potentialities

June, meet July

Mon, 01 Jul 2024 15:51:17 GMT

It occurred to me that this is the most appropriate day of the year to recommend this album, so I will.

<a href="https://adjy.bandcamp.com/album/the-idyll-opus-i-vi">The Idyll Opus (I-VI) by Adjy</a>

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music to write novels by

Mon, 04 Nov 2013 22:00:10 GMT

As I understand many other writing types do, I often gravitate to soundtracks when I put music on while I write. The absence of lyrics keeps the language processing centers of my brain free, and unlike proper classical music, soundtracks are written with the intention of staying in the background while you focus on something else instead of demanding your full attention.

One of my favorites is actually the soundtrack to a game I've never played, a cult favorite steampunk RPG from 2001 called Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura. The composer's website seems to be down at the moment, but you can check out the cached version to read more about it. Basically, he drew on elements from medieval/Renaissance/early music for the motifs, but then scored it for string quartet, with a couple of tracks that incorporate percussion and synthesizer. It's really gorgeous and atmospheric, and also freely available to download, along with the entire score.

I highly recommend it, whether you're noveling or not this month.

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Wednesday reading — serial murders and one-offs

Wed, 07 Aug 2013 17:09:33 GMT

What I've been reading

I reread Swing, Brother, Swing. One of Ngaio Marsh's strengths is making me care more than I would ordinarily about the one-off heterosexual romances in the B-plots, and Carlisle/Ned are one of my favorite pairings—cousins and childhood friends (the socially-acceptable version of sibcest!) who play a longstanding game where they narrate bits of their lives in third person omniscient at each other. This book has another drugs subplot, though, so I'm on wikipedia once again, going, okay, unlike heroin I know you can actually smoke cocaine, and even Ngiao Marsh would know about cocaine injection because of Sherlock Holmes, but I'm pretty sure there is no such thing as a cocaine pill okay. Ngaio Marsh really needed a drugs beta.

I reread Night at the Vulcan, and I was really surprised that with standardized pagecounts in iBooks it's among the very shortest of the Alleyn books, definitely of the ones I've reread so far. The investigation phase of the book is actually quite short and Alleyn zeroes in on the murderer very quickly. I still love the theatre plot, although now that I am ten years older than her and do not cherish even secret and delusional ambitions of becoming a non-amateur actor I no longer identify quite as desperately with Martyn Tarne, although, again, adorable het relationship between ( spoiler, but not for the murder plot ) Also, ( spoiler for the murder plot )

I read Red Dragon, because it is contrary to everything I stand for to be in a fandom that is at least partly based on a book and not have read that book, and I read some Hannibal fic so I can hardly say I'm not in that fandom now. So yes, I officially see what you did there, with the handful of bits from the book that were used or changed to create the show, and I officially do like the show better. (How is Hannibal supposed to have maroon eyes? Is he albino?)

Then I read The Silence of the Lambs, which I enjoyed more because it has Clarice and also it has more Hannibal Lecter in it, and I was also seriously weirded out because this was the second book in a row that uses a bunch of incidental locations that are right in my neighborhood, even though as far as I can tell Thomas Harris has never lived in Missouri. This isn't actually a seething hotbed of serial killers, I promise. (I have to give the bookverse props for accuracy on that front though; Will Graham is correctly considered to have an impressive amount of experience with serial killers because he's caught two of them, whereas in the televisionverse serial killers appear to be only slightly less common than check fraud. But then, that's part of the fictional landscape that Hannibal Lecter helped create.)

I read Roman Warfare, because I placed holds on all the books my library has about the Roman army. Stupid research for my ridiculous Gladiator fic is eating my brain, I swear.

I read A Tale for the Time Being and I love this book so much. Like, I want everyone to drop what they're doing right now, but I also don't want to say anything about it because I don't want to spoil anything about the way it unfolds—seriously, if I've already decided that I'm interested in reading a book, I'll stop wherever I am in the blurb and not read any further, that is how spoilerphobic I can be. So I'll compromise and say it's a book about a teenage diarist in Tokyo, the middle-aged Japanese-Canadian novelist who finds the diary, bullying, writer's block, Zen Buddhism, translation, and time travel (which is another way of saying writing). And not that anyone on the Booker selection committee is reading this, but if you are and this book doesn't win I will totally cut you.

I read Last Rituals, which was kind of mediocre, but I did enjoy the Icelandic setting.

What I'm reading now

Marcus Aurelius: A Life. If you guessed that this is more ridiculous research, you are correct.

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Friday fics — footnotes

Fri, 02 Aug 2013 18:00:20 GMT

More like Friday fic this week, whoops. Apparently I've mostly been reading other things this week.

British Library, Cotton Domitian viii, Item IV, ff. 70-80: Historia Johannis (3913 words) by longwhitecoats
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Author Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Sherlock Holmes/John Watson
Characters: Sherlock Holmes, John Watson
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Medieval, Writing on Skin, Writing on the Body, Literacy Kink, Multilingual, Footnotes, Epic Love, Literally an epic love, Implied character death - ambiguous, Academia
Summary:

Here follows the first translation of the Historia Johannis, commonly called "The Hermit's Tale."

I knew I was going to love this story when I saw that it had a whole separate column for the footnotes. Actually, the library copies of the canon that I read were laid out like this as well, so maybe I just have a typographical type.

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Friday fics — fusions, fix-its and flogging

Fri, 19 Jul 2013 16:00:27 GMT

I decided that the Wednesday reading meme should have a fannish counterpart, so I'm initiating Friday fics. Unlike my Wednesday reading posts, I'm not going to include absolutely everything I've finished with scathing write-ups of stuff I hated or was utterly bemused by, just things I think someone else should conceivably read if they're into that sort of thing.

Also this week I'm going to cheat and include things that I, strictly speaking, read before this week, because I enjoyed them and don't want them to be left out and also because I want this post to be longer and more interesting than it otherwise would be.

gonna make you have awful luck (1108 words) by sungabraverday
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Les Misérables - Victor Hugo, Curse Workers Series - Holly Black
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Fantine (Les Misérables), Cosette Fauchelevent, Mme. Thénardier, Azelma Thénardier, Éponine Thénardier
Additional Tags: Not Happy, Alternate Universe - Curse Workers Fusion
Summary:

Cosette is a curse worker. Fantine is not. She tries to do the best thing for her daughter, but it's not going to turn out well.

Short and, well, not sweet.

The Perils of Walking in the Rue de l'Homme-Armé (3690 words) by raspberryhunter
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Les Misérables - Victor Hugo, Les Misérables - All Media Types
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Montparnasse & Jean Valjean
Characters: Montparnasse (Les Misérables), Jean Valjean
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Fix-It
Summary:

In which Montparnasse finds that the perils of walking in the Rue de l'Homme Arme are twofold: first, that one might begin to think; and second, that one might come across a weak old man.

The most delightful fix-it, worked in the most unexpected of ways, and splendid Hugo pastiche, to boot.

More Than Bliss (15785 words) by tristesses
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The Avengers (2012)
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Loki/Natasha Romanov
Characters: Natasha Romanov, Loki (Marvel)
Additional Tags: Dom/sub, Femdom, Masochism, Orgasm Delay/Denial, Chastity Device, Mind Games, Whipping, Subspace, Hurt/Comfort, discussion of suicide, Aftermath of Torture
Series: Part 1 of Ball and Chain
Summary:

The first time she sees Loki again, Natasha nearly puts a bullet in his skull. The second time, he threatens to kill her. By the third time, she has him on his knees and begging for her touch, and what's more, he likes it.

This is the first part of a series and the whole series is amazingly, smolderingly hot. I was really craving kinky Natasha/Loki right after I saw Avengers and there wasn't anything and apparently I just gave up slightly too quickly.

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Rec is not a strong enough word for what I am doing right now

Mon, 09 Jul 2012 02:58:10 GMT

Oh, I am the luckiest girl in all of fandom today, and I win at New Year's Resolutions (Recipient Division, that is) for all time, because today spintheiryarns/custardpringle posted A Jolly Kind of Detective Game, her epic fantabulous Hilary/St. George casefic flipping masterpiece, which I have just spent a lovely long Sunday afternoon (and, okay, well into a Sunday evening) reading.

Hilary/St. George is, to begin with, the pairing that is the nearest to my heart, because so far as I can tell it is an idea that did not exist at all in the world until the day it popped into my head, and then because I wrote about it and requested it for Yuletide it turned into this actual thing that people who are not me read and write and ship, which is more or less actual literal magic as far as I am concerned. I'm getting kind of choked up now just thinking about it. Fandom. ♥

And now it is my über rarepair in my teeny tiny fandom that has this glorious novel with its gorgeous, intricate emotional arc and its absolutely smoldering sexual tension, which pays off in the most utterly compelling touches and kisses and sex, oh my god the sex, and all this in a story which also contains bantering, detecting, much hurting and comforting, a whole community of wonderful original characters including queer characters and characters of color for the story to take place among, and the absolute funniest and most apposite chapter-heading tags ever selected. Is it any wonder that I'm looking smug today? (And believe me, I am looking most exceedingly smug.)

This is the single most happy-making fic I have ever read. Everyone should read it and rejoice with me.

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Hugo nominations (vote at the last moment, vote sporadically!)

Wed, 07 Mar 2012 22:49:26 GMT

I bought a supporting membership for Chicon 7 so I could nominate, read and vote for the Hugos this year! Nominations are due by the 11th, and I've sorted what I'm nomming for Best Novel, because novels are a thing that I actually read on a regular basis. When it comes to the various lengths of shorter fiction, zines, artists, editors, fan writers (apparently not the same as fanfic writers, alas), &c., I am essentially a blank slate. As, at the moment, is my ballot.

Feel free to recommend nominations for these categories! I will happily consider any suggestions and nominate things on your behalf.

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