Snowflake Challenge #12 and #15

[chacusha]

Challenge #12: Create a Rec Countdown.

I've decided to rec: 5 icon communities, 4 media featuring women on a ruthless revenge quest, 3 direct-to-DVD Disney movie sequels I think are actually good, 2 communities for finding fannish events, and 1 movie I'd rec to everyone (which is extremely uncommon).


Five icon community recs:

1. icontalking: The meta "icon resource" resource -- This community has an up-to-date directory of active icon-related communities on Dreamwidth, as well as being a place that runs monthly activities itself (no contests/voting for any of them in this case).


2. iconpraise: A rec community for icons! I feel like this place is useful for finding active icon-makers on Dreamwidth.


3. fandom_icons (or icons): Places to plug your icons that are active and seem to have a reasonably usable tagging system.


4. ic_animated: A challenge contest for drawn/animated canons (includes: anime, manga, comics/webcomics, cartoons, video games, etc. AKA the media that most of my fandoms are in). Although I'm usually too busy for this one, I like the themes that are picked for the challenges -- they're more likely to be ones that involve finding an element in canon (like "mothers" or "sidekicks" or "red hair"), which I find is more helpful for making icons for me than purely technical themes, color palettes, abstract themes, etc.


5. moodthemeinayear: Okay, not QUITE icon-related, but on the same theme of "making graphics only usable on Dreamwidth" lol. Also, admittedly I have not yet participated in this community so am making this rec just based on the concept itself. Anyway, this community provides structure for creating a custom DW mood theme. The main challenge is one that helps you complete a mood theme over the course of a year, but they also have smaller challenges that run multiple times a year to make a pared-down mood theme that just has the major emotions and reuses them for variations on that emotion. Currently, I've got other projects I'm focusing on so I can't do this but it seems really fun and helpful, and maybe in the future, if I want to change up my mood theme, I'll try it out!

Four media featuring women hellbent on a mission of revenge: Are you like me and really love cheesy stories featuring a woman dishing out revenge? Never get tired of that "Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves" quote? Love rooting for a kinda terrible woman inflicting punishment on even worse people? That somewhat contradictory combination of love/passion/morality and icy-hearted darkness that a good avenger needs? Well, here are my recs if that appeals:

1. Revenge (2011 TV series). My #1 rec. What if you had a genderflipped and modern AU version of Count of Monte Cristo, where the newly-wealthy "count" is the *daughter* of a man unfairly imprisoned, and returns to the hangouts of the white collar criminals who put her father in jail and proceeds to ruthlessly fuck them up? I love this series; I love Emily and her "I wish I could be a normal person; I will never be a normal person" angst. (I just found out this show is available for streaming on Disney Plus. Gasp! I might need to make my partner watch this haha.)


2. Kill Bill movies. Probably the first example of this genre I watched. It's Quentin Tarantino so these movies get very over-the-top and fetishy in a lot of ways, but I love the scene when the Bride discovers Ventura Green living the normal life she wanted so much, and kills her anyway because she is THAT committed to revenge even though she knows that is the same act that propelled her on this revenge quest. Vengeance as a force that inevitably turns its wielder into a monster is just *chef's kiss* Also, love those revenge sirens.


3. Setsuka from Soulcalibur. Like most (all?) of the items on this list, Setsuka's character is heavily based on that of Lady Snowblood (Shurayuki-hime), down to the sword concealed in a parasol and a snow-themed name. In this case, however, she has a very different backstory and reason for seeking vengeance (avenging her master who was killed in a duel by another Soulcalibur character). This canon is not as pure an example of the genre as others in this list because she's a fairly minor character in a large cast of characters, but I still enjoy the pastiche and think Setuska is great example of the genre in the way she combines beauty and deadliness and sentiment and coldness. I'm also a big fan of characters who have unspoken feelings for a person who dies before they can confess, and that death just derails their life entirely, and that's very much at play with Setsuka's storyline.


4. Blue Eye Samurai (Netflix animation). I just finished writing up a review of this show as part of my next TV reviews batch, and that plus writing up a Soulcalibur promo is probably why I have lady avengers on my mind. Similar to Setsuka, the main character here is a foreigner who has a rough time in Japan, but her revenge story here is that she disguises herself as a male swordsman to kill the four remaining foreigners in Japan, one of whom is her father. And of course, her revenge quest gets increasingly messy and costly along the way.

(I didn't include Lady Snowblood (1973 film) on this list because I hadn't actually seen it at the time of writing this. I have since corrected this and have watched it now and would rec it -- it is very much the ur-version of this trope and holds up if you have a tolerance for over-the-top blood spatters and backstories involving rape and prostitution. Before that, I'd only read the manga that the movie is based on, which I did enjoy but which is a lot harder to widely rec because mm... it basically has softcore porn elements at points. The movie version is much more toned down, though.)


Three direct-to-DVD Disney sequels that I think are actually good, probably because they all feature rom-com/pining elements to them:

1. Kronk's New Groove: Sequel to The Emperor's New Groove, centered around Kronk's various adventures being a Chipmunk camp counselor and getting his dad to show him some approval, and it keeps the great sense of humor. Just an A+ movie if you want more Emperor's New Groove, and which doesn't take itself seriously at all.


2. Mulan II: A mission escorting three princesses to an arranged marriage creates a rift in Mulan and Shang's relationship. The whole "an arranged marriage, how oppressive! :(" plot is cringe and to be honest, I'm not a fan of the characterization choices here for Mulan, Shang, OR Mushu. That said, I'm mainly here for the princess/soldier couples, and some of the songs are actually good IMO.


3. Cinderella II: Dreams Come True: Most people prefer the third Cinderella movie to the second one (the third one certainly has a more dramatic plot and slightly higher production values), but I like the second one because I dig the romance plotline for Anastasia, and also like Cinderella's character here as a kind of outsider in the castle, and I like that she gets some closure with at least one of her stepsisters.

Two communities for finding fannish events:

1. fandomcalendar: I think everyone knows this community already, but it's so helpful! It's so much easier to run events when you can promote them here and know that a large amount of potentially-interested people will be notified!


2. thebigbangblogproject: I only just found out about this blog recently. It's got a lot of resources for finding recurring and one-off big bang events, but also (despite the name), regularly advertises non-bang events such as bingos and ship weeks. Really helpful resource on the Tumblr side of things!

One perfect movie I would rec to anyone:

1. Millennium Actress: This film is one of my favorites and it is such an entertaining, emotional, and satisfying watch that I would rec it to anyone. It's an animated film about a (fictional) actress who appeared in various period films that span roughly a millennium in time (hence the name of the film) before suddenly retiring and disappearing from public view. In her twilight years, she finally tells a pair of documentarians her life story via the films she has acted in. You will be very confused for the first ten minutes or so but stick with it and what it's doing will become clear and then just enjoy the ride! There are very few movies or other media I would rec to anyone without qualifications, but this is the one I would -- it's a crowd-pleaser!

Challenge #13: Interact with someone in fandom you haven't talked with before.

(Skipping this one.)


Challenge #15: Talk about an unexpected joyous moment you experienced last year.

Well, I was really delighted to get a late treat for my Quodo-as-exes prompt in Quodo Mini-fest! And a vid too! I don't think I really realized this about latetreatbonanza until after I'd run it the first time, but nothing much matches the surprised delight of getting a late present out of left field (I mainly made the community from the creator's perspective of just wanting motivation to finish up my own late projects). But I've noticed it in the way the recipients react to their gifts -- it is definitely SUCH a joyous experience getting a surprise gift! So yes, that was an unexpected joyous moment for me last year.


And I'm done with snowflake_challenge, reasonably on time this year!

Comments

[musyc]

Kronk's New Groove is wonderful! I love doing a double feature of those two.

[chacusha]

Oh heck yeah, that sounds fun! Glad you're a fan of it too :D

[suzume]

That's not the first time I've heard Millennium Actress rec'd. I should definitely see it!

[chacusha]

I think you'd really like it! I guess it's a bit hard to find because it's an older movie, but it seems to be available on archive.org?

[suzume]

Ooh, that sounds, um, like an attractive possibility?

[breyzyyin]

Thanks for the icon comm recs! I also have been meaning to check out Blue Eye Samurai and now I'm excited to read your upcoming review! Also, I liked Cinderella II more than the third one too! They had some interesting plot points in it.

~Ahh, yes, Millennium Actress seems to (rightly) deserve all the praise it gets! ♥

[chacusha]

You're welcome! And glad you're looking forward to it -- hopefully I'll be able to have a review post out in like... a month or two. XD I'm glad you liked Cinderella II too.

It does! :D

[vriddy]

My library happens to carry Millenium Actress, and I placed a hold on it after reading this :D Looking forward to it, thank you for the recs!

[chacusha]

Oh excellent, I hope you enjoy it!

[rogueslayer452]

(Here via snowflake_challenge)

Revenge is such a fun show. I know fans didn't like the direction the show went towards the end especially the last season, but I always viewed it as more of a soap opera-esque drama of revenge. Emily had her vendetta, others had theirs, and it became quite a hot entertaining mess of scheming and foiling each other's plans. Seeing Emily taking down those who wronged her and her father, especially in the early seasons, was such a delicious treat.

Interestingly, Kill Bill was also kind of my grand introduction to these kinds of women revenge stories. I was addicted to watching both films when they first came out, and it got me into so many, including the ones that Quentin Tarantino used as inspiration.

I love a good revenge story, especially when it comes to women getting revenge on those who wronged her in some way or another. I tend to gravitate more towards the darker and grittier ones (ex: Sympathy for Lady Vengeance, The Glory, Lady Snowblood, Female Prisoner Scorpion, The Machine Girl), but any kind will do. As long as it has an interesting story and the women are relentless and unhinged at doing whatever it takes to get revenge, I'm in. Bonus points if they are also a bit awful themselves, the more complicated and complex the better.

[chacusha]

Revenge really was fun. The writing was kind of a mess, especially toward the end, but it was an entertaining romp the whole way, and I appreciate that. And 👀 at the recs -- other than Sympathy for Lady Vengeance, I haven't seen those!

And I definitely agree -- let a woman be unhinged! I love seeing stories push that line between "hero" and "villain" with their protagonist while not letting them tilt completely over to the unsympathetic side.

Thanks very much for the thoughts (and sorry for the belated reply)!