(avoid pining after a ghost probably)

Keep reading

Since I keep lobbing this show at my poor, unsuspecting friends and acquaintances, I decided to make things easier for myself and them and compiled some basic information about the show:

• a brief summary of the show’s starting point
• where to watch NIF
• brief character guide
  
• more complete character guide
• how every relationship on this show is so fucking great
  
• things I wished I’d understood about people’s names starting out
• Which Dude In White Is That (in the first episode)

I wrote about this at LENGTH on Thursday but it turns out I still have more to say. This is a little shorter though:

At the start of NIF, Prince Jing is treated as an objectively terrible choice for a run at the throne. The other princes consider him a non-issue. The rest of court dismisses it. When MCS has his “I choose you” moment, Jingyan himself laughs in his face. There’s a bunch of dialog about how Jingyan is politically weak, and furthermore that this is largely due to his nature. He’s stubborn, outspoken, and morally uncompromising. In addition to his disadvantageous birth and history, he’s not willing to play the game enough to get promoted. He’s barely able to keep himself alive in the dangerous court atmosphere.

Mei Changsu is the only one who sees Jingyan as a viable option because he’s the only one willing to imagine a court that isn’t toxic with intrigue and factionalism. It’s true that Jingyan really can’t survive the politics of the court as it is, but while everyone else concludes that this means Jingyan is doomed to obscurity and military service and an early death, Mei Changsu concludes “If good people can’t survive in this court than we must build a better court where they can.”

It takes him twelve years of planning and two of hard work, but he does actually get his better court in relatively short order. And if the second season is any indication, this better court endures for at least the entirety of Jingyan’s reign.

I absolutely love this. “How can a good person survive in a toxic political climate” is a REALLY common court politics conflict. It’s a trope. Usually it’s presented as a binary choice: compromise your morals or fail in your goal. I love how this show looked at these two bad options and made a third option that no one thought of but that was, in retrospect, completely obvious. If the system is terrible, fix the system. The problem was never Jingyan in the first place. Interestingly, from the sound of it, this factionalism is a fairly new thing. Yes there was a LOT of conflict associated with Xiao Xuan’s rise to the throne, but Jingyan and Mei Changsu’s childhoods appear to have been relatively stable and safe. It took less than twelve years for the entire court to collectively forget that the factionalism wasn’t normal or necessary. Of the many incredible gifts that this show gives us maybe the best is this reminder: first, that this kind of political toxicity is not normal or necessary, and second, that systems that require moral compromise for survival are not meant to be preserved or protected. We always have the option of choosing people over systems.

Not sure how many people know that, on the @vidukon site, you can stream tons of vidshows from previous years? Some of them aren’t complete because the vids aren’t available to stream for whatever reason, but most of them have most vids from the original show available.

So if you’re in a mood to watch vids but you don’t want to spend ages trawling YouTube for something good, why not watch a vidshow that’s been curated already?

Some of my top picks:

(Scroll down in the year, pop open the days and click on the show you want!)

Robots and Cyborgs and Androids, Oh My! (by such heights, from Vidukon 2011) -  A show considering portrayals of mechanical lifeforms, and humanity’s relationships to them. Also hot robot sex.

I Was Hiding Under Your Porch Because I Love You (by carawj, from Vidukon 2015) -  A study of our relationships with animals. “If having a soul means being able to feel love and loyalty and gratitude, then animals are better off than a lot of humans.” ― James Herriot, All Creatures Great and Small

Tropetastic! (by purplefringe, from Vidukon 2015) -  Tropey, tropey multifandom fun.

I, Spy (by silly_cleo, from Vidukon 2015) -  Serious spy stuff.

Space (by shinyjenni, from Vidukon 2013) -  Strange new worlds. Alien civilizations. Ships that are bigger on the inside (and more than a little bit sexy). Final frontiers all over the place. You may think it’s a long way down the road to the chemist’s, but that’s just peanuts to space…

Multiple Desires, Multiple Partners (by blacksquirrel, Vidukon 2013) -  Bisexual characters in / and / or poly relationships.

Signs and Silences (by Isagel, Vidukon 2013) -  A selection of vids that address themes of religion and faith.

A (Brief) History of (Parts of) the World in Vids (by me, self-rec! /o\ from Vidukon 2015) -  A whistlestop tour through a few selected highlights of the last 20,000 years.

Also, if you just want some good vids from a range of fandoms, any year’s Festivids, Vidder’s Choice, Eurovision, Best of Creaspace or Premieres show is a good bet!