And it was all yellow?

[dolorosa_12]

I'm midway through my long, long (five-day) weekend, and things are going well. Matthias and I went out for a nice walk to Madingley, during which time we saw cows, horses, alpacas, lots of flat wheatfields, dramatic skies, and, apparently, a plague of crows and ravens. (Photoset here.) Madingley is only 6km outside Cambridge, but that is still the furthest I've been from home since January.

Normally I save my roundup of TV/films viewed until the end of the month, but I feel it's necessary to gush right now about the excellent The Old Guard, a Charlize Theron action film which has just been released on Netflix. It's based on a graphic novel (which I'm now fruitlessly trying to track down in physical format), and is about a team of immortals who (in the film at least) have spent centuries working as mercenaries for various wars, conflicts and causes — and the evil pharmaceutical company which is hunting them. If such things matter to you in media (these matter to me), there are multiple non-white characters, and one m/m couple, all of whom survive to the end of the film. It's received pretty mixed reviews, but I loved it.



Now, on to my latest offering for sunshine_challenge. This prompt is 'yellow,' and I have admit I cheated a bit and treated both fluorescent light, and the reflected light of celestial bodies, as being yellowish in colour when they're really nothing of the kind.

I'd been meaning for ages to revisit Galax Arena, Gillian Rubinstein's extraordinary 1990s dystopian YA novel (see this post on my reviews blog where I rave about Australian YA novels of that era, including Galax Arena), and in particular my beloved Presh. She is a character that exists very much in the margins of canon, more talked about by others than giving voice to her own experiences, and she has always haunted me. I first read this book when I was nine or ten years old, and it was the first time I realised that I didn't have to like a book's narrator, even if the author clearly intended for me to do so — and that instead I could latch onto a story's antagonists, and make up my own stories about them if the book didn't give me what I wanted. I've been in love with Presh (and, to a lesser extent, with Allyman, and with the tense, sad, grim relationship between the two of them) ever since.

I tried to write about her eight years ago in Of Moons, Birds and Monsters, and this new fic in many ways represents an ongoing conversation with myself, and with that earlier story.

The Light of Unfamiliar Stars, Reflected (1378 words) by Dolorosa
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Galax-Arena Series - Gillian Rubinstein
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Allan 'Allyman' Manne/Presh
Characters: Presh, Allan 'Allyman' Manne
Additional Tags: Pre-Canon
Summary:

Nothing remained but her own feet, and eyes, and hands — the strength and certainty of her own small body. Here, she was on surer ground. She danced through the air, and learnt the span and shape of her new world.

This is the story of how Presh survives her earliest years in the Galax Arena.

This fic was written for the 2020 Sunshine Challenge, to the prompt of 'yellow'.

Comments

💛

[oldtoadwoman]

Lovely photos. I like how in your landscape photos, the sky dominates.

I haven't heard of the book before, but I just added it to my to-read list on thestorygraph.com

Re: 💛

[dolorosa_12]

Thank you! The area where I live is so flat that every photo ends up being mostly sky, so I'm glad you liked that!

Glad to hear the book sounds interesting — it's one of my favourites, but it's not well known outside of Australia, which is where I grew up.

Re: 💛

[oldtoadwoman]

I'm in a city surrounded by tall buildings and trees and it's been months since I saw the horizon. I don't really think of it as odd until I see a photo with a wide-open sky and realize it's been years since I've experienced being able to see that much sky.

[enemytosleep]

Man, I had a comment typed and then the internet void ate it. The gist of it was that I loved your thoughts on latching onto secondary/tertiary characters and how it speaks to the richness of the story that those characters are so interesting even without the protagonist spotlight.

[dolorosa_12]

Oh, no worries! I totally agree with you about latching onto secondary/tertiary characters — this book is precious to me because it's the first time I can remember deliberately doing so, rather than just reading and interpreting the story as the author intended.

[iberiandoctor]

This sounds like a lovely canon which I should give a whirl one of these days -- maybe when I am feeling less apocalyptic/doom and gloom myself!

Aw, Madingley! Suddenly I miss your part of the world so much. Is the Three Horseshoes still good? I had my first proper date there, decades ago <3

[dolorosa_12]

It's not a particularly cheerful canon — it's about children being kidnapped from around the world and forced to perform terrifying circus tricks and risk their lives, so that their fear and adrenaline can be harvested to unnaturally prolong the lives of the wealthy — pretty grim stuff!

The Three Horseshoes is still great! It's a gastropub now, much more a restaurant than a pub, really, and a really nice place to have lunch after the walk out to Madingley. That's so sweet that it was the site of your first proper date!

[lirazel]

I enjoyed The Old Guard enough that I'm going to watch it again, and this time I can skip over the grisliest parts so I can enjoy it more thoroughly.

[dolorosa_12]

I'm glad you liked it (or at least liked some elements of it), and I hope you enjoy it on the second time around!

I read what you said in your own post about disliking the violence (while of course going into the film knowing it would be violent), and wanting more moments of cosy domesticity. From a brief dive into Ao3, I think you will definitely get that from the fanfic that's been written, particularly if you want to read Nicky/Joe.

[lirazel]

Yeah, it looks like there's lots to check out in the tag at AO3! It's been a really long time since I discovered a new canon that I loved enough to seek out fic for...that actually had fic, so I'm pretty excited!

[dolorosa_12]

Same! I'll have to do a recs post of fic at some point — it looks like there's a lot of good stuff out there, and I've enjoyed what I've read so far.

[lirazel]

Oh good! I'll look forward to that post!