minavox

...and a wizard who never does a spell when it really counts and a lot of guys with pointy ears - I've seen it. Am still reeling, to be honest. Had immense fun. Need to see it again to decide if it's a good movie. :) Not a review, just some bullet points (hopefully I don't need to warn for spoilers? Because honestly, everyone this side of fandom surely knows at least the gist of the story? Thanks, thought so.) - and *spoilers*:


* The Lake Town set is utterly beautiful. Climbing over the roofs of the houses, with the dragon roaring above - brilliant, absolutely brilliant.
Of course, then the dragon is shot and the movie is just about 15 minutes old. I hope Tolkien in later years realised what a shitty story arch he built with that.

* "Thank you, you're saving us!" say the hungry people from Lake Town. And what do the Elves bring? Swiss chard. Of all the nourishing vegetables around they bring swiss chard. I hope they brought some recipes, too.

* I never understood the appeal of chainmail with a fetching v-neck just across the whole chest. I'm sure in hindsight some dwarves would agree.

* What, oh what is it with all the ridiculous riding animals for distinctive leaders? I mean: a giant moose? A pig? Racing goats with armour???

* So Thranduil sets up all the Legolas/Aragorn slash. It's canon now!

* Did I ever complain about bringing Legolas into the story from nowhere? And making Thranduil like the embodiment of his character in The Last Elf Standing? Hahaha. Bring it on, Peter, bring it on. It looks like fanfic, it is fanfic, storywise, and I love fanfic. Now I suggest taking on "Discover your true name - what the Elf and the Ranger did Up North" for your next movie project. Make haste, they're not getting any younger!

There are words I only ever encountered in fanfic. Words like muchneglected, as in: Merlin fumbled with the fastenings of his breeches to pay some attention to his own muchneglected cock.

But now, as the grandparents have arrived on the scene and the kids have attached themselves like leeches, there actually is time to start the book on The Private Lives of the Pre-Raphaelites - and just some pages in I find this praise of Dante Gabriel Rossetti's apparently beautiful looks:

His thick, beautiful, and closely curled masses of rich brown muchneglected hair fell about an ample brow, and almost to the wearer's shoulders. (And so fort, covering nearly every part of the male physique thinkable.)
Sounds like LOTRips, but was actually written 1894 by someone called F.G.Stephens.

Now I just wait for muchneeded to crop up. Hopefully exactly like in muchneeded friction. You never know with these painters... :)

In short: I do not approve. At all.

Slightly longer (and surely not spoilery for anyone who even remotely knows about Merlin...):
I really, really hate it.

I'm fairly lax on warnings, but if there's one thing I want to know before I start reading and which makes me not click on the fic in question at all costs, it is major character death. Remember Beautiful World? I loved the story when I started it in... well, a long time ago. Sure, the summary read Draco is afraid of living and Harry is afraid of dying, but sometimes the choice isn't offered. Draco's got to learn what it is to really live, while showing Harry how beautiful the world really is when you're not too scared to see it. - but how was I supposed to know that this wasn't some flowery prose? In the end, Harry was dead and I devastated. And I don't even like Harry that much. But how should the Draco I learned to love in that story live his life from then on with grief overshadowing everything? (On a sidenote: I always liked how serious J.K. Rowling took the topic of death as the one thing where magic is essentially powerless.)

This story took a long time to unlearn, until the sting was just a cognitive memory and no real pain. Probably went through a classical cycle of grief. I'd have appreciated if I had not to. I'd have gladly skipped the story - really, I'm not into fanfic to learn about me and my reaction to grief, thank you very much.

Reading fanfiction has definitely broadened the range of things I find acceptable and even fun when well written (mpreg? bdsm? watersports?). Other things do nothing for me but are no problem if I stumble across them by chance (incest, torture or extreme humiliation come to mind). But character death is the one thing I cannot stomach. Don't know exactly why. Perhaps because it's nearly impossible to un-know? Because it looms like a spectre from then on over the character, when well executed? I used to love Snape/Sirius - I don't any longer. Too much doom and gloom, no matter how much frolicking. There's a Draco/Neville story belonging to an arch I totally love - but lovely as this story is, it gets as close to character death as you could possibly go without really killing someone off. Permanently. The author somewhere said, she won't write in this universe anymore, but if she did, she could not envision a happily ever after for her protagonists or even something simple like life beyond their twenties. I have to admit, this is the one case where I'm deliriously happy that a favourite author is done with fic in one of my fandoms. Because if it existed of course I wouldn't be able to resist the lure. And then probably couldn't read any of the previous stories for ages.

Which brings me back to Merlin. Because of course I will watch 5.13 (I haven't yet). And I'll probably cry my eyes out. The crucial question is: what will happen afterwards? Will I still be able to see the Arthur who is joyful, issue-laden but very much alive and happily taking on everything life dishes out? Or will he be overshadowed by the dying king, dead before his time? (While I write this: perhaps my head-canon already veered off course since the coronation - which actually is a source of comfort in this case...) Whatever it will be: it cannot be unseen.

And yes, I did know that the Arthurian legends are not that prosperous on behalf of Arthur. But the producers lured me into their show with their promise of telling the story before the actual story - and for that to happen the main character surely would have to be at least alive, wouldn't he? The series would end before said character would be anywhere near the age where the machinations of destiny would set up something irreversible? Talk about scripts screwing viewers over...

Well, I also managed to overcome my obsession with "this is canon, fanfic has to deal with it, even if I hate it" by successful ignoring p. 603 ff of Deathly Hallows - so there is hope. :) Doesn't change the fact that I hate character death and no fandom of mine should inflict it on me without even asking!

Yesterday evening I managed to botch up a salad... How is this even possible, you may ask? Well, I forgot buying fresh coriander, didn't know if what they sell in Germany as "grenadine syrup" means the same as in the UK (home of the recipe), so I skipped this, had to use endive (yuk - someone planted some in our garden, and now it wants to be eaten), and finally I managed to morph the haloumi cheese into something resembling insulation foam. After it's hardened. In the future I'll stick to pasta. And dumplings. These I know how to handle.

Luckily, fanfiction provides comfort even in dire situations like these: Glayva really is balm for the troubled soul... (Said soul only shouldn't plan on doing useful work afterwards - how something so sweet can trash you so much is a mystery on it's own :) )