the sun and the moon and the stars

what if...?

Wed, 04 May 2022 15:09:09 GMT

Rewatching Shang Chi (let's be real, mostly for the bus fight scene and for Xialing being a badass throughout) and it occurs to me that I want the version of the story where Katy is actually an escapee Black Widow and she's just never pushed Shaun as to his background because she's worried about tipping her own hand.

It doesn't quiiiiite stack up, but it's so close, it'd work if you pushed it.

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Shang-Chi

Mon, 22 Nov 2021 02:35:54 GMT

Seen it, finally!

( some thoughts, spoilery )

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Insta-rec!

Mon, 19 Jul 2021 06:51:34 GMT

Someone linked me to this, and it's great. :)

Empty Graves (6539 words) by Unpretty
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Superman - All Media Types, DCU
Summary:

Time travelers who plan to kill Superman never account for Martha Kent in their plans. She may not be the World's Finest, but she's a mother with a shotgun, and all told that might be scarier.

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nice day for a white widow

Sat, 10 Jul 2021 01:08:39 GMT

So, Black Widow!

Overall, I really liked it ( cut for spoilers )

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tv meme, because why not

Mon, 17 May 2021 17:35:19 GMT

It's late, and I'm tired, so let's meme!

( current viewing )

( my preferences )

( pick a show, any show )

( my favourites )

( viewing habits )

Swuiped from deird1.

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Fic Recs: Longfic #5

Mon, 21 Dec 2020 04:05:31 GMT

The reccing habit sort of fell apart in July along with the rest of life, but I've certainly still been reading – more voraciously than ever. So here are a few more – as always, archived in the longfic tag.

when i die i’ll sacrifice (more than enough for the afterlife) (41322 words) by notcaycepollard
Fandom: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Series: Part 1 of a flame in two cupped hands

Summary: The fall is longer than Natasha expects.

It’s tears cold on her face, teeth bitten all the way through her lip and the taste of copper in her mouth; she’s falling and falling and then, bracing for impact—she wakes up.

This is a fantastic look at a possible future for Natasha. When she hits the ground on Vormir her story ends there – and starts again years earlier, with new choices. I absolutely adore this kind of story – a fresh look at canon with a character making new choices that leads to very different outcomes. The rest of the series is also great, although should IMO be read in order.

Drive It Like You Stole It: A Bodyswap (28123 words) by AggressiveWhenStartled
Fandom: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Captain America (Movies), Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Series: Part 1 of The Old Codgers Greatest Hits Album

Summary: Steve had gone fully red-faced with pedantic altar-boy fury. “Did your computer forget how to Google translate?” he bellowed, sticking his head up and over. Bucky yanked him down again. “What are you even trying to say?”

Bucky tried to shake the sparkles off the grenade he had been planning on lobbing over the divider. “It sounded like Latin to me,” he said reasonably, pursing his lips and frowning at the explosive. It dripped a sparkle, and a puff of purple smoke curled up where it hit the concrete.

“That’s because you spent Sunday school flirting with Sarah Cunningham,” Steve accused, bobbing back up to throw his shield and ducking back down to dodge a shining ball of blue light. “You wouldn’t know Latin if it came up and kissed you on your ugly mug.”

“I’d sure know it if Sarah Cunningham did, though.” Bucky grinned, struck by the memory. “That gal really knew what she was doing.”

This story makes me hoot with laughter every time I read it, and the follow-up in the series is even better, IMO. The title absolutely gives away the story, but the plot isn't the point: the prose is hilarious, the banter is sharp, and the running commentary in Peter Parker's head is lifegiving.

Any Instrument (131102 words) by dicta_contrion
Fandom: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling

Summary: Draco Malfoy wouldn't go back to England for anything less than an exceptional case. Being asked to figure out why Harry Potter can't control his magic might be exceptional enough to qualify.

Another long-after-the-War fic, I really enjoyed this one for its awesome magical worldbuilding and deeper exploration of the magical world, as well as some realistic insights into Wizarding politics.

Another Life (61860 words) by LullabyKnell
Fandom: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)

Summary: In one moment, James T. Kirk is the acting captain of the U.S.S. Enterprise, on his way home to Earth after stopping the Narada. In the next moment, without explanation, James T. Kirk is an Academy cadet on academic probation again, barely a day before Nero will destroy Vulcan.

He dares himself to do better. And with a planet on the line and no proof but his own memories, he knows that "better" means he'll need some help.

This one is a really interesting time travel fic with some great character moments. When I first read this it was a WIP that was about 3/4 posted, and I remember thinking when I came back to the finished fic quite a while later that the climax/resolution wasn't what I was expecting. A solid read, and it's tagged as the first story in a series; I am hoping for more!

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ages past

Tue, 27 Oct 2020 02:33:28 GMT

I remain deeply bemused by the way the discourse around healthy relationships has warped over time. It is, of course, a good thing that people have grown to recognise that an older person grooming a younger (less experienced, more naive, more shape-able) person is generally a bad thing, and often predatory in the context of romantic relationships.

But I've genuinely seen people arguing that any age gap in relationships other than a few years is inherently predatory, that the older person is always taking advantage of the younger person, that they're "creepy pedos". Even when the youngest person in the couple is in their thirties or forties. Leaving aside the inherent lack of understanding of what a pedophile actually is, it seems so closed-minded to assume that people can never have anything genuine and valuable to offer each other unless they're at exactly the same stage of their life.

And of course progressive discourse and purity culture and the internet commentariat being what they are, I've seen multiple people arguing - apparently entirely sincerely - about why older and younger people would even be friends? Why would a sixty year old want to hang out with a forty year old? What could they possibly have in common; how could they possibly find each other interesting?

(Thankfully, I was reading the worst offenders from my phone, and the obstacle of trying to thumb-type a polemic saved me from falling into the But Someone Is Wrong On The Internet spiral.)

I don't think I'll ever get over being surprised about the inability of a great number of people to imagine that other peoples' lives do not look exactly like their own.

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heartbreak and a half

Sat, 26 Sep 2020 03:08:28 GMT

Allie Brosh's new book, Solutions and Other Problems, landed this week and I caved to Jeff Bezos and bought the Kindle version because I wanted to read it now, not... sometime later when it physically lands in Aus.

From an interview with Buzzfeed News:

Congrats on the new book! How would you describe it to both fans of yours and people new to you?

Allie Brosh: Like a wildlife documentary about one specific animal. It was written and directed by the animal. And instead of watching, you have to read and look at pictures. The animal drew the pictures. There are 1600 of them. One time, the animal became trapped in a bucket.

Oh god. So, on the one hand, most of the anecdotes in the book are not as uproariously funny as her blog or her first book. But on the other hand, she has evolved so much as a storyteller; instead of a collection of anecdotes, the book tells a story from start to finish, the anecdotes being the vector for the story rather than the point of it. Taken as a whole, it's a finely honed narrative about grief, mental illness and personal growth, and it fucking destroyed me.

It's so good, but – at least if your sensitive spots are in the same places as mine – it's not an easy read. Still, I entirely recommend it, unless you are actively and delicately curating your inputs to avoid mental health risks.

Also, her Inner Dog Voices are still 100% on point. So good. ♥

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your fave could never

Tue, 11 Aug 2020 13:18:05 GMT

Almost by accident I've started playing DC Universe Online again, a game I last played before the Great Sony Hack of 2011 that took all their games and the PSN down for a month or more. I remember enjoying it at the time, but having mixed feelings given the shoddiness of the UI and UX (console ports ftw) and the lack of transparency in the game mechanics.

Well, none of that has changed, but maybe my opinions have, about what an MMORPG should look like. I reinstalled it just for kicks (and because now Australia has slightly less-slow internet, it's not a chore to do so!) and logged in intending just to have a fly around, and got distracted changing my outfit (my main hero now looks incredibly badass) and then sort of got interested in the content and now here I am a few days layer, re-subscribed and getting stuck in.

The engine is still clunky and the graphics are certainly showing its age (but for all of that, the environments are prettier than World of Warcraft which had a graphics upgrade much more recently.) But what I'm impressed about is the quantity of content they've released. In the, what, nine and a half years since the game launched, there have been 39 "episodes", periodic updates of playable content which advance the storylines and provide character progression.

For the last four years their model has been to release a new episode every few months (anywhere from 2 to 6) which contains a new open-world zone with repeatable quests, new levels of instance content for various sizes of group, and at least one full raid, often two. 21 new raids in less than four years. Admittedly none of them are huge, but when you're getting three or four new episodes a year, that doesn't matter! And, as a bonus, it's all included in the subscription, or if you're a free to play player you can unlock specific episodes for a one-off payment.

Dear Blizzard, this is how you drip-feed new content - you know, that thing you've been saying you want to do for over a decade.

It's also kinda interesting because I've read a lot more DCU fanfic since I first played, thanks largely to musesfool and her recs at unfitforsociety. So I feel a certain amount of interest in the setting that I didn't when I first played. Bumping into Superman or Wonder Woman in game does nothing for me (exacerbated by the fact that Superman is voiced by Adam Baldwin, whose crappiness has kind of tarnished everything he's touched, for me) but flying around in the Justice League Watchtower kind of does.

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Fic Recs: Longfic #4

Sat, 04 Jul 2020 14:27:26 GMT

Some more recs! Apparently it's been six weeks since my last batch? Whoops. *wince* As always, longfic recs are archived in the tag.

The Parent Snap (54399 words) by follow_the_sun
Fandom: Thor (Movies), Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Series: Part 1 of Odinbrood Adventures
Summary: Bucky Barnes thinks Odin's children got a bad deal, so he engages in a little light kidnapping to give them the happiness they deserve. One day, Hela, Thor, and Loki decide to return the favor.

Funny and poignant by turns, the worldbuilding is great in this -- but the bit that always gets me, whenever I reread, is Bucky's fierce kindness. Love it.

If They Haven't Learned Your Name (237623 words) by silentwalrus
Fandom: Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Series: Part 2 of Bucky Barnes Gets His Groove Back & Other International Incidents
Summary: Steve gets out of the hospital in two days, but just barely. “I’m fine,” he tells Sam, Nurse Eunjung and the phalanx of doctors assigned to make sure Captain America didn’t bleed out and die and get bad PR all over their nice clean hospital. “I have an advanced healing factor. It’s fine. See? I’m standing.”
“That is not standing,” Sam tells him.
“You’re bending the IV stand,” Nurse Eunjung adds pointedly. “Let go and sit down, they don’t grow on trees.”

aka Steve and Bucky's Global Honeymoon Revenge World Tour.

This one is a fantastic entry in the Up All Night to Get Bucky body of work, featuring the USS Motherfucker, dubstep, and an amazing Natasha in the background. It borders on absurdist comedy, but in the "why is everything such a trainwreck" way rather than the Frathouse Avengers Tower way. Thoroughly enjoyable.

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Agent Afloat Atlantis (48793 words) by Mhalachai
Fandom: Stargate Atlantis, NCIS
Summary: Ziva's new assignment certainly isn't what she expected.

Divergent from NCIS after Season 5, and divergent from SGA at... some point? This one's one of my favourite crossovers, with a really smooth integration of the two canons (which work well together anyway), some fun procedural details, and a great eye for character. I'm always a sucker for crossovers where the Cool Kids from one canon get to find out the secrets of the other canon, and this one delivers in spades.

(Crossover familiarity required: if you're familiar with NCIS around Season 3-5 and you've got Stargate familiarity at Fandom Osmosis levels you should know what you need to know to enjoy it, I think.)

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The Dragon-King's Temple (196311 words) by Kryal
Fandom: Stargate SG-1, Avatar: The Last Airbender
Summary: Through the spite of the spirits or plain rotten chance, a door that would have been better left untouched has opened. On the other hand, with Fire and Earth as one's allies, sometimes escaping is the easy part.

Even the Dragon-King's temple floods.

Another great crossover -- while I'm not the greatest Stargate fan, the fandom does produce fantastic fanworks and the crossovers are fantastic. This one is meaty, plotty, adventure-y goodness that feels wholly in the vein of both canons. A couple of the tertiary OCs might read as annoying (especially if you read the author's notes, which I don't recommend) but overall this is a really great read with some fun worldbuilding, and the AtlA characters in particular are excellently rendered.

(Crossover familiarity required: I'm not sure how this would read if you don't know AtlA - it's set post-series and is very spoilery for the series as a whole. Set in Season 3 of SG-1 apparently, but I enjoyed it just fine with Fannish Osmosis levels of SG-1 knowledge, so.)

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in which everything i love is wracked with strife

Fri, 26 Jun 2020 11:27:08 GMT

It sure is a fun time to be a fan in SFF at the moment. /s

In the last week, survivors have come forward about abuse, harrassment and predation they suffered at the hands of:

* Cameron Stewart (comics artist)
* Warren Ellis (SFF luminary)
* Chris Avellone (video game designer, comics writer, RPG writer)
* Noah Bradley (MtG artist)
* Jason Latour (comics artist)
* Shane DeFreest (RPG designer)
* Sam Sykes (SFF author)
* Myke Cole (SFF author)
* Mark Lawrence (SFF author)
* Scott Lynch and Elizabeth Bear (SFF authors)
* Matt McElroy (RPG studio manager and DriveThruRPG manager)
* a shitload of names in the video game streaming community here

This week has been approximately 83 years long.

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dc universe, look at your life, look at your choices

Mon, 22 Jun 2020 10:13:18 GMT

Because I'm a giant nerd, I'm spending some time fixing the metadata on my movie library so it sorts properly, and I fell down the wikipedia rabbit hole on various movie franchises.

Which leads me to discover that the new Batman movie coming up isn't just recast with Robert Pattinson as Batman - it isn't a follow-on in the existing DC Cinematic Universe (Batman v Superman, Justice League, etc), it's a new take on the character. Just. What.

I am not a Batman fangirl - by no means. But this is ridiculous!

* Burton/Schumacher series, 89 - 97, starring Michael Keaton, Val Kilmer and George Clooney across four films with shared continuity.
* Reboot in 2005 for the Dark Knight trilogy with Christian Bale in the lead. Okay, fair enough, it'd been nearly a decade and there was room for a new take. I mean, we weren't crying out for it, but waiting this long was positively restrained by recent standards.
* Less than a YEAR after The Dark Knight Rises - which was successful and hugely acclaimed - they recast Batman and start work on a new continuity of stories, with Ben Affleck in three movies across 2016-2017.
* Then we get Dante Pereira-Olson as Batman in 2019's Joker.

And now in 2021, we're getting Pattinson in a whole _new_ continuity of Batmovies, which is still somehow attached to the DC Cinematic Universe while being a new take on the story? What?

This is ridiculous - three Batman actors, three different continuities, in four years. No Batman actor has ever lasted more than three movies. (And while this is happening Batman has been a character in two live-action TV series, both separate from the movie continuity and with no connection to each other. And played by two totally different actors there, too.)

Compare this to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, with only two character recastings (each after a single appearance) and telling a coherent big-picture story across 23 movies in eleven years. Core characters appear in 8-10 films across up to 11 years with no recasting. Admittedly the MCU made cinematic history in its ability to handle a really long franchise without screwing up. (Wrong-headed plot choices aside, but that's a separate issue.)

DC, the MCU is right there as a template for your success! You could... no, wait, apparently you'd rather TELL US ABOUT BATMAN'S ORIGIN STORY YET AGAIN.

Okay, cool, whatever. You just -- yeah. I give up.

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never gonna give you up

Wed, 27 May 2020 09:27:11 GMT

Out of idle curiosity, and looking for more fic to read, I went randomly searching on the AO3 today, and found the the work with the single highest number of kudos. It is this gem, and I can see why it's rated so highly. What an amazing concept.

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mass effect thoughts

Mon, 25 May 2020 09:27:38 GMT

I was talking about Mass Effect with Housemate J today -- it's still the Game Of My Heart and I wish I could get him to play it (in that way where you want everyone you love to share the things you love). He idly said he wished it was a movie, which got me thinking about a fancast.

So, in that vein, thinking about fancasting Mass Effect...

( saving space )

...Okay, I think I'm going to have to start another Mass Effect playthrough now.

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bunny

Fri, 22 May 2020 17:09:13 GMT

In the ongoing list of Things I Want To Make But Probably Never Will: I have thought on-and-off that Raise Your Weapon by deadmau5 would make a fantastic Natasha fanvid, but it's never felt. quite. right. Well, the other day I heard a live version of it, from deadmau5's Creamfields 2019 set, and it's pretty much perfect; the live vocals are sparser and... realer, somehow, despite being a lot less perfect. I just have no vidding mojo these days, that's all, so it'll just have to sit on the list of Fanvids I'd Love To Make Someday and I can pretend one day I'm going to do it.

(Along with Seeya for a Jupiter Ascending vid, Puscifer's The Humbling River for Ziva David, and A Perfect Circle's cover of Fiddle and the Drum for John Crichton. Those three really are the fanvids of my heart.)

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Fic Recs: Longfic #3

Tue, 12 May 2020 07:17:49 GMT

Ugh, so, I had a whole bunch of tabs open with fic to rec and then browser crash and boom. So, in the meantime, have what's at the front of my mind!

I should also mention, because I've been reading and rereading a lot in Harry Potter lately, I freely confess that I prefer a whole bunch of fanon conceits in Harry Potter to the canon we got. One of those is around Draco Malfoy's characterisation - I much prefer a fanon Draco who acts as a foil and counterbalance for Harry rather than the Draco we ultimately got. I enjoy characters who are spiky and abrasive, but not necessarily evil, and that's what fanon Draco often delivers. I quite understand people who don't prefer that, but it does mean that many (not all) of my Harry Potter recs (particularly those with a Harry/Draco slant) may not be to your tastes.

(I feel much the same way about MCU Loki, although I don't tend to read Loki-centric fic much.)

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god loves everybody, don't remind me (70381 words) by napricot
Fandom: Black Panther (2018), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Summary: N’Jadaka didn’t believe in the gods of his people. But belief was not a prerequisite of the gods’ attention, and the blood of the Panther tribe ran in N’Jadaka’s veins. Bast took hold of his soul in her mighty jaws and lifted it free of his body. She gave him a warning shake, just as she would a misbehaving kitten, and set him back. With one careful claw, she tweaked his path through time into a twisting loop. Wayward and abandoned though he was, N’Jadaka was still of her tribe. He could set things right, if given the chance.

Erik gets a do-over. Erik gets a lot of do-overs. Or: Erik Killmonger's own personal version of Groundhog Day, only with a lot more murder, dying, trips to the ancestral plane, awkward family conversations, and divine intervention.

Funny, nuanced, plotty and interesting. This is Groundhog Day fic done right, and we get to watch Killmonger struggle, twist in Bast's grip, and change. I don't have anything smart to say about it, but I love this story a lot.

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The If Sieve (36203 words) by cest_what
Fandom: Harry Potter - Rowling
Series: Part 1 of If Sieve
Summary: An If Sieve lets you see how things would have unfolded if somebody had made a different decision at a particular time.

This isn't quite Groundhog Day fic, but it plays with many of the same themes of iteration and exploration. In some ways, what I love about fic like this and Groundhog Day fic is that it's a microcosm of fandom itself, exploring all the different ways something could have gone other than the single path we got in canon. In this case, Draco is exploring all the paths of history to see if there was some way he could have been friends with Harry Potter after all. Needless to say, it goes wrong a lot.

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she does pretty well with fiends from hell (80591 words) by Hinn_Raven
Chapters: 8/14
Fandom: Batman (Comics)
Summary: Stephanie Brown is sixteen years old. She’s a vampire slayer. Things are going about as well as you might expect.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer is a fandom that lends itself to really good fusions, and this is one of the best. It's got strong world building, so you don't need to be familiar with both fandoms to enjoy it, and the characterisation and plotting is great; the fusion is of DC characters fused into the BtVS world, and the story allows them to shine in ways that the DCverse doesn't. Highly recommended.

Warning: WIP. I wouldn't normally rec a WIP, but each chapter is itself long, plotty, and stands as much on its own merits as any TV episode. The author updates quite regularly but even if it were abandoned it wouldn't be unsatisfying as it stands, IMO.

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Thawed Out (159341 words) by auburnnothenna, eretria
Fandom: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Series: Part 1 of Thawed Out
Summary: He's not the Asset. He's not the Winter Soldier. But neither is he Bucky Barnes. With the help of Steve, Sam and the Avengers, James takes the long, slow road to recovery. Nothing is as easy as either of them thought it would be.

Long, story-driven takes on the Winter Soldier's Life After HYDRA proliferated in fandom, and Thawed Out is one of the best. It was posted in 2014 so is obviously not compliant with later canon, but it's a great example of the genre, and a very good read.

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Fic Recs: Longfic #2

Mon, 27 Apr 2020 09:34:50 GMT

I may not be up for intelligent content generation (this situation, you guys, it's doing my head in) but at least I can provide recs.

I'm going to be saving these recs in my recs: longfic tag -- hopefully I can make this kind of a habit.

I don't know what's widely considered 'longfic', but honestly, I tend to think of anything longer than 10K as likely to have the qualities I look for in longfic (i.e. movement of plot, not just character study or vignette.) For these recs I'm setting the floor around 30K unless I hit something really great that deserves an exception.

Anyway, on with the recs:

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The Queen Susan in Tashbaan, Part 2 of The Stone Gryphon (174583 words) by rthstewart
Fandom: Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis
Series: Part 2 of The Stone Gryphon
Summary: Queen Susan and Lord Peridan of the Gryphon Aerial Corps aid the British war effort in 1942 America – a dodgy tale of espionage, seduction and garden insectivores.

I love this fic so much. rthstewart has done a huge amount of Narnia worldbuilding which shows through in all her stories; The Stone Gryphon tells the stories of the Pevensies in England as they all struggle with the problem of how to navigate the work you feel you're called to do when you're in wartime England and the world still thinks you're a child. (It also, eventually, brilliantly handles The Problem of Susan in a way that finally makes sense.) Of all the parts in the series - and they're all great - The Queen Susan in Tashbaan is my favourite for the plot, the intrigue, and most of all for Susan herself.

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the cammieverse (92310 words) by synecdochic
Fandom: Stargate SG-1
Summary: I've always been fascinated by always-a-different-sex AUs, especially the kind that take a cis dude and flip him into being a cis woman and then ask: okay, to get her into the same place he was in canon, how is she going to have to be different from her male counterpart?

Turns out, to get Cammie Mitchell into the same place as Cam Mitchell, she has to be twice as good and twice as agreeable. But she winds up about the same amount of stubborn.

synecdochic's Stargate stories are rightly lauded, and the broken wings-verse usually gets most of the love (especially A Howling in the Factory Yard). I, however, love the cammieverse - the always-a-woman take on Lt. Col. Cameron Mitchell. Cammie is smart, ferocious and incredibly capable - but far from perfect, and all the more interesting for it. This one is a series rec - it's not a longfic without it, but it flows smoothly as a single overall story, so that works for me.

mezzanine (225468 words) by synecdochic and ivorygates
Fandom: Stargate SG-1
Summary: this is an AU mashup of two AUs: the one in which Cameron Mitchell was more injured in his 302 crash than he was in canon, and the one where Cam's a woman. It's sort of our take on the "we're not gay, we just love each other" trope. Us being us, it did not come out in the least bit like what you'd expect.

For all that I love the cammieverse, I love the first half-a-dozen stories of mezzanine more. Cammie is still ferocious and smart and capable - and dealing with a shitty hand and some scary realities. Mezzanine has a lot of personal resonance for me, and I found it for the first time right when I needed it.

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have you heard (42166 words) by peradi
Fandom: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Series: Part 1 of once there was
Summary: "I heard FN-2187 was a Stormtrooper."

Finn sparks a revolution.

(Written post-TFA, not compliant with TLJ or ROS.)
This is a truly tremendous story, about hope and humanity and choices. I cry like a baby every time I read it. (I am rereading it for this rec. My screen is blurry.) It is also occasionally hilarious, in a dry sort of way. Ugh. *flaps hands*

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Fic Recs: Longfic

Fri, 17 Apr 2020 16:49:59 GMT

I often ask for fic recs here on DW, and I feel I should pay it forwards. At the moment I'm really jonesing for good longfics, so I figured I'd rec some of my existing favourites in case they're new to any of you. I shall try to gather the spoons to do this on a semi regular basis -- I'm trying to be better about recording the fic I read, because my memory is so bad I've got zero chance of finding it again later if I don't. Even given that, I know I've read stuff I've loved recently that I haven't bookmarked or saved, so I guess it will be fresh and new again in a year's time if I stumble over it again.

( My tastes, likely to be on display here. )

An Ever-Fixed Mark (190537 words) by AMarguerite
Fandom: Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice & Related Fandoms
Series: Part 1 of An Ever-Fixed Mark
Summary: One would think that having the name of one's soulmate appear on one's wrist on one's sixteenth birthday would make matrimony much less complicated. It mostly does not. And not at all for Miss Elizabeth Bennet of Longbourne. (A deconstruction of the "soulmate identifying mark" trope, using "Pride and Prejudice." Trigger warnings in the tags.)

I am not sure it's fair to say that I like the Soulmark AU trope, so much as a few of the fics it spawned are among my favourites. This story deconstructs that trope while executing it brilliantly, so it's satisfying on both levels. The series includes AU spin-offs, a bit of a choose-your-own-adventure of Elizabeth's key relationships. I love this series and re-read it a lot.

A Monstrous Regiment (94904 words) by AMarguerite
Fandom: Temeraire - Naomi Novik, Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen, AUSTEN Jane - Works, Persuasion - Jane Austen, Mansfield Park - Jane Austen, Emma - Jane Austen
Series: Part 1 of A Monstrous Regiment
Summary: General Wellington selects Colonel Fitzwilliam for a very singular honor during the Spanish Campaign: working with dragons-- and, in particular, with Captain Elizabeth Bennet, of His Majesty's Dragon, the Longwing Wollstonecraft. (Temeraire/Pride and Prejudice crossover entirely to have Elizabeth Bennet as a dragon captain during the Peninsular War, with Charlotte Lucas as her uber-capable first lieutenant.)

Another by the same writer; I had resisted reading this for ages as I'd forgotten everything I'd ever read of Temeraire, but I picked it up recently and was so glad I did. It made me want to go back and try Temeraire again, except so much of the joy of this is in these characters and AMarguerite's writing of them.

What We Pretend We Can't See (131086 words) by gyzym
Fandom: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Summary: Seven years out from the war, Harry learns the hard truth of old history: it’s never quite as far behind you as you thought.

HP fandom is, unsurprisingly, full of really fantastic long meaty worldbuildy stories. This one's one of my recent favourites, featuring Harry as a young adult Auror who's finally coming to grips with a lot of the things he cast off after the war.

Snatched (31168 words) by blamebrampton
Fandom: Harry Potter - Rowling
Summary: Scorpius Malfoy has always brought out the idiot in Albus Potter. For the past seven years they've dealt with this through a cunning application of denial. Now James Potter's life is being threatened, and everything else is swept to one side as they try to beat the most literal deadline any of them have ever faced.

Everything Blamebrampton does is brilliant, and this is one of my favourites - a tense, thrilling story neatly wrapped up in some great worldbuilding and futurefic extrapolation.

So Wise We Grow (81248 words) by Deastar
Fandom: Star Trek (2009)
Series: Part 1 of So Wise We Grow
Summary: "Commander Spock, we have located your son," the Vulcan lady on the screen says, which would be great, except Jim can tell by the look on Spock's face that he's never heard of this kid before in his life. "If it is expedient, the child will be sent to join you on the Enterprise within the week."

It's a classic and rightly so. The second story in the series makes me ugly-cry every time I read it; this one just quietly makes my throat tight.

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woo, free time!

Sun, 12 Apr 2020 17:31:59 GMT

On the one hand, insomnia sucks. On the other hand, tonight's bout of it provided the perfect opportunity to watch the new Birds of Prey movie, which is entirely misnamed since it's 95% Harley's movie, and characters like Cass (and Dinah?) owe basically nothing to their comics namesakes.

It was a frenetic, chaotic shitshow of a movie, and thoroughly enjoyable. The structuring (flashback-heavy) was actively confusing; I'm not sure whether it was written that way or whether it was restructured in post-shoot editing, but it made the middle third of the movie (what should have been Act 2, I guess) nigh-incomprehensible. Or maybe it was watching it at 3am that did that. But, still, it was splashy dumb fun with a few great character beats for Harley. (Then again, I actually didn't hate Suicide Squad, and I thought the extended cut in particular made it a substantially better movie.)

I mean, god only knows what DC is doing with their movie continuity these days, and I think BOP suffers for that because as an ensemble movie would have been much stronger in a strongly-drawn and comprehensible setting. But that's not gonna happen with DC any time soon, so... it is what it is, I guess.

Still, given the givens, it was fun and I'm glad I watched it.

(Edit: Also, Ewan McGregor was fucking great.)

I had to watch a bunch of it on tenterhooks because although it mostly wasn't gory, there was a looming threat of violence in so many scenes (mostly anything with Sionis or Zsasz in it, both of whom were like unstable explosives) so I did watch bits of it with headphones off and peeking through my fingers. I've seen it compared to John Wick, and I don't actually feel that worked for me - the majority of the action was way more comic-book-y and cartoony than John Wick, while the notable minority was (IMO) way more gruesome. (( one comment is spoilery ))

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I will be strong, dammit.

Fri, 10 Apr 2020 01:05:58 GMT

Working from home is pretty good for saving money, but given the state of my credit card, I probably still should not buy myself a Nintendo Switch.

Unfortunately my brain is not getting the message, and I am not very good at self-denial at the best of times. But everyone is playing Animal Crossing except meeeeeee.

(Okay, I know that is not actually true. But my brain does tend to latch onto things, and it's picked this, apparently.)

I have been scratching the itch with Stardew Valley, a lovely indie game which is surprisingly deep and entirely addictive. I'm late to the party on that one, I know, but it's absolutely charming and almost unputdownable.

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meeeeeem

Tue, 18 Feb 2020 10:48:23 GMT

So, that fic meme going around - why not! Of course, these are all really about romance-genre stories; in established relationship stories my preferences are quite different (and half the questions aren't relevant).

Slow burn OR love at first sight: Definitely slow burn, because it allows for interesting story to happen. If it's love at first sight, the obstacles to success become external and frustrating rather than character or relationship growth, and that's a downer.

Fake dating OR secret dating: Fake dating, because of all the same reasons as the above question. :)

Enemies to lovers OR best friends to lovers: I like them both, honestly, provided the writer does the necessary work to show the build. I think a well-done enemies-to-lovers is more satisfying, but best-friends-to-lovers is easier to pull off well.

Oh no there's only one bed OR long distance with correspondence: Correspondence. a) I have slept next to someone I had a crush on (who also, I discovered later, was interested in me) and it caused very little angst, drama or sleeplessness for anybody. maybe some concern about "uh oh, what if I fart in my sleep?" but that's about it.

Whereas correspondence, oh please yes gimme. I love epistolary stories in general, and stories told through something other than straight narrative - "reconstructions of ancient texts", chat logs from the backchannel of the USS Enterprise, hard-hitting journalistic exposes of Tony Stark, whatever. It is very very much my jam.

Fantasy AU OR modern AU: I don't have a strong preference, but probably modern AU if anything. Of the various types of AUs, my favourite type are those that are AU due to storyline deviation (What if Qui-Gon lived? What if Darth Vader was a double agent? What if Harry Potter was Sorted into Slytherin? What if Tony Stark didn't have wealth and privilege?) that then explore the consequences, that paint the picture of what that world would be like. Much more interesting (to me) than just finding ways to shoehorn every Avenger-adjacent character into working at a coffeeshop. (Also, why is Darcy Lewis always such a good baker in these stories? Is it a 2 Broke Girls thing?)

Smut or fluff: Fluff. I rarely read fic for the porn, and in fact will very often skip over sex scenes entirely, unless they're relevant for character-building or relationship-building.

Mutual pining OR domestic bliss: Pining. Occasional domestic bliss is fun, but mutual pining is crack.

Alternate universe OR futurefic: I like specific kinds of AUs (see above) better than anything, but overall I'd probably take futurefic.

Oneshot OR multi-chapter: I don't mind, provided I don't have to wait too long for fulfillment. I understand why people post WIPs but not only are they hell when you're impatient and want to read the story nowwww, they also mean that later chapters are written in reaction to peoples' comments, and that often warps a long running story away from the path that interested in me in the first place.

Kidfic OR road trip fic: I don't really have any strong preferences here; kidfic needs to be done well, but often is, and there's some kidfic I've really loved, while roadtrip fic can be pleasant but rarely stirs strong emotion.

Reincarnation OR character death: Reincarnation, largely because I'm mostly not a huge fan of character death (unless it's the point of the story and I'm ready to have a crying day.) TBH though I haven't seen much reincarnation-fic -- is this a Thing in some parts of fandom?

Arranged marriage OR accidental marriage: I like both okay to be honest, but if I had to pick one I'd say accidental marriage, mostly because I have found some hilarious examples of same. I tend not to read in the fandoms where arranged marriages are a thing, so I've encountered less; are they typically well-done?

Time travel OR isolated together: again both good; I would have to pick time travel, I think, because I've read a couple of amazing groundhog-day-ish fics lately (one about Killmonger redoing the events of Black Panther over and over again, very badly, and one about Hera Agathon saving a whole lot of lives and a couple of civilisations) and I am full of love for the concept.

Neighbors OR roommates: Neighbours, I guess, because it allows for more mystery and more gaps for the story to close.

Sci-fi au OR Magic au: Sci Fi, if the writer puts the work in. Magic is easier, because we all have a bunch of shared assumptions about what a magic setting (i.e. probably historical fantasy) looks like, whereas sci fi could be anything from near-future cyberpunk to far-future high-tech transhumanism. Magic is probably Lord of the Rings (or D&D, or Magician, or Game of Thrones, or w/e) whereas Sci Fi looks a lot different if it's Altered Carbon or Star Trek or Jupiter Ascending, y'know? (I have a lot of thoughts about this, because this is a problem you get in tabletop gaming when introducing people to new game settings - fantasy is just easier because of the shared cultural assumptions.)

(All of the above presupposes that the Magic AU in question is White Western High Fantasy. But let's face it, it almost always is.)

Bodyswap OR genderbend: woof. Both of them can hit a bunch of body horror squicks, which makes them both minefields. If they're both done well, I'd pick genderbend, especially the Always A Wo|Man variant which lets you explore a bunch of really interesting stuff. (Even if most writers usually just use it for a different flavour of porn.)

Angst OR crack: Both are sometimes foods for me. I don't have a high tolerance for angst in general because if it's done well it tanks my mood and if it's done badly I sprain my eyeballs rolling them at the wangst. Crack on the other hand is usually a safer bet, provided I share the writer's sense of humour.

Apocalyptic OR mundane: I'm not really into apocalypse, so I'd pick mundane. Post-apocalypse, on the other hand, I am THERE for, provided it's not a wangst-fest. I adore stories of people building something new with the wreckage of the old.

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endgame headcanon

Sat, 27 Apr 2019 22:22:24 GMT

( in which i figure out how to fix the thing we all hated )

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Ow.

Fri, 26 Apr 2019 02:18:41 GMT

The perils of not keeping up with laundry: pile of laundry + dark bedroom + socked feet + slippery wooden floors = Eleanor goes "whoops" and falls over and smashes her face into the bedside table. Thankfully the bruise shouldn't be too eye-catching.

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Endgame

Thu, 25 Apr 2019 15:06:48 GMT

Well, that was a hell of a thing. First, it's LONG - three hours and one minute, in fact, and boy did it feel like it. It's the end of an era, and I don't have intelligent or eloquent things to say about it. Suffice to say that for better or worse the MCU changed cinema in some great ways, and whatever else I may feel, I'm thankful we've had it.

( high level spoilery, natch; no major plot details. mixed feelings; avoid if all you want is unmitigated squee )

That's basically it for now; I'm happy to talk details in the comments if you've seen it.

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braaaaaaains

Wed, 20 Mar 2019 02:38:40 GMT

So, I appear to have disappeared for three months - oops?

In fact, the last three months have been hectic and draining, although not unenjoyable. I've been seconded to a project role in my organisation's head office, which is full of interesting challenges - although it's always a bit of a startling reminder how disconnected the corporate branch is from the frontline work, and how different are their concerns and priorities. Still - it's great on the resume, it's interesting on a personal level (I've finally realised that to be happy in a job, I need to have growth opportunities) and I managed to negotiate a 10% payrise.

(I was very proud of myself - I've never negotiated my pay before, and it's substantially more than they'd intended to pay me.)

Buuuut -- I'm working in the city which adds nearly an hour of commute to my day (with considerable extra expense, but whatever), and I can't cruise on autopilot, and there's a shit ton of meetings and workshops. So I end every day exhausted, which means my evenings are a combination of some desultory gaming (Exalted! Shadowrun! Dungeons and Dragons! Exalts Fall Into the Wyld and Land In Faerun! Fun times) and staring at the wall trying to recoup some energy. Oh, and I'm no longer able to do my 9-day fortnights in this role.

So. Tired Eleanor is tired. Happy, though.

How y'all doing? ;)

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