~is this the real life, is it just fantasy~

[anghraine]

I already shrieked about this on Tumblr, but my excitement cannot be contained to one platform!!!!

Y'all, the best thing just happened to me. The BEST. And all because I thought a Showtime series with lovingly gorgeous design and dysfunctional Renaissance families sounded like a nice way to pass the time. 

People who have not followed me through my passionate descent into Borgias stanning, all you need to know is that it happened, and being me, was followed by I MUST KNOW ALL THE THINGS. So at this point I've acquired a substantial shelf of Borgia-related histories and watched the shows and read the manga and written the problematic longfic and so on.

I also wrote a grad school paper on how complex the show's divergences from history really are, and on adaptation in general--pretty much the paper on adaptation I always wanted to write through the prism of the particular adaptation I happened to be into at the time. Uploaded it a research sharing site, the end. 

OR SO IT SEEMED~

This morning, and by morning I mean 6:30 AM, I got a message in my inbox in Spanish. The name was so unfamiliar that I thought it might just be a site bot or something, so I groggily scanned it and ... well. Not a bot. More specifically, it was from a for-real professor about a conference her university is hosting, about representations of the Borgia, which given my research and interests she thought might be of interest to me. Guess what her university it is?

YOU WON'T GUESS. The Universitat de València. That is, one of the most prestigious in Spain, which has been a university since 1501 when it was authorized by the papal bull of, surprise, Rodrigo Borgia. And when out of curiosity, I checked to see if anyone had read my paper, the site's analytics said someone in Spain had clicked on it yesterday.

So. I, fic writer and grad student at a tiny, low-funded, not particularly prestigious program, got contacted by a legit scholar from Rodrigo Borgia's university about a conference being held in conjunction with the institute of Borgia studies, in his hometown, because of my grumpy intro to grad studies paper. With a prestigious publication attached. Like, even if I don't get in????? This is... me! This happened to me!!!

I'm sorry, Neil Jordan, I've complained about your choices a lot, but all is forgiven. MY YEAR IS MADE, MY LIFE IS MADE

Comments

[sixbeforelunch]

That is fantastic! Congratulations! *\o/*

[anghraine]

Thank you! I'm still completely flummoxed, haha.

[juliekarasik]

Congratulations!

[anghraine]

Thanks!

[alias_sqbr]

Congratulations!!!!!

[anghraine]

YOUR ICON WAS ME FOR ABOUT TEN HOURS YESTERDAY.

[sathari]

OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMG SQUEEEEING FIVEEVAR FOR YOU THAT IS MADE OF AWESOME SOOOOO MUUUUUUUUUUUUUCH AWESOME! SO MUCH ACADEMIC FAN SQUEE HERE!!!!!

[anghraine]

Thank you! That's my exact response, tbh!

[sally_maria]

That's excellent - congratulations. :-)

[anghraine]

Thank you :)

[lizbee]

OH MY GOD, THAT'S SO AMAZING!

[anghraine]

Thank you! It really is--not something I would have anticipated happening ever, much less right now!

[meridian_rose]

That is awesome! :D
I will never forgive Jordan for that Borgias Apocalypse debacle or his attitude towards the fans tho

[anghraine]

Thank you!

Honestly, I'm more bothered by S3 than the Borgia Apocalypse, even though the latter is so vastly worse, because... well, everyone politely ignores the Borgia Apocalypse. Showtime clearly took one look at that horrorshow and was like "nah, bro." But S3 exists and it has so much that's really good, but... AGH. Even in a great episode like "The Prince" there's so much characterization whiplash. (What does Lucrezia actually feel about Alfonso? Do we know? Does Lucrezia know? Did Neil Jordan know????)

I haven't heard about NJ's attitude towards the fans, though! What did he do?

[meridian_rose]

There was some real smugness about his u-turn with the show/the acpocalypse even though it was more occ than most fanfic, and some rather rude tweets that boil down to "shut up about the damn show it's over". Excuse us for falling in love with the show and becoming invested in, asshat. I mean not as bad as Nevins level of disrespect but still. It left a bad taste in my mouth.
And oh, god, s3 Lucrezia. One minute she's badass witch/poisoner/manipulator and the next she's turning into Ursula 2.0 - seducing Cesare while whining over some pathetic douchebag who doesn't care about her at all before blaming Cesare for doing what needed to be done. Though it turned out to be an accident with Alfonso's death (he really did fall onto a knife Cesare happened to be holding!) but I wasn't shedding any tears over him.
In fact that made me think less of how Jordan writes women, having her follow the exact same path (I won't even go into the sections of the ebook I managed to suffer through).

I clearly still have a lot of Feelings about this show. I miss the more active fandom :/