Calling your attention to fandom contributions by my fandom wife thememoryofthatday. She's been regularly posting episode summaries of Warrior Baek Dong-soo every Sunday on Archive of Our Own. Not your ordinary summaries--they are full of wit and charm and historical links and behind the scenes info; they call out all plot holes like Swiss cheese in the script and poke fun at characters while maintaining a total adoration for (most of) them and the glory that is the Dong-soo/Woon ship (and others). Memory is a history nerd and will zero in on sageuk crazy errors, but she’s also caught some storyline inconsistencies I’d never noticed in all my years of fangirling and ficcing for this drama (Hong-do can teleport! Dong-soo rides a horse that flies through time and space!) The comment section is full of rambly, fun meta (and alternate Gwang-taek thirsting/bashing, relentless jokes about Chun’s alcoholism, the size of Dong-soo’s dong, and a decidedly WHY CAN’T THE GIRLS FIGHT MORE pissiness).
Each ep summary includes 1) a 60 sec recap 2) a long-ass recap 3) beautiful screencaps and gifs 4) funny captions 5) tally of body count, awards for dumbest moment, most romantic moment, etc... 6) Clips from the official SBS YouTube channel. QUITE THE GIFT TO FANDOM. Since I kinda hate the show (really), I’m using this episode guide instead of the show as my major source material for fics in the future, so I don’t have to fast forward through so many scenes that are yuck, boring, or downright triggery for me (ohhhhhhh, wait until you see what Memory has planned for that trainwreck of ep 29 and... um... an all new interactive ep 30!)
Recently, Memory covered covered the famous jailhouse scene in EPISODE NINETEEN HERE. Go look.
Also, Memory is at work on a longfic that I’ve been telling everyone will be the best the fandom’s seen. Just you wait. It’s characterization of Woon is so razor-sharp, true to canon, wonderfully imaginative yet fair to the “what if” of a very believable canon divergence.
In the meantime, enjoy the latest in her Under the Sun series. From the viewpoint of Gak the royal guard, this is just a wonderful short piece that makes sense and saves Woon (YES, LET’S SAVE WOON--I Iove stories that save Woon) in a way that honors canon. I beta-ed this fic, but I still haven’t put my mind together as to what to say about it in the comment section because it’s just such a beautiful piece I have to measure my words. At the very least it’s tiny scene with Yi San has inspired my next fic (and yet again postponed another chapter to my WIP).
Sunrise
thememoryofthatday
Summary:
(Sequel to Second Favorite.)
Baek Dong-soo wasn’t the only one with Yeo Woon in the wheat field... nor is he the only person on Woon’s side. A companion piece to After Sunset with a much happier ending.
Notes:
For Tepid_T.
If Warrior Baek Dong-soo is new to you, you may want to start by reading my guide for fandom-blind readers.
Many months ago, I wrote a story that I still hate called After Sunset. It’s a short piece about the aftermath of Woon’s canon death, as told from Gak’s POV. Ever since I posted that story, I have been promising to rewrite it with a happier ending - which obviously means Woon has to live.
So this is the rewrite I’ve been promising for the better part of a year. I’m sorry it took so long.
This story falls into the Under the Sun series and overlaps with the events at the end of my first WBDS story, Shadows of What Would Have Been. If you haven’t read that story, this one should still make sense, but that longer story provides more details about why Woon survived, as well as some of the conversations that you don’t get to see here. Because this is an alternate version of After Sunset, some of the dialogue and events are the same as in that story. Self-plagiarism is fine, right?
Thank you to my lovely beta shalomdebbie for fixing all of my errors and convincing me not to delete most of the things I write.
Finally, this story is dedicated to Tepid_T, whose first experience of this fandom was that cursed canon-compliant story I mentioned above, and who loves Sang Gak so much that she wrote him a fabulous porn story that everyone needs to read: The Threat to Hanyang.
Tepid, you are a marvelous writer and an even more marvelous person. I’m so happy we met, and I can’t wait to see what you do next.
