roses, bruises, 'bout your shoulders

Marching back into town gets us some looks.

The artillery going first is just odd; five tonnes of sheep with blood drying in its underwool and eel-tree ichor splattered all over the rest of it is unexpected.

Rust has found a couple of horse-favouring town kids happy to earn some money by making much of the horse-ghost’s feeding and grooming. It’s essential to the ghost to have contact with some technical variety of innocence Rust is unable to provide. A delegation of matrons resulted; Blossom was able to reassure them with impeccable tact that the definition of innocence was on the order of “never summoned a demon”. Since good Creeks don’t do any such thing, and even more do not mark themselves as suitable for consumption should a demon arrive, all was well.

Halt’s comprehensive definition — never consumed a human soul, never slaked wrath by wide killing, and, oh yes, never coerced a bound demon into a shape empty of all but pain — was not provided to the matrons. Even more fortunately, Halt’s oddly wistful expression was not observed by any townsfolk at all.

That's the beginning of chapter five of The March North, the first Commonweal novel by Graydon Saunders, and I'm sharing it with y'all for two reasons.

The first reason is that I'm privileged to know some damned good writers. One of them is graydon, who'll soon be releasing a third Commonweal novel by the title of Safely You Deliver (find links for obtaining the first two here). The consensus opinion expressed by reviews of the books, if you're curious, is "definitely worth the effort"; this is original, subversive fantasy-with-hard-SF-underpinnings that doesn't "see spot run" readers through the details of the (amazing, richly crafted) world, a world I think is well-captured in a line from chapter two, describing the five-tonne sheep upon which possibly the most powerful living sorcerer on the planet, who happens to look like somebody's grandma, has just ridden into town: "It breathes slow, which you'd expect, and fire, which you would not." Even the reviews themselves make for interesting reading (at least to me, admittedly biased with squee and vicarious pride that something somebody close to me made is attracting such an enthusiastic following); many of these are collected unsurprisingly on goodreads (that's book two, A Succession of Bad Days, and topmost review is v. spoilery; The March North is over here) but there's also this (which is basically the first chapter of The March North as free sample glued together with my sales pitch when it came out in 2014), this (spoilery), and this.

G's not alone in my dwircle; I'd run out of original things to say if I tried to list all the writers I follow here whose work I adore but I want to pick on my other two regular interlocutors/best friends currently active on this platform, who are also extremely talented (if you're not comfortable with me hyping you here I'll take it out; I just want y'all to know I think you're great). kore posts fic as actonbell, fic that's not only beautifully written and often heartrendingly poignant but assiduously researched and supported with cross-references and links to visual and audio garnishes tucked in like easter eggs. thatyourefuse writes like sinfully rich dark chocolate cake with bee stingers inside, and I mean that glowingly; current/simmering projects include in their ranks a Crimson Peak epic from the POV of an omniscient atemporal haunted house and a novel adaptation of King Lear, and it is all devastatingly good. (recessional/Feather gets an honourable mention because we don't converse as much and I still haven't come close to catching up on YBEB and its outgrowths, but what I have read is exquisite and I'm very happy to have her on my reading page.)


The second reason is that I am apparently a bound demon. I've spent the last week and a half (more?) in fucking agony. Not consistent agony, it varies in both intensity and flavour (sometimes achy tension, others like a full-body migraine), but agony as the soundtrack for daily life sucks. It's not only unpleasant but boring and extremely frustrating. I hope very much that the acupuncture appointment I have to run off to ten minutes ago will help; either the one I had on Sunday didn't do much or I'd have been howling without it. ETA: and I'm a fucking idiot because the bloody appointment was for 4:15, not 4:45, so I'm SOL and forfeit the free appointment credit (this was already rescheduled from yesterday afternoon when I was going to be too late to get there in the miserable pouring rain because I couldn't drag my ass out of the shower).

Seen a handful of people posting wishlists lately, as is customary when nights get long. Feel (irrationally) guilty joining them because I haven't done anything to answer anybody else's lists yet, but I have wishes and maybe answering them will fulfill somebody else's wish, YA NEVER KNOW.

I wish for crossed fingers/good energy to help me get the job I applied for today or another, better one.

I wish for the motivation to accomplish all the cleaning I've been meaning to get to :/

I'm always interested in recs/directions towards anything you think I might like, be that fic, music, meta, movies, books incl. genre fiction popcorn reads, knitting patterns, random funny stuff--including (maybe even especially) things the recommender has made themselves.

If you want to write/create some new fanwork for me, I'll take Mass Effect, Sense8, Pride, Flashpoint, MCU (even though I'm mad at canon), The Losers, Peaky Blinders, Penny Dreadful, Prey for Rock'n'Roll, graydon's Commonweal series :D , or anything else you have reason to suspect I'd enjoy (I've never done fandom_stocking and probably won't this year either but I'm thinking about it; if I do sign up I'll link to it).

I don't wish for material goods but if you want to send me physical media (cds, dvds, books, etc.), BPAL (esp. "Breathless Horror", or check posts tagged "scents" to read what I've tried so far), fibre arts paraphernalia, houseplants, or nickel-free earrings, I will not say no.

What I want most right now, though, is someone(s) to brainstorm fic with me, because I want to write and post something new but am stumped (or stalled by inertia) on pretty much everything I've started. Magically solving all my indecisive frustration with brilliant ideas would be great but just nodding and asking for clarification while I rant would be helpful. I'm specifically seeking help with Mass Effect now because that's where my mind's at and I've got stacks of WiPs to deal with--you don't need to know canon to help! if you do that's extra awesome!--but if you want to offer support for other stuff I'll still eagerly take it (or just love you for offering). For ME I'm struggling both with plot/structure for multiple stories (some of which might be one giant story?) and with filling in/making up sex practices and other cultural details for non-human sophont species, so if either of those things row your boat lemme know!

Get it? Like the Sleater-Kinney song? Nevermind.

Over a year ago now I had to do an assignment for comms class on the Stephen King essay "Why We Crave Horror Movies" (about which I shall say more later) and as "research" I went a-binge-watching, refreshing myself on things I'd seen before and educating myself on things I hadn't. This fall I went on another binge prompted mostly by a facebook friend's commitment to watch a horror movie a day for the month of October. I didn't copy the idea but in contributing recommendations I reminded myself of Joey Comeau's currently dormant blog I'm into survival. The blog's an entertaining read, presents some interesting analyses, and introduced me to some pretty cool films. I really like Comeau's encouragement to horror movie fans to help stop real violence by supporting the Assaulted Women's Helpline.

Reading back through the entries last month I was reminded . . . I wanna do that. I want to post (rant) about horror movies (and other movies, particularly movies with social justice themes, and I want at some point to try holding the two categories up together). There's no shortage of material, certainly; even if I cover films or topics Comeau's already done I won't be duplicating because I have a different brain in a different body speaking from a different subject position.

I want to launch this (likely not going to last long enough to really qualify as a) series by returning to my original inspiration "Why Stephen King Is Wrong We Crave Horror Movies", not in this post but in one I hope will follow shortly. In the meantime I'm throwing the doors open for requests of subjects you'd like me to write about (films, original vs. remake comparisons, recurrent themes, etc.) and recommendations of stuff for me to look at (films, essays/books/YouTube videos, etc.--I haven't done a lot of secondary source research or read about horror outside the pieces mentioned here but I'd like to, especially feminist analyses of horror and analyses of feminism in/and horror, queer theory, critical disability studies, postcolonial and critical race theory . . .).

Some things I already know I want to write about, no clear idea about order or cross-connections: ( cut more for length than content or spoilers )

Obviously if you're interested in reading this stuff and want me to warn/tag/grey-out anything in particular, please let me know.

Back in the fall when I was binging on horror movies, and again a little later on movies about unions, I kinda wanted to blog reviews/comments about them. I didn't do it then because I wasn't sure anyone would care and also I generate more than enough work for myself already, but now I'm watching masses of films about social justice and civil rights and labour conflicts and political activism again* and I'm just going to go ahead and do it.

If anybody does want to read these and wants me to be more pro-active warning for certain things or greying out spoilers (probably less relevant for these than for horror movies given how many of these are based on true stories) or triggers (probably very relevant for both), please let me know and I'll be happy to accommodate.

( Selma (2014) )

( Freedom Road (1979) )

( Bloody Sunday (2002) )

*Largely for myself, out of interest and a desire to educate myself on histories political and pop-cultural, and also for Socialist Steve Rogers because I am determined to actually write that story, damnit.

Fury Road is AMAZING and loud and ridiculous and real and clever and ugly and beautiful and scary and inspiring and violent and sweet and I want to see it again but not in 3D because that's just too much flinching (there's a lot of shrapnel to dodge).

Homework is blaaaaaaaaaaaah and the coming thunderstorms just banged on my head like a gong, so we're not getting any more of that done tonight. Yesterday was a total write-off, brainwise; I slept for 12 hours and woke up in the afternoon with a headache that only got worse. All in all a very productive weekend :P



I am nowhere near as good at this game as thatyourefuse is, but anyway.

Give me a character and I'll tell you three things that I believe about their sexuality/sex life/experience.

Tomorrow is, to quote my father, "one of those millstone birthdays". I might wear a pretty dress because I can.

I am more than halfway through this school program. The actual accounting courses (and other math-based stuff like stats) continue to be alarmingly easy. Business Communications is mostly group work so I kinda hate it even though all the actual people I have grouped with seem adequately lovely.

A couple of weeks ago I interviewed for a bookkeeper position at The Public (an activist design studio). Didn't get it, but they're a neat little company so I link them.

Texts from Mass Effect characters. The ones I find funny are side-splitting. Also still hilarious and hilariously relevant to current fandom pursuits, Erotica Written by an Alien Pretending Not to Be Horrified by the Human Body (I'm a nerd: this alien is more familiar with Terran vertebrates other than humans than I would expect).

I want more tattoos. And to not feel so clumsy walking in heels.

Erika Lust should be president of the world.

P.S. Everything was just a mess.

This week has been a week of agony. Going through painkillers and tiger balm at alarming rates. Stupid connective tissue.

I've watched a bunch of this year's Festivids and enjoyed them but the two that have made me go "SHUT UP THIS VID IS IMPORTANT" are "White Telephone" (Halloween series, non-remakes), because it highlights why, despite its truly ridiculous title, Halloween H20: 20 Years Later is a really fascinating and I think important contribution to the horror genre because [insert dissertation-length ramble about slasher/stalker/serial killer movies as a site of entanglement of violence and sex and Georges Bataille and final girls and the madonna-whore problem and non-fictional trauma survivors and what happens after the credits roll and Jamie Lee Curtis' career and the epistemological and ontological differences between the Halloween films of the 1970s-90s and Rob Zombie's 00s reboots and the phenomenon of horror remakes and franchise reboots more generally and the place and influence of Halloween in the phylogeny of horror cinema and and and], and "I'll Be There for You" (Pit Bulls and Parolees), because PUPPIES.

1. School is happening again. I had grand plans for getting so much knitting and pleasure reading and voluntary socializing done over the winter break, and instead I mostly played Mass Effects 1-3. For a month. Because "obsessively" is the only way I know how to play computer/video games. I'm kind of in love with the world-building and want to hug many of the major characters, and I can say lots of more specific things if anybody wants to hear (read) them.

2. I did read Slow Seduction and Slow Satisfaction, the middle and end of Cecilia Tan's BDSM erotic romance trilogy, because they are snack food. The plot gets kinda ridiculous over the course of the series, IMHO, though nothing on the level of Mr. Benson. The prose is engaging and there are enough interesting/sympathetic characters to merit actually reading rather than just skimming for the saucy bits.

CTan is one of the coolest people I've ever met (definitely the most famous person who has let me stay at their house) and one of the few good things to come out of the Fifty Shades craze is that publishers will finally print the kind of stories she's been trying to sell for years. If I still worked in a bookstore I would do everything I could to steer people interested in this kind of book towards the ones written by capable kink activist/educators and experienced authors.

3. At the end of November I lost the nearly half-finished Bat'leth scarf I was making for a looooong-time friend on the subway and honestly I am still grieving.

4. Creative brain has swung back around to wanting (really badly) to write. I have lots of medium to huge (mostly MCU, some GoT and small fandoms, now Mass Effect) things stewing in my brain/gdocs/the notepad app on my iPod but I'm very open to prompts as a goad to write and share short stuff, so let's reopen this >7 month-old prompt post, shall we?

5. Skimming back over old posts looking for the prompts one, realize I never gave an important update on the rotten pot-smoking downstairs neighbour (whom I might have only mentioned under access lock?): he's gone! Long gone actually, left in early November. Ejected by his roommates. Apparently recalcitrant about leaving; Phil(l)ip the Good Neighbour asked if I'd be willing to help if they needed to present a case to the landlord or LTB to get him out. Didn't end up being necessary but yes, I was willing.

Today the mysterious on-and-off nausea of the past few weeks is the most on it's been yet. I am sulky and mortal. I want to write fic and I have ideas but the word engine keeps stalling. I would like to try jolting it with prompts, so here are memes appropriated from tumblr and dreamwidth posts:

( TFLN )

( trope trope trope )

( after the watershed )

Everybody who snagged perfume samples from my last post, your packages are in the mail (except for commodorified, cuz we're still working out details). I very much hope that they will all reach you safely and in good time.

I'm quite tempted to participate in unconventionalcourtship (panfandom challenge where you write fic using plots yanked from summaries of Harlequin or Mills & Boon novels), to the point where I've actually started nosing through summaries looking for prompts. I've found four I think might be fun to play around with (and several others that look hilarious or incomprehensibly weird; I REALLY hope somebody writes this one [and keeps the title, because it is amazing], especially if it's mpreg). Right now I'm only really feeling drawn and able to write MCU* or Game of Thrones, but that still leaves me a LOT of potential ships to play with.

The summaries I'm considering repurposing are (copied verbatim from the websites & apparently not proofread):
( Flirting with the Forbidden )

*
( The Secret Ingredient )

*
( This Beautiful Thing )

*
( Too Hot for TV )

(and I thought I abused ellipses . . .)

Because I am basically incapable of making even relatively trivial decisions by myself, I throw myself upon the mercy of the dwircle and ask your help in narrowing down possibilities:
( ticky boxes )

*Or rather, I feel like I will be able to write MCU once I have seen Cap2; right now I am paralyzed by the looming proximity of Moar Canon and its sidekick Inevitable Jossing like a rabbit in the shadow of a hawk (or dare I say . . . a Falcon?). GoT presents a similar stress, given how soon season four will be starting, but between the fact that the books already provide a version of events past the aired point and the odds that anything I write will be either canon divergence or total AU, it's not as big a deal.

**NGL, I ship both SanSan and SanMar with some intensity, but with the proviso that fanworks have to either grant Sansa the necessary age & experience to give meaningful consent or acknowledge (& occasionally embrace) the inherent sketchiness of the relationship in the case of Sandor, and know where they stand on the "is Margaery totally playing Sansa with intention to exploit" question in the case of Margaery.