Falling Stars

The last Noman post, I promise! (Until next year, anyway.)

Just for the record, this is the mouseover text for the Noman icon (apparently a quote by the monk Bede):

The present life of man, O king, seems to me like to the swift flight of a sparrow through the room wherein you sit at supper in winter, with your commanders and ministers, and a good fire in the midst, whilst the storms of rain and snow prevail abroad; the sparrow, I say, flying in at one door, and immediately out at another, whilst he is within, is safe from the wintry storm; but after a short space of fair weather, he immediately vanishes out of your sight, into the dark winter from which he had emerged.

When bestowing some of your Quirks to your Noman, having Ambition: Nemesis gives you a unique option:

"You authored me. But the Bazaar made me."

"Buy me a knife. Please."

The result:

Just a scratch

An annex of the Bazaar extends past the cathedral to the rusting shadows of Beazley's Gate. The shops that huddle in its arches are meaner and quieter than the bustle of the Bazaar proper, and you're a good way from any spires. Presumably that's why the noman has chosen this spot – but it remains close-mouthed.

It takes the knife in both hands, glances up and down the street, and leans its weight into carving a slash down the skin of the Bazaar. The knife barely penetrates – all the bombs of the anarchists have barely marked the Bazaar! – and the glossy demi-masonry closes up behind it. Nevertheless, the faintest seam remains. Panting with the effort, the noman works the knife-tip into the top and bottom, to mark serifs on a capital I. The knife-blade snaps in half as it completes the task. It turns and glances along the Bazaar-annex, towards the spires: then runs. You follow.

"I just want to be remembered," it says afterwards. It looks into your face – then at the knife – then back to your face. It grins. "Don't worry. I trust you to remember me the usual way."

As it happens, my player character obtained the Noman Tattoo, so they did get a permanent reminder stabbed onto their skin with a sharp object. So maybe that would please the Noman after all.

My Fallen London character has achieved the Noman Tattoo!

There are actually two different ones you can acquire: the normal one ("A Face in the Snow") (in your first or second tattoo slot) and the bonus one ("A Private Tattoo of your Noman, Inscribed in Gant") (in your extra tattoo slot). I chose to only get the bonus one, so that I could use the other slots for other tattoos:

An Incident: Get a private tattoo of your noman

Millicent nods. "I've something special in mind, but I've decorated the obvious places. It'll have to be somewhere more discreet. Over your heart? Perhaps a shoulder. Or a hip."

The result:

A compact

Your noman finds a corner stool. You occupy the divan. Millicent takes an apparently empty vial from a drawer, then closes the curtains and blows out the lamp. The vial's contents gleam, suddenly, like old silver. "Gant ink," Millicent says.

She begins, and your tattoo blooms gradually into the dark. A nuanced dapple of pain as her needle moves across your skin. The sound of her measured breathing, and the drip-drip-drip of your noman melting, slowly, onto her carpet.

When she is done, Millicent lights a candle. The tattoo vanishes, leaving only your bare, red-smarting skin. Your noman reaches out, its snowy fingers soothing. "We'll laugh about this in a year," it says. "You'll see. I'll still be here, and you'll have that silly tattoo you don't need. There's always a way, isn't there?"

The item text:

A Private Tattoo of your Noman, Inscribed in Gant

In the dark, it gleams like the ghost of a star. The memory of your Noman is preserved forever - or at least as long as you have skin.

By CJ Cherryh and Jane S Fancher. The first of the Foreigner novels under both their names. (In the foreword, Cherryh says: "Jane is no stranger to this series. She's bounced ideas back and forth with me on no few of Bren's stories. And since she has been co-author with me on the Alliance books, it seems only just that she share credit in this series as well, in which she has definitely had a hand and written many scenes.")

This is not really a review, because this is Book 22 of the series and a terrible place to start. It's more my reactions and musings, since there are so many books to keep track of and I want to get down some notes while I remember.

( Spoilery musings )

The thing about this series is, the early books are incredibly eventful and focused, and then the later books progress at a much slower rate, and feel a lot more diffuse. But when they get into it, they really get into it. And I'm still here for that.

Notes on The Skies of Orion (Star Trek: Lower Decks)

( Notes )

How is it December already? This year feels like it was full of stuff, but also went by in a blur.

( My fandom year )

( 2023 in review )

Happy New Year! Wishing you a very good 2024.

Still catching up on posts I've been meaning to make.

Back in January, during the Sydney Festival, I went to see Holding Achilles at Carriageworks.

I was intrigued by the idea of aerial theatre, and I'm always up for Achilles/Patroclus. This production is a reimagining of the Iliad with a focus on their relationship. A collaboration between Dead Puppet Society and Legs on the Wall, it uses wirework and puppetry, to create epic battles and a magical world.

It was very impressive! It's something that takes full advantage of being theatre, and can really only be theatre. As in, you could reproduce the events of the story in another medium, but the way the story is expressed could only be delivered in this medium. Like when Achilles and Patroclus are travelling through a forest, and a thicket of spears moves around them to signify this, and it's part of the language and the pleasure of the storytelling.

( Highlights )

( Musings )

Trailer:



It also looks like there's a recording you can rent on the Digital Stage platform.

The highlight of my fandom year!

Title: by such dreaming high
Fandom: Fallen London | Echo Bazaar
Tags: No Archive Warnings Apply, The Duchess, The Roseate Queen, The Second City, Estival, Worldbuilding
Summary: It is summer, in a fallen city; and someone, somewhere, is doing something unwise...

My gift is a gorgeous and poetic story of the long ago Second City, and the then Fourth Princess and Fifth Princess, in their earlier lives. It's written like a fable, and has the feel of a legend, and conjures up all the perilous beauty and deep mystery of Fallen London.

Thank you so much, dear author! This is everything I could have hoped for. It feels like opening a hidden door into a slice of the past.

1790 stories in 1131 fandoms in the Yuletide collection, and 311 stories in 261 fandoms in the Yuletide Madness collection. Happy Yuletide!

"I've never read Twelfth Night," I said to L, "but I always hear people talk about it. It has twins, and disguises, and mistaken identities, and hijinks. It'll be fun to watch a comedy for once!"

So we went to see Twelfth Night by Bell Shakespeare at the Sydney Opera House.

Surprise! It was not fun. It was mildly traumatic.

Well, okay, most of it was fun. But, spoilers, they played the Malvolio subplot as realism instead of farce, and it was kind of upsetting. Especially since they had genderswapped the character to be Malvolia, and that made the situation feel way more vulnerable. More later.


Genderplay

There were things I did like! Twelfth Night explores gender and sexuality, and this production does some interesting things with that.

When Viola first appears, she is played by a female actor. Then when she disguises herself as Cesario, the character is played by a male actor - who then continues in the role of Viola for the rest of the story.

When Sebastian first appears, he is played by the same female actor who played Viola - who then continues in the role of Sebastian for the rest of the story.

For first time viewers like me and L, it did cause some temporary confusion figuring out which twin was which. The synopsis in the program book helped.

What I liked about this casting was how it changed the dynamics of the romantic relationships:
- The tension in the flirtation-in-disguise scenes was with opposite gender actors.
- The celebration in the happily-ever-after scenes was with same gender actors.

In addition, as mentioned, the character of Malvolia was genderswapped, and the character of Antonio was crosscast. I remember how it blew my mind years ago when Cassius was played by a woman, and now this kind of practice has become commonplace. This is one change in theatre I really love.


Music

The other highlight for me was the music! All the songs in Twelfth Night were set to music by Sarah Blasko, who transformed Shakespeare's original lyrics into pop ballads. Gorgeous and melancholy and wistful, and sung beautifully by Feste, accompanied by piano.


Malvolia

So the program book summary for this subplot is, "Sir Toby, his friend Sir Andrew, the fool Feste, and chambermaid Maria play a trick on a pompous steward, Malvolia. They forge a love letter to her in Olivia's hand, convincing Malvolia to present herself to Olivia dressed in ridiculous clothing. After Malvolia does so, they lock her in a dark room and taunt her, pretending she has gone mad."

I remember reading once about a test screening for a comedy movie. In one scene, a piano falls on someone, squashing them. A classic slapstick trope. But in the test screening, a trickle of blood comes from under the piano. The test audience did not like it. That touch of realism broke their immersion.

I feel like the director of this production either:

(1) thought that Malvolio had always been treated horribly, and she wanted to pull out the fridge horror aspects to hammer the point home, or
(2) thought that there were already hundreds of productions that played it straight, and she wanted to do a dark and edgy version of this particular subplot.

Me? I just wanted fun hijinks! Not whatever this was.

( Detailed spoilers )


Thoughts

If art is supposed to inspire emotion or make you think, well, it certainly worked. If I've spent a disproportionate amount of this post on a relatively small part of the story, well, it probably reflects what was taking up my headspace afterward.

I'm still not decided on how I should feel about it. I'm very hesitant to say to an artist, "You shouldn't have tried that." But on the other hand, does the artist have a responsibility to the audience? Are there promises made about the tone and content of a story? How do you balance an audience already familiar with the story and excited for new permutations on it, with an audience experiencing the story for the very first time? And will L be up for another Shakespearean comedy any time soon?

Dear Yuletide Writer,

Thank you so much for offering to write a story for me! I love all these fandoms, and I'm keen to see what you do in them! I've provided some prompts in case you're looking for inspiration, but I'd also love to see whatever other ideas capture your imagination.

For me, it's about the characters and their interactions. I'm not a stickler about researching canon details, as long as the spirit of the characters and the flavour of their world is there. I want to see adventures that might have been, or missing moments from between scenes, or a slice of their daily lives, or where the future might take them.

LIKES: Some of the things I enjoy in stories are: undying loyalty, personal bravery, risking self to protect others, displaying cool competence, big damn hero moments, special everyday moments, banter, hijinks, confessions exposing emotional vulnerability, conversations loaded with unspoken meaning, tough people showing a soft side, and soft people showing a tough side. Some of my favorite tropes and genres are: amnesia, angst with a happy ending, animal transformation, arranged marriage, bodyswap, cosmic horror, curtainfic, five things fic, getting together, hurt/comfort, marriage of convenience, mystery solving, requited pining, road trips, sex pollen, slice of life, stranded together, and time travel.

DISLIKES: I generally prefer optimistic stories in exchanges, so I'm not keen on anything that is brutally violent or hopelessly bleak. However, I don't mind darkness during the story, as long as there is a glimmer of light at the end. Endings that are bittersweet or ambiguous are also fine.

DO NOT WANT: Noncon, underage, bleak endings, crossovers, setting change AUs like high school, coffee shop, or omegaverse (but canon divergence AUs are fine).

RATING: I am open to gen or ships for these characters. For the latter, I'd enjoy anything ranging from unresolved sexual tension, to getting together, to established relationship. I'm fine with explicit sex, but it's usually not the most important part of the story for me.

STYLE: I'm fine with first, second, or third person. I'm fine with past or present tense. I'm fine with stories of any length, including stories that start in media res or consist of a scene that implies a larger plot.

POV: I'm open to stories from the point of view of a different character from the ones requested, especially if they provide an interesting perspective on the requested characters.

INTERACTIVE FICTION: I like interactive fiction and would welcome it.

AO3: I have gifts enabled and am open to treats.

I've listed more details under each individual request.

I hope this helps. Have fun writing!

Yours sincerely,

meteordust
(AO3 name Serenade)

***

( Request 1: Falcon - Mark Smith and Jamie Thomson (Falcon, Agidy Yelov) )

( Request 2: Fortress Series - CJ Cherryh (Tristen, Barrakkêth) )

( Request 3: Fallen London (Worldbuilding) )

Referendums rarely succeed.

And I know it's not the end. There's still work to be done.

But it would have meant something. And I'm sad about that.