dhampyresa

You can have the fic which I beta-ed and chiiyo86 wrote:

A Tale of Earth and Fire (39298 words) by chiiyo86
Chapters: 4/4
Fandom: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Toph Beifong & Zuko
Characters: Zuko (Avatar), Toph Beifong, Ozai (Avatar), Mai (Avatar), Azula (Avatar)
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Arranged Marriage, Friendship, Action/Adventure, Minor Character Death
Summary: AU. Two years after the fall of Ba Sing Se and the capture of the Avatar, Zuko is forced by his father into marrying Toph Beifong, the blind daughter of Earth Kingdom merchants. Neither of them is very keen on the situation, but as they learn to know each other better, Zuko and Toph find that through this union they didn't want they might have gained something precious: an ally. Together, they will fight to carve their own paths and get free of the constraints that have kept them prisoners their whole lives.

Or you can have the fic I wrote and chiiyo86 beta-ed:

Out of the Cold (6290 words) by sevenofspade
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Captain America: Civil War (Movie) - Fandom
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes & Original Female Character(s)
Characters: Original Female Character(s), James "Bucky" Barnes
Additional Tags: POV Outsider, Male-Female Friendship
Summary:

Alina's neighbour disappeared while she was in Antarctica. He forgot his notebook.

This fic was almost about one of Anakin's illegal podracing buddies wondering wtf had happened to him -- but I didn't want her to know he was a Jedi and couldn't figure out how to make that work. So instead I took the basic concept of "bystander gets caught up in onscreen events and investigates what happened to a friend", Suoé became Alina and I wrote this. I may still keep the concept of "Star Wars fic in which everything is going great until, unfortunately Palpatine/Order 66 happens" or I may not.

An actual, literal, 40k+ words novel.

I am not joking. That's what I got for jukebox_fest . A novel. A COMPLETELY AMAZING NOVEL. More specifically, this novel:

scientia lumen vitae (41127 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Tu vas me manquer - Maître Gims (Music Video)
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Original Male Character/Original Male Character
Characters: Original Male Character(s), Original Female Character(s)
Additional Tags: IN SPACE!, Clones, Far Future, Worldbuilding, Science Fiction, Developing Relationship
Summary: On the Valhallan planet named Fólkvangr, the clone Loïc Treize has been working towards a cure for Thor's Virus throughout his entire life. He is not Valhallan. He was sent there to help. He was born to help, a fact of which he is acutely aware.
Eiður is Valhallan. He is a bluff, congenial military commander in the service of the Valhallan Commonwealth, and he is Treize's new custodian. His approach is wholly new, and Treize is drawn to him despite his society's strict rules. What he wants is forbidden.
From Fólkvangr to the lumenium mines of Þruðvangr and the military installations of Treize's people on the planet Nivôse, the pair have a lot of ground to cover. And when Thor's Virus strikes hard, they have no time to lose...

JUST READ IT OKAY IT'S BEYOND AMAZING IT IS SO GREAT IT'S GOT AWESOME CHARACTERS AND WONDERFUL WORLDBUILDING AND THE PLOT IS BADASS AND IT GAVE ME SO MANY CLONE FEELINGS (AND FEELINGS ABOUT NOT!CLONES)

The canon is Tu vas me manquer - Maître Gims (Music Video). It lasts a little over four minutes.

Whoever wrote this is a genius and I love them.

By which I mean Supergirl. I saw the pilot and while I got kind of bored in the second third, that moment when Kara flies on screen for the first time is so goddamn beautiful it brought actual tears to my eyes. I think I'll keep watching, but I may wait for a marathon opportunity.

Also, if you want to watch a (complete) webseries in which Parker from Leverage is an (ex-)assassin Amazon who lives in a flat with three other superheroes struggling to make rent so they STAGE A HEIST, Caper's got you covered.

I saw Spy, the movie with Melissa McCarthy, Jason Staham and Jude Law.

I like dit a lot! It was hilarious and a way better movie than any of the recent James Bonds. I would watch a whole series of these.

There was a lot less Jude Law and Jason Staham than I expected. This is a good thing.

So many of the plot hinges on women, omg.

Also, wow a Paris in Hollywood that steps away from the Grands Boulevards? What is this madness. French that is both correct and sounds like it was spoken by native speakers? WHAT IS THIS MADNESS. I LIKE IT.

(I was totally shipping Susan and Nancy. And Susan/Rayna/Fine.)


Y'all might start getting answers to (very) old comments, fyi.

TOO LONG AGO, that's when. I will do dead Romans + French comics this time around (as well as miscellaneous) and dead Carthaginians + dead Ottomans/Wallachians next time. Seems reasonable enough.

What did you finish reading

A bunch of stuff, and I hope I'm not missing any. I mentionned that I'd been reading about stuff that would have made my Night on Fic Mountain fic very very obvious, so I'll start with those.

Le Troisième Testament - Julius (first three volumes), by Xavier Dorison, Alex Alice, Robin Recht, François Lapierre and Thimothée Montaigne (in various combinations of art/scenario): I was very very disappointed with this. The story was really bad (yes, of course the one Roman is better at everything that the Jewish/early Christian people. Of fucking course. *eyeroll*). That would have been bearable if I'd gotten the thing I was reading it for which is amazing colouring, which I did not get >:(. Look, I checked out those books on the basis that even if Alex Alice is not the best line-artist, he's at least very good and his colouring is AMAZEBALLS in exactly three colour schemes (ice blue + fire orange/red + balianced green) and average everywhere else. Siegfried played entirely to those colouring strengths (ice and fire are Themes in Norse myths, yo) so I thought thsi would be good! But nooooooooooo. All the colouring is muddy and terrible and bleh. (Alex Alice apparently did the scenario and NONE OF THE ART, and I am now sitting here going wtf.) I'm not sure what the fuck the story is even about. It's set during the reign of Emperor Augustus and there's this dud who is, like, Jesus' younger brother? Idk. They go on a roadtrip all the way to Mt Everest and also I think Angkor Vat? Probably not Angkor Vat, because it's waaaaay too early for that, but seriously. I've no idea what's happening here. Will not finish reading the series unless very bored, would not reccomend. (Counting this as "author famous for something other than writing" on the Random Reading Bingo card.)


Les Aigles de Rome, Tome 1, by Enrico Marini (art and scenario): It's a shame the story is terrible because the art is good. The story is really bad, though. There are two (male) main characters, who are reffered to as "lovebirds" in text, but despite that the narrative alternates wildly between NO HOMO and IT'S NOT GAY IF IT'S IN A THREEWAY and just so you know how not gay those threesomes are, there are two happening on screen. Yes, there are two threesomes in a 56 pages comic book. I thought I was going to read about Roman history, not read Roman-themed porn (it gets pretty graphic). I have nothing against Roman-themed porn, btw, but it is handled so fucking badly, seriously. And everything is handled with that level of utter unsubtly. It's okay, Marini, I swear I really didn't need that final flashback predicting Arminius inflicting a great defeat to the Romans to figure out which Arminius he was. I got it when you told us his name was Arminius and had Augustus name him so, on page, like, 5. Please stop treating your readers like idiots, thanks. I may or may not keep reading this. The art is really pretty and I particularly like the way he treats light. On the other hand, there might be too much sexism and homophobia for me. IDK. (Counting this as "book by author whose first language isn't English French (Challenge mode: self-translated book)" on the Serious card because Marini is Italian and translated the book into French, as afr as I can tell.)


Alix Senator 3 . La Conjuration des rapaces, by Valérie Mangin (scenario) and Thierry Démarez (art): SO ALIX SENATOR, HEH? It's about this Gaul, called Alix, who is a Senator at the time of Augustus. That's the story in-universe. out-universe, Alix Senator is a sequel to the (still ongoing) classic comic series Alix. I'll confess upfront that I haven't read a whole lot of Alix, mostly because they use a weirdass italic font that makes all the words run together and I can't read it. Alix Senator uses readable font! Which is a good thing, because the story is FUCKING AMAZING.
( Art and story are both top-notch (one picture under the cut) )

HOLY SHIT THEY MADE ALIX/ENAK PRETTY MUCH CANON HOLY SHIT

(Counting this as "Graphic novel" on the Serious card.)


Yoko Tsuno 27: Le Secret de Khâny, by Roger Leloup (art and scenario): I technically read this before Alix Senator, but I thought I'd group all three comics set in the time of Augustus together, for the sake of convenience.

That said, there's a link between Alix Senator and Yoko Tsuno, which is that APPARENTLY IT WAS "QUEER CLASSIC CHILDREN COMICS CHARACTERS WEEK" AND NO ONE TOLD ME????? Because yeah, Yoko/Khany is about as canon as Alix/Enak above, in that Khany's titular secret is that she's raising a child. Unlike Vineans (Khany's alien race) the child doesn't have blue skin, but a skin tone that matches Yoko's. This is, were told, because "[Khany] wanted her to look like [Yoko]".

I pretty much stared at the page in mute shock for a full minute when I read that. Look, there's always been Yoko/Khany subtext and Yoko/female characters subtext in general (you can't convince me that the following exchange from L'Or du Rhin is platonic: Yoko: "When you return to Russia, please send me a small bottle of your perfume." / Olga: "Why, do you wish to wear it?" / Yoko: "No, I'll just smell it from time to time and think of it as the perfume of a friend." / Olga: "I will send you a big bottle.". You just can't, okay.). Like I said, there's always been Yoko/female characters subtext, in particular because about 80+% of the cast is made of female characters, but there's never been something so blatant as Khany raising a child who she wnated to look like Yoko.

I confess I foisted the book off onto someone (who still hasn't given it back, hence the lack of photographic evidence) as soon as I could just so I could be sure I wasn't making shit up. Because I wasn't sure. That sort of thing just doesn't happen. I don't get to see this part of myself in things I grew up with. I didn't grow up with Alix (see above re: unreadable font), bt I did grow up with Yoko Tsuno. I wanted to be her when I grew up! (Still do!)

So right now I exist in a state of being both utterly giddy with joy and not knowing if this is the real life or just fantasy. (I am not too proud to say that having read both Yoko Tsuno and Alix Senator on following days, I then spend a while in a complete daze and on the verge of tears.)

It feels so fucking unreal.

(Counting this as "book with a protagonist of colour" on the Serious card, as Yoko is of Japanese and Chinese descent.)


Other stuff I have read and finished that I can remember and will talk about next time because it's getting late here and I have now just been punched in the feelings again: Thor and the Warriors Four, La croisade des Carpathes (hence this post on the Ottoman Empire and Wallachia in the 15th century) and Beyond Cannae. I feel like I read more, but I can't remember :(.


This makes 0/25 on the Mix'n'Match Card, 21/25 on the Random Card and 8/25 on the Serious Card for hamsterwoman 's reading bingo.

( Details )

What are you reading now

Made marginal progress on The Art of War, The Kick-Ass Writer, La véritable histoire de Carthage et de Hannibal, Les Fleurs du Mal, Métronome, Ghosts of Cannae and Rome's Revolution.

Have gotten into the hype/hype avoidance cycle with The Grass-King's Concubine because it is amazing and I am an idiot. Shall endeavour to talk more about it soon.

Le Jardin des silences, by Mélanie Fazi: A book of short stories in French.

Beyond Cannae, by Jenny Dolfen et al: Have read most of this, am waiting until I'm done to talk about it and each bit separately.

Tumulte à Rome, by Odile Weurlesse: It's a YA book set during the Second Punic War, in which there is SECRET TWINS and mistaken identity shenanigans. What's not to like?

(With any luck, I'll be done with both this and Beyond Cannae and we can have an orgy of Carthaginians next time.)


What are you reading next

I think I'm going to read the next book by Sen (L'Homme Noyé) and the rest of the fanzines I bought at JapanExpo this year.

( The old list )

Additions to the list: Le Graal de l'Inframonde (the sequel to La croisade des Carpathes mentionned above, which I enjoyed greatly), Judith Tarr's novel Lord of the two Lands (on a rec byla_marquise_de_ ), Trickster Makes This World by Lewis Hyde (because lunik_the_bard recently reminded me I'd told her I'd read it) and probably some other stuff I forgot. If you've recced me something and don't see it on this list, please rec it again?


ALSO! I will be doing Read a Book in One Sitting Day this saturday. Don't know what with yet, only that it'll be a novel.

I saw the Shaun the Sheep movie today. IT WAS AN UTTER DELIGHT AND A JOY FOREVER.

It made me so happy. I'm not going to say I laughed the whole way through, because I did tear up a couple of times, but it was pretty damn close.

It hit all of my found family buttons and it's just a brilliant, brilliant movie in general. A++ would reccommend. (Seriously. Watch it.)

Day 6

In your own space, create a fanwork. A drabble, a ficlet, a podfic, or an icon, art or meta or a rec list. A picspam. Something. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

I made someone else ship Powell/Donovan from the Asimov short stories, does that count? No? Oh.

Okay, fine, have a reclist of my favourite audiofic, from the time a while ago where I listened to a lot more audiofic than I do now (and was also a massive lurker).

Campfire Tale for the End of Days (writer: stultiloquentia, reader: quinara, fandom: Buffy the Vampire Slayer) I've never watched more than a handful of episodes from BtVS, for various reasons, but I greatly enjoyed this anyway. It's a a fairytale like kind of thing about the creation of the Slayer line. The reader really makes the text stand out.

A Summer Day So Late In Coming (writer: helens78, reader: reena_jenkins, fandom: x-men movies) I have seen the X-Men movies and I thought this was a really nice and sweet exploration of the Xavier/Magneto relationship. The effect used to convey telepathy is interesting.

Dust In the Wind (writer: lyra, reader: twilight, fandom: Supernatural/American Gods) I listened to this before I'd seen anything of Supernatural but just after I'd read the American Gods book. It's essentially a fic about Sam and Dean becoming gods, the way that happens in the Amercian Gods universe. It's an interesting reflection on the world of both series.

Model Protectorate (writer: (anonymous), reader: hiding_places, fandom: Hetalia) This is a fic about the German occupation of Denmark during WW2. Despite this, it manages to be uplifting. The central concept of Hetalia, for those who don't know, is that countries have a human shape. The Denmark, Germany and Sweden referred to in the fic thus look like people are really, really not.

The Undiscovered Country (writer: roga, reader: blienky27, fandom: House, MD/Discworld) Ngl, I first checked this out based purely on the crossover and was not disappointed. It works surprisingly well! And everyone is in character. Spoilers for House, though. (And I guess Reaper Man, given that the Death of Rats is around, but that's not really a spoiler, is it? Ah, well.)

The Care and Feeding of Tiny Humans (and slightly larger Time Lords) (writer: netgirl_y2k, reader: via ostiense, fandom: Doctor Who (2005)) It's a fic in which Eleven manages to come back within twelve and so picks up Amelia Pond (age 7) as his companion instead of Amy. It's utterly adorable.

Four Times Hardison Told His Nana He Was Sorry, And One Time He Said He Was (But Totally Wasn't) (writer: ljc, reader: lunate8, fandom: Leverage) This is a fic about Hardison being a geek. Much like canon, it's written with love and respect towards both the idea of being a geek and the things that are being geeked at. Headcanon accepted.

And bonus, a filk for Due South, The Mountie and the Skogsrå (writer/reader: luzula). I've not seen Due South, but I really like the folksong/fairytale aspect of it and some of the lines are really striking.

So I went to see Thor 2 in VOSTFR 3D.

In a non-spoilery way here's what I thought: It was great! The images are really pretty and well worth the big screen (but maybe not the 3D).

Also, I think "Le Soldat d'Hiver" sounds better and is a better French translation of "Winter Soldier" than "Le Soldat de l'Hiver". Maybe that's just me though, because they're using "Le Soldat de l'Hiver" as the French title of Captain America 2. The trailer we got was slightly different than this one, in that Black Widow's "Too shy or too scared?" line was shortened to "Too shy?".

Props to the subtitles team, they had a few goofs, but that was okay because they had correct use of tu/vous through-out the movie (and the trailer). FUCKING FINALLY. Ill-use of tu/vous is one of the reasons I watch things in vostfr instead of vf. It's less jarring to read than hear. And okay, I'll be the first to admit that the tu/vous distinction is a very cultural and/or personal and/or context-specific thing and that it's definitely hard to pin-point the point where tu shifts into vous and vice versa, but come on, those guys are paid proffessionals, they shouldn't have people say 'tu' to their commanding officers! (Looking at you, Stargate SG1 dub, looking at you and judging.) /end rant

( Here's the spoilery version, kept as vague as possible )

In other news, I've joined wrisomifu and have written 2K+ (including this post and some computer code) today and 1957 words of story + notes. I'm quite happy with myself!

I recently started watching that series. And... well, the fact I watched 2 and a half seasons of it in just about as many weeks should tell you something about how muchI like it.

So, yes. Very much so. Yes Yes YES!

Having finished watching both parts of "The Boiling Rock", I have mixed feelings. On the one hand, I am nearing the conclusion which is great because it is going to be EPIC, but on the other hand, I am nearing the conclusion which is not so great because it means it'll all be over soon which kinda sucks.

I have questions and issues with it still, and theories to solve some of them. And many comments. I write that up when I'm done watching it entirely. In the meantime, don't spoil it for me.

(By the way, I'd like to thank meltedpeep for convincing me to check out this show. (Here or more precisely, there) Thanks, peep, I owe you one.)