Singularly Unobservant (2162 words) by Isis
Fandom: Eagle of the Ninth - Rosemary Sutcliff
Rating: Mature; Servius Placidus, Marcus Flavius Aquila/Esca Mac Cunoval
Summary: Placidus observes an intimate moment.

So, this is a kinkmeme fill, written for this prompt: Placidus sees Marcus and Esca fucking. Obviously, he just can't look away.

( Some notes about staying true to canon vs staying true to history/culture )

Also posted on Dreamwidth where there are comments.

Well, assuming that you enjoy what I enjoy.

Some fic:

After Darkness, Light (3510 words) by Carmarthen
Fandom: Frontier Wolf - Rosemary Sutcliff, Alexios/Hilarion, T-rated
Summary: It is not a thing you do, in the Frontier Wolves, to ask how a man has come to the frontier. Alexios pries when he should not, and Hilarion takes it rather ill at first.

This is my favorite of the Frontier Wolf stories on AO3. As I mentioned when I read the book, although the end of the book sets up for Alexios/Hilarion, the strongest relationship is Alexios/Cunorix; what I like about this story is that it acknowledges prior Alexios/Cunorix (not necessarily as a romantic relationship, although I read it that way, but definitely as an emotional relationship) before moving on to the emotional healing and hope that Hilarion brings. And the language is beautifully Sutcliff!

Claudius Hieronimianus’s People (7750 words) by bunn
Fandom: The Eagle of the Ninth - Rosemary Sutcliff, Placidus-centric gen, G-rated
Summary: (mine): A sort of remix a la Le Carré (the title is the obvious homage), in which Placidus is a spy trainee, and Marcus is a pawn in the Legate's plans.

I loved this. This is my favorite kind of remix (I mean, this is a fanfic, but in a sense it's a remix of the original book), where the characters' motivations are revealed to be completely different from that assumed/implied by the original POV character (Marcus, in this case). I particularly liked the rich and very Sutcliffian description of the wolf hunt.

I also have written a Placidus-centric story, which I need to tidy up as per beta comments before posting to AO3, but will do so soon. I've also started writing a Mark of the Horse Lord story, which is probably going to break my heart.

Other nifty things for you to enjoy:

You're vs. Your Grammar rap to the tune of 'Somebody That I Used to Know'. Move over, Schoolhouse Rock. (Youtube)

Flashed Face Distortion Effect article and video. Follow the instructions (focus on the central cross) and watch the slideshow video. It's amazing to see how ordinary (and good-looking!) celebrity faces start looking like aliens.

These songs have been playing on infinite repeat IN MY HEAD (all Mediafire links):

Happy Man - The Prodigals

If I Should Fall From Grace With God - The Pogues

The Whole Night Sky - Christine Collister

We watched the end of the first season of Rome last night. It was oddly apt because last weekend my husband B won the office he was in the running for (member of the board of directors of our electric co-op) and Wednesday was his first meeting, and he was all, 'Gah, why did I ever want to do this??'; well, in 1.10 Lucius Vorenus runs for the office of magistrate (at the urging of Caesar), and in 1.11 he has his first meeting, and it's clear that he enjoys it about as much B does!

The last two eps (1.11 and 1.12) were on the bloody and violent side, but I have to say that they hit my 'loyalty kink' (a phrase I have recently learned!) dead on. The bit where ( spoiler for 1.11 ) - okay, Vorenus and Pullo are both clearly as heterosexual as can be, but oh, how lovely that is, to see that strong brothers-in-arms thing going. And I still have a crush on Tobias Menzies as Brutus. His conflicted feelings about Caesar (his mother's former lover, and very much a father figure, but he disagrees with what he's doing) are so clear on his face. And when Brutus ( spoiler only if you don't know your history or Shakespeare ) in the Senate, his expression is just so perfect, so conflicted, such restrained but obvious emotion. There's a wet streak where a tear has run down his cheek. What a brilliant actor he is - I am totally unsurprised he is a stage actor. HIS FACE. ♥ And I am thinking of him, of the expression on his face, as Alexios ( spoiler for Frontier Wolf ).

In other news, in what is probably the triumph of optimism over experience, I have planted some tomato and strawberry plants in the sunny spot in front of our house. If I manage to keep them alive long enough to get fruit, I expect the deer will appreciate the snacks and laugh behind their fuzzy little backs at me. Haha, silly human!

Also posted on Dreamwidth where there are comments.

You guys apparently thought crossover meme = let's play stump the Isis! So I mostly just waved my hands around and flailed at you. But if you are curious, these are my stabs at the requests:

Ladies No. 1 Detective Agency / Lord of the Rings
Master and Commander / due South
Ella Minnow Pea / Slings & Arrows
Pirates of the Caribbean / Sutcliff Book of Choice = Mark of the Horse Lord
Downton Abbey / Game of Thrones
Eagle of the Ninth / Harry Potter
Frontier Wolf / due South [this is probably the best of the bunch]
The Devil Wears Prada / Brideshead Revisited [Signe hates me]
Hornblower / Harry Potter
due South / Eagle of the Ninth

Well, I've certainly learned my lesson. Oog. And I thought I loved crazy crossovers! You guys are NUTS.

Also posted on Dreamwidth where there are comments.

I was a big fan of the ithurtsmybrain random crossover fest back in the day (and wrote a couple of ficlets for it), so I find ellen_fremedon's proposed meme oddly compelling. Anyway, I have just finished my Gay Dead Heroes story and sent it off to beta, so I have a few idling creative brain cells with which to try this:

Let's play the Hypothetical Crossover game! Name any two fandoms you know I'm familiar with, and I will tell you how I would, hypothetically, cross them over! Fair game: anything I've written (see http://archiveofourown.org/users/Isis and expand the full list of my fandoms, plus those at http://hieroglyfics.net) plus anything I've read or watched (http://www.goodreads.com/review/list/914674-isis?format=html&shelf=read, http://isis.dreamwidth.org/tag/reading, http://isis.dreamwidth.org/tag/viewing) or recced (http://isis.dreamwidth.org/tag/recs:other, http://isis.dreamwidth.org/tag/recs which is not super complete, oops)

I reserve the right to throw up my hands and say that I have no freakin' clue.

Take the meme, spread the meme, do the meme, love the meme.

Also posted on Dreamwidth where there are comments.

Back from the Utah canyon country, a fabulous place to hike although not so fabulous to look at the moon, as it was completely hidden behind the cliff wall on Saturday and Sunday nights both. We did get a nice moon on Friday, though. Lots of pre-Puebloan culture ruins and art to look at, rock formations, arches, yadda yadda yadda. Also my feet hurt, but that's no surprise.

My heart hurts even worse, though, as I made the tactical mistake of finishing Frontier Wolf and starting right in on Mark of the Horse Lord, which I finished on the last night of our backpack. Now I feel a bit like I did when my University cinema showed a double feature of Gallipoli and Breaker Morant and I saw both in one evening. I'm probably going to post something about these books over at sutcliff_talk in a bit, but wow, reading these two books really makes The Hunger Games look like so much fluffy garbage. Cutting for major spoilers for Frontier Wolf and The Hunger Games (first book only), very minor spoiler for Mark of the Horse Lord: ( Sometimes your choices really suck. )

I strongly recommend these two books, by the way, but they are very far from fluffy. Also, I have a feeling I am not going to be part of Frontier Wolf fandom, because, okay, I am unsurprised that the fandom OTP is Alexios/Hilarion, because Alexios is the hero, and Hilarion is an entertaining character, but that was not where I saw the subtext (except perhaps a bit of one-sided Hilarion/Alexios toward the end).

Also, I am a little bemused by Sutcliff's naming choices, in that she recycles the same set of names across different books; the Dolphin Ring Cycle Aquilas are all obviously descendants of Marcus Flavius Aquila from The Eagle of the Ninth, of course, but the various others are not related and so it's odd to, for example, read about Hilarion the Frontier Wolf and then Hilarion the, er, other Frontier Wolf, and of course there was a Hilarion at Isca Dumnoniorum in Eot9; and the Dalriadain princess is Murna as was Guern's wife, and there is a Gault (the Strong) and (just referred to, Midir's father) a Levin in MotHL (these are the lovers in Sword at Sunset)...

Anyway. Blah blah blah Sutcliff. I need to get back to work.

Also posted on Dreamwidth where there are comments.

So, I might have mentioned here (or more likely in others' journals) that I read the first Dresden Files book and thought it was not really all that good. Then I read some fic that I really liked, but didn't understand a lot of it because I hadn't read enough canon, so I went back and read the next several books, but finally decided it just wasn't worth it. I kind of dropped out of reading the fanfic as well, but then someone made a rec for this novel-length fic, and - WOW.

Enemy Mine (145374 words) by Rassaku
Fandom: Dresden Files - Jim Butcher
Rating: Teen, Harry Dresden/Johnny Marcone
Summary: Harry gets invited on a date by everyone’s favorite mob boss, and then things get weird.

This novel combines everything I love about the Dresden Files books (magic, snark, intricate plot, complex loyalties) with everything I love about Dresden Files fanfiction (Dresden/Marcone la la la, and despite the 'Teen' rating, there is a lot of quite sexy foreplay going on, and definite implied sex), without the things I hated about the books (sexism, crappy writing, gender issues). The only quibbles I had were that I would have liked more Bob (I love Bob!) and the author uses 'alright', which drives me a bit batty. There were a few parts that were a little harder to follow due to my abbreviated knowledge of canon, but nothing really confusing. But damn, it really read like canon, only better, and that's the best praise I can give.

---

I also might have mentioned that I read fanfic (and many books) on my Kobo Touch ereader. (I really like it, by the way; I bought it in September when I thought I had lost my old Sony Pocket Reader (which is now my husband's), and I happily recommend it.) I was starting to get worried that I'd somehow broken the touch screen, because it was taking lots of taps before I'd get a page turn, and it was really irritating me. I googled around to see if this was a common problem, and, no clear consensus.

...then I turned it off and on again. (Ordinarily I just leave it in sleep mode.) AHA! It works perfectly now! I guess it was a software thing. Moral of story: try rebooting first, before you panic.

---

My Sword at Sunset story is north of 13,000 words! Yowza. Clearly my original estimate of 10-14K is haha wrong. I just got through a couple of grim and difficult scenes, though, and I think I might take a break and write something lighter for a while. Because it ain't going to get any happier at this point, until the very end.

---

Heading out this afternoon to go backpacking, hooray! It will be nice to get out of town if only for a long weekend. And the weather should be lovely, and the moon will be full! I'm bringing my Kobo (see above) and will probably finish reading Frontier Wolf; and I will bring a notebook and a pen and might write two or three sentences. I am horrible at writing fic longhand, so chances are -->.<-- for anything significant.

Of course the problem with going out on the first backpack trip of the season means that our stuff is all ahoo, and we are going to have to sort out gear and whatnot for a few hours, and probably won't get on the road until late, and I'm going to be cranky. But! Backpacking yay!

---

Here, have some music. For some reason this is the song which currently plays in my head on repeat when I'm running and not listening to an audiobook: Road to Ruin by Great Big Sea.

...I think that is all for now!

Also posted on Dreamwidth where there are comments.

I wrote a Remix fic!

Lie Down With Wolves (The Ain't Nothin' But the Centurion's Hound Dog Remix)
Fandom: The Eagle | Eagle of the Ninth (2011), Eagle of the Ninth - Rosemary Sutcliff
Rating: Gen; Uncle Aquila, Marcus Flavius Aquila, Esca Mac Cunoval
Summary: "He who lies down with dogs will rise with fleas," his old Camp Commandant had said. What did one get, Aquila wondered, when one lay down with wolves?
Remix of: Running With The Dogs by Piscaria

( Remixy meta notes: shifting movie to book canon, core ideas, narrative tricks, and ...wolf mpreg? )

Also posted on Dreamwidth where there are comments.

Despite the cleaning I gave it a couple of weeks ago, my laptop fan really isn't sounding any better. It's loud, and then it's louder, and then it's TRULY DREADFUL for a while, and then it quits making noise for a while until it starts ramping up again with the loud. So I have ordered a new fan from Amazon; since I had to take it out to clean, I know I can open up the case again and replace it. It was shipped yesterday and expected to arrive on May 21st, so I can only imagine they must have given it to some guy on horseback, or a bicycle, or something.

Game of Thrones is still "long wait" on Netflix (and yes, first season, I am slow to see things because we don't have actual TV) but last night we finally got done with all the classic movies my husband had stuck in the queue (I have a limited tolerance for these things, although Grapes of Wrath kind of made me want to slash Casy the preacher and Tom Joad (thirtysomething John Carradine totally hits my buttons, and Henry Fonda ain't so bad either)) and watched the first two episodes of Rome, which someone (zebra363, I think?) had recommended. And of course it's Relevant To My (Current) Interests.

We enjoyed it, although wow, gratuitous sex much? (I know, I know, Game of Thrones is going to be worse, or so I hear.) Also, as an HBO production it's mostly got a different set of actors than our usual BBC costume drama suspects, but it was great fun to recognize Cato:

B: "Look, it's the old guy who was married to the sort of shaman woman, in the series about the lady postmaster!"

(It took me a minute to unpack that and realize he meant Twister in Lark Rise to Candleford; the actor is Karl Johnson.)

I also recognized James Purefoy from Sharpe, and Max Pirkis from Master and Commander, which amused me because hey, they both played one-armed men in Age of Sail drama! And I did not recognize Tobias Menzies (Brutus) from anything, but wow, I sure would like to, because he hits the same buttons that thirtysomething John Carradine does; cheekbones sharp enough to cut yourself on is one of my kinks, I guess.

In non-viewing-media news, I finished Island of Ghosts by Gillian Bradshaw, which was recommended to me by seascribe, and enjoyed it a lot. It's about a Sarmatian (pre-Slav people) warrior sent with his men as part of a treaty to be a soldier for Rome in Britain, and it's set roughly around the same time as The Eagle of the Ninth, so naturally I want to write a crossover now. (It would be gen, Ariantes and Esca meeting in a bar taverna, and complaining about people named Marcus.)

Also, my Sword at Sunset story is up to almost 8,000 words, and the Pivotal Event has not even happened yet! Oog.

Also posted on Dreamwidth where there are comments.

Remix is live! No prizes for guessing what I wrote, as obvious story is obvious, at least to me. (It was a pinch hit, so I didn't 'get' a remix, but someone did remix one of my stories for Remix Madness, which goes live tomorrow night. I also wrote four Madness fic(let)s. Three of them are for people on my flist, so if you guess the story I wrote for you, um. No prize either :-)

I have two tiny recs, both in fandoms I am ostentatiously not in:

Two Men in a Boat (to say nothing of the fog) (5858 words) by Anonymous
Fandom: Sherlock Holmes (Downey films)
Rating: Mature, Sherlock Holmes/John Watson
Summary: [mine]: Holmes and Watson go to sea and end up in a lifeboat.

Great character voices, sly humor, and the title is a work of art.

Contingencies (The Know Thyself Remix) (1084 words) by Anonymous
Fandom: White Collar
Rating: General Audiences, Neal Caffrey, Mozzie gen
Summary: "Somehow, I don't see myself following through on a job if the streets are crawling with zombies."

I HEART MOZZIE. That is all.

In other news, I had an awesome weekend of mountain biking and running, I scored a Mary Renault novel at the library book sale, I am drinking wine, and my Sword at Sunset story is up to 2500 words. Go me!

Also posted on Dreamwidth where there are comments.

There is a meme going around where people are posting the list of their most popular stories on AO3, comparing now vs one year ago, and - this is not that meaningful for me, because most of my stories aren't on AO3. But coincidentally, exactly a week ago I posted a new story to AO3 (only, though linked from my journals and a community journal) and I have been keeping daily statistics, because there have been recent discussions around fan-space about feedback patterns and rates on AO3, and I thought it would be interesting to see what the actual numbers said.

( Some background )

( Some numbers )

In conclusion, well, I can't really draw any conclusions. Other than that for a story posted now, in 2012, to AO3 and linked from LJ and DW, the feedback relative to hits is about the same as it was in 2006, for a story posted to my website and linked from LJ and DW.

Oh, yeah, and I donated some $$ to the OTW, which runs AO3. Imagine a cool linky image here.

Also posted on Dreamwidth where there are comments.

I sort of blew off the last few days of the Fandom Appreciation Challenge, but I wanted to get in on today's bonus challenge, which is to rec two challenges or communities. There is also a bonus from a few days ago which is essentially the same thing, so I'm going to give you three.

1: Remix Madness. Because you can do it RIGHT NOW! It's like Yuletide Madness for Remix: no assignments, no minimum number of stories written, no minimum wordcount, just get inspired and GO. You do not have to be a Remix participant to play. You DO have to opt in to allow people to remix your stories in order to write for this. You have from now until probably next Monday evening to write.

I wrote a pinch hit for Remix, and I have signed up for Remix Madness. I have already selected three stories that inspire me. We'll see if any of them get written.

2: ebooks is a community I really like. We talk about everything having to do with ebooks and ereaders. Yay!

3: I am probably breaking the first rule of Fight Club here, but I have a shameful confession: I really enjoy fail_fandomanon. I read it a little way back when it started (over a Vividcon warnings kerfuffle), and it bored me silly. But I started reading again around Yuletide (for REASONS) and I have to say, it's turned into what I can only describe as a rolling rollicking random chatfest. Some of it is still boring. Some is eye-roll inducing. But there are actually quite a few interesting conversations, many of which I don't think could happen in fandom with names attached. (I still don't place much weight on anonymous opinions. But it's still a useful format for getting a sort of gestalt of fandom opinion on various hot topics, and for voicing Unpopular Fannish Opinions.)

Speaking of writing (which I was, above, a little) I am not even finished reading Rosemary Sutcliff's Sword at Sunset (her take on Arthurian legend) and I am already ~1200 words into fic for it. Which probably three people are going to read, but I DON'T CARE.

Also posted on Dreamwidth where there are comments.

china_shop is running her Fandom Appreciation Challenge again (also on LJ) and as I'm feeling fannish again, I thought I would play. I was a little annoyed at the first day's challenge, though: "On your journal, rec three fanworks by people you don't know and whose works you haven't read/watched/listened to/looked at before" because I JUST RECCED a couple of stories that fit this, and OMG busy, and THREE MORE? But someone pointed out that art totally fits this challenge, and I happened to be thinking about art; and I was paging through the archives of ninth_eagle and found an artist I wasn't familiar with already (I might have to rec some of those now, though, if I'm reccing art...) whose style really appeals to me. Plus, her pictures are not so grounded in movie canon, which - I just don't find Channing Tatum that attractive, okay? Plus, YAY CUB!

So feast your eyes on akahans27's adorable pictures!

Cub's homecoming. (Cub is the pet wolf-puppy Esca brought home from a hunt for Marcus)

Cub claims his territory. Um, maybe NSFW, as there are naked men but no dangly bits showing. Not bestiality!

And here's a bit of NSFW Marcus Esca. Explicit pictures often don't do it for me, but this is very sexy, with great implied tension in the lines of their bodies.

So I am sure a lot of you are rolling your eyes and going, "oh jeez, Eagle stuff again," and so I thought I'd try to pimp you into my fandom, if nothing else so you can read the tentacle porn I posted yesterday! As it happens, I was reminded yesterday of a hilarious set of annotated screencaps of The Eagle (movie) I saw back in February (and thus it does not quite fit the requirements of this challenge): The EagleThe Epic Love Story of Marcus and Esca: A Summary.

For those of you who are inspired, or who are not inspired because you, like me, prefer book-type media, stay tuned for a locked post. :whistle: If you're not on my LJ flist or subscribed to me on DW (I give access to everyone), send me a PM (and I really should friend a lot of people back who have me friended, because I kept meaning to check out the journals of people who friended me and never did, so, you could just remind me that you exist and are interesting).

Also posted on Dreamwidth where there are comments.

I was browsing the kink meme, as you do, and a prompt jumped out at me. Because it had tentacles.

"Uptight virginal Marcus has heard tales of the forbidden forest and one day curiosity gets the best of him and he wanders in. When he's deep in the forest he meets a touchy feely sentient plant and gets fucked by its tentacles. Bonus points if Esca finds Marcus in the forest, and he either watches or bats the tentacles away and fucks Marcus himself."

Well, I didn't quite write that. But I did write ~4500 words of touchy feely plant tentacle porn with mythological overtones:

The Forest of Dreams (4527 words)
Fandom: The Eagle | Eagle of the Ninth (2011)
Rating: Explicit
Relationships: Marcus Flavius Aquila/Esca Mac Cunoval
Summary: "Come on, then!" Marcus called over his shoulder, and then he was gone, swallowed up by the trees.

Thanks to oxoniensis for beta-reading and fixing all my botanical errors.

For the people who have not been around my journal from the beginning: ( a little bit about my relationship with tentacles. )

Also posted on Dreamwidth where there are comments.

The problem with being absorbed in fandom again is that I've stopped reading actual books in favor of fanfiction. (Okay, not so much of a problem! \o/) Which reminds me, more tools to link you up to.

Squee!Book, as I mentioned in my previous post, is an excellent tool for grabbing LJ-posted fic and ebookifying it. But it does not work well on every site. Here are some other tools:

FLAG is set up specifically for fanfic archives (there is a complete list of supported sites on its website, but they include fanfiction.net, Wraithbait, and FictionAlley)

GrabMyBooks is a Firefox extension that works very well for sites that are not supported by the other two utilities. In particular, it "understands" blog websites fairly well, and it also allows for editing before saving and conversion. I used it to grab and convert the first 10 chapters of Chocolatiers of the High Winds, an original Steampunk M/M story, and so far it looks good. (I still haven't actually read it - see "reading mostly fanfiction right now" above - but if I like it I will make my ebookified version available for people to download.)

And this sort of leads into my "pre-announcement" that elf, stasia and I are putting together a "read and review free ebooks" fest at sps. Details to come, but I'm excited about this.

Back to fanfiction. I have two more recs from the Eagle Big Bang:

From the Depths of His Heart (31308 words) by Sineala
Rating: Mature (Marcus Flavius Aquila/Esca Mac Cunoval)
Summary: After his injury at Isca Dumnoniorum and subsequent discharge from the army, Marcus moves to Calleva, learns to live with himself again, and happens to fall in love with a young British man on the way. Also, Esca is a werewolf.

An excellent canon AU in which Esca is a "skin-changer" who can take the form of a wolf (as opposed to a full-moon werewolf, and I have to say I like the shapeshifter choice). It's interesting what she chooses to change; Uncle Aquila's dog Procyon is absent from this, for example, and although it's mostly movieverse characterization and situations, Cottia is present (and I love her here). I did think that Marcus is a little on the dim side here as he fails to notice clues banging him on the head several times (and the idea that he allows what he is still in his mind calling a WOLF into his HOUSE? How drunk WAS he?), but overall I enjoyed the characterizations, and the writing is gorgeous, and the progression of the relationship is perfect.

Where the hills run red (56563 words) by mirandaeostre
Rating: General Audiences (Marcus Flavius Aquila/Esca Mac Cunoval)
Warning: The author chose No Archive Warnings Apply, but I disagree. There should be a warning for character death. Also, note that this story is locked to logged-in archive users.
(Author's) Summary: "Esca once vowed never to leave Marcus, but when Marcus disappears one night Esca's vow is tested to its limit. A ghost story of sorts." IMHO this is a misleading summary for the story in its current form, but I'm not sure what I'd say. I think it's intended to be a love story across time, with post-canon Marcus and Esca as a frame for a story about a modern Marcus's physical and emotional healing after his war injury.

This is a rather problematic story, so I am going to make huge caveats. In some ways I think this is the best story of the fest; it is both an engaging original work and a faithful fanfiction of the source, which is a rare and impressive feat that reminds me of AJ Hall's stories. But it clearly suffers from a bad case of "deadline-itis" - that is, it's obvious that the author was unable to finish the story she had in mind before it was due, and the final chapters are a jumbled mess of forced exposition dump and inexplicable gaps in the narrative. It's also oddly unbalanced, in that there is quite a lot about modern Marcus but almost nothing about modern Esca; again, I suspect this is because it's still incomplete.

So why read it? I didn't have to read the notes at the end to know that it was grounded in real places and real legends; they all come very much alive, as did the host of original characters. I could see the setting in my head with great clarity, the hills and the rain, the ruins and the cottages. The modern-AU versions of the characters ring more true for me here than in any other modern AU I have read. The slow progression of Marcus's physical and emotional healing, set against this vivid tapestry, is a wonderful and realistic story arc.

And yet it all falls to the ground abruptly, which is a real shame. But I give the author credit for aiming much higher than the typical fanfic even tries to achieve; and she has said that she plans to rewrite it this summer, which delights me, because this will be an amazing, incredible story when it is done.

One more Eagle story rec, not from the Big Bang: My Kindly and Most Gracious Master by subterrain. Esca/Placidus (implied Esca/Marcus), hard R (I'd rate it NC17), noncon/dubcon, about 5500 words. This is twisty and very head-game-y, and the sex in some sense is really about Placidus and Marcus, not about Esca at all. But there is much more to this story than the sex, and the noncon aspect is framed in a really interesting way, in that it's not so much Placidus forcing Esca as it is Esca acceding as a move in a game, like a sacrifice in chess that will ultimately lead to victory. More thinky than rapefic, is what I'm trying to say here.

And anyway, I am currently writing Eagle tentacle-fic, so I have no higher ground to claim at the moment la la la.

Also posted on Dreamwidth where there are comments.

Over the past few months my computer (it's a Lenovo laptop, which I use as my primary computer with a second monitor and wireless keyboard and mouse; I work at home so it's on pretty much all the time) has periodically made unpleasant buzzy/vibraty noises, enough so that I've been carefully backing up everything of major importance. Yesterday it started up noisy and it did not stop making noises, so I found a website with instructions on "How To Clean Your T61 Fan" and printed them out, and last night after dinner my husband graciously assisted me in disassembling and cleaning my laptop. Despite the "this is an easy fix" on the website, it was scary and hard and parts didn't want to come out and the screws are teeny-tiny and I was afraid I was going to break something, but yay, I blew four years of accumulated dust and cat hairs out of the fan, and now my laptop is (mostly) silent again! Hooray!

It was in the upper 70s on the weekend, and it snowed yesterday. I love Colorado. (Unironically! Really!) I made a fire in the wood stove for the first time in weeks. Today I'm making posole (it's a kind of chili-stew with hominy, for those of you who don't speak Southwest Foodian) and I baked brownies earlier today.

Some links of interest (at least to me):

bethbethbeth has an interesting poll/discussion on commenting and kudos at AO3. I was surprised to see so many people saying that they will follow a LJ/DW link to read a story at AO3 but they will back out and comment on the journal post, if they comment at all. I also found interesting the comments that people find AO3 commenting not conducive to conversation, which I get because I also feel a bit odd carrying on a conversation in comments at AO3 - but I also do in comments on a fic or art post (as opposed to a meta or general life post) on DW or LJ.

resonant posted on "Omega Males" which is apparently the trope of "a male character...written as having an estrus cycle, having a self-lubricating orifice, and being able to get pregnant" - which I have never seen except in the worst of badfic, but apparently it's all over some fandoms. The discussion reminds me of other "girly men" tropes such as crying or super-emotional men, and rapefic; stories in which (as commenters on Res' post say) if the character was female you'd feel deeply squicked about reading it. I have nothing much to say about this, but I think the discussion is quite thought-provoking.

I am in love, in LOVE, I say! with squee!Book, a website that magically converts fic into ebook formats (courtesy of halcyon_shift - squeebook is the associated news/announcement community). Now that I'm used to being able to download fic from AO3 and slurp it right onto my ereader, I've been grumpy about people who only post on LJ - but squee!Book not only converts LJ posts to my choice of ebook format, but also does a lovely job of concatenating multiple posts into a single multichaptered book! Much easier than cutting and pasting into Word, saving as rtf, and using calibre to convert.

And, woot! My second beta-reader just sent back my remix fic. Time to get to work.

Also posted on Dreamwidth where there are comments.

I'm feeling grouchy lately. Part of this is no doubt due to my stupid body, which has decided to have multiple migraines within the last few days, and is not sleeping very well, and the fact that my running lately has been a vast morass of suckitude (also due to my stupid body). ( If you didn't know, I run a lot. ) Work has been full of annoyances, and my husband is running for local office, which is stressful on both of us. Ah, well. It's certainly nice to be able to retreat into fic, both reading and writing, but of course some of my grouchiness has spilled over, so keep that in mind!

So, a few recs, complete with loads of caveats:

Declining (852 words) by Northland
Fandom: The Lantern-Bearers - Sutcliff
Rating: General Audiences
Summary:Five moments from post-Roman Britain; episodes from Aquila's life we never saw in the book.

This is a well-written and poignant ficlet. Mostly I like it because it gives me just a bit more of the excellent source book.

Treasure by miladygrey (Porn Battle commentfic)
Fandom: Bloody Jack Adventures - L.A. Meyer
Rating: Explicit (Jacky/Amy)
Summary: The girls left behind console themselves with each other.

Okay, I don't know how many of you have read this series - I've only read the first two because that's all my library has as audiobook - but on Goodreads I've described it as "more or less Hornblower, except the narrator is a streetwise London orphan taken on as ship's boy, and oh, also? He's a girl." Amy is the first (and only) friend Jacky makes when she's forced to go to a girl's school, and Jacky/Amy is the pairing of my heart for these books. miladygrey pegs the narrative voice beautifully, and both Jacky's boldness and Amy's blushes are in character.

These Dull Colours (19065 words) by Elb
Fandom: Master and Commander - Patrick O'Brian
Rating: Explicit (Violence)
Warning: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Summary: After Stephen is tortured in Mahon, Jack tries to bring him back to England.

This story is as gen as the books (which means that if you see subtext in canon, you'll see it here), but certainly it is about Stephen and Jack's relationship, and how very much they care for each other. The explicit rating is for graphic violence, and yes, it deserves the warning. The writing feels absolutely O'Brien; it's really gorgeous, which is why the detailed descriptions of the horror Stephen lives and relives are so compelling and unpleasant. The events are during HMS Surprise and so serve as a spoiler for that bit of the book, but you were already spoiled from the summary, I guess.

Some years ago I recced another story by this writer, saying: This story feels exactly like canon, except for the zombies, and I can’t believe I actually wrote that sentence in a rec. No, seriously. Well, I am going to recycle that line for the next rec:

If the Darkness Lasts (43771 words) by Seascribe
Fandom: The Eagle | Eagle of the Ninth (2011)
Rating: Explicit (Marcus/Cottia/Esca in all combinations and OT3)
Summary: When the dead begin to rise up and walk, Marcus, Cottia, and Esca must leave behind the little farm on the Downs and learn how to build a new life together out of the ruins of the world they once knew.

This is not exactly like Sutcliff (although it makes nods to her style, it's not really trying to imitate it) but this story very reasonably takes place shortly after the book, except for the zombies. Which are plausible-canonical zombies; at one point Marcus ponders if the dead have come to life again as a way for the British gods to throw the Romans out of their country. The story is well balanced in terms of tension and progression, and the OT3 slowly develops over the course of the story in a really beautiful way as well. Also, Cottia is awesome here, with that fierceness she displays at the end of the book, when she first sees Marcus after her return to Calleva.

There are lovely illustrations, although they are movie-canon rather than book-canon (not that this is a problem for me, but the story itself is book-canon). Also, although the author has chosen not to warn, there is quite a bit of OC and minor character death, one of which hit me hard (although it works angstfully well in the story).

Metamorphosed cat Esca story (by an anonymouse on the kink meme) ETA: Now on AO3: When you notice a cat in profound meditation (8102 words) by Amsel
Fandom: The Eagle
Rating: General audiences (gen)
Summary: An enemy druid turns Esca into a cat, who is eventually adopted by Marcus.

Okay, I spent several years in SGA fandom, which is rife with "a character turns into an animal" stories, and I hated them all despite their popularity. This story not only turns Esca into a cat but also has some wonky formatting in the first couple parts which you need to get past, and one consistent spelling error which irritates me greatly, but I DON'T CARE BECAUSE IT'S AWESOME. Esca is a cat! How he gets to Marcus is a very clever AU-version of events, and the ending is equally clever. I know, the last thing you expected me to rec. But I really like the way the author has made it slot into canon! (Also, I really like that the kink meme people are perfectly okay with a gen story.)

Which leads me into the ranty portion of this post. I have said, here and elsewhere (la la la) that I'm disappointed that Eagle fandom seems to be mostly AUs; and here I go, reccing AUs. I know, I whine about this constantly. But maybe if I write out my whining in one place I will get it out of my system and move on to other things, and wouldn't you like that? So here is some tl;dr on ( AUs, fandom, and me. )

Also, we have been watching Michael Palin's "Pole to Pole" adventure-documentary series, sparked by his audiobook (which he reads beautifully, and I highly recommend) Around the World in Eighty Days, based on another of his documentaries (we'll get that next). He has a great talent for knowing what will entertain his viewers. Although sometimes I look at him and all I can think is, "Biggus Dickus." Ahem.

ETA: while I was posting this, I checked to see if I had a 'rant' tag on LJ, since it didn't autofill in the DW post interface, and I did, and clicked it. And in the most recent post with that tag, from May 2009, I wrote:

I have started poking again at the epic Aragorn/Boromir, which is somewhat divergent from canon although perhaps not wildly so. (And now you can laugh and say, "in what way does NOT DEAD not constitute wildly divergent?") I had about 2800 words, I deleted a whole bunch and wrote a whole bunch...and now I have about 3000 words. Sigh.

And I thought: ...I was writing an epic Aragorn/Boromir? I am going to search my hard drive to see if I can find it, because I TOTALLY FORGOT I EVER EVEN STARTED ONE.

Also posted on Dreamwidth where there are comments.

I have just discovered (thanks to aquila1nz) that some months ago I accidentally set my LJ entries so that only friends could comment on them. I had intended to change my settings, which had long been "anyone can comment", to "only registered users can comment", because I was getting a ridiculous number of spam comments (like, a dozen a day) on old fic posts despite Captcha verification and automatic screening, and I was tired of dealing with them. Apparently I ticked the wrong box; I have fixed this now. So, my apologies to anyone who tried commenting and felt snubbed! And if you wish, for whatever reason, to comment anonymously, you can comment on my DW journal instead.

I spent much of the weekend housecleaning (which I HATE but the place was getting out of hand, and I couldn't let my husband do house chores alone because GUILT GUILT GUILT), baking, and working on my Remix assignment.

Baking: I made Allumettes, which are a flaky pastry cookie made of a rectangle of flaky pastry (using this recipe, although doing the final turns on flour rather than sugar) topped with royal icing (beaten confectioner's sugar and egg whites), which is the only sweetness in the cookie. The royal icing bubbled off the edges, so they are a bit funny-looking, but they taste lovely: crisp and delicate and not very sweet. Of course, each cookie has over a tablespoon of butter... ( Here, have a crappy cell-phone photo and more recipe details )

Remix: my story might be done \o/, or it might need another scene. The beta-reader I would like to use won't be available until next week, anyway. Interestingly (to me, anyway) I have noticed that now that I've started writing again, my writing method has changed somewhat: from linearly start-to-finish (with continuous editing), to a sort of accretional method whereby I write the basic story start-to-finish, but now the continuous editing process also includes amplifications and additions and filling in of detail to a much greater degree. I mean, functionally it's probably not much different from what I was doing before, but it feels different.

Also, I have a title! Unusually, the perfect title suggested itself to me instantly when I chose the source story, along with the perfect Funky Remix Title. Well, maybe the Funky Remix Title isn't perfect, in that it's a punning shout-out that suggests a lighter story than what I've actually written. But I don't care, because I love puns. So there.

And an insta-rec: Mad Yuri's Song by ravenclaw_eric - a Vorkosigan filk to Gilbert & Sullivan's "I've got a little list". I have no words for how awesome this is.

There's those Cetagandan perverts with the paint upon the face,
They're all upon the list, they're all upon the list,
Those irritating Privy Council members in this place,
They never would be missed, they never would be missed!

Off to go running. It's a gorgeous day!

Also posted on Dreamwidth where there are comments.

A Sufficient Love (5137 words) by Isis
Fandom: Eagle of the Ninth - Rosemary Sutcliff
Rating: Explicit (M/M)
Relationships: Marcus Flavius Aquila/Esca Mac Cunoval, Marcus Flavius Aquila/Cottia
Summary: One could hide nothing from a red-haired woman of the Iceni. Not even the secrets kept deep in one's heart.

Thanks to my beta readers carmarthen, luzula, and oxoniensis, especially for (respectively) book-picking, botany-picking, and Brit-picking. This story was very vaguely inspired by a kinkmeme prompt but really has nothing to do with it any more.

Also posted on Dreamwidth where there are comments.

First, I need to squee a little: malnpudl has podficced three of my "five things" stories (so that equals fifteen things, right? :-) in SGA, due South, and Iron-Jawed Angels (it was a Yuletide NYR, back when you had to write one to be allowed to participate in Yuletide; it's a movie about historical suffragists, so it's sort of RPF-ish), and you can find them in this post on the fan_flashworks community.

And I've been reading bunches of fic, and have a few recs.

The Green Jacket by splix, Sharpe/To The Ends of the Earth crossover, explicit. This is sort of a "five things" story, in that it's five meetings between Richard Sharpe and Edmund Talbot. Sharpe is played in the miniseries by the delectable Sean Bean; if you haven't seen To The Ends of the Earth, it's a miniseries set in the early 19th century, in which Talbot (played by some guy named Benedict Cumberbatch; I admit that I watched it more for Sam Neill) is a young aristocrat who has Epic Adventures on a ship taking him to Australia for a government posting. He keeps a journal, which is also the device for this story, and the style of the story's journal is perfect - awkward, earnest, and oh so 19th c. He's a little too girly in the last scenes, IMHO (as by the time he arrives in Australia he has matured quite a bit) but it's overall an enjoyable story and you don't need to have watched either source although of course it's best if you have.

The Centurion's Hound by tryfanstone, The Eagle of the Ninth (bookverse), R. I know and admire the author's work from our time together in Harry Potter fandom, and so I was delighted to find this story. Years after Cottia's death in childbirth (yes, this is an erase-the-canonical-woman story, but at least it's honest about it, and it rings true) Esca and Marcus come to a new understanding. The language is gorgeously Sutcliffian, which in itself is reason to read this even without the (somewhat convoluted) action/adventure plot.

Video Vidi Visum by songbird, The Eagle of the Ninth (book-canon fusion AU), mature. I know I have already blanket-recced all of Songbird's stories, but I recently reread this - I originally read it before reading the book - and realized just how clever an AU it is. The movie got rid of the bit in the book where Marcus and Esca ride north of the wall posing as a traveling eye-doctor and his assistant; this AU has Marcus as a genuine eye-doctor, who was surgeon for the fort at Isca Dumnoniorum, and of course this echos the second book in the Roman Britain trilogy, where Marcus's descendant Justin is a surgeon in the army. The AU events of the arena are exquisite. There's quite a lot that harks back to the book, and then events which are purely movie, and it all combines beautifully.

I've got another story of my own to post as well, as soon as it gets back from the final beta and I think of a rassin-frackin' title. Titles, why so hard?

Also posted on Dreamwidth where there are comments.

It's weird and exhilarating to "have a fandom" again. (Although srsly, brain, could one not have picked a larger and more mainstream fandom, so that one could have a constant supply of fic and art and squee?) I have a second story in beta, and am writing a third (an Old West AU, and yeah, WTF, brain?) which is totally not the story I was going to write next (or even the story I was going to write to this particular prompt!). Actually, none of these stories are the stories I was going to write. The three fragments of stories I started with are all still fragments. IDEK.

So, yeah, I am officially in The Eagle of the Ninth fandom (and to some extent in The Eagle fandom, although I am way more invested in bookverse than movieverse). Which means that it's time to remind you all that it is always defriending amnesty day here. If you have been hanging out through my long hiatus from fandom in hopes I'd return to due South (or heck, if you are still hoping I might return to SGA) - figuring that if I wasn't posting anything interesting, at least I wasn't posting anything uninteresting - consider this your free pass to get the hell out of Dodge.

I'm still on the edges of Age of Sail - I am poking at a Garrow's Law vid, and will still read Master and Commander, Sharpe, and other 18th-19th c. stuff, although I don't have much impetus to write in them. I'm reading some Vorkosigan Saga fic, and I swear I was thinking of writing something for the Winterfair exchange but never got my act together for that. As far as things which aren't fandom, I am still very much into food, the preparation and eating thereof, which I have not posted much of lately, and running, which again, I mostly talk about elsewhere. If these are things of interest to you, remind me to talk about them.

So, back to Eagles. I am about halfway through the third book in Rosemary Sutcliff's Roman Britain trilogy, The Lantern Bearers, and OMG OMG. The story is fascinating, and her writing is just - part of the reason I'm writing in this fandom is because her writing is so amazing, I just want to pastiche it all over the place. Here is the final sentence (not really spoilery) of chapter 10:

It wasn't as good as love; it wasn't as good as hate; but it was something to put into the emptiness within him; better than nothing at all.

Read that aloud. Isn't the cadence gorgeous? This is what I aspire to, this epic dramatic prose which falls trippingly from the tongue.

Oddly I liked the second book and am liking the third better than the first, the actual Eagle of the Ninth book, but I think this is because I saw the movie first, and even though I prefer the book to the movie, some of the changes made for the movie point up flaws (to me) of the book. However, I think I might reread it after I finish this one, and I think I'll like it better.

Oh, and a reminder that I am on Goodreads. If you friend me there and have a name I don't recognize (or if you are under your real name and want to negotiate an exchange of identities) please send me a message.

Also posted on Dreamwidth where there are comments.

A few recs:

A Charity Case (9295 words) by miss_lanyon
Fandom: Vorkosigan Saga - Lois McMaster Bujold
General audiences Byerly Vorrutyer-centric gen, with Ivan Vorpatril, Gregor Vorbarra, Alys Vorpatril, and various OCs
Summary: In which Byerly gets a job, Ivan fills in for his mother, the Emperor polishes his retail skills, and the Vorhartung Castle Gift Shop ladies embezzle every mark.

Inspired by melannen's Cordelia Vorkosigan Paper Dolls post (which is worth looking at if you missed it when it was posted), this is a pitch-perfect bit of comic mystery. I especially love Alys, who is totally not fooled by Byerly, and By himself who, okay, I admit to loving his light humor and flirtation (and the hints of By/Ivan) but I also really like his more serious backstory and the intelligent self he usually keeps hidden away. And ditto that for Ivan, who shows he is not such an idiot as his cousin thinks him.

Conferencing (around 9000 words) by an anonymous writer whom I identified right away but shall politely not name
Fandom: The Eagle, Marcus/Esca
I'd rate this for mature audiences although more for innuendo than anything else.
(my) summary: Academic AU (in Celtic Studies, hee!) comedy of errors, in which Dr. Aquila has a desperate but purely intellectual crush on the mysterious Dr. E. C. MacCunoval. (Kinkmeme fill.)

I am not so much into the AUs in this fandom, but something about this one caught my eye, and when I started reading I was hooked instantly. It didn't take long before I recognized the author from the delightful dialogue and the engaging original characters (as well as other hints which I shall not detail). I am not in this particular field, but oh, I recognize all these tropes and types, and the comic timing is a thing of beauty.

Kind of a pain to read it as a series of comments, but the author has not yet (and may not ever) put it up on AO3, and I didn't want to let that stop me from reccing it, because it's brilliant.

And here are some links to things that are not fic but are still entertaining:

The Slut Song (Youtube link) - actually, I have no idea what it's really called. It's a response video to Limbaugh's infamous remark (as well as to other recent political slurs) by the musical comedy duo Reformed Whores. Freakin' hysterical, and I use that word deliberately.

( Man in a Darth Vader mask and kilt playing bagpipes on a unicycle. ) (Now inline since apparently even public FB pictures can't be seen by non-FB-ites.) ETA: And in action on Youtube! AWESOME.

James Appleton's volcano/aurora photographs. And yes, you can read that as slash. This photographer went to Iceland specifically to capture both an eruption and the aurora at the same time, and the results are AMAZING.

Six Things Rich People Need to Stop Saying. It's an incisive and funny take on the 99% vs 1% divide, equal parts profundity and profanity. I mean, it's cracked.com, what do you expect?

Oh, and here is another photo, which I snagged to repost. I am sure Home Depot did not realize the way dirty minds like mine might interpret their aisle sign:

( la la la... )

And in personal news, STILL SICK UGH. I'm writing another Eagle fic. (This one is longer and smuttier.) I'm still archiving my stuff at AO3, although I accidentally forgot to backdate one story and immediately got a lovely comment on it, which made me think that hmm, maybe I should not backdate? But I CAN'T. It's just not RIGHT. So all my awesome fiction shall sink beneath the surface, and I shall have to hope that future archeologists will rediscover them someday.

Also posted on Dreamwidth where there are comments.

Two posts in two days! Don't faint with the shock.

I'm slowly (and by slowly I mean I have barely started) archiving my stories at AO3. I'm wondering what to do about my plethora of drabbles. Do people read drabbles at AO3? Do people even read drabbles any more? I know that I tend to pass over anything under 500 words unless it has a boatload of kudos/comments or sounds very, very interesting. This is partly because I do most of my reading by slurping the epub version to my computer and then transferring to my Kobo ereader. (I use my 'favorites' and annotation utilities to mark what I want to comment on/give kudos on later.)

I have not actually archived my drabbles (or ficlets under 1000 words) on my website, just pointed to the LJ (or, in some cases, Dreamwidth) versions. Hmm. Perhaps I should create a "drabble index page" (or one per fandom) and post THAT to AO3?

I dunno. What do you all think?

In other news, still sick. Bleah.

Also posted on Dreamwidth where there are comments.

The other day it occurred to me that Marcus Flavius Aquila is basically Fraser. Duty, honor, daddy issues; raised by relatives, living in a foreign country. ETA: And how could I have forgotten - they both have pet wolves! And of course in the movie version he is played by a tall, broad-shouldered, dark-haired man. With a scrappy blond tattooed partner with whom he is secretly in love undertakes a quest to the North, searching for a near-legendary object.

I am NOT writing a due South/Eagle of the Ninth fusion. I am NOT.

I am writing again, though, and wow, I'm just - overwhelmed with happy good fandom feelings, as my first Eagle fic (didja miss it? It's here on AO3, a bit of R-rated book-canon hurt/comfort) was gratifyingly well-received. It's a little scary to venture into a new fandom, especially after not having written anything other than porn-battle drabbles and Yuletide fic in years, but it's lovely to feel so welcomed and encouraged. And I am enjoying reading fanfiction again, oh, yes.

We are watching The Forsyte Saga, in which Major Dick Winters and Captain Horatio Hornblower love the same woman, and Sir Arthur Hill leaves his wife, instead of her leaving him as in Garrow's Law. Ah, British costume drama. Always a little odd to see actors you know from one thing in something else, until you get used to their new role.

Which reminds me that I wanted to put in a plug for cumberbatch_fic, for all fandoms large and small with a Cumberbatch character (including RPF) - I'm not particularly into him or his work, but I know lots of you are and might be interested.

I am sure I had other things to say, but I am sick with a very bad sore throat and chest cold, and my brain is not firing on all cylinders. Time to drink more tea.

Also posted on Dreamwidth where there are comments.

So remember how I mentioned that I might kinda sorta have a new fandom? I guess this makes it official.

Thanks to mergatrude for beta-reading, and to the nonnie at the_eagle_kink for the inspiring prompt for book-canon h/c after Marcus and Esca return to Hadrian's wall "after being chased for days and days by just about every Northern tribe" and Marcus collapses on the Centurion Commander's table.

Title: In Borcovicus
Author: Isis
Rating: R
Pairing: Esca/Marcus
Word count: ~2500
Summary: In Borcovicus, Esca tends to Marcus. This is a missing scene set just after Marcus and Esca return to Hadrian's wall with the Eagle after their harrowing ride.

In Borcovicus (at AO3)

Also posted on Dreamwidth where there are comments.

I am maybe possibly writing Eagle of the Ninth fic. Um, three separate stories concurrently. I don't even. Um.

Also, I am currently listening to Lord John and the Scottish Prisoner and OMG OMG I want Jeff Woodman to read ALL THE SLASH. There are two different voice actors reading the John POV (Jeff "OMG OMG" Woodman) and Jamie POV (Rick Holmes, whose neutral narrative voice sounds a lot like Jeremy Irons). A copy of this will probably fall off the back of the internet soon, if you are on my LJ flist or access list on DW (and if not, send me a PM or email).

Also posted on Dreamwidth where there are comments.

I have written two more ficlets for the Porn Battle:

Brideshead Revisited: Sebastian/Charles, prompt: claret, 230 words
In Vino Falsitas / at Porn Battle on Dreamwidth
Sebastian drinks, and imagines that it's Charles he's with.

A Song of Ice and Fire: Sansa Stark/Mya Stone, prompts: identity, smell, Winterfell; 1020 words, explicit
Stars Falling From the Sky / at Porn Battle on Dreamwidth ( though I should probably have posted it on Livejournal )
Sansa has her reasons for not wishing to be married. Alayne has hers, as well.

So that's a total of three stories in three fandoms so far, one each het (sort of), slash, and femslash. Hmm, what shall I write next? *checks prompts*

I have also been reading! Yay! Among the Porn Battle ficlets, here are a few I particularly liked:

Kim Pine Vs. Robots and Stuff, Scott Pilgrim (2010), Kim Pine/Knives Chau, Makeout by paranomasias. I do not know this fandom from a hole in the ground, but this made me grin like a loon from start to finish.

Oh, The Flame; Historical RPF; Eleanor of Aquitaine/Henry II; fire by vega_ofthe_lyre. Angry and sexy and very Lion in Winter.

I am still reading whatever Eagle of the Ninth fic I can find, although I'm beginning to get pickier. And I just got the book, finally, so I'm gonna read that!) And other fandoms, too. Some stories I particularly enjoyed:

Ten Thousand Paces (6426 words) by Destina
Fandom: The Eagle | Eagle of the Ninth (2011)
Mature, Marcus/Esca
Summary: Marcus wants Esca to be truly free, no matter what the cost may be for Marcus.

I liked this a lot; the plot has a bit of "this story would be over in a heartbeat if these men would just TALK to each other", but destina is a talented writer, and it's got beautiful pacing and language.

A Long March (8281 words) by songbird
Fandom: The Eagle | Eagle of the Ninth (2011)
General Audiences, Marcus/Esca
Summary: 'I'm to go to Rome,' Marcus said, when the messenger had been and gone, and Esca had brought Cub back into the house.

AAAAAHHHH! I have a new favorite writer! songbird only has four stories currently, and they are all the_eagle_kink fills, and I love the three I have read and am hoarding the fourth to read later because I can't imagine it's going to be anything other than incredible. This one is so far my favorite because it's more canon-based than the others (but! see below!) and it's just so filled with longing and love and amazing detail which makes everything come alive. I rec them all, even the one I haven't read yet! But I have to rec this one explicitly:

Belle Époque (10878 words) by songbird
Fandom: Downton Abbey, The Eagle | Eagle of the Ninth (2011)
General Audiences, Marcus/Esca
Summary: The new chauffeur is a most curious creature, Violet thinks, as he hands her out the motor-car with a quiet 'm'lady.' A stoic sort, she notes with approval, and in the privacy of her own mind she is quite inclined to admit him a rather handsome sort to boot.

Esca is the Dowager Countess's nephew, Marcus is the new Downton chauffeur. I don't normally go for the non-canon-era AUs, but I do love Downton Abbey, in all its ridiculous soap-opera glory, and Violet is such a fabulous character who gets all the best lines both in the show and in this fic. I am not sure this is nearly as much fun if you aren't familiar with the show. ETA: But it's perfectly readable if you don't know The Eagle.

Speaking of crossover-fusion thingies, I finally read melannen's Chicago Magic series (which needs more parts, I'm just sayin') and I particularly liked the second story:

One Warm Line (4135 words) by melannen
Fandom: due South, Dresden Files - Jim Butcher
General Audiences, gen, Ray Kowalski, Maeve (Lady of Winter)
Summary: Ray Kowalski meets the Winter Lady. And the Winter Lady meets Ray Kowalski.

I think this would be incomprehensible if you're not familiar with due South, and probably not really all that sensible if you haven't read at least enough of the Dresden books to have met Maeve, and probably everyone who knows both fandoms has read this already, but just in case you haven't, I liked it and you might, too! ETA 1) bluemeridian assures me that she understood it just fine knowing only dS, and 2) I wanted to add that although this is the second story in a series, they stand totally alone. The first story is Ray Vecchio (and dead Pa) meet Johnny Marcone, and it is not a bad story, but to me this second one has more story to it, more depth and interest.

Also posted on Dreamwidth where there are comments.

I always love Porn Battle time, especially when I haven't been writing much. It's like doing barre exercises for me, getting my writing muscles limbered up, practicing in different fandoms. This first prompt grabbed me hard when I noticed it on the prompt post, and I spent all day yesterday thinking about it, and all morning writing it.

From the Vasty Deep
Pirates of the Caribbean, Kraken/Ship, prompt: unbidden

The first time she felt his touch was on a run to Antigua, under full sail in light trades over the bluewater deeps. (at AO3)

Or at the Porn Battle.

I've made it 'style=mine' because that post's style doesn't put blank lines between paragraphs, and I find it too hard to read that way. Also, I choose not to warn for this story.

Also posted on Dreamwidth where there are comments.

The thing is, there are no big fandoms which grab me, right now. Mostly it's just Yuletide carry-overs. But, a couple of things:

1) I'm sort of kind of reading a bunch of Eagle/Eagle of the Ninth fic from AO3 right now, mostly because I was so captivated by several of the Yuletide stories. Oddly (or maybe not) much of it is modern-era AU, which - part of the reason I like it in the first place is the setting, so I am sort of weirdface about it all. (Then again, they had a HOCKEY AU!! How can one resist a hockey AU? Then again, it was...not to my taste. Partly because it was also a high school AU, and I prefer grown-ups, and partly because the writer has a serious problem with comma splices.)

1a) My library doesn't actually have Eagle of the Ninth (I saw the movie and want to read the book) but I went by there anyway and the Friends of the Library were having a book sale and they had books 2 and 3 in Sutcliff's Roman Britain trilogy (but not, alas, the first, which is of course the above-named Eagle of the Ninth) so I bought them, hooray! And they are such pretty editions maybe I'll just buy Eagle anyway in a matching version, if I can find it, just to complete the set.

2) I found out completely by accident (that is, via penknife) that Lord John and the Scottish Prisoner is out. And my library has the audio version, which I immediately reserved (it's out), because I have listened to all the Lord John books via audio version, and if you have not heard Jeff Woodman read, you have not lived. Especially if you have not heard him read the sex scenes in Lord John and the Brotherhood of the Blade *fans self*. La la la.

3) Equals 2 plus 1. I think I have a real thing for M/M/F threesomes. I wrote John/Jamie/Claire (even though I think John should get over Jamie) and would happily read more, and I am craving more Marcus/Esca/Cottia. I think this is why I loved Neal/Peter/Elizabeth in White Collar, although I have not seen any of S3 and am pretty much not reading in that fandom any more. There's something that really appeals to me about the idea of two men who want each other, and also both want the same woman, who approves of their mutual desire.

3a) And yet, my husband and I have a good male (and straight) friend, who has a bit of a mancrush on my husband in a totally platonic way, and whom I find quite attractive...and yet, I cannot imagine the two of them together, oh, no, not at all! I sort of want to be the woman with the imaginary men, but with the real men? Not appealing.

4) Which is entirely unrelated to the previous numbers. Our movie theater participates in the The Met: Live in HD simulcast and I decided to go today to see The Enchanted Island, a new opera that is essentially an mash-up of A Midsummer Night's Dream and The Tempest. In other words, Shakespeare fanfic in the form of an opera! All I could think, as I watched, was heh, this is TOTALLY a transformative work. The general conceit is that Helena, Demetrius, Hermia and Lysander wash up on Prospero's island; Ariel is Puck, in a way, and Prospero is sort of Oberon. Helena ends up, for a time, in love with Caliban, in a way that echoes Titania's infatuation with Bottom in his ass's ears. The way it was put together reminded me strongly of all of the various pastiches and fusions I've read in various fandoms. (And if one was an opera fan, which I am not, one would also recognize the musical pastiche, the arias taken from other works and rejiggered with a new libretto for this work. Which I did not. Alas.) Very very cool!

5) And speaking of mash-up pastiches, I thoroughly enjoyed The Aubreyad (by a conglomeration of authors), which can best be described as Captain Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin do The Odyssey. More or less gen (a few Jack/Stephen bits but nothing explicit), perhaps a bit uneven due to the multiplicity of authors, but definitely entertaining (especially if you're familiar with The Odyssey at all), with a great deal of puns, fandom references, and gratuitous fourth-wall smashing.

6) And hey, Festivids is live! I didn't participate, but I'm looking forward to watching the vids.

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So despite not having written any fanfiction (or fiction, for that matter) since LAST YEAR's Yuletide fest, I somehow wrote over 11K words of Cinderella pastiche:

The Cinder-Fellow (11171 words) by Isis
Fandom: Five Hundred Kingdoms series - Mercedes Lackey, Fairy Tales & Related Fandoms, Cinderella - All Media Types
Rating: General Audiences
Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Godmother Elena, Original Characters
Summary: A Cinder-Fellow, a reluctant Prince, and a feminist Princess -- and Godmother Elena's got to sort it all out.

This was a fun prompt to fulfill - Jenn_Calaelen asked for "a happy ending for a non-het pairing... eg Snow White and a princess or a male drudge and a prince (Cinderella style)" and heck, she gave me the story right there, so the only thing to do was write it. This story can be read without knowing the source, as it's mostly original characters. But if you haven't read the Five Hundred Kingdoms series, they are fun books; they are all decidedly romances, but there is a strong undercurrent of female empowerment and agency that really appeals to me. The premise is that a force known as "the Tradition" pushes people's lives into the molds set by familiar tales, but that some people are unsuited for or don't want this, or the story is an evil one that results in unhappiness and death, or sometimes the story just needs to be helped along; and that Godmothers, who often begin as girls forced into unsuitable tales, direct or redirect the Tradition to the best outcome.

For me, the most interesting and hardest part was coming up with an analog to the "glass slipper" part of the Cinderella story, which I realized early would not fit with an all-male version. I also gave a lot of thought to POV; not using either of the men in the romance allowed me to keep it lighter, while using both Elena and Princess Alyssa allowed for a bit of unreliable narrator, and incidentally foregrounded the Princess's story a bit more. It was great fun to write, and amazingly I managed 1000-2000 words a day, which is a lot for me. Thanks to those of you who recced it and left kudos! And of course, big thanks to kate_nepveu and amanuensis1 for beta reading.

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I have a couple of minutes and wanted to rec MOAR! Because I absolutely loved the first of these stories, and really liked the second, and - okay, I have only seen the movie version of The Eagle, but I have been able to understand the stories which incorporate book canon, no problem. And in fact I think the first (long! OT3!) story here is totally readable even without knowing anything about either canon, other than that Marcus and Esca's adventure has made them close.

A Clear View of the Sea (17284 words) by Anonymous
Fandom: The Eagle | Eagle of the Ninth (2011)
Rating: Explicit
Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Esca/Marcus Flavius Aquila, Marcus Flavius Aquila/Cottia, Esca/Cottia
Characters: Esca Mac Cunoval, Marcus Flavius Aquila, Cottia (Eagle of the Ninth)
Summary: Esca's first year on the farm, living as a free Brigantes once more. (Movie/book fusion.)

I can't stop thinking about this beautiful story. It so clearly shows the shifting emotions over time. Marcus and Esca's relationship in light of Marcus's impending marriage could be written with a lot more cliche and manufactured tension, but it seems so realistic. And oh, the OT3, which I am so totally onboard with. LOVE.

Hearth (2690 words) by Anonymous
Fandom: The Eagle | Eagle of the Ninth (2011)
Rating: General Audiences
Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Esca/Marcus Flavius Aquila
Characters: Esca Mac Cunoval, Marcus Flavius Aquila
Summary: The Ninth Hispania, after such a long time spent haunting his thoughts, came to fade from Marcus’ life like the pain of his injured knee.

The one where they realize they're basically married. :-) Sweet and funny and just enough implied to make it hot, even if it's completely non-explicit.

I'm really not sure why I downloaded a bunch of Eagle YT stories into my reader (that's how I've been reading everything) other than that I saw the fandom and remembered, oh, I saw that movie, not my favorite but mmm, attractive men (especially Esca, to me) bonding despite their differences. So glad - I haven't read many of them yet, but those I have have almost all been excellent.

[ETA I just looked this up on IMDB and Esca is Jamie Bell, who was Billy Elliot OMG! And Tintin, which I haven't seen yet! I love his sharp features and the sort of prickly yet steadfast character of Esca.]

Lots of other stories still on my reader and in the archive - I'll never get to them all in time. But it's wonderful (to me) how I can be so unfannish about any particular fandom, and yet enjoy so much reading all this glorious fanfiction!

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