clach na ben

I wanted to try out a new take on fanmixes, and also I was thinking a lot about PK/Carey at the time, and started working on something experimental where I mixed found sounds and songs together in a single track, instead of making a playlist. It was really fun, and challenging, and I really enjoyed it, but it was a long process with a lot of thought into it, and I wanted to take the chance off-AO3 to make an annotated post about the project, with links to all the found sounds etc. So this is that!

One thing I loved about the found sounds, interviews, game broadcasts, and instagram videos was that it really helped me define the narrative I wanted the fanmix to take, and helped with the storytelling though sound and music, which was a really fun element of it. The process of finding specific sounds, whether that was finding PK's first NHL goal, or listening to tons of sportsnet coverage to find the right level of despair about Carey's bad years, was definitely long and arduous at points, but it was really fun, and I definitely collected way more content than I needed. I also think it works well in hockey where the sport and teams produce so much ephemera, so much content, that preserving it and including it in the narrative was really fun. For each "track" I've included a link to the source material, and some reasoning behind why I chose it/some background.

Currently Reading:

The Countess Conspiracy - Courtney Milan
Started this, realised I didn't love the ~~we are trapped in this secret~~ plot and put it down, now I'm back at it. Obviously it's good and I'm quite engaged, but for some reason the character melodramatics are a bit wearing. Both characters being like THE OTHER PERSON HATES ME COMPLETELY AND UTTERLY starts to strain my suspension of disbelief and also my nerves after a little while. Very much hoping they get over it soon. I like romance novels where they like each other! Basically it's pining but not very well done imo.

The Odyssey - Emily Wilson
Her editorial notes were great, and I think are a really good intro to thinking about the classical world. She also gives some really great insights into her translation thought process, which is cool. I'm only reading a couple pages of this every evening, because reading blank verse for hours is soul-destroying, but I'm enjoying it!

Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell - Susanna Clarke
This is fun, but GOD why is it so goddamn long?? It does not need to be so long, and honestly would be a funner novel if it was about half the size. I am also reading one chapter a night (the chapters are short) because if I do any more I get bored. I do want to finish it though, because the magic is cool, and I like the world-building, and the regency novel style is fun, but god it's just depressing picking it up.

Currently Listening To:
the Badass Women playlist on spotify, which is guitar tracks with female voices. Some really great tunes on this.

Currently Watching

I caught up on Killing Eve on Tuesday, and am desperately waiting to watch the finale. I love it so much, the costuming, Villanelle playing characters, the cat and mouse game, Sandra Oh and Jodie Comer. There's some storylines I wish they'd wrap up, or like, make something happen, because a lot of the show is waiting for something to happen, and then it diverting course to keep you on your toes, which is obviously great but very FRUSTRATING. Anyway I want Villanelle and Eve to team up and solve crimes.

additionally, if one more man tells me I have to watch Fleabag I'll explode.

I read some books recently:

Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado

This was horror short stories, by a queer woman, that I bought at the Ripped Bodice during my L.A. trip, because it looked good. and it was good! A lot of good stories, balanced well between interesting concepts and creepy, so it didn't become gratuitously scary or gory. I would reccomend it a lot. I think, like a lot of short story collections, it left be feeling a bit cheap, or less invested, becaue you obviously don't feel super connected to characters, or to the premises. I liked one which was a story about a epidemic that becomes apoclyptical, but it's told through the narrator's romantic and sexual encounters through her life. There was a creepy story about a author at a artists retreat, that had a lot of really good metaphors and language that I enjoyed, but I didn't enjoy the story a lot, potentially because I am a wuss.

The Court of Broken Knives by Anna Smith Spark

I've had this for ages, and finally made myself read it, and I did enjoy it! It's classic high fantasy, you know murders and dragons set in a fantasy land. I enjoyed it well enough, but not so much I'm going to find the second book. It was kind of like if Ursula Le Guin was written by George RR Martin, as in it had a lot of the Le Guin classics, like creepy intense religions, and a priestess who sacrifices people running away from it all, and a man with a Terrible Purpose who is Haunted By It, but unlike Le Guin it had a super high body-count and was quite blood-thirsty, and all the characters you like and care about die. Which hasn't really set me up for wanting to read the second one. It also, weirdly, imports a bunch of weird high fantasy stuff about women, including off-screen sexual violence, and the escaping priestess who's only ever met two men immediately falls "in love" with the character with Terrible Purpose even though he does nothing to make her like him, it's just all unexplained ~~magic and fate. Enjoyed reading it, probably would not read again. Had some on-screen queer characters, which was nice!

The Duchess War by Courtney Milan

Fun, classic, great romance novel, with a plot that moves along nicely, a really good male and female protagonist. Has a little bit of the melodrama about it, but I read this in like a day and had no regrets. Also, a rare romance novel that has a straight man feeling sexual attraction that doens't make me want to drop the book and run.

The Heiress Effect by Courtney Milan

Another home run honestly. Main female character is great, the conflict is good, I liked the B-plot romance a lot (could have even done with more of it honestly) and left feeling good.

The Muslims Are Coming by Arun Kundnani

My forever going mission to read my non-fiction books has claimed another success! This was good. I want someone who specialises in "radicalisation" and online radicalisation to read it and give me their review (luckily I know some people so I'm gonna try and make them read it). I think reading it today makes it seem a little lacking, because it's focus on radicalisation theory as only applies to Muslims is odd in a world that is much more aware of radicalisation in right-wing groups. Kundnani does a little of this when he talks about the Brevik shootings, but I think his theory that the theory of radicalisation is unsavable becomes weak in the face of new evidence, and I would have liked to read him tackle it. But, overall, a very good and readable overview of the experience of Muslim communities in the UK and USA post-9/11, and something I'm glad I read.

Oh, also, you should listen to and watch the music video for Vossi Bop by Stormzy

I saw Captain Marvel this weekend, and I loved it. It didn't blow me away, the way Black Panther or Thor Ragnarok did, but it was good, fun, enjoyable ala Guardians of the Galaxy or Iron Man 3. I didn't have any major weaknesses, and I thought the casting was great. Brie Larson was great (okay, only complaint, is her superpower always having perfect hair??), Sam Jackson and Ben Mendelsohn seemed like they were super enjoying themselves the whole time, and I loved the final climax/battles.

Have you seen it? Please tell me what you thought and also what fic you want!!

I have a NUMBER of fic requests that I will probably never write, so I figured I'd write them here. Just putting them out into the universe.

( spoilers )

Last posting meme post! I'm still on holiday and having a great time, and I have lots of really great stuff to look forward to when I get home from holiday. (It is a very weird feeling to be enjoying holiday and ALSO really looking forward to being home? I guess this is what it's like to have stuff to look forward to all the time? Weird. Also very lucky! Man so lucky)

For the posting meme tattered_errata asked me about hockey OTPs and NoTPs

Hmmm, so I don't know I have any NoTPs? Like a pairing I will never read? Okay, I mean, aside from like Bad People who we have decided to avoid for Good Reasons, I usually give most things a try and I think most things are enjoyable when well-written. I've never loved any Claude Giroux/Sidney Crosby, mostly because I don't think I like enemies-to-lovers or it goes fully the other way and there's no enemies and I'm like ??? So I guess Giroux/Sid is my NoTP. But if someone I trusted recced me something with them and was this, this is really good, I'd probably give it a try.

OTPs

Now THIS is where I make my hay. I have a good number of these. I guess I can split them up by teams? I have lots of pairings I like but that aren't OTPs, but all the "these are the pairings I love" are on the teams I love.

Caps first

I guess this is the true OTP, the OTP to rule them all, the most in love for all the years and trials and tribulations: Ovi & Nicke

They are both objectively terrible looking, let's be real. Ovi looks like a Russian potato with a bowl cut fringe and Nicke looks like a brick that got muscles. and yet???? and yet????? They are both so Large and so In Love. I love Nicke who is grumpy and bitchy and a pain in the ass, and Ovi who is enthusiastic and sassy and also a pain in the ass, and that they love and support each other. They loved and supported each other to the Stanley Cup! and have loved and supported each other through the raising of many Hockey Youths to full-grown Hockey Assholes. I am extremely weak for pairings that talk about having "grown up together" and they have both said that multiple times. I am very weak for pictures of them when they were babies and Ovi's English was terrible but he was always talking and Nicke was always looking sideways at him both embarrassed and pleased. My first and forever hockey pairing basically.

Avalanche!

Ha ha I just got home from watching them play in real life for the first time and they....lost to the Anaheim Ducks, which is profoundly embarrassing. This big dumb team of idiots. Why do I continue to love them, let me count the ways.

1) Nathan Mackinnon/Tyson Barrie hashtag bestfriends!!! I love Nate Mack, my big grumpy overachieving sassypants, and his best friend, kind of disastrous but actually quite good at hockey Tyson! Tyson is so handsome and Nathan sometimes looks handsome and sometimes looks like a beardy beefcake, depending on the angle/light/time of year. I like pairings that place a lot of emphasis on the non-sexual non-romantic parts of being in love with someone, and I like that Nate/Tyson leans heavily on their friendship. I wish I could read 8 million fics where they're just best friends who have sex and are in love and also go out with other people. Poly boyfriends forever!

2) Nathan/Gabe/Tyson I love a OT3, and this is a great OT3. The team "core", Gabe being bossy and petty, Tyson being super into both of them, there's a lot to love. I want to write more of them, but the stories I have planned are all long and I keep stalling on them. Which is my fault but they will get written eventually! And it will be about their enduring poly love.

Those are probably the big ones. I love lots of different pairing!!

For the february posting meme akamine_chan asked me about my favorite fic tropes. This is late because this week is the most intense week of my life for some reason??? What is with February.

Anyway, favorite fic tropes. I read pretty widely I think, I don't have a lot of squicks and I like a lot of stuff. In terms of clear tropes, I like magical realism a lot, and fantasy elements, especially modern world with fantasy elements, like magic, curses etc. I like that in all my fiction, and I think fic does it really well, especially because I think fic likes to play with suspension of disbelief more than profic does, and I think does it better. Plus, I just like when things feel kind of unexplained, but magical and like the characters have to deal with it even though it's unexplained.

I also like it when characters are in love or romance easily, like there isn't a lot of angsting beforehand, the getting together is the easy part, and then the navigating it is the hard part. I mean, don't get me wrong, I love a good pining fic, and obviously I've written some pining too, but I just love when characters have a close relation that has so naturally reached the point of romance & love they just fall into it, without worrying about it. (CASSIAN/JYN!!!!! pry Jyn Erso from my cold dead hands for real)

I really love themes and tropes about place and location - outside of fic I seek out fiction that feels centred in a specific time and place. I love stories that feel like they couldn't be set anywhere else, they have to be set here. Those always feel the most sublime. I think Adorned is a good recent example of something like that.

Short post because my life is so busy right now!!!!!!! Going on holiday soon!! Lots of good stuff happening it's just all happening all at once and it's a lot.

eafay70 asked me what my favorite ships have in common for the posting meme. I have more space for prompts if you want to leave me one here

lol, they’re all poly

I guess more deeply, I love pairings that are fond about each other outside of the idea of romance, right, like there’s a strong bond of affection or understanding. Cassian/Jyn is the sad version of this, they see themselves in each other, the same painful pasts, the same hopes. (Cassian/Jyn ;__;) I like characters who are trying their best with what they’ve got (mr competitive sassy pants Nathan Mackinnon) and I like when those people come into contact with their favorite person in the world. I like pairings founded on fondness! This isn’t to say I don’t read other stuff, you know strangers to lovers, hatesex, whatever, but I like when the romance builds from that fondness.

Adding to that, I’ve never been a big Strict Shipper person, like maybe I’ll have a handful of favorite people, and they’ll get written with certain people more often because of who they know/the scenario, but like, I’ve never thought “oh this ship is the BEST one”? I like individuals, I guess, and I like writing them together with other people in different combinations. I like the different dynamics that come out in different pairings, like hos Cassian/K2 has super different dynamics than Cassian/Jyn. I read all kinds of stuff!

But pretty much all my favorite-est ships are all poly combinations. I loved the OT4 in Panic (and then the second iteration of it lol), I love Rogue One OT3/OT4, I love Star Wars poly parings. bangs fist on table make everything poly!

I guess I like other things too - I like fics where characters have a deep and genuine relationship, I like what I flippantly describe as “emotional bullshit” by which I mean “people feeling deep emotions intensely.” Stargate Atlantis was good for the deep connections between characters. Bandom was good at the emotional bullshit (as is hockey). Bucky/Steve has got the emotional bullshit and deep relationships in buckets. In the MCU I loved all the Natasha pairing options because she is really doing the best with what she has, and I like that in a character.

For today on the February posting meme asked by la_dissonance my favorite piece of bad media

AHA! My sword had been turned back on me!! I must answer the question I love asking everyone else!!

Okay, I love asking people this question because I love to hear people gush about something they know is badly made but they love anyway because it’s often such a particular kind of joy, a Can you believe?? Kind of deal and I love that. Also I usually ask it as “what’s your favorite bad movie” because I don’t watch a lot of tv but I do watch A LOT of movies, and I love getting more bad movies to watch. So I have a good handful of these. (Igmore any weird formatting, I am experimenting with using markdown)

( bad movies galore )