meridian_rose

I'm behind on Fandom 50 so here's a quick Georgette Heyer related snippet that tickled me when I read the book the other week.

While Heyer is best known for her regency romance novels, she also wrote several detective novels. This one is "Death In The Stocks".
Here, Violet, engaged to Kenneth, is again trying to persuade the family including Tony (Antonia) to behave "properly" - as they were not fond of the distant relation who's been murdered, they don't much care. In fact Violet is seen as a bit of do-gooder.
Kenneth is not impressed and retorts "'After this short speech, they all cheered,'" mocking her self-righteousness.

This seems to me to be an early version of the "and everybody clapped" meme a phase usually posted online as a response to someone's bragging post of their brave public social justice moment, which is assumed to have never actually happened. Often on Tumblr seen as "andthewholebusclapped".

The more things change, etc?



Death In the Stocks - Goodreads

"Revenge" starring Emily VanCamp, Gabriel Mann, Nick Wechsler, Madeline Stowe, Henry Czerny, and Josh Bowman, Revenge aired between 2011 and 2015.

I admit the show lost its way in the final season(s) but had a fantastic first two seasons. Loosely based on "The Count of Monte Cristo" has Emily Thorne (actually Amanda) move to the Hamptons to secretly take revenge on those who wronged her father, David Clarke, framed for causing a plane crash.

Nolan Ross owes his fortune to Clarke who co-funded the software company Nolcorp, and when his own father turned on him when Nolan was outed as bisexual, Clarke became a father figure to him. He is a tech genius and wants to help Emily though she initially rebuffs him. Somewhat socially awkward, Nolan has a large amount of character development due to his desire to help Emily, making friends with Jack and risking himself for Emily, earning her respect and trust.

Emily seduces Daniel Grayson as she believes his parents were involved in father's death, while childhood crush and current bar owner Jack Porter dprovides romantic tension, and Aiden (Barry Sloane), who trained with Emily's mentor as she prepared to exact her scheme, developed a romantic relationship with Emily for a time.

However while I appreciated Aiden/Emily, it was always Nolan/Emily (ship name Nemily) that had my heart - and still does. Whenever I have/do make icons or write fic, it's almost always heavily Nolan and/or "Nemily" focussed. Also I'm not much for fashion but I always appreciated and admired Emily's style and most of the time, Nolan's.

Red is a key colour for this show, from Emily's red dress to the red sharpie she uses to cross out photos of the people she's exacted revenge on. The double infinity symbol which her father carved into the railing at their summerhouse, and which adorns the box of photos and research for her revenge, is another recurring motif.

click for full size

Taylor Swift's "Look What You Made Me Do" is especially fitting, from Emily forced to play a role, got harder (learning to fight), has a list "I got a list of names, and yours is in red, underlined; I check it once, then I check it twice" and the fact that her future was taken from her and her father "your kingdom keys; They once belonged to me", and Emily's refusal to forgive and forget: The world moves on, another day another drama, drama But not for me, not for me, all I think about is karma And then the world moves on, but one thing's for sure Maybe I got mine, but you'll all get yours So this vid has to be a rec:

Nolan-centric fun vid to the song "Party Rock"

Nolan & Emily - What Makes You Beautiful (highlighting the friendship but given the lyrics, arguably a ship vid)

A more action focused Nolan + Emily vid (again, arguably shippy due to the lyrics) to the song "Here Comes Trouble"

And because I love the song, Call Me Maybe {Emily & Nolan)

Other vids: Nolan & Emily || A Thousand Years - cleverly edited ship vid.

Aiden & Emily | We Found Love (Revenge) - an Aiden/Emily ship vid

We're going down | Revenge - scenes from throughout the show featuring many of the characters.

My revenge fanworks tag ; My Revenge Fic at AO3

Another brief fandom 50 this week.

One of those older crack fanvids that deserves the status of a classic fanwork imho: "Why is The Rum Gone", based on the first "Pirates of the Caribbean" movie.

To this day I still quote "why is the rum gone" about empty bottles ;) The "that's not good enough!" is great Will line; also look out for suprise!Pikachu cameo and the Terminator later in the vid.

There's also, from "Dead man's Chest", a similar fanvid "Jar of Dirt" ("I've got a jar of dirt/and guess what's inside it") which includes the line "The captain seems to acting a bit strange" which even in the actual movie provokes a "how could you tell?" reaction.

According to the IMDB Trivia page, "The scene when Jack Sparrow calls Davy Jones "fish face", and sings to them "I got a jar of dirt", was unscripted and improvised by Johnny Depp, most of the reactions of the rest of the characters are real." which just makes the whole thing more fun.

(link is to the hq updated version)

For Fandom 50 today I'm featuring Mr Sandman.

Written in 1954 the best known versions are by The Chordettes, and the Four Aces, and in 1981 by Emmylou Harris.

Mr Sandman is a folklore figure whose magical sand puts people to sleep and inspires good dreams. (The grit or sleep found in eyes upon waking is supposedly that sand).

Sandy, the Sandman as seen in "Rise of the Guardians"

The song wants him to bring a dream as in a romantic figure, describing the ideal man with features such as lips like roses and wavy hair.

The Chordette's version featured in the films "Uncle Buck" and two of the "Halloween" franchise films.

The Four Aces's version featured in "Back to the Future" playing as Marty realises he's travelled back in time.

However I always think of The Golden Girls. In "Not Another Monday", s5e7, where Blanche, Rose, and Dorothy, sing it to a baby to try and get him to sleep.

(Particuarly starting at the 1 minute mark!)

One youtube commentator said "Honestly I didn't know the name of the song so I searched bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum." 😂

For this week's fandom I'm talking about "I'm My Own Grandpa"!

A novelty song writing in 1947 the song, sometimes referred to a "I'm My Own Grandpaw", is as Wikipedia puts it "about a man who, through an unlikely (but legal) combination of marriages, becomes stepfather to his own stepmother—by tacitly dropping the "step-" modifiers, he becomes his own grandfather. (The Wiki article includes reference to a real-life incident that may have inspired the song)

I first heard it through a friend's Dr Demento CD where it was performed by Homer and Jethro. It's had a few covers including one by Wille Nelson

Lonzo and Oscar - I’m My Own Grandpa

Fandom wise in the season 3"Futurama" episode "Roswell That Ends Well" an unintentional journey to 1947 Roswell sees Fry attempting to ensure his grandfather Enos impregnates his grandmother and instead gets him killed. Seduced by Enos's fiancée Mildred, Fry rationalises that if he still exists then Mildred can't be his grandmother. He is wrong but in fact Fry becomes his own grandpa, as Farnsworth cuttingly remarks when Fry objects to the professor's new plan to just steal the technology they need to fix the ship and escape back to their own time.

In fact in s4 "The Why of Fry" it is revealed that because Fry lacks the delta brainwave on account of his being his own grandfather, he is immune to the attack of the Brain spawn and it is up to him and Nibbler to save the day.

And here's a Muppet cover of the song

Lots of people were excited for Fandom 50 (did I get the name right?) at the Snowflake Challenge and my immediate reaction was wow, good for them, but hell no I couldn't manage that many.
But I've decided I might want to share some things and if I don't do 50 then so be it. Maybe I do 25. Or 12. I've done two today.
If it helps me be a bit more active and share some fannish love, what's the harm. I keep telling myself if people don't like it they can scroll past. I'm not posting 50 a day, this isn't tumblr, I'm not clogging up the feed if I do occasional just for fun recs :)

I'm putting together a prompt list for a landcomm challenge and in the process rewatching some music vids/fanvids. I don't think I've ever rec'd this before so here is an MCU fanvid, featuring many of the Marvel ladies set to the Victorious (Victoria Justice) song "Take a Hint" which is a song about the casual harassment many women face - and of course the ladies are not going to take that.

Vidder notes that this was before there were Captain Marvel trailers hence her absence. There are other MCU fanvids set to the same song, and I believe some do feature Captain Marvel and other characters.