motetus: (borgias / caterina captured)
Obviously my new year resolution should be something to do with getting things done on time )

And another Yuletide rec for The Borgias!

Slow Match (25,582 words) by paperiuni
Fandom: The Borgias
Rating: Teen and up
Warnings: None
Relationships: Micheletto & Lucrezia Borgia, Cesare Borgia/Micheletto
Characters: Micheletto, Lucrezia Borgia, Cesare Borgia, Various Characters
Additional Tags: Drama, Angst, Romance, Action, Male-Female Friendship, Canon-Typical Violence, Historical Divergence, Post-Canon, Historical References
Summary: Micheletto wanders, Cesare conquers, and Lucrezia offers a timely intervention. Some ties are not easily severed, but neither can they stay unchanged. Set right after season 3 (and from there on out).

This is the post-S3 fic OF MY HEART that I never knew I wanted. I'd thought that what interested me about Cesare/Micheletto was how one-sided it was and how poor Micheletto never gets anything nice, and I was perfectly happy with nothing but angst for him, but this really sold a more equal relationship to me. That's not the real only I adore this story, though; aside from being beautifully, beautifully written, there are so many things in it that made me happy, like Micheletto and Lucrezia (brought together by how they were both forced by Cesare to kill someone they loved, which I had not put together myself until reading this) working together, fighting assassins and disguising themselves to sneak into the Vatican and cure Cesare, and Micheletto leading a daring raid to rescue an imprisoned Cesare, a fantastic battle scene, appearances by Machiavelli and Micheletto's mama, and the most satisfying ending that was everything I could have wished for.
motetus: (borgias / micheletto shadow)
[livejournal.com profile] eames asked: What superpower would you like to have?

Well, it may be a completely unimaginative one to come up with, but - mind control. Just think about it: "Why yes, examiners, this sheet of paper with a drawing of pigs having a tea party on it absolutely is the best PhD thesis you've ever seen, thank you very much for the pass! You, extremely wealthy person, hire me at once for a job where I do nothing but sit around in my pyjamas and draw fanart and get paid obscene amounts of money. You there, fetch me a cup of tea and a nice biscuit. You lot, take this rope, hunt down Tom Hardy and bring him back to me all trussed up. Another cup of tea! Ah, Mr Hardy, I do hope the rope burns aren't too painful. Now, put on this hot pink lingerie and go clean my kitchen. MORE TEA."

See? I don't know why anyone would pick wings or shapeshifting or the ability to control fire over something like that.


I am slowly working my way through Yuletide (and am finally over my disappointment that no-one wrote any Gus/Jack fic for the Dark Matter request, boo), so here are a few recs!


What Happens in Hull (2,475 words) by Anonymous
Fandom: The IT Crowd
Rating: Teen and up
Warnings: None
Relationships: Douglas Reynholm/April
Characters: April, Douglas Reynholm, Jen Barber, Maurice Moss, Roy Trenneman
Additional Tags: French people, Actual Paris, Spiritual quest, Tesco - every little helps, Party supplies, Douglas tries
Summary: Douglas wants April back, and he'll have to take a long hard look at himself first.

Fanfic for comedies rarely works for me, because even when the author gets pretty close to the humour of the show, without the actors it never feels quite as funny. But Douglas Reynholm's voice in this is so utterly spot on that I was howling with laughter throughout, although the story about Douglas learning to be a (very slightly) better person for April was actually rather sweet. Visually it's brilliant - there are some rather adorable dividers, and also a magnificent drawing of a horse at the end. A HORSE WITH BREASTS.


The Sweet Science (2,174 words) by Anonymous
Fandom: Warrior (2011)
Rating: Teen and up
Warnings: None
Characters: Frank Campana, Brendan Conlon
Additional Tags: Coming Out, Backstory
Summary: Pre-movie. Some things Brendan knows in his blood, and some things Frank has to teach him.

I love how Frank is written in this, and the banter and drunken flirting between him and Brendan is rather adorable, and then rather achy when the flirting leads to a kiss and a fair bit of awkwardness. Aww, poor Frank. :( I also really liked how the author handled Brendan's response - having him acknowledge that maybe, maybe if things were different he could consider it, but he's so in love with Tess, his lifeline, that he won't ever let himself do that.


hoc, iucunde, tibi poema feci (1,020 words) by Anonymous
Fandom: The Borgias
Rating: Teen and up
Warnings: None
Characters: Micheletto, Cesare Borgia
Summary: “Does the poet express himself, or does he fashion himself to fit the poetry?”

A really beautiful and thoughtful little story (by someone who I'm 100% sure is my favourite writer in the fandom) where Micheletto and Cesare discuss poetry. And that's it, but there's so much just beneath their conversation, and the character voices are absolutely perfect.
motetus: (inception / arthur wet)
Yeah, I suck at posting regularly, I know. Here's a million answers in one go, then!

Questions about drawing, totems, fiction, Romans and food )


I have had more cards arrive to hang up on my (freshly-painted, oh my god my flat is finally starting to look like it's mine) living room walls! Thank you very much to [livejournal.com profile] arvok, [livejournal.com profile] lezzerlee, [livejournal.com profile] obi1mcgregor and [livejournal.com profile] honscot - they are all lovely! :)
motetus: (father ted / a lovely cup of tea)
Before I get onto today's meme question, I have one for you, lovely flist. I'm finally getting started on the epic EOT9 Quaint English Tearoom AU idea I've had languishing in a corner of my brain for ages, and I could really do with someone still in the fandom to bounce ideas off, send rough sketches to, and figure out all sorts of ridiculous ways to incorporate things from the book (and maybe a little bit of film stuff, but I want this to be mostly book-verse) because I may be drawing a quaint English version of the ubiquitous Coffeeshop AU, but dammit, this is not going to be Any Two Guys Gen fanart! I'm not so much looking for an art beta (just yet), more someone who will help me figure out how to do things like come up with modern-day looks for Dergadian and Liathan or help me figure out how to draw book-verse Esca (SO stuck on this) and also endure a lot of talk about tearoom decorations and how to subtly Romanise. So if you fancy me pestering you for the next few months, please do let me know!


[livejournal.com profile] bunn asked: Talk about Father Ted! Do you draw anything Teddish or is it more of a distant love from Far Away?

CHAIR! CURTAINS! FLOOR! GOBSHITE!

...no wait, I mean FATHER TED, LOVE OF MY LIFE. I have seen all the episodes a million times and if I ever catch it on TV I will probably stop whatever I am doing and watch it all, because the humour never, ever gets old. You don't have to be Catholic to enjoy it (but it doesn't hurt), and even my dear late hardcore Catholic grandmother who took religion Very Seriously (she had an alter in the middle of the living room) thought it was extremely funny. I'm not sure if I really have a favourite episode, but I think some of the best ones were in the third series. Speed 3 was utterly brilliant... but then so was Escape from Victory with the old priests and the football match and Mrs Doyle learning how to love football! Oh, but I also adore the episode where Ted is (not) a racist because of that brilliant ending, and the Hell episode where Ted and Dougal go on a caravan holiday is also pretty hysterical. These cows are very small; those cows are far away! Mrs Doyle is totally my favourite character, because I want her to live with me and constantly make me tea and sandwiches. Not that I don't enjoy the task of tea-making myself! When I lived with my fellow tea-loving uni flatmates (also big Ted fans), cries of MAYBE I LIKE THE MISERY were often heard while the kettle was boiling.

I have never drawn anything Teddish, alas. It's one of those things I love that I'll probably never draw anything for unless someone comes up to me and deposits a delicious fat squirmy idea into my lap that I fall in love with immediately. Mind you, last year I saw a request for Father Ted/Father Dick Byrne on fandom_stocking and immediately the pairing was sold to me (although I still don't have any ideas for fanart). I mean, think about it - Ted and Dick are pretty much the same person and Ted does have a slightly inflated opinion of himself, so I don't see what's really standing in their way, apart from a huge, seething hatred of each other. It would be beautiful hatesex, though.
motetus: (art / mine - the birth of jar jar)
[livejournal.com profile] fififolle asked: I'd love to know what/how you drew when you were little.

Oh man, time to dig deep into the murky, unsorted depths of my memory. Um, I think when I was around 5 I was very much a stereotypical girly girl who loved drawing horses and princesses? My horses were the most gaudy, blinged-out horses imaginable, with multicoloured manes and jewel decorations and stars on their rump like my My Little Ponies had. And I really liked winged horses and unicorns but couldn't decide which one was better, so I'd draw winged unicorns! My princesses were all fair-skinned, blonde-haired princesses because even though I was a mixed-race kid whose friends were Indian and Chinese and Malay, I thought blonde-haired white girls were the epitome of beauty because that's what all the princesses looked like in the picture books I read, and I used to be very jealous of the Caucasian girls in my class with their perfect straight fair hair. That's actually rather sad now I think about it.

I moved off princesses (but not horsies! Still not tired of drawing horsies!) a few years later and mostly drew animals - eagles especially, and then spiders, I could spend forever drawing spiders and huge, intricate spiderwebs. Oh, and I got pretty good at drawing all the life stages of tadpoles, after we had a class project about them. Uh... non-animal things... um, I remember having a bit of a hissy fit on holiday in India because I was trying to draw the Taj Mahal and couldn't get the dome to look symmetrical, and I suspect my sulk back then was not too different to how I sulk now when I can't figure how to get a tricky tangle of limbs to look vaguely passable.


[livejournal.com profile] eames asked: If you like Harry Potter (or are aware of the details), what Hogwarts house would you be sorted into, and why?

Hahaha, I don't actually know that much about Harry Potter - my uni flatmates forced me to watch a couple of the films and I had no idea what was going on except that Hogwarts was long-overdue a thorough health and safety inspection. But I do know how to find a Wiki, so based on elimination of qualities, bearing in mind these are supposed to be ones I value most rather than exhibit: er, bravery, chivalry, cunning, ambition, hard work, fair play... yeah, not really. Intelligence, knowledge and wit? I might not *be* those things but I like the sound of them, so put me down for Ravenclaw. Very good. Apart from the bit where I have to answer a riddle to get to the dormitory because I'm shit at riddles, so I forsee a lot of sleeping on the stairs for me.
motetus: (star wars / luke)
[livejournal.com profile] beili asked: What was your favourite book (maybe several books) as a child? Did it remain your favourite, when you grew up?

My parents tell me that the first book I was really into was Dr Seuss's The Cat in the Hat, and I'd demand to be read it every single night until they had fantasies of beating the good doctor to death with his own books. After that... hm, even though I read a huge amount as a child and always had people telling me to get my nose out of a book and interact with the real world, I cannot actually remember much about what I read! I loved the Roald Dahl books, of course (The Twits was my favourite, and I was actually a little disappointed that Mr and Mrs Twit got shrunk away to nothing because they were just such a hilariously awful couple and thus far more entertaining than the boring monkeys), and I had a couple of Shel Silverstein books that I read a lot - Where the Sidewalk Ends and The Giving Tree, though the latter sort of annoyed me. That stupid doormat tree. Now I think of that, and how I hated Captain Planet for its preachy tones and sided with the evil tree-destroying companies, and also how I disliked Han Solo for stealing Princess Leia when she totally should have ended up with Luke and yes, I knew they were brother and sister... maybe I was a bit of a strange child?

When I was about 7, my father started reading The Hobbit to my brother and I, except I got impatient and wanted more than a chapter a night, so I read it all myself in a very short time. I loved it to bits, but now when I try to reread it, I'm irritated by what feels like a slightly patronising tone. :/ I suppose the last book I read as a young teenager that had a huge effect on me was Philip Pullman's Northern Lights - I loved Lyra dearly and read it hundreds of times (I even named a hamster after her daemon), but got progressively disappointed by the rest of the trilogy. And let's not even mention the movie.

The Cat in the Hat is still fucking gold, though.


- - -

I have had some lovely, lovely cards arrive! Thank you very much to [livejournal.com profile] bauble, [livejournal.com profile] osprey_archer (dammit osprey_archer, now you have me googling plum pudding recipes... huh, they don't even have any plums in them?) [livejournal.com profile] tracy7307, [livejournal.com profile] fififolle and [livejournal.com profile] the_little_owl for their beautiful cards, they have made my living room look very Christmassy indeed. I have to share the one by [livejournal.com profile] the_little_owl (hopefully she has a better scan to put up but until then, excuse the fingers) because it is BRILLIANT - I asked for hapless scientist Obi-Wan and she gave me just that, but with a Christmas theme and Hippy Qui-Gon! Thank you, Owl, I am still cackling at it.



The results of Obi-Wan's experiments )
motetus: (people / liam neeson hannibal)
[livejournal.com profile] honscot asked: I'd love to hear about your experience of living in Scotland. Do you think you and the wife will stay there longterm, now that you have the gorgeous apartment?

Okay, but be warned, this post is basically going to be WHY I LOVE SCOTLAND LOTS AND LOTS AND LOTS.

So, um, the first time I ever set foot in Scotland was when my parents dumped me off at uni in St. Andrews - I accepted the offer from a place I'd never visited because it had a very good reputation, had pretty pictures on the website, and somehow wanted me to come there despite not exactly having stellar grades. I didn't fall in love with it at first, but eventually I became very fond of the people (the few actual Scottish people I came across, because St. Andrews is 98% rich Americans and English), the sea, the lovely grey and solid architecture, and even the weather wasn't as bad as I'd expected. When I left four years later to join the Wife in Manchester I cried all through the bus journey, but staying wasn't an option because St. Andrews is tiny and it was time to move on.

Three years later I decided fuck it, I hated Manchester and I hated being away from all my friends who lived in various parts of Scotland, so I moved back by applying for a PhD in Glasgow which had seemed like an interesting city the few times I'd visited. I know some people think Glasgow has a bit of a bad reputation, but they are people who have never visited the West End - it is gorgeous here, full of parks and museums/art galleries and little independent shops/cafes and hundreds of really good restaurants (food is very, very important to me), and there are some lovely old grand buildings and charming Victorian tenements (architecture is also very, very important to me). Edinburgh is an hour away on the train, Hadrian's Wall is not too far away, and a half hour drive gets me to Loch Lomond and the countryside there is spectacular - I have not actually gone much further north than there, but I hear it's even prettier as you keep going up! I certainly hope we end up staying here long-term - I would be happy if we were here for at least another 3 years, hopefully 5, but I suppose that all depends on jobs. If we have to move we will, and I suspect eventually it'll happen because neither of us are settling-down-for-the-rest-of-our-lives people, but as Scotland is the first place I've ever felt at home in I really hope that's not any time soon.

(also yes, my lovely (and as I am currently appreciating, WARM) flat! I certainly would not be able to afford something so nice and in such a perfect location in most other cities. And I haven't even begun to decorate it properly!)

I was planning on taking a photo to go along with this post at the weekend, but as it was dark and grey and rainy I wasn't too keen on leaving my sofa and my hot chocolate. Here is one I nicked off google of the university tower from Kelvingrove park (everything is called Kelvin-something here, it gets very confusing):




Question masterlist )
motetus: (random / hierapolis)
[livejournal.com profile] osprey_archer asked: Tell me about the place you most want to visit!

Oh, now this is an evil one. I have many, many places I'd like to visit! I've never been to anywhere in Africa (well, nowhere outside Marrakesh) or South America, and even though I've spent some time living and travelling around South-East Asia there are still so many places left there to see (and more importantly, food to eat). And I've love to go somewhere like Greenland, somewhere with ice and whales and whatnot, but I haven't put much thought into this last one, just watched a few too many documentaries with a sexy, soothing, David Attenborough voiceover.

I suppose if you handed me a lot of money and told me to pick just one place though, I would say... Mongolia. I think the landscape there is stunningly beautiful and I could happily spend a few weeks just gawping at it. On a pony, because I am lazy and also, pony! I want to ride my pony around the steppes and pretend I am Genghis Khan, only without the army and the slaughter and the rest of it. I would like to turn these idle thoughts into reality some day but as I have a huge hatred of big tour groups and being herded around at someone else's pace, the kind of holiday there that I'd prefer will probably take a few more years for us to save up for and plan. But I will get there eventually, because man, look at this place.



Question masterlist - still plenty of un-questioned days left! )
motetus: (father ted / a lovely cup of tea)
I may be starting this meme that everyone else seems to be doing a few days late, but I am also not patient enough to wait until January to start it then. Ask me anything (fannish and RL questions both welcome) and I will attempt to answer it!

Dec. 5: AS A BIRTHDAY PRESENT TO ME, DESCRIBE YOUR RESEARCH IN EXCRUCIATING DETAIL (augustbird)
Dec. 6:
Dec. 7:
Dec. 8: Tell me about the place you most want to visit! (osprey_archer)
Dec. 9:
Dec. 10: I'd love to hear about your experience of living in Scotland. Do you think you and the wife will stay there longterm, now that you have the gorgeous apartment? (honscot)
Dec. 11:
Dec. 12: What about talking about the wife and how you guys met and wound up getting married to each other? (seascribe)
Dec. 13: What was your favourite book (maybe several books) as a child? Did it remain your favourite, when you grew up? (beili)
Dec. 14: I'd love to know what/how you drew when you were little. (fififolle)
Dec. 15: If you like Harry Potter (or are aware of the details), what Hogwarts house would you be sorted into, and why? (eames)
Dec. 16: Talk about Father Ted! Do you draw anything Teddish or is it more of a distant love from Far Away? (bunn)
Dec. 17: Your favorite character to draw and why (carmarthen)
Dec. 18: What would your totem be, if you worked in dreamshare? :D (eames)
Dec. 19: What sort of things do you like to read in fanfiction? Do you read fiction as well, and do your tastes differ between the two? (bauble)
Dec. 20: Could you please talk about one book that really influenced you? Even in small ways, but a book without which you wouldn't be the same, which taught you someting or changed your perspective. The if you really want to know me, you gotta read it kind of book. If you have one. (arvok)
Dec. 21: Are there particular artists that have influenced your drawing style, or that you find inspiring outside of fandom? (bunn)
Dec. 22: Favourite people from ancient Rome (weekend)
Dec. 23: Favourite people from ancient Rome (or history in general) you want to paint or draw one day (the_little_owl)
Dec. 24: Assuming all animals and humans are safe, what few items would you save, if your house was on fire? (eames)
Dec. 25:
Dec. 26: What superpower would you like to have? (eames)
Dec. 27: Your favorite thing to draw that isn't people (carmarthen)
Dec. 28: Your favourite Sutcliff novel and why (weekend)
Dec. 29: Would you consider reminiscing about a favorite story of you with a grandparent, or great grandparent? (pronker)
Dec. 30: Do you speak any other languages, than English? If not, and you could wake up fluent in any language, what would it be, and why? (eames)
Dec. 31: Are you always drawn to a particular type of character, in film/tv/books? Is there a particular personality-type you almost always find youself usually liking/a bit of a sucker for? If not, and you had to pick one, who is your favourite character, at present? (eames)
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