rose_griffes

First a fanfic rec. It's locked on AO3, meaing you'll need an account there to read it. I have eight invitations to join AO3; no need to feel like you have to write fanfic to sign up. Plus, if you have an account (and it's FREE and AD-FREE whether you sign up or not) you can use their bookmarks. They have the option of public or private bookmarks. You can also look back at your reading history, and even delete things from your reading history.

Anyway! The fic rec:
talking in my sleep (7826 words) by rain_sleet_snow
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Finn/Kylo Ren, Poe Dameron & Finn & Rey, Finn & Jannah (Star Wars), Lando Calrissian & Jannah, Finn & Rose Tico
Characters: Finn (Star Wars), Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Rey, Poe Dameron, Rose Tico, Kaydel Ko Connix, Lando Calrissian, Maz Kanata, Chewbacca, Jannah
Additional Tags: Jedi Finn, General Finn, Post-Canon, Ambiguous Relationships, Exogol, The Force, Force Ghosts, Dreams, dagobah, Jedha, Wobani, Team as Family, stormtroopers - Freeform, Found Family, Original Trilogy as History, Rogue One As History, The Dark Side of the Force, Dark Past, Politics, Author’s Well-Known Fixation on how the Resistance Keeps the Lights On and Ammunition Stocked, Force-Sensitive Finn, Tatooine
Summary: After Exogol, Finn starts having these really weird dreams.

Don't let the pairing listed throw you off; Kylo Ren with anyone gives me mental nausea, but fortunately, that's not what's happening in the story.

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Side note: The author's stated reason for having her fanfic visible only to registered users is that someone else is now able to profit from the fanfic posted to AO3: this person created an app that mirrors AO3's content... and it has ads and a payable subscription. This goes against AO3's stated purposes. If your fanfic is public on AO3 then this app does display your stories through their platform, and the app creator receives money. (Whether it's profitable to them, I don't know. But it's still money given to someone not affiliated with AO3.)

Changing that setting for your own fic is easy to do: go to edit works, click 'all', then 'edit', then scroll down and change the setting that lets anyone see the fic / lets only registered users see the fic. It took me a minute to get it done.

And again, since my own fic is no longer visible without an AO3 login: I have 8 invitations for accounts there.

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Brooklyn Nine-Nine is back for a seventh season. ( spoilers for 7.01 and 7.02; fair warning that this is not the squee you're looking for )

Related: I'm putting my Hulu subscription on hold before next month's auto-renewal. Now that The Good Place is over, there's not a lot I wanna watch on that platform. I'll probably re-activate it over the summer.

In other streaming platform news--and in other news of "shows that flubbed a leading male character's characterization enough that I'm not sure if I want to keep watching"--there's a new trailer for season four of Stranger Things.

(Interesting how the ability to binge-watch makes weak shows more palatable. I've resorted to binge-watching Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. for the majority of every season except season four. Stranger Things might have fallen off of my "to watch" list if I hadn't been able to watch it during one week instead of over eight weeks.)

As long as I'm making this a ridiculously long and meandering post, here's a trailer for a movie that I'll probably be too wimpy to watch, but that features Dev Patel looking gorgeous in period clothes and holding a knife. So. Yeah. (Brief bit of blood splattering, lots of creepy mood music.)

I can't recall which one of you recced this, but I'm on chapter four (of 12), and it's scary-good. As in, legitimately scary and I'm going to stop reading for tonight because I don't want nightmares.

In A Strange Land (180540 words) by MrsEvadneCake
Chapters: 12/12
Fandom: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Relationships: Jonathan Byers & Steve Harrington & Nancy Wheeler, Jonathan Byers/Nancy Wheeler, Eleven | Jane Hopper/Mike Wheeler, Maxine "Max" Mayfield/Lucas Sinclair, Past-Steve Harrington/Nancy Wheeler, Jonathan Byers/Steve Harrington/Nancy Wheeler
Characters: Steve Harrington, Dustin Henderson, Lucas Sinclair, Maxine "Max" Mayfield, Will Byers, Mike Wheeler, Eleven | Jane Hopper, Jim "Chief" Hopper, Joyce Byers, Scott Clarke, Sam Owens (Stranger Things), Billy Hargrove, The gang's all here.
Additional Tags: Action/Adventure, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, POV Multiple, Period-Typical Homophobia, 80's Music, Eldritch Abomination, Horror, Steve Harrington-centric, Pre-Jonathan Byers/Steve Harrington/Nancy Wheeler, So many horror references, Honestly Pretty Mediocre Babysitter Steve Harrington


I'm guessing this was written either after season two / before season three, or it was written as an alternate to the third season. Either way, it's compelling. (Author needed someone to beta-read for a few spelling and punctuation problems, but it's not significant enough to make me consider stopping.)

So let's talk about things that are NOT Game of Thrones or The Avengers.

I was already planning to make a post recommending (yet again) the Rivers of London book series by Ben Aaronovitch, but it's particularly good timing because THERE'S NEWS! The first book is being adapted into a show! Eight to ten episodes, and the team doing the adaptation is Simon Pegg and Nick Frost.

Anyway: Harry Potter for grown-ups, sort of. Imagine a young London cop, son of a white man and an immigrant from Sierra Leone. He's on the beat, doing interviews for a murder case, when he accidentally interviews a ghost. Because MAGIC IS REAL, and so are ghosts, and so now he's still a cop, but instead of his previous beat, he gets apprenticed to the LAST WIZARD COP in the U.K.

And that's just the first bit of the first book. So. Book one is Rivers of London in the U.K., and that's the name of the series in the U.S. as well, although we call book one Midnight Riot. For no reason whatsoever, as far as I can tell.

By the way, the books get a lot more solid in their storytelling in book three. I liked book one very well; book two is not my favorite. But book three, the story hits its stride and the author gets more at ease with the world and characters he's creating. There are currently seven novels, a novella, a free short story on Audible, and a handful of graphic novels. I haven't read the graphic novels myself.

Anyway, here's a fanfic: The Woman Who Ran with Wolves (14817 words) by drekadair
Chapters: 4/4
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Peter Grant, Thomas Nightingale
Summary: Peter and Nightingale are called to the Epping Forest to investigate a potential werewolf and discover a missing woman, a family shattered by grief, and a case that hits far too close to home.

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Since I'm reccing fic anyway: and we will find ourselves underneath a new sun (6081 words) by basset_voyager
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Star Wars - All Media Types
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Leia Organa/Han Solo
Characters: Leia Organa, Luke Skywalker, Han Solo
Additional Tags: Character Study, Post-OT, Jedi Leia Organa
Summary: “Leia, it’s not something to be afraid of,” he says. Whether he means the weapon or the Force in general, Leia isn’t certain. She rolls her eyes, but reaches out and takes the saber from him. It’s just an object. The metal is warm from Luke’s hand. [Leia, after the war.]

Trust Exercise (1059 words) by inkvoices
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Captain Marvel (2019)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Nick Fury, Chewie | Goose (Marvel)
Additional Tags: Trust Issues, Goose is an excellent judge of character, Nick Fury cat dad
Summary: Five times (of many) that Fury trusts Goose to show him when someone is an ally (or not).

Fan-related presents: I received a lovely Christmas card from one of you lovely people--you know who you are, and thank you!

I also received a sweet little story in Yuletide Madness: Time Enough, a post-finale Sarah Connor/James Ellison fic. About 500 words, rated PG.

What else? I've been reading some. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini was beautiful and depressing, and I don't know if I'd recommend it to others. (There are a couple of instances of child molestation. Not graphic, but with a big impact on the characters involved.)

The Duchess War by Courtney Milan is a fun romance novel; it had a good balance of plot and character interaction. I read a couple of other romance novels and remembered why it had been so long since I last read one, so... nothing else to recommend there. (Not even the other two I tried by the same author.)

The latter book I read on my new-to-me Kindle. When I get home again (from visiting family), I need to dig out my library card so I can start checking out books online to read on the Kindle. Whee!

Saw the second installment of The Hobbit with my nephew and enjoyed it about as much as I expected. Which is to say, well, that was two and a half hours of prettiness, without much else to recommend it. I liked Peter Jackson's work with LotR, but there's just not enough story to The Hobbit to justify the same amount of screentime. And LotR just had a lot more plot depth by comparison. So I guess I view my movie experience as part of a cultural experience: now I can discuss it with my co-workers. (And I did discuss it with my nephew, so there's that.)

Oh, and I watched the second Hunger Games movie as well, several weeks ago. I'm pleased with the actor who played Finnick; that's a pivotal role in this and the next part of the story. (Are they dividing the third book into two movies?)

Aaaaaand... that's probably enough for now. I hope your holidays were lovely, and that we all have a splendid New Year.

More Yuletide recs coming up, but first a quick show rec. The Bletchley Circle is a three-episode show by ITV1 (British, but not BBC). Its heart is four women who worked at Bletchley Park during World War II. Nine years after the war, they end up working together to solve a series of murders. It's good--not great, but compelling. I enjoyed it. You can watch it on Youtube. (It's basically a three-episode procedural. Not quite as grim as an episode of CSI, but that same quality is there at times.)

• So my first rec is for The Bletchley Circle, a story for Susan after everything that happened. Day by Day


• Elementary: let yourself be found, Joan Watson adjusting to life with Sherlock.


• Anne of Green Gables: Be Fruitful Anne and Gilbert welcome their first grandchildren to the world.


• The Bourne Supremacy: all the more reason Pamela Landy has a midnight visitor.


• The Incredibles: the greatest good Helen (Elastigirl) Parr throughout her life.


• Matilda (Roald Dahl) Hopes and Fears and Fidgets Four things Matilda wanted to be when she grew up, and one thing she became.

As far as I can recall, none of these fics required any special warnings, or had higher ratings than PG.

In unrelated news, I just spent three hours learning how not to play "Settlers of Catan" with three of my nephews.

At some point one of you linked to the Lizzie Bennet diaries, and suddenly I've watched thirty-five episodes?! *shakes fist* Okay, granted, one episode is between two to four minutes in length, but still. (Short explanation: modern adaptation of Austen's classic Pride and Prejudice, featuring a video blogger by the name of... well, you can figure that one out. They're utter fluff. For me what's most fun is seeing how they're adapting the basic idea to fit a contemporary setting. Okay, and Bing Lee is really adorable, alright? And I may have already watched eight episodes of Lydia's v-log as well. Oops.)

chaila's posts about Smoke Signals made me nostalgic. The movie is back in my Netflix queue, because it's now available with livestreaming, woohoo! And if you don't know why you should watch--or you need to be reminded of why--here's a fun little fanvid from the source material. (I have the phrase "Hey, Victor!" stuck in my head again.)
eta: I should mention that the vid--and therefore the movie--contains brief moments of physical abuse toward children./eta

chaila also linked to Sherman Alexie's short story, This Is What It Means To Say Phoenix, Arizona, the short story that is the (very minimalist) base for Smoke Signals. The movie, with ninety minutes screentime, covers a lot more than the short story, but it's interesting to compare the two.

Okay, apparently this is the chaila post, because here's some meta on Skyler White from Breaking Bad, and I think she would find it a good read. (I read through the first part, and I don't actually watch that show. What I find compelling is the common theme among so many fans to vilify her and, uh, deify Walter White. For lack of a better term. Obviously the whole "fans hate female characters for the same reasons that they love male characters" is something that draws my attention, though.)

Finally, a fic rec. Doctor Who lends itself well to crossovers with anything. The Lone Centurion has Rory waiting his two thousand years, and meeting up with Methos from Highlander from time to time. To my recollection I've never watched a single episode of Highlander, but I knew enough to enjoy the story anyway. Immortality and mythology are irresistible draws.

Almost up to 19,000 words on popcorn fic. This means I've almost doubled the wordcount of my previous longest story. Just finished chapter four. (Originally I had planned seven, but that may go up to eight.)

Relatedly, there were a couple of excellent Person of Interest fics posted at the main lj comm today (gift exchange, apparently? *shrugs*), plus some that I quite liked at AO3 and other places in the past several weeks, so instead of linking to all of them individually, I'll just give y'all a link to my online bookmarks again.
http://www.delicious.com/rose_griffes/person-of-interest-fic

I try to include a basic description so you can know if it's something that will interest you or not.

And now it's time to go watch a different Nolan brother production: The Dark Knight Rises. Yay for excessively long and grim comic book movies? That's my impression before seeing it, at any rate. And yet I'm going anyway. Hm.

I can't see The Avengers for a second time until next week. So I rewatched a bit of Iron Man 2 over the weekend, and wow, that movie didn't improve in the last few months. It suffers by comparison.

I've peeked a bit at the Natasha Romanoff (Romanov) (Romanova)/Clint Barton fic at AO3, and added a Natasha/Clint LJ comm to my reading list--though I haven't had time to read much linked there yet. It's not so much that I ship Black Widow/Hawkeye as I want more fic in which Black Widow is the focus instead of an afterthought. Anyway, ( some Avengers fic recs, mostly Natasha/Clint )

That last story is one that makes me swan around in an appropriately melodramatic fashion and wail, "I can never write again!"

But I'm going to anyway. Time to get serious about this whole idea of a longer fanfic for Person of Interest. I have a semi-plausible plot to string everything together. So now it's time to freak out! write. Current working title: popcorn fic. Because like a popcorn movie, there will be (hopefully) action, adventure and a bit of romance, all strung together with a plot that can only bear moderate scrutiny. ;-D

If you offered to help in some capacity or another, you will probably be hearing from me soon. Because for every moment of "Yay, fic!" there are about five of "ACK, WHAT AM I DOING?!" Saying that this is outside my usual range of story-writing is an understatement.

Had a (brief) discussion on another LJ about my religion and politics, so I'll link to this recent article: A Female Episcopal Priest Visits a Mormon Temple. I thought it was an interesting (although brief) perspective on my religion from an outside perspective.

fic for Person of Interest: I'm still planning Carter/Reese post-season one plotty fic. I've managed to come up with some workable ideas about, uh, stuff (plot-related stuff! motivation and character stuff!), so now I'm worried that the finale is going to throw all of my plans into chaos with some sort of difficult-to-work-around cliffhanger.

I never posted a link on LJ (though I did on Tumblr) for a Zoe Morgan/John Reese fic that wasn't written by me (I know!): A kiss can be even deadlier, if you mean it. PG, no real spoilers. It's funny and there's the tango.

fic for Battlestar Galactica: I'll post the author reveals tomorrow afternoon for the BSG remix. In the meantime, in addition to the remix written for me, y'all should read Family Matters (The Things Inside Remix). It's a remix of Nicole's Give You All. (My summary for Nicole's story: it's like Joss Whedon decided to write Kara/Lee fanfic. Everything you wanted in the worst possible way.) The remix still has the same dark premise--Lee has been taken captive on New Caprica by a Six--but now we see not only the Six's POV, but also Dee's. And it's fascinating and heartbreaking and a wee bit hopeful at the end. It's also long--about 30,000 words--but totally worth it.

livejournal stuff: Ugh, apparently they're redoing the scrapbook feature. And reducing how much memory we get, which isn't really an issue at this point (I'm waaaaaaaaaay below their old and new limits), but uploading pictures is currently not so easy. How am I supposed to have more pictures of pulchritudinous Jim Caviezel in my LJ if I'm having trouble uploading more than one picture at a time?

Have some music! This is Ben l'Oncle Soul's cover of The White Stripes' "Seven Nation Army," and it is awesome. (Embedding disabled, so you'll have to follow the link.)

Okay, Person of Interest viewers: ( question about 1.17 )

And finally a Person of Interest fic rec: if you've been reading blacktop50's other stories with Reese having a place to stay above an Indian restaurant, you'll probably like the most recent addition: An Early Spring, part one and part two. Carter's POV, and definitely Carter/Reese this time instead of gen. PG-13, under 4000 words.