Firstly, for lovers of classical music: after having done pop playlist for good old Frederick the Ambiguously Great, friends and foes, we now present the operatic and symphonic version. It's basically "Fritz: The Opera" with stolen tunes in best operatic tradition. We tried to find (English) subtitled versions, which wasn't always possible, but hopefully the music itself will explain why it fits that particular moment/character/relationship in history so well. And if you have no interest in the history, enjoy the concert starring some of the best singers and orchestras for its own sake.

Incidentally, during the weekend when I idly checked out fail_fandomanon, I saw the question "how would character x respond when confronted with their younger self (and vice versa?" applied to various fandoms. As I said to cahn and mildred_of_midgard, our historical fandom as actual, definite, canon on that question re: the main character, without needing time travel for it. How many other fandoms can say that? (If you're wondering, the canonical answer to that question is the infinitely screwed up relationship Friedrich II had with his younger brother Heinrich (aka 'l'autre moi-meme, so dubbed by the man himself).


Secondly, fanfiction that comes up with character combinations that canon didn't in an utterly real feeling way is the best. Have one from Star Trek: DS9:

Where Everybody Knows Your Name is set post-show and has Jake Sisko dealing (or not) with Ben's spoilery status quo post finale. Somehow, the dealing (or not) takes the form of hanging out wit Quark more and more. Both the Quark and the Jake voices are pitch perfect, and this is so my head canon now.

I forgot to mention this in my review of Medici: The Magnificent, but in his childhood flashbacks, Lorenzo de‘ Medici is played by Sam Taylor Buck, aka the same kid who plays the Antichrist in Good Omens. Given the thematic relevance of Contessina urging him to „do good, be good“ in said flashbacks while realpolitic and then a bloody conspiracy aim to steer him in the other direction, and the whole thing climaxes on Easter Sunday, I’m wondering whether it’s just the tiny size of the English speaking Medici fandom to blame for no one having done the obvious Good Omens fusion yet. (Or perhaps AU more than fusion, i.e. an early attempt at the Apocalypse/ what would have happened if A & C would have mentored the kid they intended to.) Adam can’t love Tadfield more than Lorenzo loves Florence, Lorenzo, up to a point, is able to warp reality around him by sheer persuasiveness and charisma, and it just fits poor Piero de‘ Medici’s lot in life (having spent his youth as Son Of, and his middle age as Father Of) that his kid was swapped with the devil’s.

(Savonarola would also agree this happened, given how he had it in for Lorenzo later.)

Mind you, there’s an overabundance of candidates to cast as War. (Jacobo Pazzi? Gaetano Sforza? Montesseco?) Salviati would work a seither Famine or Pestilence (the future Pollution). Francesco, of course, is Death. Meanwhile, I’m really not sure whom to cast as Aziraphale and Crowley. Because Contessina and Aziraphale really are two very different personalities. And other than the Old Retainer Who Is Not Marco Bello in the martial arts practice flashback, there’s a distinct lack of Possible Undercover Demon Guidance figures. Giuliano, Sandro Botticelli and Poliziano get to be the Renaissance Them, obviously.

One key personality difference between Adam and Lorenzo, though: Adam wants to keep Tadfield just as it is. Lorenzo, like Cosimo before him, wants to change the world, which is even part of the lyrics in the show's theme song and thus really not up for discussion. And thus a fusion is foiled.

In another fandom, have a nice h/c story featuring the Thirteenth Doctor and Graham O’Brien: 5 Times The Doctor Talked About River Song With Graham (+1 Time The Fam Finally Met Her)

The Turkish Minister of foreign affairs claims Individual 1 has promised to extradite Gülen to Turkey. While anything the Erdogan government claims, especially re: the attempted coup, is worth some scepticism, I could believe this one, since the Orange Menace loves autocrats and never understood all the bother raised a bit of torture there and prison for one's political enemies here. Maybe he'll send a bone saw along with Gülen.


If US politics have taken on a Tarantino flair, then British politics... honestly, I don't know what to compare them to anymore. Spitting Image, back in the 80s? Seems like understated hardcore realism by comparison. Ivan Rogers, who was the UK's representative to the EU until recently, dissected all the Brexit delusions in this great speech given in Liverpool. Choice quote:

It still amazes me that virtually the entire British political class still thinks that it’s free movement obsessions are about to be shared in the 27. They aren’t.

BUT…. once you leave the EU, you cannot, from just outside the fence, achieve all the benefits you got just inside it.

First, there will, under NO circumstances, be frictionless trade when outside the Single Market and Customs Union. Frictionless trade comes with free movement. And with the European Court of Justice. More later on that.

Second, voluntary alignment from outside – even where that makes sense or is just inevitable – does NOT deliver all the benefits of membership. Because, unlike members you are not subject to the adjudication and enforcement machinery to which all members are.

And that’s what Brexiteers wanted, right? British laws and British Courts.

Fine. But then market access into what is now their market, governed by supranational laws and Courts of which you are no longer part – and not, as it used to be, yours – is worse and more limited than before.

That is unavoidable. It is not, vindictive, voluntary, a punishment beating, or any of the other nonsense we hear daily. It is just ineluctable reality.

And finally, the solidarity of the club members will ALWAYS be with each other, not with you. We have seen that over the backstop issue over the last 18 months. The 26 supported Dublin, not London. They still do. Nothing the Prime Minister now bids for will change that.

This may be the first Anglo-Irish negotiation in history where the greater leverage is not on London’s side of the table. And the vituperation aimed at Dublin politicians tells one just how well that has gone down with politicians and apparatchiks who had not bothered to work out that this was no longer a bilateral business, and are now appalled to find they are cornered.

Well, just wait till the trade negotiations. The solidarity of the remaining Member States will be with the major fishing Member States, not with the U.K. The solidarity will be with Spain, not the U.K., when Madrid makes Gibraltar-related demands in the trade negotiation endgame. The solidarity will be with Cyprus when it says it wants to avoid precedents which might be applied to Turkey.

I could go on.


The point re: this being the first Anglo-Irish negotiation in history where the Irish have the greater leverage was realised by the Irish long before the UK, it seems: How Ireland outmaneuvered Britain on Brexit is an article devoted to this aspect in particular. Back to Ivan Rogers dissecting Brexit: he does so in a bipartisan way, no more impressed by Labour's leadership than he is with the Tories:

And even yesterday morning I listened to a Shadow Cabinet Member promising, with a straight face, that, even after a General Election, there would be time for Labour to negotiate a completely different deal – INCLUDING a full trade deal, which would replicate all the advantages of the Single Market and Customs Union. And all before March 30th. I assume they haven’t yet stopped laughing in Brussels.


If they haven't, it's only because watching people you used to respect and like commit self mutilatation is actually a painful business. Do I ever prefer fiction to reality. It just makes more sense.


Even if it's so surreal and bewildering like the tv show Legion. versaphile wrote this great glimpse at Lenny and David post Season 2 finale: All Good In The Head Now?

And here are two excellent meta posts by the same writer: Why Mr. Darcy keeps being misread as a Bad Boy Reformed (which isn't his trope), and Why the Borgias got their image as worst of the worst in the Renaissance, when objectively speaking they were no more (or less) corrupt than the rest of their contemporaries, including the families who managed to get members on the papal throne.

I'm always a bit torn about following WIPs; not only because sometimes they never finish, but because it's possible that after 14 or so chapters of excellent characterisation, a new-to-this-story-but-not-to-canon person enters the narrative, and that person is written in a way that does not correspond to your own idea of said person at all. Even if the character is just a minor supporting part in this particular story, it just irks. And thus I don't know whether I can continue to follow the tale in question. Which is a shame, because otherwise I really liked it so far.

Otoh, this morning I got the notification that another WIP I'd been following just got concluded with its final chapter, and I'm happy to report this one stays satisfying throughout. It's a Peter Maximoff centric post Apocalypse tale with great parts for younger and older X-Men, a great fleshing out of Peter's mother and sister, and a believable interweaving of a lot of complicated relationships. I really loved this one, from beginning to end.

Immediate Family (165190 words) by Glass_Shoe
Chapters: 20/20
Fandom: X-Men - All Media Types, X-Men (Movieverse), X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Peter Maximoff, Peter Maximoff's Mother (X-Men Movies), Erik Lehnsherr, Charles Xavier, Hank McCoy, Cyclops, Ororo Munroe, Scott Summers, Jean Grey, Kurt Wagner, Raven | Mystique, Quicksilver, Jubilee, Bobby Drake, Colossus, Original Characters
Additional Tags: Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Baggage, Language, minors in jeopardy, character death (not an X-man), Cancer, Grief/Mourning, Suicidal Thoughts, character with fluctuating weight, Disordered Eating, bad grammar, Run-On Sentences, medical knowledge by Wikipedia, brief mentions of consensual sex, mentions of torture, gratuitous eighties pop-culture references, Headcanon, Violence, Blood, Nothing too explicit, dadneto, sort of, brief mentions of underage consensual sex, nineteen eighty-four is not kind to Peter, Peter Maximoff and Erik Lehnsherr, sick Peter Maximoff, Sibling Bonding, Star Trek TOS References, Hank is a Trekkie, Blasphemy, kidnapping and attempted kidnapping, Angst, Hurt Peter Maximoff
Summary:

This is the story of how Peter Maximoff loses his mother, reconnects with his father, and finds something he didn't know he'd lost in the first place.

Turns out that reccommending an old favourite makes one check up on the writer’s more recent productions, and was that ever rewarding! Behold what I found:

Brisingr (155649 words) by ironychan
Chapters: 31/31
Fandom: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Pepper Potts/Tony Stark, Jane Foster/Thor, Wanda Maximoff/Vision
Characters: Jane Foster (Marvel), Tony Stark, Vision (Marvel), Wanda Maximoff
Summary:

When Jane Foster discovers an object on a course for the inner solar system, it looks like a job for the Avengers. But when what looked like a comet turns out to be a refugee ship from another galaxy, it's not clear whose job this is anymore. Tony Stark and the Vision find they have an uncomfortable amount in common with the creatures called the Brisings, while Jane learns that the aliens are being followed by something they thought they'd left behind five million years ago. Set post-AOU, pre-CW.

This is a wonderfully well plotted story, with complicated aliens (who have their own history and want something other than invade) to please my inner Star Trek loving heart. It’s one of those rare Marvel fics to give Jane Foster a central role, and one that’s about Jane as a scientist. Also, it’s a fantastic example of how to write two characters with opposite povs on how to deal with a key issue (in this case Jane and Tony), with both of them having good reasons for their respective attitudes, without making either of them less than sympathetic or three dimensional. And it offers hands down the best use of MCU Vision I’ve yet seen in either fanfic or movies. In conclusion, I love it to bits!

Last week I noticed that several of our major news media - the FAZ and the SZ, who are our equivalent to the Washington Post and the New York Times, basically - did major stories about the My Lai Massacre, due to the anniversary. Whereas I didn't see anything in my admittedly limited look at the US media, and feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, it's entirely possible that I missed several articles.

Now, given all that's happening in the US in the present, I'm aware there's no lack of stories about current day calamities. However, I couldn't help but feel reminded of something someone in my circle observed a while ago: the sense that the Vietnam War, which used to be very present in (American as well as non-American) pop culture when I grew up in the 80s, seems to have all but disappeared. And I can't help but speculate, and connect it with a couple of things. 9/11 being one of them. (Which reminds me: the NY Times last week also had an enraged opinion piece by an Iraqui writer on it being the 15th anniversary of W's invasion of Iraq. Someone in the comments observed on the depressing fact that according to current day polls, a lot of US citizens seem to think Saddam had something to do with 9/11. This despite the fact this was one lie too big even for Dubya and his neocons, who stuck to non-existent weapons of mass destruction back in the day. It's not like Saddam is lacking in villainous deeds to be blamed for, but not this one.) And because in recent weeks I finished my Star Trek: Enterprise marathon, my brain made some weird connections, to wit:

1) The Xindi arc in s3 of ENT was an obvious attempt to grapple with 9/11 in fiction. (And the result was, err, less than stellar storytelling.) S4 offered something a bit more nuanced in the form of the the Vulcan three parter. By which I mean that wereas the Xindi arc started by Earth attacked out of the blue by a previously unknown race (who, as it turned out, themselves were manipulated into doing it) , and our heroes deciding that the Jack Bauer way of morality was the way to go, the Vulcan trilogy, written by the Garfield-Stevenses of many a TOS novel fame, had the Vulcans Command dominated by a guy who clamed that the Andorians were in possession of a weapon of mass destruction and that totally asked for a preemptive strike at Andoria. Rather satisfyingly, it ended with the guy in question being deposed and Vulcan society undergoing a moral reformation. But then, it was clearly fiction.

2.) Another attempt to deal with the emotional impact of 9/11 by then ongoing genre shows that I can recall were, of course, the rebooted Battlestar Galactica (the scene of the pilots touching the photos of people who died during the Cylon attack on the colonies was meant as a direct evocation, for example).

3.) And then there was the (in)famous review of the newly released The Two Towers in TIME Magazine by Richard Schickel which read the movie as basically Saruman = Osama bin Laden, Aragorn's speech to Theoden = directed at nations unwilling to back the US in its Iraq venture, which enraged Viggo Mortensen to no end. (He wrote a letter of protest to TIME and showed up in every public appearance he had to promote the movie wearing a T-Shirt saying "no blood for oil".)

What all these attempts and interpretations have in common is this: in all of them, the society coded as "us" (as in "the US") is the attacked-by-overwhelming-forces plucky little guy. I mean, technically you couild argue the humans of the twelve colonies on BSG outnumbered the invading Cylons, but the Cylons, at least at this early point in the show, were presented as technically superior and as the relentless hunters whereas the humans were on the run and fleeing, definitely outmached in weaponry. Not a single one of them has the society/group the audience is supposed to identify with as a superpower outmatching their attackers in weaponry, numbers and economic strength. And most definitely not as a superpower with a history of invasions of its own.

Partly I suppose this is because everyone wants to see themselves as the little guy, the plucky rebel/victim of injustice, and not as The Man defending the status quo. But part of it... well, this brings me back to where I started, the My Lai Massacre and all it symbolizes, the Vietnam War. Because my current interpretation is this: the story the Vietnam War told for a while, in the 70s and 80s, was unbearable post 9/11. It amounted to: the US fought a war which not only it did not win but lost both in the moral and the pragmatic sense. None of the aims it set out to achieve was in fact achieved; the end result was Vietnam as a Communist state. In the process, the image of "defender of the free" etc. was torn to shreds; instead of GI's storming the Beach of Normandy, the enduring iconic image was of a naked little girl running because she got bombed with Napalm, instead of flags being put into the sand of Iwo Jima, you got "we had to destroy the village in order to save it" as a summary of US military strategy, between Johnson and Nixon, both parties in a two party system were tainted by leading this war (and lying about it to the public). It was all for worse than nothing. The US soldiers killed for nothing and were killed for nothing. They got addicted to drugs and committed massacres for nothing. Now you can do the Rambo thing and get a still pleasing to to conservatives story of a brave soldier/brave soldiers let down by their government during and after the war in question, yet good by themselves. You can try the "a few rotten apples" explanation for the likes of My Lai. But by and large, you're still left with: the war was lost on every level it could be lost, and nothing good, no grand final justification came out of it. And that's just completely alien to the narrative US Americans are taught about themselves.

Mind you: there's a sci fi saga created at the time in which the narrative "we" and "us" are in fact a superpower, involved in a conflict with what appears to be an inferior foe under false pretenses, a republic which is rotting from within though there are also people in it who do live according to their ideals. A story with heroes who make moral compromises which end up making everything worse, not better, and with a central character who might start out as an innocent thinking the task of his chosen profession is to free people but who ends up committing massacres....why yes, I'm thinking of the Star Wars Prequels. Which have their flaws, sure enough. But in this, they have a bit more narrative honesty than all those other reflections. (Also more than the sequels who avoid the inconvenience of having to depict main characters defending a functioning state and the status quo by destroying the new Republic off screen and presenting its heroes in a brand new rebellion against a superior foe.)

And since I'm ending on a Star Wars note anyway: my favourite WIP has been finished as of last week. I've reccommended it here before, despite usually avoiding WiPs, because it's that good an AU, encompassing Prequel and OT era alike. It uses its time travel element at the start not as a cheat but as a great way to explore the characters, because Vader regretting Padmé's death and his own physical state and wanting to change this isn't the same as Anakin being redeemed, the way Anakin later, at a point when he thinks he's escaped his past, gets confronted with what he did in both the original and the altered time line is enough to satisfy the strictest critic, Leia-as-raised-by-Anakin-and-Padmé is both intriguingly different and yet recognizably herself and has a heartrendering, fantastic arc once she finds out about certain things, Luke is the most humane character as he should be, there's Ahsoka to make my fannish heart happy, and while I'm usually not really into the EU bookverse characters, the way this story uses Mara Jade is awesome. (Especially an angle which the novels she hails from to my knowledge didn't consider, to wit, that she and Anakin share the experience of being groomed by Palpatine from childhood onward.) In conclusion: it's a long tale, but so worth it.


Out of the Dark Valley (324646 words) by irhinoceri
Chapters: 53/53
Fandom: Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, Star Wars: Rebellion Era - All Media Types, Star Wars: Rise of Empire Era - All Media Types, Star Wars - All Media Types
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Relationships: Padmé Amidala/Anakin Skywalker, Mara Jade/Luke Skywalker, Leia Organa & Luke Skywalker
Characters: Anakin Skywalker | Darth Vader, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Padmé Amidala, Luke Skywalker, Leia Organa, Ahsoka Tano, Mara Jade, Original Female Character(s), Han Solo, Sheev Palpatine | Darth Sidious, Barriss Offee, Yoda (Star Wars)
Additional Tags: Skywalker Family Feels, Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Padmé lives!, minor ahsoka tano/barriss offee, Canon-Typical Violence, Time Travel Fix-It, Time Travel Fuck-It-Up-Again, Family Drama/Angst, Dysfunctional Family, Ensemble Cast
Summary:

15 years after the events of RotS, Darth Vader discovers a way to time travel backwards through the Force, to the moment in his past he most regrets. This creates an alternate timeline where he has the opportunity to change his and Padmé's tragic fate. But reliving the past and making a new future will prove to be no easy task, and the sins of the father will have lasting effects on the next generation. (AU from Mustafar onward. Ensemble PoV featuring Anakin, Padmé, Obi-Wan, Luke, Leia, and Mara Jade. Skywalker family focus with mild Anidala and LukeMara elements. Background Barrissoka. Rated T for violence and dark themes.)

Black Sails:


Talking with ryda_wong about Max, Idelle, Charlotte and why the two scenes of Idelle confronting Max in s2 re: Anne and Anne about Charlotte in s4 has reminded me of this meta I've been meaning to link for ages:

In praise of Charlotte: Female legacy on Black Sails

Also, have some fanfiction, this one about Miranda:

And swallowed darkness whole:


Moving away from pirate fiction, you may or may not have heard that on Sunday night, coalition negotiations (which were ongoing since the election this fall) came to an abrupt halt when the FDP walked out. Now while this is indeed serious, I can't believe the hyperbole in the foreign press. No, this isn't the biggest crisis in post war Germany. (I'm not expecting British or US journalists to be experts on decades of post WWII Germany, but you'd think at least that bit about a certain wall being built in the early 60s, or the Chancellor's right hand man turning out to have been a Stasi spy in the early 70s, triggering events culminating in Willy Brand stepping out as Chancellor, would have stuck in mind. And that's before we get to the terrorist-ridden 70s themselves (this year, we had the 40th anniversary of the so-called "German Autumn" of 1977). Anyway, this article puts current events in a welcome perspective for the English speaking world.

Trailer spotted: The Man Who Invented Christmas seems to be trying to take the Shakespeare in Love approach to Charles Dickens and A Christmas Carol. The following thoughts occured to me in no particular order:

- Dan Stevens is actually made to look like a young Charles Dickens and has something of that manic energy, but:

- as Dickens' favourite daughter Kate Perugini put it, writing to George Bernard Shaw: "If you could make the public understand that my father was not a jolly, jocose gentleman walking about the earth with a plum pudding and a bowl of punch you would greatly oblige me."

- no such luck, Kate, not with this movie. Though Dickens really wasn't

- I know I complain about Mark Gatiss written episodes of Doctor Who a lot, but his very first one, The Unquiet Dead, actually did something more interesting with the basic idea of Dickens + Christmas Carol + supernatural elements than this trailer indicates

- why is it that "based on a true story" movies that tackle author plus famous work always feel the need to pretend the author in question had writers block and/or dire difficulties before hitting on the inspiration for the famous work? Do we blame Stoppard for this one, too? Finding Neverland did it as well, and it's just as untrue here (neither Barrie nor Dickens were when writing Peter Pan and Christmas Carol respectively in any type of financial or inspirational difficulties)

- the idea of Charles Dickens, of all the people, having writers' block is hilarious, though, because his problem was more the opposite. Neil Gaiman in the Sandman story Calliope lets Dream curse a writer with literally unending inspiration (spoiler: it's not a boon when you write your fingers bloody because you really can't stop), and Dickens wasn't quite there, but nearly.

Mind you, the film makers are probably safe to assume most tv watchers know zilch about Dickens' biography. But not for the first time, I wonder whether a miniseries wouldn't be a great format to tackle that, Dickens in his morally ambiguous complexity, covering the whole life from child-of-a-conman Charles to celebrated writer, philantropist and terrible husband Dickens going on one last reciting tour. Abi Morgan did a good job with The Invisible Woman, taking one particular part of his life, and she has tv experience, so she'd be my first choice to write such a series.

Meanwhile, in another fandom, to wit, Star Wars:

Balance Point: now by now there are some stories in which Force Ghost Obi-Wan Kenobi haunts Vader, but this story is the first one which lets someone else who used to be close to Anakin Skywalker do so instead, and executes that premise beautifully.( Spoilers for Star Wars: Rebels ensue. )

Sense8 will get a two hour finale!

This was great news to start my day with. Meanwhile, have a fanfic rec:

Not a new story, but a new-to-me story from 2010's Yuletide, something for Norse mythology lovers (but also accessible if you have zilch knowledge about Norse mythology!), with a terrific take on the Odin and Loki relationship especially:

A Game of Shapes (6883 words) by Bagheera
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Norse Mythology
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Characters: Óðinn | Odin, Loki (Norse Mythology), Thor, Baldr | Baldur
Additional Tags: Genderbending, Shapeshifting, Magic, Death
Summary:

Someone has stolen little Baldr and replaced him with a changeling child. Thor and Loki go on a quest to rescue Baldr, but not before long, they're joined by a one-eyed giantess.

Useful tips of what you you can do in the Age of Orange, hilariously expressed to boot: Holy Fuck The Election.

And pointed out to me which is why I share it with you, a post- season 5 Alias story, featuring Arvin Sloane and Jack Bristow: very little changes.

The first generation spies in their terse, messed up glory. Incidentally, I can't for the life of me imagine Jack Bristow working for a CIA ultimately ruled by Drumpf. He'd have joined forces (for real) with Sloane to have an assassination plan ready two seconds after Hillary conceded. Sloane, being an evil overlord, wouldn't object to T. on moral grounds but on professional and aesthetic ones. The sheer sloppiness and vulgarity would be too much. Besides, Rambaldi did not predict him, which means he needs to be eliminated.