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kapina · 6 years

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Yuletide 2018 placeholder

Dear Yuletide author--hi, sorry I didn’t have this up already, but hoping you get this soon now! Please also fulfill whatever desires YOU have because I will love reading something you loved to write. I’m pretty excited about some of the places you can go with these things!

Here is the deal.

Marvelous Mrs. Maisel

I think the relationship between Midge and Susie is delightful because of its unevenness. They don’t understand each other very well, but especially Susie feels a lot of loyalty and responsibility toward Midge, which I find adorable. The moments that they get to connect have the best emotional payoff for me, so if the story could include a little of them reaching new understandings about each other or being there for each other -- in their awkward, unexpected way, that would be great.

I really had a Christmas theme in mind, New York in the city in that time period has a great atmospheric power for me. Honestly I think I’m thinking of Carol the movie when I say that, but I’m not into the melancholy of it, moreso that feeling of uplift and brightness that affects you even if it doesn’t fully penetrate your internal world. I’m also thinking of being a shopgirl I think, and Kate Chopin’s short story about silk stockings. There’s interesting negotiations happening between women and femininity and service careers and consumerism at this time period, since the turn of the century that are fascinating--and I think the show is also interested in this, particularly through Midge’s routine and self-policing and how she breaks that down or doesn’t, but Susie is also undergoing complex negotiations with rejection of femininity and yet she loves Midge’s comedy for it’s feminine-ness and believes in it and I think it’s not just for feminist reasons, but for feminine reasons, if that makes sense.

So really I think I’m asking for the characters of Midge, Susie, and New York in whatever combination or exclusion thereof. Could be a brief vignette of Midge’s (obviously not Christian) vs Susie’s experience, showing the contrast of their worlds, like the show tends to do. Could be them doing something together. Something like the slice of life outtake of the show. I’ll be happy if you take it in whatever direction you would like, please! What would feed my desires is something atmospheric of city life, maybe a historical detail that shapes their experience unexpectedly, something exploratory where life seems different from what you thought before, or a desire you didn’t know you had gets fulfilled, or things turn out to be more hopeful than you thought or if things turn out less hopeful than you thought at least it turns out that’s ok...getting very vague but take this as an opportunity to run with whatever you’d like! I’m just looking for something that has comfort and hope, however filtered, or striving for those things through female connections.

Hyouka

I keep bringing up Hyouka here every so often with the hopes a fish will bite. This ambling, slice of life, detective-ing innocuous schoolhouse mysteries anime is one of the best things. If you’re reading this and are intrigued, please watch it for yourself! I haven’t read the light novels, (though I’ve intended to for a while so if you want to build on something from that feel free), I’ve just watched the anime series. And it wraps up rather abruptly? I’m always looking for what happens next, especially with Chitanda and her position in her family, feeling that she has to make their farm grow and Oreki just realizing his feelings...what then?? And I adore Satoshi feeling so ordinary, struggling with just being not special. And Mayaka doesn’t get enough attention in the series. So anything exploring any dimension of the characters and their relationships plus growing up and taking on responsibilities and the mystique of Chitanda’s wealthy, traditional background would be awesome. Feel free to take the characters on an alternate universe adventure as well.

Diviners Series

Obviously the third book ends on some rising action with each of the characters off in separate directions with different goals (and lots of dead bodies), so you are welcome to explore what comes next. I put down Evie because I was very intrigued with the soft touch Libba Bray takes with describing what is obviously a substance use and reliance issue and perhaps mental illness in the form of depression or bipolar disorder? Because her description of Evie’s journey has been so delicate in the past two books, I’d like more detail about her day to day or her internal thoughts. How do her support networks work? What do mornings after look like? How did she get to that point of rejecting the radio? Even the Jericho incident was breezed through--I don’t think her trauma toward it was treated unseriously, but it kinda felt like for the purposes of plot Bray moved past it very fast because she needed to get the Sam scene in before he was taken...

Obviously a big fan of the Sam-Evie relationship and would welcome any exploration thereof, serious, silly, or otherwise. Any other characters from the series welcome as well, I was a bit sad to see so few were nominated. Might be nice to have a moment of connection between Evie and someone from the gang she hasn’t really talked to much. We get what she feels about Theta, but when has she ever talked to Henry or Ling? I think it might also be nice to see ghosts doing nice things or to see Evie’s object reading doing something nice, like her reliving a childhood memory (or the memory of someone else). We haven’t really seen their abilities and ghosts in enough friendly and comfortable situations. (Or else maybe she accidentally/not-so-accidentally experiences a private moment of one of the gang and they have to deal with the aftermath.) Again, would welcome cozy, atmospheric New York historical setting. But overall have fun with it author!!

Long Long Man Commercials

I threw in this amazing series of commercials in the interest of having something on here that would be extremely easy to watch in full. If you are unfamiliar with everything else and unexcited by whatever I wrote for our match--may I interest you in writing for me what happens next? There are so many questions about what’s going on you could play with. Who gets together in the end? Or did they find a mutually beneficial way to resolve their differences? How is long, long man always able to find them? Why is gum such a big deal? Just have fun with it, or treat it seriously, up to you.

General Likes

- character-oriented stories (but I also like plot-oriented crack or plot-oriented crossovers if they’re an excellent idea to riff); love especially characters noticing something about other characters that they hadn’t seen before and that transforming everything; love characters’ past history coming up in unexpected ways

- emotional buildup and catharsis, particularly with clueless or confused persons

- moreso leaning to canon stuff or canon divergence for this set of fandoms, but au sounds good for Hyouka or Long Long Man

- I’m looking for comfort this year, welcome dealing with hard truths but I hope things can end on a hopeful or peaceful note

- tropes like fake relationships or friends to lovers or rivals that love each other secretly

- any amount of sex in whatever sexual orientation--if you want to get really raunchy, what really works for me is when characters bring an immense amount of unspoken thoughts and feelings to sexual situations and reveal more than they wanted to (but not really dubcon or noncon for this set of fandoms); I also really enjoy non-sexual and non-romantic relationships, like family and friendships--they don’t get enough attention! they can be so important!

- straight narrative in whatever POV or a multimedia documentary/epistolary fic all sounds good

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kapina · 7 years

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To my dear Yuletide author,

Here are my prompts.

1. In the Mood for Love

This is my fave movie of all time. On the one hand I don't know what to suggest because for one, part of the beauty of the movie is the economy of detail so why would I ask for more details (?), and two, I think the movie is pretty strongly suggesting they never talk again—at least I thought so, though it is a bit open ended. But we're talking about fic here, so we can forget the rules. I think it might be fun to do kinda like the movie does at the end, a series of near misses where they almost reconnect—maybe he has a publication party, for instance. Something that might be interesting to flesh out more is also the isolation of the Shanghaiese community in Hong Kong, like that's why they felt so constrained, why did she decide to come back anyway to that old apartment? Also the tension between modern technology, modern woman lifestyle, and traditional values. Those might be threads to pull at, but it would be super satisfying to get in one or the other's head, during or after the movie, hear some of their reflections. Maggie's character is a little bit of an inaccessible set of cheekbones turning away the whole time. What was in her head? For instance, I don't think she hates her boss maybe, I think it's more that she hates what's accessible to him as a lifestyle but not to her. Also she had a kid. What was that about? Mr. Chow being a writer/journalist whispering into holes would also be interesting.

2. Chihayafuru

I just want a Taichi-centered fic. I really like him. If he were a real person, I'd probably want him to quit karuta, and go be his own person away from Chihaya and parental expectations. In the manga, he's kinda stuck with it if he's of any relevance and I'm kinda digging how he's now like a dark Taichi, the chaos factor player. Obviously a really juicy story here that's been practically writing itself in the last few chapters would be him with Suou—and Suou's backstory has it's own tragedy that is interesting in complement to Taichi, as well as them both hating karuta/doing it for someone's love/approval. I also think they have great opposite qualities as we saw after the TV shoot: Taichi with duty and Suou shirking all duty; Taichi with money and stability, Suou with none. I could be convinced of a Taichi and Chihaya pairing too, obviously I adore Chihaya too, but I think it'd have to be done with a lot of care. Chihaya's not in place now, where I'd believe her seeing and valuing Taichi like he deserves. She's made some progress in that direction though. An alternative story that could be cool to write is a Sudou/Chihaya story. I thought their training together and conspiring was very cute.

3. The Good Place

So I'm interested in reading about Janet because she's in such a liminal space between humanhoood and being a robot. I think it'd be fun to test those boundaries further than the show already does. I don't mind a story with her and Jason, or a story of her going about her day, or maybe scenes from different reboots. Leaving this one a bit more open-ended than the others.

4. Wonder Woman

So when I was in my young impressionable years I read The Last of the Amazons where they are fantastically mystical-philosophical and worship their environment and spend days contemplating the plains with some sister gals in silence. And also I read that one Marion Zimmer Bradley where Cassandra of Troy grows up as an Amazon and they cut off their breast after one child so their aim doesn't get messed up and they meet up with dudes once a year for a night of giggling, sneaking into tents, picking among the boys, all as if it's a big slumber party with special perks for the girls, and you get that darn babymaking out of the way. If you, one in a millionth chance read either, you know what I mean. Eleuthera means freedom!! If not, I'm just saying that holy hell seeing the Amazons in the movie and how they fought with the jumping and the throwing and everything except they wouldn't die easy like that and they'd probably have more sophisticated philosophical debates to come to solutions instead of the emotionally stunted and forceful and behind the back stuff we saw—AHEM, my point is all my wildest dreams and wishes came more than true and the whole movie should have been about the Amazons. Please write whatever about lady warriors or gals being pals or all women societies. Thank you. I'll admit I don't know much about the comics mythology of the Amazons, so if you happen to have knowledge with that, please feels free to bring it in. I'll obviously gobble up any bit about traditional Amazon mythology.

As always, dear writer, please feel empowered to write something you enjoy rather than being chained to my suggestions. I'm very excited for anything!

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kapina · 7 years

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Art from last year for a book of poems, later discarded. I like how I did the smoke best.

#lsv draws

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kapina · 8 years

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For my sister’s birthday, I made her this map of our trip to New Orleans the previous month.

I’m not entirely pleased with the final result, it was a very frustrating process. Often when I work for too long on one thing I get to a point where I doubt it and start to hate it. I spend hours fiddling back and forth with it because I become convinced that nothing about what I’m working on is good and I’m not capable of making something good. So I know that sometimes I should just ignore myself. I’ll come back to something and it’ll be quite nice. But in this case, I really do think I was right to question this piece. I’m still not convinced of the color scheme, the texture bothers me, I wonder if I should have illustrated more things. Most of all I hate how the text looks. I went through several iterations trying to make the text look less gross, and I’m still not happy with it.

In the end, I think what I should have done is make 2 sides: keep the map on it’s own so the bigness of it can really shine without feeling sparse, and don’t de-center the images. Then make a second piece of the graph with little descriptions for each point, telling the story of our trip. That would’ve made it more feel more personal too. I’m convincing myself to do an edit already.

#lsv #lsv draws

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kapina · 8 years

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Over the past year, I organized a screening of an international movie at my apartment once a month. It was very fun to make the little logo and banners for the facebook event pages. The name NoLa smooshes my name with my roommate’s name and ifs stands for international film screening.

I took a lot of time and care in my selections, to represent different regions, not just the European film industry and not just white people. I also wanted them to be fairly recent, to reflect what people are talking about or have been talking about. It’s easy to throw up some of the classics like Amelie and call it a day, but those are movies my viewers might’ve found anyway. Recent movies making a buzz took a little more effort to identify and chisel out. I felt that since I was organizing the event, I should put the work into curating the material.

September: A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (Iran)

October: Princess Kaguya (Japan)

November: Wild Tales (Argentina)

December: Tangerine (U.S. , but indie)

It all culminated with the Oscar nom extravaganza, as pictured at the top, when I realized the Oscar-nominated movies were guaranteed distribution to at least one of our theaters -- we could and support independent theaters and fare.

I’ve been moving around recently, so I wasn’t able to keep it up. But I would love to start it up again: it was super interesting! For one thing, I saw more of movies that I’ve been meaning to see. I don’t watch too many things by myself, and I usually hesitate to make people watch something that takes a little bit of extra concentration/effort when we happen to sit down together in front of a screen. To be honest, I don’t feel like putting in the extra concentration/effort. So it was nice to have a reason to sit myself down and watch. It felt good. It reminded me of how much I enjoy thoughtful movies, of how they stay with me for several days after because they leave an impact.

The same effect applied to the people who ended up coming. They said that I made them watch stuff they never would have on their own, and it was a lot of weird stuff, but they are glad they came. I was very energized by the conversations that unraveled naturally after the movies we saw. I was by no means trying to lead a guided discussion, but I was very happy to see people were responding, that the movies impacted them. Other people wanted to talk about weird movies like I always want to talk about weird movies.

#lsv movies

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kapina · 8 years

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Dirty Dancing (1987) - Dir. Emile Ardolino

I read a piece earlier this year, about the distance between Jane Austen’s Mr. Darcy and the Mr. Darcy of popular mythos (x). Mr. Darcy has been made a mass marketed vague ideal - courteous and caring, without fail, stripped away from the specifics of character in the writing that gave him texture and interest.

In a similar way, we imagine Dirty Dancing to be part of that sporty genre where the unlikely underdog overcomes all odds to succeed. We remember that spectacular final dance scene. We imagine Baby, when she nails that lift and wins the metaphorical gold medal, as that one special girl, who only needed someone to recognize the greatness hidden within her for it to unleash. Somehow it’s become an American Dream story wrapped up in a romance - perhaps as a way to package and direct our desire.

But the triumph here is not Baby’s. It’s not even about the dancing at all - being good at it or not.

The triumph of this scene is Johnny’s. It’s about his journey, going from self-loathing and self-pitying acceptance of how the rich use him to a place of defiance. He learns that he matters. And Baby is the catalyst for that realization.

Just as he is the catalyst for Baby’s. So, in fact I lied, this scene is about Baby and how she recognizes the prejudices of her background, how she challenges the values of her family.

And I lied about the dancing too - this scene is definitely about the dancing. It’s about the social and racial and class overtones of Johnny’s kind of dancing. (They addressed everything so well - I just wish they did so for race in this 60s set!)

In sum, it’s interesting to me what we talk about when we talk about certain movies. “Nobody puts baby in the corner” - and not “ somebody who's taught me that there are people willing to stand up for other people no matter what it costs them”. It just seems like public imagination profoundly shapes our perception and memory of art.

#lsv movies #dirty dancing

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kapina · 8 years

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Everything Before Us (2015) -- Wong Fu Productions

“You know what's funny... when we were together, I used to picture this moment with you in it. And then we broke up and I just stopped envisioning it that way... I just removed you. Now in the end, you're... actually here. It's funny.”

I guess I’m a sucker for a rekindled romance. Shouldn’t come as a surprise since Persuasion is my favorite Austen. But still, it’s been a while since I’ve really felt that shipper’s swell of emotion--at two fools just looking at each other. They built up to the moment quoted above exquisitely. I’m head over heels for it.

It’s been a while since I’ve seen a super independent film. (Btw, Everything Before Us premiered last year at the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival, which is happening again this weekend and next and you should totally check it out if you’re in the LA area. Support indie film and people of color in the film industry!) (Btw btw, for a cool article on how Wong Fu Productions are chiseling a space in this industry: x)

And I think the thing about super indie films like this is that they really believe in the project, and that energy seeps out. It’s totally completely unmistakable. It pools inside you as viewer, like a warm cup of tea. Although I felt the writing sometimes fell back on tropes when it didn’t need to in some of the words and plot devices it used, it didn’t harm the overall effect. There’s tenderness here. And it makes me wonder why ever bother with the mainstream.

There’s also lots to consider here with the DEI system. Parallels to real world racism and classism? I don’t think it’s a coincidence the white couple is the one with the above 90 numbers. For me it somehow connects to how there aren’t movies about Asian Americans struggling with their emotions and relationships in non-stereotyped ways, almost like it’s a field not allowed to them, like white people are the only ones allowed to love in front of an audience. The DEI numbers reflect that, rating Ben and Sara’s love lives sub 40s, not worthy of attention, and they’re fighting to be taken seriously throughout the film. Only to conclude, who cares about the DEI’s hierarchical attention? We’ll find attention our own independent way.

Shout out to the cool design they used for the mobile device props. And to designer Jennet Liaw (https://www.instagram.com/JENNETLIAW/) whose work here, within and without, I really liked!

#lsv movies #lsv draws #everything before us #wong fu productions

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kapina · 8 years

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Abandoned art for work.

#lsv draws

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kapina · 8 years

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Mustang (2015) - Dir. Deniz Gamze Ergüven

I enjoyed the visual rhythm of Mustang’s storytelling a lot. I did find the story itself to be a bit heavy-handed with the recurring caging metaphors and fairy tale ending. On the other hand, the reversal of the house from cage to stronghold was deftly pleasing, and the horror of parental figures being the exact opposite is about the worst I can imagine, so I really don’t have it in me to begrudge the victorious escape ending too much.

I think, after all, the movie earns it. The plot elements, though I can judge them as exaggerated from an external point of view all I want, build emotional tension very well internally so as to be convincingly cohesive and believable. Anyway, Ergüven does talk about treating the material as a fragmentary fairy tale when writing the script rather than depicting it in a head-on realistic manner (x). The title Mustang should tip us off that point here is to show off the resourcefulness and triumph of the female spirit.

I also enjoy what this movie has to say about the alienation of women from their own sexual growth--is playing in the water, fully clothed mind, with some boys sexual? Is pretending to have boobs using apples sexual? Well, maybe somewhat. But even so, so what? Girls need freedom to explore and develop in the world with its many facets, one of them sexual. Instead, adults are made uncomfortable by these explorations, then go on to excoriate what is simply girlish. (Pointedly, the one girl who was actually enthusiastically engaging in full-on, grown up intercourse got off the easiest--own choice of husband and life. The rest, innocent of “sinful” sexual acts, were crushed in every way.)

I have some lingering thoughts. I wonder how fairly the film represents conservatism. Is the movie unbiased in completely demonizing traditional values? I am wary that as a Western viewer I bring in my judgmental goggles of cultural colonialism and I don’t feel knowledgeable enough to speak to this. Is a perspective unfairly overlooked here?

Also, I wonder what new ground is trod. I didn’t feel like it furthered or complicated my understanding of women’s right to ownership over their sexuality and lives.

On the other hand, the simple representation - new ground or not - remains significant in the face of over-representation of men’s stories. As the director puts it, “femininity is really unexplored territory in terms of art history, in terms of cinema” (x). There’s a lot of femininity to cherish here, in girls as sisters, in girls who aren’t archetypes, in girls as extraordinary and brave in an ordinary sense, and more.

#lsv movies #mustang #deniz gamze ergüven

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kapina · 8 years

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I have a bone to pick with the framing of the Brooklyn movie. I can’t say it is wrong (Colm Tóibín has spoken of his novel within a similar paradigm - x), but if felt wrong to me, and not only wrong but outright boring.

I think it is interesting to consider how the attitude Nick Hornby, the screenplay writer, has toward the themes so altered my experience of the story, and further what those attitudes say about our understandings of what makes Eilis’s journey fulfilled.

The movie diverges most from the book with its ending, what I considered a frightfully cheesy monologue about finding your place in America. Hornby talks with pride of a modification he made to the text: “In the book, she kind of goes to America because she has to go to America, and we wanted Eilis to assert herself at that point, and make it clear that she’s going back to America precisely because of people like Mrs. Kelly and their mindset” (x). Eilis has to make the choice—assertively, pridefully—he says, for the movie to work. And this belief, I think, depends on what we view as strength, maturity, and indeed, fulfillment.

Would it have been disappointing to see Eilis meekly accept that the time had finally come for her to go back, as she knew would happen eventually? This is what I read, and appreciated. Not her forcefully announcing the new Italian surname of the marriage she was forced into.

Which brings me to the other major divergence in attitude I saw between my reading and the movie—calling this story a romance. Says Hornby, the book is “based around a triangle, but the triangle is not in the middle of the book: the first guy comes in half-way through, and the second guy comes in right before the end…” (x). And then he blabs on about how to make the love triangle work. In other words, Hornby focuses a lot of energy on framing the romance. But I wouldn’t even call Brooklyn a romance.

Romance to me implies an ability to choose. Eilis does not have that with either man, especially Tony. Tony is quite literally the first person Eilis likes in Brooklyn. He is her only friend and the only person she feels comfortable with. Everyone else makes her feel wretched. However, the novel makes overabundant reference to how ambivalent her romantic feelings for him are (the movie does not skimp on these either). When he asks her, demands really, that she marry him before she goes back to Ireland, she is very hesitant. It is clearly not her idea of how she wants things to play out. But in the end does she risk the only source of her comfort and companionship in her Brooklyn life? She decides not. And I consider this coercion, not romance.

That instance, and the question of who controls Eilis’s life became the main framework through which I considered her struggles. She never gains control. In the first chapters, her family and pastor decide she will go to Brooklyn, for her sake, of course. In Brooklyn, she makes her first tentative experiments in independence, going out with Tony, fighting with the other boarders—with the caveat that her choices only end up limiting her further, trapping her into expectations and a life that comes with them, as Tony’s bride.

When she goes back to Ireland, I was expecting her to finally come into her own, choose her path—perhaps just as Hornby expected too. But in Ireland, Eilis finds herself just as limited—more independent, yes, with her newfound sophistication and allure, with the job skills and standing she gained through her foreign education—but just as burdened by the expectations of her mother and Jim Farrell. They both want her live a certain life, a life Eilis would have been happy to live before Brooklyn. Even though Brooklyn made this new life possible through changing peoples’ perception of her, at the same time it was precisely what made Ireland impossible. Most obviously because Eilis was already married. But also because Brooklyn made clear to her the expectations she was living under, that these expectations are a burden. She must reject Ireland then. However, it’s not because, as Hornby decides, Brooklyn in contrast to Ireland is a land of freedom and choice.

Brooklyn to me is powerful when it is about dispossession, the lot of the disempowered, the immigrants, (the women, people of color…). It’s about the group of Irish men at the church on Christmas, who went to America to find everything, but have nothing, and whose families, we are told, don’t even want them back in Ireland. They are unmoored, drifting without hope.

When coming to America you don’t ever really become American, of course. But also, as Eilis discovers, you lose Ireland your home because you change and it changes. So you can say Brooklyn is about homesickness and eventually finding a new place, but I think it’s more about the notion that you cannot ever be home again.

I was very struck by the scene pretty early on when Eilis gets her first letters from home and she cries herself to sleep. She thinks to herself, I’ll allow myself this, one night of grief, then in the morning, I will get up, and I will go on with my life. To me that’s an incredible strength almost never captured in literature because we view it as weakness. We want the characters to make choices, to stand up for themselves, bring themselves up by the bootstraps and make life into what they want it—that’s strength.

But this passive, overlooked, belittled strength, this strength of coming to terms with the situation, knowing you have no choice nor will you likely ever, but deciding to go on with it just the same—that’s the strength of the dispossessed. And that’s why I love Brooklyn.

#lsv movies #lsv books #colm toibin #nick hornby #brooklyn

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kapina · 9 years

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