Challenge #12 Create a Rec Countdown.

You pick 5 categories of Recs **
You pick which category gets 5 recs.
Which one gets four, three… and so on.


Five good books for learning to read esoteric (versus intuitive) Tarot.
  1. Robert Wang - The Qabalistic Tarot
        Qabala underpins the Smith Waite deck, which means it underpins the majority of all Tarot decks created since.
  2. Lon Milo DuQuette - Understanding Aleister Crowley’s Thoth Tarot
        Crowley's reskinned Christianity is another major influence on modern Tarot, and this book has the best summation of it.
  3. Anthony Louis - Tarot Beyond the Basics
        Discusses Golden Dawn astrology (second only to Qabala as an underpinning of modern interpretations) alongside newer systems like Meyers Briggs.
  4. Robert Place - The Tarot: History, Symbolism, and Divination
        Place is the go-to author for systems like Neo-Platonism and Alchemy that influenced the development of pre-modern Tarot.
  5. Cynthia Giles - The Tarot: History, Mystery, and Lore
        This book is an excellent source for the development of Tarot from its creation to the title's publish date of 1992.

Four great tracks to listen to on a fast run.
  1. Luna Aura - Money Bag
  2. Crows - Bored
  3. Stiffed - Like an Itch
  4. Giungla - Cold (Rework)

Three topics I am great for nerding out about with.
  1. Irish traditional music
  2. Calligraphy pens, fountain pens, and inks
  3. Language learning (particularly endangered, minority, or revived languages)

Two excellent recent Lae'zel meme shops.

First image by Zanian19 on reddit. If you know who to credit for the second, please let me know!

One self-explanatory entry.

  1. Actually, not a rec. Not a rec at all.


a white curve at the top, red below with sequin effect snowflake shapes text snowflake challenge january 1 - 31 in red thin marker pen font on the white curve

これで以上です。
Snowflake Challenge promotional banner featuring an image of a chubby brown and red bird surrounded by falling snow. Text: Snowflake Challenge January 1-31.

Challenge #13

Make a rec list of fanworks! Post your answer to today’s challenge in your own space and leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.


So I decided to do something a little different for this and post 10 of my favorite fanworks by musical artists of or about other artists, books, TV shows, or movies.

Beck - Rollins Power Sauce and Ozzy
These two tracks are off of Stereopathetic Soulmanure, a Beck album many people probably don't even know exists. He recorded it in 1994 and it's wonderful and possibly the weirdest thing he's ever done. I love how these tracks simultaneously tease and pay homage to their subjects.

Bloodhound Gang - Your Only Friends Are Make Believe
Bloodhound Gang is snotty and crude and probably not for everyone (including, sometimes, me), but I do love this winking send-up of Mr. Rogers set to the music from Duran Duran's Hungry Like the Wolf. (Caveat: This is the official music video but I have no idea what's actually in it, so viewer beware.)

Grimes - Geidi Primes
Back before Grimes was *blech* Elon's baby mama she was a musical genius recording solo albums in her bedroom. Geidi Primes was the first, it's heavily inspired by Dune, and it is a phenomenal piece of music even if you don't know anything about the subject material. "Feyd Rautha Dark Heart" (starting at 12:52) is the best Siouxsie and the Banshees track not actually written by Siouxsie and the Banshees and "Shadout Mapes" (starting at 24:15) is one of the creepiest, most atmospheric, wonderful things I've ever heard.

Iced Earth - The Dark Saga
Basically, it's Spawn. And it's excellent.

Pillows - Kim Deal
I have probably listened to this love song to Kim Deal and her songwriting more than any other track on earth. It's simultaneously a Pillows song and a Breeders song, and the lyrics are wonderful both in terms of the words themselves and the artistry of the vowel rhyming that's going on. I freaking love this song.

Presidents of the United States of America - Mach 5
Being an ode to, if not Speed Racer itself, the excitement and joy of being a little kid and watching the Speed Racer opening title. This track is off of PUSA's second album; did you know they recorded at least four other albums after that?

Rasputina - Sweet Sister Temperance
Melora Creager is so talented; no one can create a pre-1850 American gothic mood like her. This song is an homage to Emily Dickinson, and sort of encapsulates what I love about both Rasputina and that poet.

Toadies - Polly Jean
This is so, so obviously a love song to P.J. Harvey and I love it. (And P.J. And Toadies.)

これで以上です。
Snowflake Challenge promotional banner with image of snow-covered trees and an old barn in the background. Text: Snowflake Challenge January 1-31.

Challenge #9

Rec Us Your Newest Thing. Post your answer to today’s challenge in your own space and leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.


Right now, everything old is my Newest Thing again. Maybe it's because chez [personal profile] lebateleur has recently emerged from the bout of seasonal illness we thought we'd successfully avoided, or the recent snowfall (the most accumulation since 2016 🥳), but my recent fandom consumption is very old favorite focused.Read more... )

As far as earworms go, I have been all over Pádraic Keane, Páraic Mac Donnchadha, and Macdara Ó Faoláin's live album Beo since the first time I heard it. These guys get what the tunes are about (And as one Bandcamp commentator put it, that bass drone.) It's good, good stuff.

これで以上です。
Well. One of the two goals I set for myself in Challenge #15 was to complete all my outstanding Snowflake Challenge entries by the first week of February. And I may be 6 days behind schedule, but I've done it!


Snowflake Challenge promotional banner with image of ice covered tree branches and falling snowflakes on a blue background. Text: Snowflake Challenge January 1-31.

Challenge #6

In your own space, Create something. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

Fool’s Errand, The Goblin Emperor series, Thara Celehar/Subpraeceptor Azhanharad, 766 words, rated teen and up

Subpraeceptor Azhanharad writes a letter, and then must deal with the consequences.



Snowflake Challenge promotional banner with image of gingerbread Christmas trees, a silver ball, a tea light candle and a white confectionary snowflake on a beige falling-snowflakes background. Text: Snowflake Challenge January 1-31.

Challenge #10

In your own space, rec a fanwork (fic, art, vid, playlist, anything!) you did not create. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

Some favorites from the 2022 Winter Round of [community profile] seasonsofdrabbles:

The Importance of Flair by Puimoo
Not all of Loki's plots work out., Thor (MCU), 300 words
- This powerhouse of a triple drabble is a diabolically good character study that had me cackling by the second sentence.

mead with venom (no ale to pour) by UniqueChimera
Loki watches his brother battle the Hulk , Thor (MUC), 104 words
- A subtle interpretation of a moment from Thor: Ragnarok.

Taste Test by Leldorai
“It’s a surprise, Bait. Be a little patient!”, Dragon Prince, 200 words
- This delightful slice-of-life double drabble features a perfect Bait. (And how can anyone resist Bait?)

Classical Reception by Ermingarden
Help, help, Arthur's being repressed! (Sexually.), Monty Python and the Holy Grail, 700 words
- This is unique, ambitious, and a ton of fun to read.



Snowflake Challenge promotional banner with image of gingerbread Christmas trees, a silver ball, a tea light candle and a white confectionary snowflake on a beige falling-snowflakes background. Text: Snowflake Challenge January 1-31.

Challenge #11

In your own space, Interact with someone. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

Done during and after the challenge!



Snowflake Challenge promotional banner featuring an image of a chubby brown and red bird surrounded by falling snow. Text: Snowflake Challenge January 1-31.

Challenge #12

In your own space, tell us who you would recast in a film, tv series or webseries, or maybe someone voicing a cartoon or videogame. Or who would you cast to play a character in a book, comic or maybe even your own fiction! Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

I’ve kept mulling this one over during the last two three weeks, but my answer hasn’t changed: I would absolutely bring back Okawa Toru as Roy Mustang’s voice actor in Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood. I love Miki Shinichiro too (I have slightly fewer than a bazillion drama CDs and PC games in which he’s starred), but for me, Okawa is the voice of Roy Mustang. The only voice. The fact that he didn't voice Roy Mustang in Brotherhood is the reason why I have yet to watch Brotherhood. I'm not often this attached to specific individuals in specific roles, but in this case I absolutely am and I would love for there to be a third FullMetal Alchemist remake in which he reprises this role.


これで以上です。
Snowflake Challenge promotional banner featuring an image of a chubby brown and red bird surrounded by falling snow. Text: Snowflake Challenge January 1-31.

Challenge #7

In your own space, tell us about 3 fandom resources, spaces, or communities you use or enjoy. (One or two is fine, especially if you're in a smaller fandom!) Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

Not so much a fandom resource as a general one I often use for fandom purposes: Bandcamp, and ten free-to-stream albums on it that are great music to write to. )

これで以上です。
ETA: I liked this one so much I kickstarted the second edition of the deck. That was a mistake. The artist promised lots of "awesome" rewards for reaching stretch goals. There were no rewards, only overpriced add-ons. Which, fine, backers aren't obligated to buy anything extra, and the campaign ran smoothly, with great communication...until the creator received backers' payments.

Then, silence. And delays. And delays. And more delays. Not a peep. Deadlines came and went. And when backers' items finally shipped, well after they were supposed to, they were defective. A free digital download of the physical item backers paid for does not make up for any of this. I do not recommend this this creator anymore.

It's been awhile, so how about another Tarot Tuesday? This week's selection is the Reverie Tarot, a deck I kickstarted last fall.

I'm not a fan of Smith Waite clones, but I very much like Smith Waite-inspired decks that put a new spin on the original, which the Reverie Tarot definitely does. Read more... )

I fell in love with this deck as soon as I opened it, and it's one of the decks I read from most.


これで以上です。
Tags:
Snowflake Challenge promotional banner featuring a chubby brown and red bird surrounded by falling snow. Text: Snowflake Challenge: 1-31 January.



In your own space, remix an existing work into a new media, and/or rec three or more remixes that do the same. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.


Becky Lemme Smash: Goose edition )



Shahar Vashal - Nothing On Roar Bloom Affair )



All Elite Wrestling Reenacts 'A Christmas Story' )



これで以上です。
Snowflake Challenge promotional banner with image of white ice crystals/snowflakes on a dark green background. Text: Snowflake Challenge January 1-31

Challenge #6

In your own space, rec at least three fanworks that you didn’t create. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

I'll start by reiterating the awesomeness of the three excellent Yuletide gifts I got last year for All Elite Wrestling and the Blake & Avery series.

Once you've finished reading those, here are three more fics to keep you going.

The Laziest Lapdance Ever by crabbybun, All Elite Wresting, Orange Cassidy + Reader, 2432 words, Teen and Up
It's your birthday, and your friends have taken you to see Orange Cassidy: The Laziest Stripper in the World

I am not a big fan of second person POV, or reader inserts, or alternate setting AUs. This fic has all three and it made me a believer. This is just under 2500 words of the most diabolically funny and in character things I have ever seen written. Orange as a stripper?

Would be exactly this.



Winter Flowers (log in to AO3 to see this one), Koori no Mamono no Monogatari, Blood, Ishuca, Wild, Rapunzel; 1682 words, rated G
On a walk through the woods, Ishuca finds the first sign of spring.

This is a delightful post-canon coda featuring the Koori main crew, all perfectly in character and engaged in alternately sweet and hilarious interactions to boot. Anyone who's a fan of (or even just familiar with) the manga will find this delightful.


Illumination by izayoi_no_mikoto; Silver Diamond; Sawa Rakan, Senrou Chigusa; 12,613 words; rated G
Christmas is a holiday of plants, of pine trees and holly and poinsettias and mistletoe. Christmas is a holiday to honor the child of God, who sacrificed himself to save humanity. Christmas is a holiday to celebrate a ray of light being brought to a dark world.

Amato does not celebrate Christmas, but Chigusa thinks that they might celebrate something like it, one day.


Silver Diamond easily makes the top five of my fantasy genre favorites, and the things that make it so wonderful--complex characters, intricate worldbuilding, excellently balanced humor, drama, and slice-of-life, and a deeply fulfilling conclusion--also make it hard to write for, because what is left to add?

This fic finds a way to add over 12,500 words that incorporate the elements that make the original so great. (I was a little hesitant to read given the possible religious perspective , but it makes perfect sense in the context of the fic and didn't diminish my enjoyment at all.) It's a delightful additional chapter in Rakan and Chigusa's story.


これで以上です。
Snowflake Challenge promotional banner with image of white ice crystals/snowflakes on a dark green background. Text: Snowflake Challenge January 1-31

Challenge #5


In your own space, promote a canon/talk about a part of canon that you love. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.


I'm going for a deep cut: the Ultima computer games, particularly Ultima VI: The False Prophet. )

これで以上です。
lebateleur: A picture of the herb sweet woodruff (Default)
( Jan. 4th, 2021 02:32 pm)
My fic this year was:

Entry for the seventeenth day of the eight month of the second year of the Eien era, Onmyouji, Abe no Seimei/Minamoto no Hiromasa, 4222 words, rated M.

I also received three delightful fics, which I posted about here, now enhanced with author names. Seriously, I make out like a bandit every Yuletide and this year was no different.

これで以上です。
lebateleur: A picture of the herb sweet woodruff (Default)
( Dec. 27th, 2020 08:31 am)
Giftsmas

Was delightful, if low key; alas, multiple packages that had been moving steadily through the postal system over the preceding 10 days suddenly ended up parked in warehouses as of Monday, where they languish still. But people seemed pretty pleased with the gifts that did arrive on time, and now there's the promise of more to come.


Yuletide

I got three delightful gifts for Yuletide:

take a right, bang a left by ideal_girl, All Elite Wrestling, Trent Barreta, Orange Cassidy, Chuck Taylor, multiple other cameos, rated T.
Written in linked 100-word segments, this totally captures the feel of the Dynamite Diamond match between Orange Cassidy and MJF. There are some great backstage moments with Chuck and Trent, and OC's characterization is on point.

Snowflakes by Dorey G, Blake & Avery Series, William Avery/Jeremiah Blake, rated M.
The enduring OTP of my heart, I am always thrilled to see--and even better, get--fic in this microfandom. The story picks up my snowstorm prompt and runs with it. There are so many good little moments here: increasingly worldly Avery, enduringly cynical and resigned Blake, the back-and-forth and humorously pointed observations between them. Good stuff.

Waffle Cone Bruise (log in to AO3 to see this one), All Elite Wrestling, Sue Barreta, Trent Barreta, Chuck Taylor, Orange Cassidy, rated G.
This double drabble in response to my 'what came next?" prompt for the Best Friends-Santana & Ortiz Parking Lot Brawl hits all the right notes. I love Mother Hen!Sue here.


Shenanigans

We set the temperature to a pleasant 66 degrees before retiring, only to wake up in extreme discomfort at an obscenely early hour and discover that the thermostat had malfunctioned and heated the apartment to a "cozy" 87 degrees. About half of the houseplants--most of which had already been expressing their extreme displeasure at finding themselves in the winter sunlit, arid indoors instead of the humid, sunny balcony of summer past--said 'F-- this' and croaked. I am gently coaxing the survivors into hanging on until spring. Meanwhile, the humidifier still produces warm mist, but the fan that projects it throughout the house is broken.


Language Learning

Mango Japanese: Chapter 2: Units 1-7
The course did introduce the "apology as a form of 'thank you'" this week, then dove directly into native Japanese numbers from 1-10 and ways to ask whether someone speaks or understands the languages you do.

Mango Korean: Chapter 10: Units 2-8
A lot of useful grammar in this week's units: progressive tense; verbal nouns; and admonitions and advice. The latter in particular is well presented. On the flip side, the course has given up teaching particles entirely, so that learners are (possibly unbeknownst to them) presented with a very colloquial form of the language that might make particles even more confusing and tricky to learn further on.

Podcast Gaelgagh: 70-76
We've progressed to a pretty gratifying place where the students (and listeners) have learned enough to correctly form new grammatical constructions by inference. There are still a fair number of silly practice sentences, but far more that sound like something you'd actually say to someone in a conversation, and that's pretty neat.


RIP
I was very, very sad to hear that Brodie Lee passed away yesterday. What a freaking shame.


これで以上です。
This one arrived yesterday, and is my final Kickstarter deck of the year. I was pleased and surprised by how quickly the entire process was from pledging to receipt, especially considering that the artist is based in Switzerland.

This is another concept deck; each card has a basic image (for the Major Arcana) or pip (for the Minor Arcana) in the Marseilles style, along with its elemental, astrological, and Kabbalistic correspondences; they're basically illustrated flashcards. (And yes, Tarot cards are themselves flashcards, but this particular deck strips away pretty much everything but the concepts.) Read more... )


これで以上です。
Tags:
lebateleur: A picture of the herb sweet woodruff (Default)
( Dec. 4th, 2020 06:33 pm)
...did the New York Times just name AEW's very own MJF as one of its best performances of 2020?

OH YES THEY DID. )

It is consistently some of the best stuff going on TV.

これで以上です。
Tags:
Almost a year ago to the day, I had just finished up the 2019 Uncensored banned books scavenger hunt. Obviously, that is not happening this year and I miss it more than many other Covid-cancelled leisure activities.

What I Just Finished Reading

The Silver Bough vol. 1 – F. Marian McNeill

The first book in McNeill’s seminal four volume study of Scottish folklore is bracketed by off-putting content: Part V extols a particularly chauvinistic breed of Christianity, and in Part VIII—fully a third of the book—McNeill treats confessions from the Scottish witch trials as unembellished fact. (The Survey of Scottish Witchcraft provides an excellent corrective to these chapters.)

But readers able to grit their teeth and persevere through these sections will find a lot of fascinating content covering everything from what the historic and archeological record can tell us about druids, the Celtic pantheon, and conceptions of magic and the otherworld, to all the ways elements of these belief systems were reskinned and incorporated into Scotland’s religious and cultural daily life through the 1960s.

N.B. I would encourage anyone interested in reading The Silver Bough NOT to acquire the ebook version available on amazon; the OCR’ed text is riddled with errors that make 30 percent of the book almost unreadable. The publisher does not deserve to receive anyone’s money for this hot mess.

Ghost Wall – Sarah Moss

I cannot sing Ghost Wall’s praises enough. Holy shit, you guys, this book. It rocketed to the top my list of favorites. It is easily the best thing I’ve read this year.

Its set up is extremely Relevant To My Interests—working class teenager and her parents join a group of privileged students on a university field trip to recreate everyday life during pre-Roman Britain—and could easily have fallen flat for precisely that reason.

It does not fall flat.

Moss’s prose is luminous: Within a few days, our feet would wear a path through the trees to the stream, but that first night there was moss underfoot, squashy in the dim light, and patches of wild strawberries so ripe and red they were still visible in the dusk, as if glowing. ... It was not that I didn’t understand why my father loved these places, this outdoor life. It was not that I thought houses were better.

Cut, if not for spoilers, for spoilerish themes. )

Read. This. Book.


What I Am Currently Reading

Silver On The Tree – Susan Cooper
Another seasonal reread, for the first days with true autumn sunlight and morning chilliness.

Marked – Sarah Fine
As of this week, I’m over halfway through. So there's that.

The Graces – Laure Eve
This book really took off for me at the 10 percent mark, and I’ve been speeding through since.

Insight Meditation – Joseph Goldstein
Goldstein was one of the best writers on Buddhist practice, hands down.

The Patron Saint of Pregnant Girls – Ursala Hegi
Featuring many of the same motifs as The Night Circus, but I'm enjoying this presentation much more.

A Handbook of the Cornish Language – Henry Jenner
This week I read the section on pronouns and half of the chapter on verb conjugations.


What I'm Reading Next

This week, I picked up a copy of Rosalind Miles’s Isolde.


これで以上です。
Tags:
I spent the long weekend binge eating Indian home cooking and sipping 8th Wonder's Rocket Fuel porter, which is pretty excellent as far as long weekends go.

I also got my hands on this:

which we declined to buy at our local game store two years ago because it was heavy(!!) and we wanted to walk home--a decision we have rued ever since. This particular copy is a Giftmas gift that was delivered to a friend of the GC’s through a shipping misfire. We were finally able to collect it this weekend and cart all 22 pounds of it through the airport and multiple modes of public transit, where it attracted the attention of metro staff and the women at the check-in counter who (no joke) made us unbox it for them. And apparently the TSA, who unboxed it again at some point after we sent it on its way to the belly of the airplane. D:

Then this arrived today:

I hope my friends, family, and colleagues remember who I am, because I am not likely to be mentally present for anyone or anything until I've finished it.

If that weren't enough, the FFVII Remake opening goes a long way toward compensating for the fact that it's no longer coming out on my birthday. Then there was the Castlevania 3 trailer, which, OMG.

And then.

AND THEN.

And then came today's little announcement of a Baldur's Gate 3 gameplay reveal in ten days.

To say that I am OVER THE MOON about this would be a slight understatement.

Full disclosure: I have both Divinity games. My friends love them. I have not managed to play more than a few hours of either before moving on to something else. But I am completely sold by the genuine, enthusiastic geekery of the Larian crew in their promo videos. And I am so, so excited for this game, I am going to go nuts when it's finally out, and I cannot wait to see what next Thursday's reveal brings.

これで以上です。
Promotional banner depicting a snow-covered green bench in a snowy park. Text: Snowflake Challenge: 1-31 January.

Challenge #9

In your own space, promote at least one canon that you adore (old, new, forever fandom). Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.


Upon examination, I discover that my obsessions in January 2020 are not different from my obsessions in July 2019.

But! There are updates!

Does the Blake & Avery series intrigue? There are already three whole novels of it, with more on the way!

Does Injection pique your interest? Ellis recently revived another of his comics after a three-year hiatus, so a) chances are good that he'll pick this one back up, and b) you still have time to get your spec fic in before he does!

Does The Watchmaker of Filigree Street sound like your thing? The second novel is coming out in February!

これで以上です。
It has been a crazy week. Let's see if I can't get back on the wagon with these things.



Challenge #11

In your own space, recommend a fannish or creative resource. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.


Aozora Bunko
Japan's answer to The Faded Page and Project Gutenberg. They have a ton of free Japanese ebooks--in modern and pre-1940s orthography--that if you read Japanese and write in Japanese historical fandoms, are a great way to get a sense of how people spoke, thought, what they wore, what they ate...the whole deal. Also, free Japanese novels.

WherePostRockDwells and WorldHasPostRock
If you're looking for atmospheric music to listen to while writing, you'd be hard pressed to do better than these two channels.

And of course, The Wayback Machine, which has been instrumental to my ability to recover lost fics and meta--both my own and others'.

これで以上です。
lebateleur: A picture of the herb sweet woodruff (Default)
( Dec. 27th, 2019 08:56 pm)
My Yuletide gifts are always pretty fantastic, and this year was no exception. I got the following fabulous gift and two treats:

Unbroken
Baldur’s Gate; teen
I asked my Yuletide author for something examining the tension between Anomen Delryn’s paladin vows and his actions over the course of the game, and my author provided in spades. And not only that, they set it the Underdark. And oh my, it is excellent.

There’s so much going on in this fic it’s hard to know what to mention first when reccing it. There’s the premise itself, which is a ridiculously perfect way to make Anomen reflect on his vows, his actions and treatment of others, and where he’s fallen short (as well as where he thinks he has). There are amazing descriptions of Ust Natha—the spot-on descriptions of drow culture, and the absolutely gorgeous depictions of the Underdark itself. There’s the dialogue between Anomen and another major character, whom I didn’t explicitly request in my prompt, but whose inclusion here has me over the moon, and their dialogue, which is by turns snarky, philosophical, and surprisingly poignant. The fic does an amazing job of keeping a high fantasy tone with surprising moments of lighthearted humor throughout. Every Baldur’s Gate fan should read it.


In Dulci Jubilo
The Watchmaker of Filigree Street; gen
A lovely slice-of-life look at the Mori household following the novel’s conclusion, and featuring (among other delights) Six, and a new clockwork companion therefor; further hijinx on the set of the Mikado, and as much snarky, poignant, and playful banter between Thaniel and Mori as anyone could ask for.


Fetish
The Watchmaker of Filigree Street; explicit
“It's just been killing me that this fandom doesn't have any tentacle play in it yet,” says the author of this treat in their notes. And oh my. This is some A+ tentacle porn—hot and sensual and freaky all at once—and the non-porny parts are excellent too. This fic has spot-on characterizations, amazing banter, and bonus callbacks to one of the original Japanese masters of the genre. Even if you’ve never read the novel, you should still read this.

これで以上です。
Tags:


Prompt 4: Fanwork Recommendations

This prompt asked those of us playing along at home to share "anything and everything fannish that you love" including things you've created yourself. So I decided to take it a step further and share something of mine in every fandom where I've written more than five fics, as well as the initial fanwork that got me into the fandom in the first place. So without further ado:

The X-Files
Runes – by glacis
Once upon a time, when I was but a wee Trismegistus, I decided to finally click on “X-Files fanfic,” whatever that was, because it was between seasons and had exhausted all the other XF-related stuff on the Internet. (And given that this was back in the days of dialup, there was not much XF-related stuff on to begin with. There was not much Internet, in fact.)

What I clicked on was “Runes.” It was (unbeknownst to me) a sequel. It was (unbeknownst to me) slash. It was immediately apparent that the story addressed Interests I Had Not Previously Known I Had. The version linked above is somewhat different then the one I remember reading (and reading and reading). I imagine it’s been edited somewhat in the intervening years, but it’s close enough.

So there you have it: the story that got me into fanfic, in the fandom that, well, got me into fandom.

As Spring Approaches
This is certainly not the first XF fanfic I wrote, nor is it the raunchiest, or the most involved, plotwise. But it is the first fic that I finished and thought to myself, Wow, this is substantially, objectively better than anything I’ve written before. Which was a cool feeling.

One day, I may finally get around to archiving this and all the other fics—good and bad—I wrote in this fandom on AO3.




Saiyuki
Break of Day – by HTH
If I was going to ship anyone when I started reading Saiyuki, it was going to be Sanzou/Hakkai. I mean, come on. You have Comfort!Hakkai giving Hurt!Sanzou a wise and gentle pep talk right there in the first chapter of the first volume (back when Sanzou still had his cute little ponytale, even!). I knew that Western fans were into Hakkai/Gojou but I just didn’t see it.

Then I read this fic by HTH.

It knocked the breath out of my lungs. It still does when I read it now. And in 2k words plus change, it turned me into a lifelong 58 shipper. HTH was not a prolific author, but they were the reason I fell for this fandom, as hard as I did. I always wish they’d written more.

Ikka Danran
Romantic, adversarial, or otherwise, I’m primarily motivated to write fic to explore the relationship between two specific characters, with the result that my stories rarely feature much from a supporting cast. This fic was, I think, my first major foray into an ensemble story. It’s also one of my few forays into Sanzou’s POV, which was terrifying and fun in equal measure.



Death Note
Theoretically – sub_divided
I actually got into Death Note through some phenomenal Japanese doujinshi circles that have unfortunately left no trace on the Internet. In the spirit of that, I offer this fic from sub_divided, who is one of many authors I lost track of after the great LJ exodus. It's a shame because her Death Note fics were ace, as evidenced by this fic, with its strong characterizations, spot-on dialogue, and twist that could have come right out of the manga in its heyday.

Boredom
Death Note was still several years away from its conclusion when I wrote this. It was creepy and discomfiting to write, and popped out of me all at once. Incidentally, I still think many of the speculative series conclusions and Death Note rules the fandom came up with are better than anything canon did.



Harry Potter
The Familiar – by Resonant
My fic reading and writing preferences have generally focused heavily on characters confronting Big Challenges or Uncomfortable Truths, and Snarry was pretty much optimized for these tropes from the outset. So you may imagine my surprise when the first Snape/Harry fic I read—completely at random—was Resonant’s “The Familiar.” It is widely—and rightfully—regarded as a classic. And even though canon Snape and his relation to Harry took a much darker (and more cartoonish) turn, this fic remains as delightful today as it was when the author penned it years ago. Resonant's eye for character interactions and development, and sly humor, is second to none.

Last Words
This was the second HP fic I ever wrote, for the (eighth? iteration of the) Snape Fuh-Q-Fest. I struggled and struggled and struggled, and then it poured out of me, to the tune of nearly 9k words, which was exponentially more than the word count of all my other fics over the preceeding five years.

When I finally dug it up to archive it a few years ago, I was amazed at all the attention I’d put into setting and atmospherics, and how strong those elements where in a fic where I thought I'd been focusing on two very specific characters.



The Goblin Emperor
Say It With Flowers - Serenade
I jumped in to writing for this fandom without reading much fic, but the story I’ve linked above (a gift to me, no less!) is one of my favorites in a fandom that boasts an insanely high concentration of talented authors. Its tone and characterizations are spot-on, it’s wonderfully gentle and delightfully humorous, and its take on a standard fandom trope is just...well, you’ll have to read it because I won’t spoil anything more here.

The New Emperor’s Nohecharis
It took so many drafts to get this fic right. So. Many. Drafts. But in the end, I think I did.



The Watchmaker of Filigree Street
victorious (over the failings of man) - SearchingforSerendipity
I actually wrote the first fanfic for this novel on AO3 (something I that still tickles me to this day), but so far as I know, SearchforSerendipity's "victorious" is the first fic written from this particular character's POV. It is a clever concept, delightfully executed, and very much fun to revisit.

Far Away, At Home
This fic takes place in my old neighborhood in Tokyo, and was great fun to write because you can see tons of properties built by the descendants of one of the main characters all over the place to this day. This is also something of an ensemble piece, and I enjoyed writing that aspect of it too.



The Blake & Avery Series
Eternity In An Hour – DoreyG
Like everything DoreyG writes, this is blazingly hot, and gets right to the heart of what I like about these two as a pairing.

He would be free in the morning to go where he would
My first full-length fic in this fandom. It was challenging—but fun—to try to capture the feel of the novels with this particular turn of events, and I think I did pretty well.

Omake
I can't decide whether MCU counts as a fandom (in which case I've written five fics for it) or whether each of it sub-franchises should count. So in the spirit of compromise, here's my favorite of the MCU fics I've written.

これで以上です。



Day 2

Rec at least three fanworks that you didn’t create. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.


On Day 6, I asked for squee in several very small fandoms. Some of them are so small they don't even have fanworks yet, but of those that do, here are some of my favorites:


Blake & Avery: Silently, Invisibly by DoreyG / 2142 words / Rated G
"So," Blake said, an expression of pure outrage rising on his face. it was subtle, most would've thought him merely annoyed, but I'd known him for long enough that I could tell the signs. "They're trying to blackmail you too, then."

Gensou Suikoden: A Cloak of Green by rabidsamfan / 3,703 words / Rated G
Immortality gives you a long time to think things through.
A long time to dream.
Even if the dreams aren’t always your own.
`

Injection: the last of a line by starstrung / 4318 words / Rated G
The conversations they have in that room, with each other, set his mind spinning. The cosmos seem to revolve in the palms of their hands, and all of human achievement is theirs to evoke.

The King and the Clown: Enough by hopefully / 759 words / Rated T
Gonggil thinks Jangsaeng could use a little company.

Onmyoji: Scent by glitterburn / 43,514 words / Rated M
Challenged to create the perfect scent for an imperial contest, Hiromasa unwittingly enlists the aid of a demon. When he attempts to replicate Seimei's scent, Hiromasa learns that seduction is the same as possession…

Silver Diamond: What Is Left Behind by takadainmate / 5743 words / Rated T
Thrown into the desert, Touji and Narushige, and Kou, must survive alone, with neither water nor direction.


これで以上です。
.

Profile

lebateleur: A picture of the herb sweet woodruff (Default)
Trismegistus

Syndicate

RSS Atom

Most Popular Tags

Powered by Dreamwidth Studios

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags