whatever, mortal.

I've started watching Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries with my Mum recently. She's been complaining about not having any hobbies and, until the sister and I organise her Mother's Day gift (we want to do an art/cooking/dance class of some kind as a group), I thought it'd be nice to find a new show to keep up with together.

It's been a while since I watched an Australian series, coz we haven't had access to free-to-air telly for...oof a couple years now, but I'm being reminded of a lot of the issues that I have with it. Miss Fisher's has such a cool concept; it's historical crime, set in 1920s Melbourne, which I love. I'm writing a script for an Australian historical crime series, this is a thing I am interested in. But the execution is lacking. The acting is mostly pretty mediocre, the storylines are too ambitious and end up ridiculously busy, and they often don't provide enough cues for you to follow Phryne's mental leaps as she makes them (which is the one thing I like about BBC Sherlock--they use on-screen text to physically show you Sherlock's inferences about what he's seeing). I do enjoy how subtle they tend to be about the clues that they through in, so you can follow along if you're really paying attention but miss them if you aren't. I don't really enjoy watching crime "mysteries" where I've figured out how the murderer is before the detective has.

I love Phryne and Dot's early friendship in the first episode and god do i ship it where's the fic :( and I was so curious about how Dot's issues with technology would affect her work for (and relationship with) Phryne. So I was disappointed to realise that both got brushed aside for a romantic subplot between Dot and Constable Collins. Phryne and Dot don't talk unless it's case-related or for Phryne to tease Dot about Collins! I was really looking forward to seeing that friendship develop and I couldn't care less about Dot's relationship with Collins. (  It's so formulaic for Australian TV )

idk what's going on lately, but it feels like things have really been going my way these last couple weeks.

( cut for RL talk )

I'm also working on fanfic again (it's been so long, I missed this). Still in that Renaissance AU. I told dhampyresa I wanted to write a 5 Things fic (Scipio drawing Hannibal) and idk I know what I'm like so I kinda expected that I would've given up at the first sign of difficulty and have abandoned it by now. But. BUT. I've just finished the first section, have an idea of the second and have written the beginnings of the third.

I'm super proud of myself, basically, so I'm sharing a little snippet of the first section (set in 1549, when Scipio is 18 or 19):

Figuring out the dialogue really threw me at first. I wrote the first 300 or so words as narrative, which came relatively easily, and then got to the bit where I needed to write Hannibal's first line up there and promptly freaked out that I didn't know how to write them saying things. I've kinda ended up just trying to capture an old sounding style of dialogue and hoping that I'm being vaguely accurate in terms of characterisation.

Renaissance AU of ancient history RPF was a very ambitious life choice. Especially considering neither of these things are anywhere near my area of expertise. This afternoon, I spent twenty minutes reading up on what kind of pants men wore in 16th Century Italy just so I could say Scipio had a boner in just the way I wanted to. 

Newly Discovered Sketchbooks of Publius Scipio to End Long-Standing Mystery
Hannibal Barca/Scipio Africanus | Ancient History RPF | G | ~500 words | AO3 link
In which Scipio is a famous Renaissance painter most famous for his portraits of his former master Hannibal. Who he was banging. Obviously.

So much love to the Hannibal/Scipio nonny on FFA who got me excited about these two <3

I am super new to Hannibal/Scipio and know next to nothing about the Renaissance period & art history, so please excuse any factual errors. (Although feel free to educate me! I will enjoy it & be very grateful, I promise!) On account of, yknow, Scipio not doing anything to earn "Africanus" in this 'verse & my unfamiliarity with Renaissance Italian naming conventions, I decided that the easiest thing to do was leave him as PCS II. Oh, and I've added a series tag because I'm hoping to write a proper AU, but we'll see how I go with that, I guess.

The "oil painting" is a manip of this image, because Alexander Siddig is forever my Hannibal. I couldn't have made it without this Photoshop tutorial.





( Sketchbooks claimed to be those of Renaissance painter Scipio have been sent for authentication by experts at the Louvre )

You know, I was thinking about Everything is Illuminated again today & how weird it is to me that Alexander Perchov is so rarely read as queer. I mean, I know it probably comes down to being queer myself and in fandom, but every time I pick up the book I get baffled all over again that so few people even questioned it? That it never came up in interviews with Safran Foer or has really received any attention elsewhere?

Someone on the TVTropes page labels him as ambiguously gay, but the only examples they give are 1) that he reveals that he lies to his family about going clubbing (he actually goes to the beach alone) and meeting women (all fictional), and 2) that he questions Jonathan about America and asks if there are homosexual accountants there.

( warning: spoilers of major plot points, slurs )