the favor of Season 2, though.) I wish they had figured out even a half-unified theory for their worldbuilding, though. The telepathy thing will bug me forever.
It's really a fan's goldmine, but it's never been a big online fandom, which is a shame.
I poked at the fandom in 2015: it looked a lot like the remains of an early internet fandom, where half of it had been 'zines at the time and most of the original host sites had died. Much of what I could find on AO3 was people reposting their old stories for safekeeping. (It was fascinating to try to figure out what the conventions of the fandom had been.) Is any of your fic available to read? [edit] Never mind, it looks as though your fic is on AO3. I hope you do not mind if I read it.
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That's my general attitude, as well. If I can still remember the topic to which a person is responding, I will happily engage. If not, I'm a fiction writer, I'll make something up!
Agreed. I like the first-season cast: I like them as people, I like their relationships, and I would have liked to see them continue to develop as an ensemble rather than get scrambled by the network in an even worse case of executive meddling than Babylon 5. (I never saw any of the other seasons. I'm glad to hear there are points in the favor of Season 2, though.) I wish they had figured out even a half-unified theory for their worldbuilding, though. The telepathy thing will bug me forever.
I am tempted to urge you to see Season 2 simply because it mucks with the telepathy question even more, and I am just the sort of terrible person who wants other people to be as boggled--and intrigued, but in a rather harassed way--as I am by things like that. Season 2 lost both of season 1's female characters, and replaced them with...vastly inferior female characters, we'll just leave it at that. It also lost Ben Krieg, for whom I probably have an unjustifiable attachment, and Security Chief William Shen, for whom my attachment is perfectly justified. The worst offense, though, to my mind, was the damage wrought to the original characters in the name of both contrasting them better with the new characters, and warping the shape of the show around them, then mutilating them to try to make them fit. I don't recall if the DVDs preserved the segments that were at the end of each season 1 episode, from the then-head of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, talking about the real life marine science upon which some aspect of that episode's storyline was based. That's what the first season was, a very earnest early-90's speculative ecogeek family adventure series with a firm tie-in to real world "save our planet" sensibilities. The second season jettisoned all of that, including the Woods Hole segments, and revamped as a "cooler," "edgier," "sexier" show with a more model-perfect young cast in order to chase after that elusive 18-30 male demographic. It pissed Roy Scheider off, and right from the get-go he was looking to get out of his contract for another season. He succeeded; I don't know if they did. If they did, it was short-lived, because he may have been neither young nor model-perfect, but he was still the linchpin of that show, and it fell apart without him. It didn't help that they replaced him with Michael Ironside. It never helps to replace anybody with Michael Ironside, except maybe Wings Hauser.
I poked at the fandom in 2015: it looked a lot like the remains of an early internet fandom, where half of it had been 'zines at the time and most of the original host sites had died. Much of what I could find on AO3 was people reposting their old stories for safekeeping. (It was fascinating to try to figure out what the conventions of the fandom had been.)
A lot of what there was was actually on lists, so even earlier than personal host sites. I helped some people transition to personal sites, even did a couple of HTML 101 how-tos because I'd already been in fandom for a long time and knew how things could disappear. Then, when everything moved to LJ, I created communities and encouraged people to repost their stuff and ran challenges and exchanges, but I just ran out of time, and other fandoms were catching my primary interest, and I really felt like it was just me doing so much of the admin work, which is a hard thing. So I put up notices when AO3 was live, and pointed at it for people to create their profiles and upload, but I wasn't going to hand-hold at that point. Interestingly, probably the biggest slash pairing was O'Neill/Lucas, for reasons I could never quite figure out, because I thought O'Neill/Ortiz was much more obvious, and while I ship Lucas with everyone, because OTC, O'Neill is not the first person I would have picked. If you are interested, however, I believe I still have saved somewhere a rather good series of long gen stories--I believe there were two--that send O'Neill and Lucas off to work with a whole group of OCs for some special mission or other. I say rather good, though it's been many, many years since I read it and I do remember a few annoying tics, but it was at least good enough I remember reading it several times, and I bothered to save it before it was possible to just download from AO3. I think I remember that the author picked and chose from the worldbuilding to make something coherent. Anyway, I could look for it and send it to you, if you liked.
Is any of your fic available to read? [edit] Never mind, it looks as though your fic is on AO3. I hope you do not mind if I read it.
I don't mind, though I apologize now, because it is some of my earliest slash, and it definitely shows. I think I got all of it up. I was combing through my early LJ and old personal website to find my stories to upload to AO3, and I think I might still have a few Smallville pieces missing, and maybe a couple of drabbles from my intensive drabble queen period, but I think I got all the sQ.
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I read about the changes between seasons when I was watching Season 1, including the younger-hotter cast remix and the genre shifts, although I didn't look too closely into the details; I was very skeptical about trying the later seasons for all of these reasons and then the show dropped off Netflix, which made the decision for me. I have remarkably few feelings about Crocker, but I really objected to losing Westphalen, Hitchcock, and Krieg. (I liked them for themselves and they were all involved in canon relationships I really enjoyed seeing—cranky middle-aged romance and exes who shouldn't get back together. So much better than will-they-won't-they beautiful people.) I got no explanation for Shan.
I don't recall if the DVDs preserved the segments that were at the end of each season 1 episode, from the then-head of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, talking about the real life marine science upon which some aspect of that episode's storyline was based.
I don't know—I was watching it on Netflix, which definitely did not include interstitial oceanography. That sounds charming, though.
A lot of what there was was actually on lists, so even earlier than personal host sites.
And even less likely to survive link rot! I appreciate you having done the maintenance that you did, then, because it sounds as though otherwise I wouldn't have been able to find even the surviving fic that I did.
Interestingly, probably the biggest slash pairing was O'Neill/Lucas, for reasons I could never quite figure out, because I thought O'Neill/Ortiz was much more obvious, and while I ship Lucas with everyone, because OTC, O'Neill is not the first person I would have picked.
Yeah, I'm sorry, O'Neill is the character I imprinted on, but I still find that actively confusing.
If you are interested, however, I believe I still have saved somewhere a rather good series of long gen stories--I believe there were two--that send O'Neill and Lucas off to work with a whole group of OCs for some special mission or other.
Sure; I would enjoy that. Thank you.
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Crocker was a character they really dropped the ball on; he was clearly intended to be the old man sea, keeper and dispenser of the folklore. If they'd done him right, he'd have been a great counterpoint to the sfnal sensibility of the rest of the worldbuilding and characters, a nod to that in the sea which science will always glance off of. I think the other characters were better-realized, and it was definitely part of their appeal that they were not character types, and did not have relationship dynamics, that were so bog-standard. I will say, I believe an attempt was made to at least keep the young characters--or at least Shan and Hitchcock--but filming was also moved from the West Coast to Florida. So, it was a question of who was willing to make that move, and who could make that move, since some people were doing other shows too. I know Dustin Nguyen (Shan) was doing movies around the Pacific Rim, for example.
I don't know—I was watching it on Netflix, which definitely did not include interstitial oceanography. That sounds charming, though.
When it aired, it was a huge part of the appeal to my neo-hippie eco-warrior might-become-a-marine-biologist heart. When I watched my recordings again, years and years later, those bits were equally delightful and depressing, because the country as a whole had become a lot more cynical about making any effort toward conservation.
And even less likely to survive link rot! I appreciate you having done the maintenance that you did, then, because it sounds as though otherwise I wouldn't have been able to find even the surviving fic that I did.
It makes me sad how much fic has vanished, and not just in sQ. My swiss cheese memory has held onto some very odd things, including some ancient fic I read nearly thirty years ago, now. I wish I'd been more proactive about encouraging some people to cross-post their work, though; there were some stories I really enjoyed, and I neither copied them for my own personal enjoyment offline nor talked to the authors about getting engaged with the communities springing up on new platforms. Oh, but I meant to say that the seadeck community on LJ still exists, even if it's not used, and the fanfic posted to it is still on there if you're interested.
Yeah, I'm sorry, O'Neill is the character I imprinted on, but I still find that actively confusing.
Wait, I recall a friend explaining to me that there was a theory they would bond because they were both geeks? And it was assumed O'Neill's job would also make him good at computers, for some reason. Oh, and the Darwin link, though several characters had relationships with Darwin; I mean, he was a member of the crew. Anyway, you'd think fandom would understand there are different types of geeks, and that's not necessarily an indicator of mutual interests, but apparently not. Also, most of the fic I ran across was conflict-free, spark-free, and saccharine sweet, which appeared to be the point of the pairing, but is rooted in a fundamental misunderstanding of both characters.
I have found that I did save the two stories I mentioned, but I don't know that I have a current email address for you. I'm ranalore at gmail dot com, if you'd rather not tell me here. Just drop me a line, and I'll reply with the files. They're Temporary Duty 1 and 2.