potentialities

Wednesday reading — sinners, assassins and authors

Thu, 25 Sep 2014 00:08:59 GMT

What I've been reading

I went back and caught up on the Marvel event Original Sin, which I had hopelessly lost track of somewhere around the release of Original Sin #0. The main event storyline started out promisingly enough but lost me a bit by the end, to be honest. The Young Avengers had the main sidestory in the Original Sins sidestory title, which was nice, although it had some of the ugliest art that I have ever seen. I was a bit pleasantly surprised by the Original Sin: Hulk vs. Iron Man, and amused that they're openly riding the Science Bros love from the MCU. ( spoiler ) My favorite part, and the reason I felt like I needed to catch up with the event in the first place, was Original Sin: Thor & Loki: The Tenth Realm, although ultimately I'm more looking forward to getting back to Loki's solo book.

I reread Royal Assassin, the middle book of the Farseer trilogy. I definitely feel that I was able to enjoy it more on reread, because I'm more aware of Robin Hobb's narrative kinks and less likely to get frustrated when her characters feel honorbound to do the stupidest possible thing in any given circumstance over and over and over again. I think it's so funny that she made Fitz be an assassin at all, since I don't think she really kinks on that kind of pragmatic, ends-justify-the-means thing at all and kind of falls down at writing it on occasion, but at least it comes out more interesting than her Soldier Son trilogy, which is basically the unfiltered product of her loyalty and duty kink and almost unreadable.

I reread Black Swan Green, which I also appreciated more on reread when I was able to be resigned to the fact that it wasn't going to involve multiple point of view characters or any speculative fiction elements, unless you count the fact that it takes place in the universe in which the Cloud Atlas Sextet was composed. I mean, it is really good. But I love the ridiculousness in David Mitchell's books best.

I read Afterworlds, Scott Westerfeld's new book, which I had been anticipating greatly and which frankly disappointed me in a lot of ways. Its schtick, which I do appreciate, is that it alternates chapters about Darcy Patel, an eighteen-year-old who managed to land a massive contract for her first novel, a YA paranormal romance, with chapters of Darcy's novel. This is a very effective solution to the problem of how you make the book within a book feel real: actually write it. You have a point of reference when characters in the "real" storyline talk about reading Darcy's book, because it is an actual book and you are actually reading it. The problem is that neither of these two books are actually that great, as though the level of quality of Scott Westerfeld's usual books had to be divided among the two of them. Unlike most negative Goodreads reviewers, I actually liked Darcy's novel better than the novel about Darcy. Sure, it was often a bit cheesy and wouldn't stand very well on its own, but I thought Darcy's story was even thinner and more ridiculous and mostly a bunch of in-jokes about the New York YA scene that would stand even less well on its own, although together the two of them make up something interesting, albeit flawed.

What I'm reading now

I started rereading Assassin's Quest, but it's really long and I'm definitely going to need to read something else at the same time. At this rate it's going to be ages before I get to the new book.

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Friday fics — footnotes, flirting and fix-its

Sat, 12 Jul 2014 00:35:46 GMT

Friday fics return this week, thanks to Night on Fic Mountain as well as two other stories I found in my notes when I came to make this post.

Love Notes (835 words) by MacBeth
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Discworld - Terry Pratchett, Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell - Susanna Clarke
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: History/Lexicon
Characters: History - Character, Lexicon - Character, Death (Discworld), The Librarian (Discworld)
Additional Tags: Footnote love, Crossover, The History and Practice of English Magic, The Dictionary of Eye-Watering Words, some library books will never be returned
Summary:

"When two footnotes love each other . . . "
. . . is a prompt too good to resist.

Written for Lost Spook's second "Obscure & British" fic fest.

Utterly delightful, especially if you love footnotes as much as I do.

Foreign territory (2467 words) by iridescentglow
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Hannibal (TV) RPF, Hannibal (TV)
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Hugh Dancy/Mads Mikkelsen, Mads Mikkelsen/Hugh Dancy/Claire Danes
Characters: Mads Mikkelsen, Hugh Dancy, Claire Danes
Additional Tags: Threesome, Polyamory, Smoking, Alcohol
Summary:

Mads, who has an open marriage, decides to introduce Hugh and Claire to the concept. With a threesome, obviously.

I also love open marriages. And Claire Danes. I basically find everything about this story super-charming. ♥

judy is a punk (4350 words) by margot_tenenbaum
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Royal Tenenbaums (2001)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Author Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Margot Tenenbaum/Richie Tenenbaum, Eli Cash/Margot Tenenbaum, Margot Tenenbaum/OC
Characters: Margot Tenenbaum, Richie Tenenbaum, Chas Tenenbaum, Etheline Tenenbaum, Eli Cash, Rachael Evans Tenenbaum
Summary:

Everywhere Margot sees her own name, the word "genius" follows. Margot has a sizeable IQ, an impressive vocabulary, and is versed in three languages but the word genius will be infinitely puzzling.

I really like Margot's voice in this story; appropriately enough, as on reveal it turned out to be written by 'margot_tenenbaum'.

Things Which Catch the Eye (2848 words) by petrichoral
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The Pillow Book - Sei Shônagon, Heian jidai | Heian Period RPF
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Murasaki Shikibu/Sei Shonagon
Characters: Sei Shonagon, Murasaki Shikibu
Additional Tags: Flirting
Summary:

Really, it's bad enough that you have to deal with these sorts of people in the cooler months. In summer I wish they'd just take themselves off to the provinces and all be disagreeable at each other, and leave us alone.

I've only read bits of the Pillow Book (admittedly, it's written to be read that way) and acquired copies of The Tale of Genji that I intend to open at some point, but this story is simply the best.

Two for Joy (3389 words) by sevenofspade
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Loki: Agent of Asgard, Journey into Mystery
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Author Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Characters: Loki (Marvel), Verity Willis
Summary:

This is a story about Loki. It doesn't feature quite as much lying as you might expect based on that. Verity won't let it.

Verity is such a great counterpoint to Loki in this story; it's perfect.

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Friday fics — Loki's self-insert fic

Sat, 22 Mar 2014 01:29:35 GMT

Superhero RPF (10276 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 6/?
Fandom: Loki: Agent of Asgard, Ms. Marvel (Comics), Marvel 616
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Author Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Loki & Kamala Khan
Characters: Loki (Agent of Asgard), Loki (Marvel), Kamala Khan, Kate Bishop, Billy Kaplan, Jeff Fischer (Marvel), Hilde (Marvel)
Additional Tags: internet drama, Tumblr, fail fandom anon - Freeform, fanfic about fanfic, mostly canon-compliant, loki's terrible slashfic
Summary:

Kamala is a popular fic writer in the superhero RPF fandom, known for her rather surreal take on what the Avengers do. Loki is a BNF, known for his wank and not-sure-if-trollfic in Game of Thrones fandom. He decides to see what this superhero business is all about. Friendship ensues.

This fic is still in progress, but so far it's everything I could possibly want from this premise. Which is canon now. And I love it.

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black nail varnish

Mon, 28 Oct 2013 21:08:30 GMT

I painted my nails black in honor of 'Oh no, he's hot'!Loki (and also for Halloween). My beloved nails inc polish in black taxi had turned to the consistency of hot glue over the summer and it took, like, three droppers full of thinner to bring it back to something remotely workable and I still did kind of a terrible job around the edges, but top coat covers a multitude of sins and I can pretend it's supposed to look punk. Yeah, that's it.

I also made an icon! :D

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Wednesday reading — children's serial fiction

Thu, 10 Oct 2013 02:52:08 GMT

I swear, if I keep coughing like this my chest is going to burst open, Alien-style. Already my sternum is so sore that I don't like to breathe too deeply, much less get sucked into another coughing fit.

Accordingly there is quite a lot of extreme comfort reading represented in this post, although I also managed to finish two actual books.

What I've been reading

I read Noble Savages: My Life Among Two Dangerous Tribes—the Yanomamö and the Anthropologists, Napoleon Chagnon's combination memoir/rebuttal. His account of his work is really interesting and well worth reading.

I read Marvel Comics: The Untold Story, and frankly, with so many people dropping dead at young ages, I think Marvel may have been one of the most dangerous places to work in the last forty years. I find it entirely plausible that Stan Lee has reached the advanced age of 90 by sucking the life force from hapless Marvel employees. It is a well-constructed account and I enjoyed the précis of the evolution of the Marvel Universe as much as the behind-the-scenes gossip.

I read Thor: Season One, which is basically a retelling of Thor's origin story with a more contemporary sensibility and art. Young Thor and Young Loki in particular have the prettiest princess hair ever.

I reread Trixie Belden and the Mysterious Visitor, the Mystery Off Glen Road, the Mystery in Arizona, the Mysterious Code, the Black Jacket Mystery and the Happy Valley Mystery. I also found an article examining the Trixie Belden Authorship Question [PDF] which is kind of amazing.

What I'm reading next

I seriously need to look over some things and pull together my Yuletide letter and signup. D:

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FIC REVEAL: Five Times Two Hawkeyes Talked About Sex (and the First Time They Did It)

Tue, 01 Jan 2013 20:53:30 GMT

Yay, it's Yuletide reveals time! This year I wrote Hawkeye/Hawkeye (Clint Barton/Kate Bishop) for bendingwind.

This was my first time writing fic in a mainstream Western comics universe, which was exciting and intimidating. If you are a habitual procrastinator who frets about canon details, there is always another title that you could pick up for research purposes. Not that this is entirely bad; I read some entertaining stuff this way!

Matt Fraction and David Aja's Hawkeye comic is absolutely one of the most exciting comics being published right now: it's stylish, it's witty, it's action-filled, it's sweet, it's purple. It's very, very purple. Everyone should check it out! (Don't let the above make it sound like getting into it would be a tedious research project; it's actually very self-contained and self-explanatory in a self-aware way. It was only when I started writing that I felt like I had to know all these things.)

Five Times Two Hawkeyes Talked About Sex (and the First Time They Did It) (3584 words) by mayhap
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Hawkeye (Comics), Marvel 616
Rating: Mature
Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Clint Barton/Kate Bishop, Kate Bishop/Tommy Shepherd, Clint Barton/Phil Coulson
Characters: Clint Barton, Kate Bishop
Summary:

Clint Barton is Hawkeye. Kate Bishop is also Hawkeye. Why does this have to be so complicated?

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