Of fannish thrills, book remixes and icon ideas

[selenak]

Yesterday was frightfully busy and today brought some reminders of sad RL events happening in my wider family, but there was some beautiful consolation in the form of various fannish delights.

(Andraste, you're a goddess.)

artaxastra had the splendid idea of applying the remix principle - a fannish writing exercise in which one fanfic author volunteers to use the story of another as a template to tell it from another angle - to professional authors, and gave three examples of pro remixes she'd like to see. I decided to follow suit, but being in a quixotic mood right now after reading.... something not yet unveiled to the public at large... I'll go with the impossible and speculate about remixes of the classics. By the way, while picking these examples, it occured to me that Jean Rhys' Wide Saragasso Sea, which tells the story of Rochester's first wife, is of course, among other things, a Jane Eyre remix.

So:
Emily Bronte takes on Charles Dickens, David Copperfield. She'd have zilch interest in Mr. Micawber or Dora or Agnes or David, for that matter. Methinks she'd go for Rosa the companion and her scar and her love/hate relationship with Steerforth. Intriguing backstory, that, in Dickens, and Emily with her zest for passionate characters whose selfishness she never prettifies would bring it to the fore.

Wilkie Collins remixes Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray. Collins goes for his favourite approach and tells the entire thing in a series of letters and diary entries, primarily written by Becky Sharp, corresponding with her estimed mentor, Collins' own character, Conte Fosco.

Thackeray stares at Bram Stoker's Dracula and first thinks we can't be serious. Then he decides to tell the whole thing as the adventures of an American naive abroad, namely, from Quincy's (aka the one of Lucy's suitors who dies in the final showdown with Dracula) perspective.

****
I felt honoured by being recced over at crack_van. sabine101, whose divinity aisn't in question, either, also amused me by starting the review with this sentence: Selena is known far and wide as the champion of characters most people think are jerks.

For some reason, this awakened in me the thirst for the following icons:

1) A slideshow of pictures showing Londo, Quark and Rygel, framed by the HP quote We solemnly swear we're up to no good
2) A slideshow of pictures showing Anakin Skywalker, Connor (of AtS, not HL) and Mr. Potter himself, with just one word inserted at the start: Issues
3) A slideshow of pictures showing Buffy Summers, John Crichton and Frodo Baggins, framed by John's diary entry in Terra Firma "What I've done... what's been done to me"

So, should any of you gifted icon-creating folk feel the slightest inclination of making one of these, I'd be eternally grateful.

****

Lastly: Star Trek: TNG was one of my first fannish loves. Without a doubt, DS9 is the overall better and more ambitious show, and I do love it more as well, but I still retain a fond appreciation for the Next Generation crowd as well, and Jean-Luc Picard shall always be my favourite Captain. So I was thrilled to discover that yahtzee63 has written a Picard/Crusher story which "feels" like a TNG episode as well in its premise.

Comments

[artaxastra.livejournal.com]

I like the idea of the remix of Vanity Fair! Another of my favorite books!

When I was in 8th grade I did a Steerforth and Rosa story for a project after reading David Copperfield. Yep. Baby fangirl.

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Vanity Fair is great, and I picked Collins for two reasons:
1) He's great with female characters, and can do, very rare for a Victorian, AMBIGUOS female characters
2) He's into passion and melodrama. Which Thackeray decidedly is not. So it would be a great contrast.

So... do you have that Steerforth and Rosa story still somewhere, or do you remember it well enough to describe it?

[artaxastra.livejournal.com]

I have no idea where the Steerforth and Rosa story is! As I recall, it involved Steerforth being washed up on the beach after the shipwreck and rescued by Rosa, who doesn't seem to mind that he has amnesia. She knows who he is, but he can't remember who he is. Much angst ensues. Alas, in the end he recovers his memory and is struck with regret about the pain he has caused others.

Ok, it was icky. But I was 12!

[urbandruid.livejournal.com]

Those are great ideas for icons. I've yet to figure out how to do anything animated, though, so I'm not going to be much help making them. But they're cool ideas. :)

[selenak.livejournal.com]

That's okay, it's a complete mystery to me, which is why I threw myself at everyone's mercy. But look what I just got from c_elisa!

[urbandruid.livejournal.com]

I keep meaning to learn how to do it, and I just never seem to get around to it.

That's cool. :)

[kathyh]

Emily Bronte takes on Charles Dickens, David Copperfield. She'd have zilch interest in Mr. Micawber or Dora or Agnes or David, for that matter. Methinks she'd go for Rosa the companion and her scar and her love/hate relationship with Steerforth. Intriguing backstory, that, in Dickens, and Emily with her zest for passionate characters whose selfishness she never prettifies would bring it to the fore.

Hm... I don't know. Emily might leave that to Charlotte and choose to darken Dora instead. The story was all told from David's point of view so who's to say Dora didn't have dark secrets in her background a la Catherine Earnshaw.

I love the icon ideas but unfortunately I haven't mastered doing a slideshow yet. The only time I tried one it zipped past so fast you couldn't see the pictures!

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Dark!Dora sounds like a true challenge - almost more difficult than Dark!Agnes (hey, who says she and Uriah Heep didn't have an Eowyn and Grima in the movieverse moment or two without David knowing...). But I still think Emily would go for Rosa and Steerforth.

Look what I got!

[kathyh]

Oooo. Nice (or maybe naughty would be a better word for those three)!

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Makes Agnes suddenly look more interesting. BTW, a wonderful Theoden icon!

[c-elisa.livejournal.com]

A slideshow of pictures showing Londo, Quark and Rygel, framed by the HP quote We solemnly swear we're up to no good

Hee!

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Thank you! You deserve a parade thrown in your honour!

Well...

[hmpf.livejournal.com]

if I had time and weren't moving at the moment, I could make you the John/Buffy/Frodo one, as that would appeal to me as well... ;-) but since I don't have time and am moving, all I can offer is this:

http://www.allabouthmpf.com/waiting.gif

Well...

[hmpf.livejournal.com]

>3) A slideshow of pictures showing Buffy Summers, John Crichton and Frodo Baggins, framed by John's diary entry in Terra Firma "What I've done... what's been done to me"

>So, should any of you gifted icon-creating folk feel the slightest inclination of making one of these, I'd be eternally grateful.

I'm not particularly gifted, and this may not be entirely what you had in mind, but... take your pick:

http://www.allabouthmpf.com/done1.gif
http://www.allabouthmpf.com/done2.gif
http://www.allabouthmpf.com/done3.gif
http://www.allabouthmpf.com/done4.gif

Thank you!

[selenak.livejournal.com]

And you so are gifted - just what I wanted!

Then I shall consider it a night well spent.

[hmpf.livejournal.com]

I had accidentally made real tea instead of herbal tea and couldn't got to sleep, so I spent the night making a drenload of icons instead:

http://www.allabouthmpf.com/icons.htm

(Well, not all of them are new, but about ten of them or more were made yesterday night. I particularly like the ears of love.)

Took me ages to find the fitting pictures, btw.

[hmpf.livejournal.com]

And then it took me another few ages to decide which pictures to use. ;-)