blamebrampton

A few months ago I met fire_juggler online, which was a GOOD day. She had the brilliant idea for a podfic fest, hp_podfic_fest, which has been running for a week and which I have SO many things bookmarked on already for listening to at the gym. 

But I couldn't hold off on listening to this one: raitala's reading of Tidings of Comfort. It's all in the very best spirit of regifting, as this was a story I wrote for rai after hanging out with her in London and Paris in 2009. It's all about our shared love for Wren's architecture and Draco Malfoy's cheekbones. Her reading of it is spot-on perfect, with Draco's crisp need and Harry's tentative warmth coming across beautifully in the voices. She even captures the briskness of the weather – it was started on her sofa in the winter of '09 while I alternately typed and cupped my nose with gloved hands in an effort to thaw it ;-)

At only just over 10 minutes, it's a very quick listen, so even if you have never dipped a ear into podfic before, this is an ideal place to start listening (NB, it is raitala's reading that makes it so good, she could add charm to Hansard).

The fest has fics ranging from under 10 minutes to over an hour, and a variety of pairings and gen are up so far, so load up your ipod!

Summary: Draco Malfoy has been coming to sit in St Paul's for a few weeks now. He isn't looking for salvation or forgiveness, just quiet and space to think. When he meets a familiar figure on the steps of the cathedral one winter evening, it's better than anything he'd thought of wishing for at Christmas.

In other news, poor little Cookie cat is not having a good week. She did something to the tendons of her back right leg yesterday morning (probably a mis-step in one of her epic leaps of teleportation), and it was very painful. The vet massaged the tendon back into place, then dosed her up on painkillers and anti-inflamatories, which had her wide-pupilled and tripping all day. It was very hard trying to keep her calm in order not to exacerbate her original injury. Today she has been rather sore and stiff and having the sort of reaction to the drugs that I do -- which is to say her stomach is rebelling and she is not a happy camper.

Because she is a tiny black cat, she finds it quite easy to hide around the house, which is full of tiny dark nooks and crannies. Despite searching methodically through a room that we know she is in, torch in hand, she often defies finding. It is as though she moves into a parallel dimension and then slips back into this one when she wants some human company. Which is normally fine, but when she is ill, it's a bit distressing. Poor wee beastie. I don't know how people manage having sick children, having a sick cat throws me into a pother of concern that wipes out most other thought.

And, unrelatedly, since I have been going to the gym I have dropped a dress size and so some clothes have been moved on – in some cases to sleeping or garden clothing. At the same time, Sydney is CHILLY for the start of summer: 17-21 degrees C as opposed to 24-37 a few weeks ago. The other night I pulled on some old yoga pants and a stripy long-sleeved T-shirt that had been redesignated as pyjamas. Then, because I was reading in a draughty room, I added a beret and gloves that were on top of my woollies pile. After a while, I pottered into the study to see what Mr B was up to. He took one look at me and burst out laughing. I looked down. I realised what he could see. I backwards-walked-against-the-wind out of there.

Life still well behind, though I did spend a substantial part of the day messing about in boats, which was FAB, and have treacle_tartlet's tall blond human in the house, which is also fab, as we haven't seen him for AGES and are tremendously fond of him (he's a good egg!) However, this is not the point.

The point is that cest_what has written 700 words of spot-on splendid Black fic -- a conversation between Sirius and Walburga's portrait after his escape from Azkaban and it is just PERFECT. And it will only take 5 minutes to read twice!

High Horse -- click! it's gen and canonish, so anyone can read it

First, A LOVELY THING! Which is a rec.

Draco Malfoy and the Deathly Hallows is the final work in hd_holidays . A multi-panelled artwork with minimal additional text, it tells the story of book 7 with small, vital changes. It is no exaggeration to say that this is the story I hoped for when Mr Brammers brought the actual book home from the shop (I had influenza and was in bed). Beginning in the Malfoy dungeons (Luna in ankle-socks! Absolutely perfect), it tells the story of what would have unfolded had Draco been able to find the ability to make a different choice in his actions during the war.

Convincing and compelling, the narrative skips across the second half of the book, pausing at crucial moments. The Hufflepuff Cup, Fiendfyre, Snape's death ... these and more are addressed, but with the difference that a morally courageous Draco could have made. 

Not only is the central thesis captivating, the art that accompanies it is nothing short of gripping. Drawn in a spare almost-monochrome, it focusses attention down on the drama of each moment, showing story in the gesture of a hand, the hopelessness of a look. For all the drama, there are moments of humour, too, gently done and finely judged in tone.

The artist (because artists are very rarely the least bit anon, even if this artwork has an uncharacteristic lack of boy snoggin) is one of my faves, because she makes me look at canon and fanon in new ways each time. This piece is no different, save that instead of opening up new parts of the text for me, it reminded me again how sad I was when I reached he end of DH and Draco was still a feeble cypher.

Even Mr Brammers finished HP7 with a 'Hmph, I liked most of it, but I was convinced that Malfoy would come good by the end. What was the point of all that stuff in the other books if he wasn't going to learn anything from it?' Exactly right! And this piece helped immensely with that. In fact, I'm going to pull it up for him and see if I can break his fandom virginity.


To end, a spot of ranting:
Does watching television make people stupid? (Yes, obviously.)

Outside of America, a white person offering a black person fried chicken is nothing more than a friendly gesture of shared crap food, unless one of them is a cardiologist, in which case it is a neat piece of bastardry in either direction.

Also, Doctor Who has a long and proud history of supporting gingers!

On a final, political, note, Fuck me, Japanese whalers! Who do you think you are? French? Not cool!

Last week I gave a quick drive-by rec for Blood and Brimstone at hd_career_fair . I said I would write a longer one over the weekend, as I had not read the story since it was an unfinished draft. Now, those of you who know me probably thought: 'Well, she is a dreadful slacker, and she was off gallivanting with the Goths and the baby shower folk, of course she was going to be tardy ...'

But in fact, I did open up the story on the weekend. And then I had the most appalling dilemma. Because on the one hand, I wanted to do nothing but sit and read it until I was done, and then sit and read it again. But on the other hand, it is only 42,000 words long and once they're read, they're read and that whole first-read passion is spent. So I stopped myself, and walked away. And then I came back, and went away, and came back ... until I was too greedy and guzzled the last section in a rush.

It is so good. It is so good that I want to shake the writer and make him or her stop working and just write. (I do know the author, but for those of you guessing, that won't help much as I think I know somewhere around half the authors for this fest).

As I mentioned last time, it is set in Ginn Hale's Wicked Gentlemen world, but this is not required reading. I've not read WG at all, and yet had no problems understanding what was happening *. Harry Potter is a lowly ranked Inquisitor who is sent to discuss distasteful rumours with the wealthy Malfoy family. It should be another banal commission in a career of drudgery and mild oppression, but instead, it is the step that shifts his life from ordered if tedious, to revolutionary and endangered.

Set in a world where Prodigals, the fallen angels created in the image of God, are both free to walk the earth and kept in their 'place' by a vengeful and Inquisitory church, Blood and Brimstone can be read as an analogy for the Spanish Inquisition, or the appalling treatment of underclasses in today's wealthy nations, or the viciousness of a Ministry that sends Dolores Umbridge into a school of children. As I say, WG is not required reading (though I am sure it adds yet more richness), but neither is Harry Potter -- this story is strong enough to stand as a unit by itself. However, for those who love the Potterverse, the characters retain integrity and are used in fascinating ways to illuminate canonical issues through their new settings.

It's awfully late and my brain did melt around lunchtime today, so this is not the coherent and erudite review this story deserves. It is, however, a heartfelt recommendation that if you are doing anything less urgent than giving birth, you make time in your schedule this week to read it. I do not think that it is possible you will feel your time misspent.


* I am now in the frustrating position of not knowing if I want to read WG, because I feel it will add layers to my appreciation of B&B, or not read it because I cannot imagine loving it as much. I'll probably read it on the basis that nice authors deserve royalties ;-)

There are many reasons why you should go and read Drink Up Thy Zider at hd_career_fair . Here are several of them.

* It contains a Harry so palpably aged into comfort with his own strength that you could distill every Bond actor including David Niven, then Viggo Mortensen, Cary Grant, George Clooney, Daniel Autueil, Gerard Depardieu, and Olivier Martinez into one, and the resulting thespian would still be considered too wussy to play him in the film adaptation.
* Narcissa Malfoy and Pansy who was Parkinson appear and steal a multitude of scenes.
* The summary, notes and warnings alone are worth the price of admission.
* It contains this passage: 
Harry snorted. Blaise would always be Blaise. He noticed that his guest was trying not to stare about him with his usual fascinated horror: the Etruscan Room always put Zabini off his stroke, which was precisely what Harry intended.

'What a very odd person Robert Adam was,' said Blaise, as he always did.

Which continues to have me in fits of laughter, and shiv5468 and raitala , that should really be all the two of you need.
* It is, without once referring to the BBC drama and indeed, with the very probable complete ignorance of the writer regarding the show, the single best HP-Merlin AU that it is possible to imagine.
* It contains such love for rural England that I could reach up and touch the laburnum, smell the muck on my boots and taste the milk that I left to cool in the stream before heading out on a ride.
* For those whose minds are made up by such things, there are sex scenes of vivid and entertaining detail. And Albus and Scorpius.
* And there is a world of such complexity and detail that I could draw maps and describe the relationships of characters to each other for several generations after a single reading, all of which felt like a wonderful chat with an erudite uncle to learn.

I know that some of you will have it opened in tabs in the background, waiting for time to devote to 40,000 words, and I fully grant you that the style is anything but generic. However, this was in fact one of the easiest reads I have found in fandom. It was like nothing so much as picking up and falling into Swallows and Amazons, as I did at the start of the year. Once you allowed the voice to take you on its journey, there were no bumps or halts, only a fast sail and a steady tiller.

So do make a cuppa, put out a plate of biscuits and turn off the telly for an hour. At the end of it, you will feel the joy of a thoroughly satisfying read. And an appalling desire for a tablespoon of clotted cream dropped into mulled cider.

I know that a lot of you out there have kids who are interested in all things HP, which is what makes the new comm set up by leochi  one of the coolest things around at the moment. yay_potterkids  is a safe place for fic and art that features kid-friendly themes set in the HP universe. So far there is some lovely art and I know that several writers have fics and drabbles planned (including me, eventually!)

On the topic of comms, hp10k_showcase began posting today with a fantastic story by snegurochka_lee . It's beautifully written, if tremendously sad. Catch it here: The Path of Least Resistance. The remaining stories are all very very fine, too, and written in support of many good causes (which you can ignore and just go straight to the fic, but the universe may be a finer place if you do not.)

Next Yays, HAPPY LATE BIRTHDAY to gameazel ! Sorry it's late, I have been writing and running around  like a fiend this week. I hope you had a great one.

And HAPPY BIRTHDAY for today to the lovely micolerose. I am sending you every wish for good health and good luck for this year, with added father discovers housecleaning and niece or nephew is perfect child of great sleeping and behaving with no regurgitation issues luck. You are such a cool chick, but I am not following you into the darkside of new fandoms. Oh no. I am too far behind in just the one!

And the final yay, the university that I was doing some work for last year, the one who had students who believed in Evelyn War and that one was best going to Antarctica from Tasmania via South Georgia and then Macquarie Island, has FINALLY paid me! Only six months late. It is so nice not to be several thousand dollars behind any more! I have ballast in my account again! Yippee!

To open with an aside: I bought a gel eye mask today, for those days when the heat is just too much. On the back of the packaging it has this immortal line:
BEAUTY TIP Avoid stress as much as possible.

There you have it, ladies and gentlemen. That's where we have all been going wrong!

Now to the point of this entry, which is to rave some more about this entry at hd_holidays, raitala's series Thaw.

About eight weeks ago, I was sitting in an attic hotel room in Florence, gleeful at being there with raitala  and pingrid , when Rai pulled out her most recent works.

She passed them over, and I just wanted to run downstairs and put them in my bag and say ‘Sorry? Paintings? No, you were going to show some but then you were distracted.’ when she asked for them back. Alas, I am ethical and slow, and was not smart enough to get her drunk first.

What she showed me were the first two images of these four. I sat and looked at them for as long as I could before it started to look a bit weird and stalkery. What I said at the time was something along the lines of ‘Oh god, Rai, these are brilliant! Look at their coats, and their expressions, and the underarm hair, and Draco’s little smile, and the sweat! These are just bloody brilliant!’

What I thought was ‘In this first one, Ron is so crankypants, and Harry is so curious, and Draco is counting to 10,000 in his head and planning to come first in every single exam if it kills him. And in the second one, there’s the moment when Draco’s smile moves from “I can’t believe I beat him!” to “Did his cock just twitch? It DID!” and Harry is thinking “Bugger” and “Bugger!” and last week he stayed back after their martial arts lessons and told Draco that the reason he could never beat him in that throw wasn’t because he was smaller and lighter, but because he drops his shoulder, which of course leads to an ironic edge to the first bugger. His word choice may not be ironic, BTW.’

She seemed pleased that Pin and I liked them so much, and did her standard modest hand wave thingy when we began to rave enthusiastically. She told me that they were for her recipient for hd_holidays, and I immediately developed an unreasonable hatred for said person, since they would ‘have’ these images, which wasn’t fair, because they were talking to me!

There was a reason for that.

Raitala is the TRICKIEST and KINDEST and NAUGHTIEST and CLEVEREST woman, and I really cannot say thank you enough! Though I am never, ever playing poker with her, because she managed to completely convince me they were for someone vague and annoying (oh, hang on ... no, it was acting! I am sure!) and I had not an iota of suspicion!

Though it is ENTIRELY my fault they were posted so late due to the fact that my own work was submitted appallingly late. However, what a brilliant addition to the final week!

My partner, who refers to fandom as ‘that odd thing you do, no, the other one’, describes Rai’s work as ‘kind of Aubrey Beardsley, it’s someone who is using human forms to make artistic points about the figure or the environment they’re placed in, rather than just representing a body’. Quite so. (He can be quite clever, that J.)

If you somehow managed to miss them, trot over to her lj and view the series here, and leave her some thanks for sharing her artistic and storytelling skills with us.

You know, with raitala , leochi , red_rahl , oldenuf2nb , lillithium , and the many other brilliant artists out there all providing their diverse, insightful art for free, as a fandom we are ludicrously lucky!

Oh, and HAPPY BIRTHDAY tnumfive ! All the best for your day!

On the sixth day of Christmas, hd_holidays  gave to me THE BEST THING EVER!!!

Oh, all right, probably not quite as good for the world as penicillin and flushing loos, but it is on the same list as them! And hush whoever is saying that being compared to a flushing loo is not a compliment, go and live on a pit-toiletted commune for a few weeks and you will soon change your mind!

It's four panels of the most beautiful, clever, delicious and narrative art you can imagine. All so beautifully wrought that you can imagine it has been lifted straight from the pages of limited edition illustrated book, £300 per numbered copy. But it's free, and on LJ, and for me!

The artist is someone I actually know, and she is fabulously talented, though I think I am not meant to mention her name for the three of you who will not know it. (shu_shu_sleeps , I will message you with links to more of her stuff if you like). So you know that there will be a giggle in there, and nothing to scare the horses. But what she does, playing off my incredibly helpful prompts of ... er, Aurors are cool ..., is construct a four-panel story that tells volumes about its two heroes, the people around them, and the possibilities they find for themselves and each other. She once told me that she thinks art might be a word that is pitched too high for what she does. It's the one time I believe her words to have been pure and utter nonsense.

Here's the link again, it's called Thaw, and it is utterly, wholly, beautiful. And in a few weeks I will tell you all the story of why she is so very tricksy!

Please find an editor who cares for you.

No, I've not taken to reading Twilight, though if my H/D flist doesn't stop its dramas, then I will, and I will devote myself to Mary Sue het fic until people either cheer up or defriend me.

But to those dear friends who have been sending me messages of horror from the BD trenches, I feel your pain.

ETA: Thanks to trubbleclef's kind alerting, you can save yourself the actual horror by reading cleolinda's genius potted version here.

In happier YA fiction news, Martin Millar has a new book out called Lonely Werewolf Girl. I am only 1/5 of the way through its 500+ pages, but am loving it. He has an idiosyncratic style, but it is so much realer and so much more a part of the modern world than Myer could ever hope for. Hunt it down, and ignore the fact that his publishers have mediocre typeset designers on staff.

So far there is a werewolf battle that spans the Highlands of Scotland and the subcultures of London, a laudanum-addicted heroine who is being hunted by at least four sets of enemies, her fashion deisgner/sorceress/werewolf sister who is struggling to complete her next collection, two naive humans who were just hoping for an easy move and regular supply of takeaway pizza, and a transvestite would-be Thane of the werewolves who happens to be the older brother of the aforementioned two undead.

It's delicious.

ETA: I HAVE to get to Wellington. These shoes in apple green are calling to me!