Marie Brennan's Blog, page 204
June 29, 2012
what I've been sitting on for months now
It got an official, shiny reveal on Tor.com today. Several people there have already mentioned the D&D Draconomicon, and that's no accident: Todd Lockwood's line drawings in that book were one of the elements that inspired this series in the first place. So when I found out he was going to be doing the art for MY book . . . .
You can imagine my reaction. ^_^
And, the usual drill: I need an icon! And I have no Photoshop skills! If you make me an LJ icon out of that cover, and post it in the comments, I will pick one and send the winner my final ARC of A Natural History of Dragons. (Final for now; I'm sure I'll have more later.) The book itself won't be out until February of next year, so you'd be getting quite a jump on everybody else.
Now if you'll pardon me, I need to go off and make little eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee noises to myself for a while longer.
June 27, 2012
Forgot to mention
This month's SF Novelists post went up on a weekend, and then I forgot to mention it in the rush to get ready for Fourth Street. But the wonderful thing about the Internet is, the post is still there, just waiting for you to read it! Exceptions are the rule.
Comment over there; no login required; first-time commenters will be slightly delayed while I fish them out of the moderation queue.
Comment over there; no login required; first-time commenters will be slightly delayed while I fish them out of the moderation queue.
Fourth Street Fantasy
Last weekend I went for the first time to Fourth Street Fantasy, a Minneapolis con that apparently ran for many years, died out, and was resurrected five or so years back by a local fan, rising from the dead to be more awesome than ever*.
(*I never went to the old version, so this description is based entirely on how awesome I found the con as it is now.)
If you are anything resembling local -- or even if you're not -- you should think about checking this one out. It's small (in the 100-200 attendee range), but the sort of smallness that allows for good, intensive conversation with cool people. And with
alecaustin
putting together the programming, there is no shortage of fodder for such conversations. He has said before that he's tired of the introductory, freshman-level nature of panel topics at many conventions, and wants more upper-level or graduate kinds of subjects. Thus it was that my three panel topics this weekend were: politics and complexity of same in fantasy (which delved into some of the nitty-gritty of what is necessary to do good, believable political complexity in fiction, and what historical examples one might look to for inspiration and instruction), "blood, love, and rhetoric" (using the Player King's speech from Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead as a jumping-off point for talking about violence and "domestic narratives" in fantasy), and . . .
Okay, so they have this tradition. You know how sometimes when you're at a con, the panelists will either digress wildly onto some unrelated topic, or teeter at the edge of such a digression before regretfully declaring "but that's another panel"? Well, Fourth Street keeps a list of those "other panels," and for the last programming slot of the con, picks one of them to be the special last-minute topic. I ended up getting tapped to talk about "why we want stories about divine-right kings" on Sunday afternoon, and had to cudgel my brain into talking about the origins of state formation in early agricultural societies (and what this means for the stories we tell). Despite the fact that I was nearing unto mental exhaustion by then, and had to throw every ounce of remaining energy into holding my own against Steven Brust and Beth Meacham (executive editor at Tor), along with Caroline Stevermer and Mary Robinette Kowal, I think it went fairly well.
If you weren't at Fourth Street, you can still get in on a piece of the fun: they made the very sensible decision to keep track of all the books mentioned on each panel, and have posted the list for everyone's delectation. (It also includes some quotes from the panels.)
Anyway, excellent con with excellent people. I'll be a few days yet regenerating the dead brain cells, but on the way home I had several pieces of the next novel shuffle themselves into something like a line, so clearly something is still working inside my skull. Now I just need to spend some quality time working up a map, since I can't figure out the politics of Nsebu and Mouleen and the Labane and the places that don't have names yet if I don't know where they are in relation to one another.
(*I never went to the old version, so this description is based entirely on how awesome I found the con as it is now.)
If you are anything resembling local -- or even if you're not -- you should think about checking this one out. It's small (in the 100-200 attendee range), but the sort of smallness that allows for good, intensive conversation with cool people. And with
alecaustin
putting together the programming, there is no shortage of fodder for such conversations. He has said before that he's tired of the introductory, freshman-level nature of panel topics at many conventions, and wants more upper-level or graduate kinds of subjects. Thus it was that my three panel topics this weekend were: politics and complexity of same in fantasy (which delved into some of the nitty-gritty of what is necessary to do good, believable political complexity in fiction, and what historical examples one might look to for inspiration and instruction), "blood, love, and rhetoric" (using the Player King's speech from Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead as a jumping-off point for talking about violence and "domestic narratives" in fantasy), and . . .Okay, so they have this tradition. You know how sometimes when you're at a con, the panelists will either digress wildly onto some unrelated topic, or teeter at the edge of such a digression before regretfully declaring "but that's another panel"? Well, Fourth Street keeps a list of those "other panels," and for the last programming slot of the con, picks one of them to be the special last-minute topic. I ended up getting tapped to talk about "why we want stories about divine-right kings" on Sunday afternoon, and had to cudgel my brain into talking about the origins of state formation in early agricultural societies (and what this means for the stories we tell). Despite the fact that I was nearing unto mental exhaustion by then, and had to throw every ounce of remaining energy into holding my own against Steven Brust and Beth Meacham (executive editor at Tor), along with Caroline Stevermer and Mary Robinette Kowal, I think it went fairly well.
If you weren't at Fourth Street, you can still get in on a piece of the fun: they made the very sensible decision to keep track of all the books mentioned on each panel, and have posted the list for everyone's delectation. (It also includes some quotes from the panels.)
Anyway, excellent con with excellent people. I'll be a few days yet regenerating the dead brain cells, but on the way home I had several pieces of the next novel shuffle themselves into something like a line, so clearly something is still working inside my skull. Now I just need to spend some quality time working up a map, since I can't figure out the politics of Nsebu and Mouleen and the Labane and the places that don't have names yet if I don't know where they are in relation to one another.
June 20, 2012
The World of Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time
This is a companion book to the series, released after A Crown of Swords, in 1997. According to Wikipedia, it's considered to be "broadly canonical" -- which is to say that it (unlike the RPG) was developed with Jordan's input, but that any new information it introduced was eligible to be contradicted later on. (Whether or not that happened, I don't know; I didn't see anything in my read-through that struck me as being off.)
Interestingly, the reason the book can exist in that nebulous middle zone of accuracy is because it's treated like an in-world document, written by some unnamed scholar living in the time of the series. This is not done as well as it could be: the scholar is left completely undefined, in terms of who they are and why they're writing. I know it would have introduced difficulties if they became a person in a specified position -- then you'd start wondering how they got that information -- but it would have added a degree of flavor that I, personally, would have enjoyed. (As it stands, about all you can conclude is that the writer isn't Aes Sedai, because the book talks about how the Tower probably has records they don't let outsiders see.) And it does fall down in a few places; the section on the Age of Legends discusses their achievements with terms like "molecule" and "anti-gravity" and "genetics" that are not, I think, generally known to Third Age inhabitants (nor are they presented as half-forgotten terms from the past). But overall I think the approach works fairly well.
Things get more interesting in Part 3, which is also where that "in-world scholar" approach most plays to its strengths. This consists of six chapters, describing the formation of the White Tower, the rise and fall of the Ten Nations, Guaire Amalasan and the rise of Artur Hawkwing, Hawkwing's rule, the War of the Hundred Years, and the Aiel War. The information here is fragmentary -- sometimes contradictory -- but plausibly so; it really does come across as being what historians have pieced together after the fact. (There are even digressions about how the information on subject X comes from a book which was thought lost until seventy random, non-sequential pages from it were found in somebody's attic. Which is a thing that happens in the real world, too.) I'll have more to say about this section in a bit.
Part 4 amuses the hell out of me: "Some Narrative Paintings of Questionable Authenticity." By which we mean, the covers for the first seven books in the series. Questionable, indeed.
Then we move on to "The World of the Wheel." This, along with the history section, contains the most new information, at least at the time it was published: it devotes a chapter each to worldwide geography -- including a brief note on the so-called "Land of the Madmen," which is the third major continent -- Shara (aka the place on the other side of the Aiel Waste), Seanchan, the exotic animals of Seanchan, the Sea Folk Islands, the Aiel, the Ogier, the Ways, and Tel'aran'rhiod. I admit to being less than enthused by some of the info here, though; the moral of the story seems to be that "Randland" (I don't think there's any other name for the area seen in the main map) is the only continent that managed to achieve a non-shitty balance where channelers are concerned. Seanchan was torn apart by despotic "Aes Sedai" until Luthair fixed it by chaining all of them up; Shara locks away all of its channelers except they might actually be the ones despotically running the entire show; the Land of the Madmen is basically Seanchan pre-Luthair. Oh, and they're all rigidly stratified by caste, too. To be fair, the Sea Folk and the Aiel go the other direction; they handle channelers just fine, without the stupidity the White Tower indulges in. But given that all of those groups are positioned as exotic Others to the inhabitants of Randland, it carries a whiff of "primitive barbarian/noble savage." At least to me.
Finally we go to "Within the Land," which breaks down the countries of Randland (including chapter for the White Tower and the Children of the Light). It, unfortunately, is less interesting. Much of this is, again, rehashing of what we already know, or providing minor details like the names and flags of rulers that hadn't yet come up in the story.
Conclusion? As companion books go, it's decent, though some parts are definitely more fresh and engaging than others. There's also new art, by Todd Cameron Hamilton; on the one hand it looks pretty amateurish (especially the faces), but on the other hand it isn't Darrell K. Sweet, so it has that going for it. Mainly, though, I'm reminded of what I said in my post on the roleplaying game: this, not the RPG book, is what I would hand to any player who hasn't read the series. Pair it with the system hack of your choice, and you can run a Wheel of Time game just fine.
Or -- and this is my personal preference -- set the campaign at the end of Hawkwing's reign, when he suddenly and violently turned against the White Tower. Because the book is written as an in-world document, it presents a variety of speculations for why he made that shift: Bonwhin had too much power; Bonwhin was trying to undermine him; Bonwhin had killed his first wife and children; Tamika (his second wife) was a renegade Aes Sedai; Hawkwing just succumbed to megalomania. But of course we, the external audience, give more credence than the in-world author does to the notion that it was the fault of Hawkwing's new adviser Jalwin Moerad, who, after the High King's death, went around "advising" a lot of other rulers who might have been able to hold the empire together . . . except that they all died not long after he showed up to help.
Seeing as how the section on Ishamael mentions the fringe theory that he got out of prison on a sporadic basis after the Breaking, and ran around messing things up whenever he was free, we know what to make of Moerad.
This isn't even a gaming book, and yet it's a better gaming book than the actual RPG. It doesn't have mechanics, but it gives you the information that might help you come up with and run a campaign of your own -- one that doesn't involve the PCs trailing along in the wake of the real heroes. If I had the time and an interested player base (neither of which I actually possess), I might try to run something in Hawkwing's era, and see if my system hack works. As it stands, though, anybody who wants it is welcome to take these ideas and have fun with them.
In other news, Sanderson's work meter recently jumped from "2nd Draft -- 100% done" to "4th draft -- 79% done," so he seems to be making good progress. If no delays get announced there, I will post about "The Strike at Shayol Ghul" in August, then dive back into the actual book analysis in September. See you all then!
Interestingly, the reason the book can exist in that nebulous middle zone of accuracy is because it's treated like an in-world document, written by some unnamed scholar living in the time of the series. This is not done as well as it could be: the scholar is left completely undefined, in terms of who they are and why they're writing. I know it would have introduced difficulties if they became a person in a specified position -- then you'd start wondering how they got that information -- but it would have added a degree of flavor that I, personally, would have enjoyed. (As it stands, about all you can conclude is that the writer isn't Aes Sedai, because the book talks about how the Tower probably has records they don't let outsiders see.) And it does fall down in a few places; the section on the Age of Legends discusses their achievements with terms like "molecule" and "anti-gravity" and "genetics" that are not, I think, generally known to Third Age inhabitants (nor are they presented as half-forgotten terms from the past). But overall I think the approach works fairly well.
Things get more interesting in Part 3, which is also where that "in-world scholar" approach most plays to its strengths. This consists of six chapters, describing the formation of the White Tower, the rise and fall of the Ten Nations, Guaire Amalasan and the rise of Artur Hawkwing, Hawkwing's rule, the War of the Hundred Years, and the Aiel War. The information here is fragmentary -- sometimes contradictory -- but plausibly so; it really does come across as being what historians have pieced together after the fact. (There are even digressions about how the information on subject X comes from a book which was thought lost until seventy random, non-sequential pages from it were found in somebody's attic. Which is a thing that happens in the real world, too.) I'll have more to say about this section in a bit.
Part 4 amuses the hell out of me: "Some Narrative Paintings of Questionable Authenticity." By which we mean, the covers for the first seven books in the series. Questionable, indeed.
Then we move on to "The World of the Wheel." This, along with the history section, contains the most new information, at least at the time it was published: it devotes a chapter each to worldwide geography -- including a brief note on the so-called "Land of the Madmen," which is the third major continent -- Shara (aka the place on the other side of the Aiel Waste), Seanchan, the exotic animals of Seanchan, the Sea Folk Islands, the Aiel, the Ogier, the Ways, and Tel'aran'rhiod. I admit to being less than enthused by some of the info here, though; the moral of the story seems to be that "Randland" (I don't think there's any other name for the area seen in the main map) is the only continent that managed to achieve a non-shitty balance where channelers are concerned. Seanchan was torn apart by despotic "Aes Sedai" until Luthair fixed it by chaining all of them up; Shara locks away all of its channelers except they might actually be the ones despotically running the entire show; the Land of the Madmen is basically Seanchan pre-Luthair. Oh, and they're all rigidly stratified by caste, too. To be fair, the Sea Folk and the Aiel go the other direction; they handle channelers just fine, without the stupidity the White Tower indulges in. But given that all of those groups are positioned as exotic Others to the inhabitants of Randland, it carries a whiff of "primitive barbarian/noble savage." At least to me.
Finally we go to "Within the Land," which breaks down the countries of Randland (including chapter for the White Tower and the Children of the Light). It, unfortunately, is less interesting. Much of this is, again, rehashing of what we already know, or providing minor details like the names and flags of rulers that hadn't yet come up in the story.
Conclusion? As companion books go, it's decent, though some parts are definitely more fresh and engaging than others. There's also new art, by Todd Cameron Hamilton; on the one hand it looks pretty amateurish (especially the faces), but on the other hand it isn't Darrell K. Sweet, so it has that going for it. Mainly, though, I'm reminded of what I said in my post on the roleplaying game: this, not the RPG book, is what I would hand to any player who hasn't read the series. Pair it with the system hack of your choice, and you can run a Wheel of Time game just fine.
Or -- and this is my personal preference -- set the campaign at the end of Hawkwing's reign, when he suddenly and violently turned against the White Tower. Because the book is written as an in-world document, it presents a variety of speculations for why he made that shift: Bonwhin had too much power; Bonwhin was trying to undermine him; Bonwhin had killed his first wife and children; Tamika (his second wife) was a renegade Aes Sedai; Hawkwing just succumbed to megalomania. But of course we, the external audience, give more credence than the in-world author does to the notion that it was the fault of Hawkwing's new adviser Jalwin Moerad, who, after the High King's death, went around "advising" a lot of other rulers who might have been able to hold the empire together . . . except that they all died not long after he showed up to help.
Seeing as how the section on Ishamael mentions the fringe theory that he got out of prison on a sporadic basis after the Breaking, and ran around messing things up whenever he was free, we know what to make of Moerad.
This isn't even a gaming book, and yet it's a better gaming book than the actual RPG. It doesn't have mechanics, but it gives you the information that might help you come up with and run a campaign of your own -- one that doesn't involve the PCs trailing along in the wake of the real heroes. If I had the time and an interested player base (neither of which I actually possess), I might try to run something in Hawkwing's era, and see if my system hack works. As it stands, though, anybody who wants it is welcome to take these ideas and have fun with them.
In other news, Sanderson's work meter recently jumped from "2nd Draft -- 100% done" to "4th draft -- 79% done," so he seems to be making good progress. If no delays get announced there, I will post about "The Strike at Shayol Ghul" in August, then dive back into the actual book analysis in September. See you all then!
June 19, 2012
things that are needed
Two for me, one for somebody else. If you have suggestions for where to find these things, please share in the comments (or e-mail me).
1) A convertible duffel/backpack. Which is to say, a bag that opens like a duffel (down its long axis, rather than on top), but whose straps are intended to be worn as a backpack. I screwed up my hip recently because my karate bag (a duffel) is kind of heavy, and it isn't good for me to wear it across my body; I can carry it like a backpack, but the straps aren't designed for that, so they're less than ideal. I need a replacement.
2) Music from Avatar: The Last Airbender. The TV series, not the movie which tragically never got made. (Wouldn't it have been awesome, if there were a movie? I'm sure it would have been awesome. What a pity it didn't happen.) I know there was never a CD release, but I'm told they made a lot of the music available online. I've only been able to find it streaming, though -- not anything I can download. This is probably because I am pig-ignorant as to how one searches for such things.
3) Beard cover. (This would be the one that isn't for me.) A friend of mine needs recommendations for a suitable way to cover up beard stubble, that (I quote) "doesn't feel like spackle."
. . . with a motley assortment of requests like that, my comment thread is going to look rather interesting. :-)
1) A convertible duffel/backpack. Which is to say, a bag that opens like a duffel (down its long axis, rather than on top), but whose straps are intended to be worn as a backpack. I screwed up my hip recently because my karate bag (a duffel) is kind of heavy, and it isn't good for me to wear it across my body; I can carry it like a backpack, but the straps aren't designed for that, so they're less than ideal. I need a replacement.
2) Music from Avatar: The Last Airbender. The TV series, not the movie which tragically never got made. (Wouldn't it have been awesome, if there were a movie? I'm sure it would have been awesome. What a pity it didn't happen.) I know there was never a CD release, but I'm told they made a lot of the music available online. I've only been able to find it streaming, though -- not anything I can download. This is probably because I am pig-ignorant as to how one searches for such things.
3) Beard cover. (This would be the one that isn't for me.) A friend of mine needs recommendations for a suitable way to cover up beard stubble, that (I quote) "doesn't feel like spackle."
. . . with a motley assortment of requests like that, my comment thread is going to look rather interesting. :-)
Book View Cafe
A few years ago, I started reading Judith Tarr's horse-related posts at a site called Book View Cafe. I followed the blog, and noticed other interesting people were associated with it: Chaz Brenchley. Sherwood Smith. Ursula K. Le Guin.
This, I thought, looked like a good crowd of people.
Which is why I'm very pleased to announce that I am a newly-minted member of Book View Cafe. It's more than just a blog; it's an authors' collective, doing ebooks and other ventures, all through shared labor. So far I'm still finding my way around, getting a feel for how they do things -- getting lost in the (massive) behind-the-scenes infrastructure -- and so at the moment you won't see much from me on the public-facing side of the group. But I hope to have some very interesting things to show you all in a few months.
In the meantime, I'm very grateful to the membership, and hope I can measure up to their fine example!
This, I thought, looked like a good crowd of people.
Which is why I'm very pleased to announce that I am a newly-minted member of Book View Cafe. It's more than just a blog; it's an authors' collective, doing ebooks and other ventures, all through shared labor. So far I'm still finding my way around, getting a feel for how they do things -- getting lost in the (massive) behind-the-scenes infrastructure -- and so at the moment you won't see much from me on the public-facing side of the group. But I hope to have some very interesting things to show you all in a few months.
In the meantime, I'm very grateful to the membership, and hope I can measure up to their fine example!
June 18, 2012
Dear Parallelsfic Writer
Much of this is, I will admit, copied from last year's letter. I really enjoyed the first exchange, and still have an interest in several of the things I asked for that round; hopefully the details I provide here will spark something useful for you!
General thoughts: I'm not actually involved much in fandom per se, so some of the things I see floating around, like PWP or cracky AU premises, aren't as much my thing. (I do occasionally get wild ideas for crossovers, but none of my requests here are of that sort.) I'm not very shippy, either. If I'm interested in seeing fic for a source, it's usually because I want to see more stuff in line with what the canon is like -- so if you love the source enough to offer it, you probably love exactly the things I'm looking for!
I like "missing scene" fics, canon events shown from other characters' points of view, and prequel or sequel stories with actual plots in them (if you have the time and will to write something long enough to have a plot). AU in the sense of "what if X moment had gone differently?" can also be great. Humour is good, and so is angst, depending on the source in question (Tokyo Babylon pretty much comes with angst installed; K-20 generally begs for humour). And, given that this exchange is for Asian fandoms, I'm deeply in favor of stories that get their setting details right, insofar as you're able to manage that.
If you'd like to see what fanfic I've written and received in the past, I'm russian_blue on AO3.
On to the fandoms themselves:
Fandom: K-20: The Fiend with 20 Faces
Characters: Hashiba Yoko
I just watched this again recently, and adored it as much as ever. All of the characters are fabulous. Yoko is the only character in my request because one of the things I'd be interested in seeing could just be about her: anything prequel-ish about her and "the basics of being a lady" and where she learned to do all that stuff would be great. (Helicopters!) Feel free to shoehorn in any of the other characters, if you like -- maybe wee!Yoko visited the circus once and met wee!Heikichi? Or, since I really do love them both, a sequel fic about Heikichi doing something cool as K-20, with Yoko continuing to be awesome. Heck, you can bring back Akechi if you like -- whatever! There's no character in that movie I don't love (Genji, Kobayashi, Kikuko, etc), so as long as you have fun with them, I probably will, too.
Fandom: Rurouni Kenshin
Characters: Himura Kenshin
How much do I love this show? Not only is it my First Anime Love (i.e. the first series I really got into and watched all of), but I'm currently playing a character in an RPG that's based on Kenshin. If you want to know more about my thoughts, you can read this post and the comments on this one, but the short form is: above all, I love the Kyoto arc and the Trust/Betrayal OVA. (Not as fond of post-Shishio episodes, and I regret to say I've never read the manga, so I'm not familiar with the plots and characters that don't appear in the anime.)
If you like writing dark and psychological stuff, I would love a story exploring what happened after Kenshin left Hiko Seijuro and went to fight in the Bakumatsu. How did Seijuro's hot-headed idiot apprentice end up the cold, unflinching Hitokiri Battousai? As part of that, or as a story in its own right, you could also write about a confrontation with Saito. If you'd prefer something happier, it would be neat to get Kenshin's thoughts as he settles into life at the Kamiya dojo, with the other series characters around. Or, finally, does he ever pass on the Hiten Mitsurugi Ryu teachings to anyone else? Yahiko wants to learn, but if you read that post I linked, you know I'm dubious as to whether anybody in the Meiji Era could (or should) reach Kenshin's level of skill. There's potentially an interesting story to be told in answer to that question.
Fandom: Onmyouji
Characters: Abe no Seimei, Minamoto no Hiromasa
Hee. So I got onto these movies because of Tokyo Babylon sparking my interest in onmyodo, and man, is Seimei smirky or what? He and Hiromasa are hilarious. I'm afraid I don't have much in the way of specific suggestions here, except to say I'm not interested in seeing their friendship sexualized; I think they're great just the way they are. Maybe Hiromasa falls for another lady and wacky mystical hijinks ensue. Maybe Seimei gets in trouble and Hiromasa has to save him. Anything, really; the world needs more Heian-era buddy-film fun.
Fandom: Tokyo Babylon
Characters: Sumeragi Subaru
Oh, man, where do I start? I could pretty much go for anything in this fandom, so long as it harmonizes with the canon. (In other words, if you want to write about Subaru and Seishiro, go for it -- but what I dig about their relationship is its utterly fucked-up nature. I do not ship them in any healthy way, nor do I have the slightest belief that they could ever work it out.) As with my K-20 request, I only specified Subaru because he's the common denominator for suggestions I have, but you're more than welcome to bring in any other character. I'd love to see Subaru and Hokuto pre-canon, maybe during his training, or when they find out Hokuto doesn't have any talent for onmyodo. Or give me Hokuto's perspective on her twin and the stuff in the series. Or, if you're familiar with X and want to do Seishiro-related aftermath, that could be cool, too.
Hopefully that's of use to you. Happy writing!
General thoughts: I'm not actually involved much in fandom per se, so some of the things I see floating around, like PWP or cracky AU premises, aren't as much my thing. (I do occasionally get wild ideas for crossovers, but none of my requests here are of that sort.) I'm not very shippy, either. If I'm interested in seeing fic for a source, it's usually because I want to see more stuff in line with what the canon is like -- so if you love the source enough to offer it, you probably love exactly the things I'm looking for!
I like "missing scene" fics, canon events shown from other characters' points of view, and prequel or sequel stories with actual plots in them (if you have the time and will to write something long enough to have a plot). AU in the sense of "what if X moment had gone differently?" can also be great. Humour is good, and so is angst, depending on the source in question (Tokyo Babylon pretty much comes with angst installed; K-20 generally begs for humour). And, given that this exchange is for Asian fandoms, I'm deeply in favor of stories that get their setting details right, insofar as you're able to manage that.
If you'd like to see what fanfic I've written and received in the past, I'm russian_blue on AO3.
On to the fandoms themselves:
Fandom: K-20: The Fiend with 20 Faces
Characters: Hashiba Yoko
I just watched this again recently, and adored it as much as ever. All of the characters are fabulous. Yoko is the only character in my request because one of the things I'd be interested in seeing could just be about her: anything prequel-ish about her and "the basics of being a lady" and where she learned to do all that stuff would be great. (Helicopters!) Feel free to shoehorn in any of the other characters, if you like -- maybe wee!Yoko visited the circus once and met wee!Heikichi? Or, since I really do love them both, a sequel fic about Heikichi doing something cool as K-20, with Yoko continuing to be awesome. Heck, you can bring back Akechi if you like -- whatever! There's no character in that movie I don't love (Genji, Kobayashi, Kikuko, etc), so as long as you have fun with them, I probably will, too.
Fandom: Rurouni Kenshin
Characters: Himura Kenshin
How much do I love this show? Not only is it my First Anime Love (i.e. the first series I really got into and watched all of), but I'm currently playing a character in an RPG that's based on Kenshin. If you want to know more about my thoughts, you can read this post and the comments on this one, but the short form is: above all, I love the Kyoto arc and the Trust/Betrayal OVA. (Not as fond of post-Shishio episodes, and I regret to say I've never read the manga, so I'm not familiar with the plots and characters that don't appear in the anime.)
If you like writing dark and psychological stuff, I would love a story exploring what happened after Kenshin left Hiko Seijuro and went to fight in the Bakumatsu. How did Seijuro's hot-headed idiot apprentice end up the cold, unflinching Hitokiri Battousai? As part of that, or as a story in its own right, you could also write about a confrontation with Saito. If you'd prefer something happier, it would be neat to get Kenshin's thoughts as he settles into life at the Kamiya dojo, with the other series characters around. Or, finally, does he ever pass on the Hiten Mitsurugi Ryu teachings to anyone else? Yahiko wants to learn, but if you read that post I linked, you know I'm dubious as to whether anybody in the Meiji Era could (or should) reach Kenshin's level of skill. There's potentially an interesting story to be told in answer to that question.
Fandom: Onmyouji
Characters: Abe no Seimei, Minamoto no Hiromasa
Hee. So I got onto these movies because of Tokyo Babylon sparking my interest in onmyodo, and man, is Seimei smirky or what? He and Hiromasa are hilarious. I'm afraid I don't have much in the way of specific suggestions here, except to say I'm not interested in seeing their friendship sexualized; I think they're great just the way they are. Maybe Hiromasa falls for another lady and wacky mystical hijinks ensue. Maybe Seimei gets in trouble and Hiromasa has to save him. Anything, really; the world needs more Heian-era buddy-film fun.
Fandom: Tokyo Babylon
Characters: Sumeragi Subaru
Oh, man, where do I start? I could pretty much go for anything in this fandom, so long as it harmonizes with the canon. (In other words, if you want to write about Subaru and Seishiro, go for it -- but what I dig about their relationship is its utterly fucked-up nature. I do not ship them in any healthy way, nor do I have the slightest belief that they could ever work it out.) As with my K-20 request, I only specified Subaru because he's the common denominator for suggestions I have, but you're more than welcome to bring in any other character. I'd love to see Subaru and Hokuto pre-canon, maybe during his training, or when they find out Hokuto doesn't have any talent for onmyodo. Or give me Hokuto's perspective on her twin and the stuff in the series. Or, if you're familiar with X and want to do Seishiro-related aftermath, that could be cool, too.
Hopefully that's of use to you. Happy writing!
June 7, 2012
a meme, because why not
Via
![[info]](https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/hostedimages/1380964288i/3566264.gif)
alecaustin
and
mrissa
:
1. Go to page 77 (or 7th) of your current ms
2. Go to line 7
3. Copy down the next 7 lines – sentences or paragraphs – and post them as they’re written. No cheating.
I chose page 7 because page 77 happened to fall on a chapter break, and didn't have enough lines on it to suffice. Appropriately, the incident being related happened when the character was seven years old. From A Natural History of Dragons:
. . . Isabella's sentences are on the long side. But I'd call that pretty representative of her story. (And yes, she is about to engage in amateur dissection.)
alecaustin
and
mrissa
:1. Go to page 77 (or 7th) of your current ms
2. Go to line 7
3. Copy down the next 7 lines – sentences or paragraphs – and post them as they’re written. No cheating.
I chose page 7 because page 77 happened to fall on a chapter break, and didn't have enough lines on it to suffice. Appropriately, the incident being related happened when the character was seven years old. From A Natural History of Dragons:
My curiosity soon drove me to an act which I blush to think upon today, not for the act itself (as I have done similar things many times since then, if in a more meticulous and scholarly fashion), but for the surreptitious and naive manner in which I carried it out.
In my wanderings one day, I found a dove which had fallen dead under a hedgerow. I immediately remembered what the cook had said, that all birds had wishbones. She had not named doves in her list, but doves were birds, were they not? Perhaps I might learn what they were for, as I could not learn when I watched the footman carve up a goose at the dinner table.
I took the dove's body and hid it behind the hayrick next to the barn, then stole inside and pinched a penknife from Andrew, the brother immediately senior to me, without him knowing. Once outside again, I settled down to my study of the dove.
. . . Isabella's sentences are on the long side. But I'd call that pretty representative of her story. (And yes, she is about to engage in amateur dissection.)
June 4, 2012
update on the New Tarot
I have to admit, it warms the cockles of my heart that in the day or so after I posted about my friend's Kickstarter Project for the "New Tarot," it gained something like seven hundred dollars in pledges. I have no way of knowing how much of that was due to my post, but given that it had been semi-stalled for a little while before then, I'd like to think I had something to do with the boost.
Which is why I'm bringing it up again. See, the project has not reached its funding goal. There are six days to go, and it needs a little less than two grand to cross the line. It would be sad to see the thing come so very close and then fall short, so I thought I'd post a reminder, and encourage you all to spread the word to other people who might be interested. I'd like to see this one hit its mark.
Which is why I'm bringing it up again. See, the project has not reached its funding goal. There are six days to go, and it needs a little less than two grand to cross the line. It would be sad to see the thing come so very close and then fall short, so I thought I'd post a reminder, and encourage you all to spread the word to other people who might be interested. I'd like to see this one hit its mark.
June 1, 2012
Books read, May 2012
The title of this post only barely merits the plural.
Bayou Arcana: Songs of Loss and Redemption, various authors and artists. A graphic novel, collecting stories by a slew of (male) authors and (female) artists, all centered around a Louisiana bayou, "one of the seven sacred hearts" of the world. (According to the afterword, some of the other hearts are in the Outback, the Amazon, and Tibet, and there will be volumes for them, too.) I felt a few of the stories in here were a bit too brief and/or elliptical for their punch to really hit me, and I'm kind of meh on some of the art -- but then, that is frequently my feeling on graphic novels as a medium. I liked this one enough to want to read the next volume, now that the core characters have been set up, to see where they go from here.
Deeds of Men, Marie Brennan. Yeah, my own novella. A quick re-read for the purposes of refreshing my memory on a few things.
. . . and we're done.
So where did this month go?
A lot of it went to illness. Not to delve into the gory details, but I had a minor procedure done early this month that will hopefully address a chronic issue that is possibly at the root of my sleep problems (and therefore my generalized fatigue); it is, unfortunately, the sort of procedure that makes things worse before it makes them better. If it does the latter at all. I should know one way or the other by the end of June. And then copy-edits landed on my doorstep, and there was KublaCon (at which![[info]](https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/hostedimages/1381332803i/4718854.gif)
kniedzw
and I ran our LARP), and then con crud.
I started a number of books this month, some of which I abandoned, some of which I hope to finish soon. But the only ones I actually finished were a graphic novel and my own novella. Which is pretty pathetic. Next month I start seriously noveling again, and I also have Fourth Street -- but as far as leisure reading is concerned, my count pretty much has nowhere to go but up.
Bayou Arcana: Songs of Loss and Redemption, various authors and artists. A graphic novel, collecting stories by a slew of (male) authors and (female) artists, all centered around a Louisiana bayou, "one of the seven sacred hearts" of the world. (According to the afterword, some of the other hearts are in the Outback, the Amazon, and Tibet, and there will be volumes for them, too.) I felt a few of the stories in here were a bit too brief and/or elliptical for their punch to really hit me, and I'm kind of meh on some of the art -- but then, that is frequently my feeling on graphic novels as a medium. I liked this one enough to want to read the next volume, now that the core characters have been set up, to see where they go from here.
Deeds of Men, Marie Brennan. Yeah, my own novella. A quick re-read for the purposes of refreshing my memory on a few things.
. . . and we're done.
So where did this month go?
A lot of it went to illness. Not to delve into the gory details, but I had a minor procedure done early this month that will hopefully address a chronic issue that is possibly at the root of my sleep problems (and therefore my generalized fatigue); it is, unfortunately, the sort of procedure that makes things worse before it makes them better. If it does the latter at all. I should know one way or the other by the end of June. And then copy-edits landed on my doorstep, and there was KublaCon (at which
kniedzw
and I ran our LARP), and then con crud.I started a number of books this month, some of which I abandoned, some of which I hope to finish soon. But the only ones I actually finished were a graphic novel and my own novella. Which is pretty pathetic. Next month I start seriously noveling again, and I also have Fourth Street -- but as far as leisure reading is concerned, my count pretty much has nowhere to go but up.
